Paris In Autumn by Tracey Glasspool

Coming back to this beautiful city was proving harder than I’d imagined . . .

ILOOK around me with pleasure as we walk through the echoing halls and corridors of the Louvre. “Thanks for bringing me here, Amelie.” I touch my friend’s arm and she puts her hand over mine. “I can’t believe it’s the first time I’ve been back since the exchange trip.”

She smiles at me. “I’m going to recreate that week for us, Carys. We’re going to revisit all the places we went to before.”

We pass a white marble statue of a beautiful woman reclining in the arms of an equally beautiful man. “Psyche Revived By

Cupid’s Kiss.” I read out the label. “I still have the picture of it I bought from the gift shop.”

Amelie grins.

“We were more taken with Spartacus last time.”

She’s right – we spent a long time giggling over the statue of the muscular gladiator sans fig leaf.

In our defence, we were only fifteen and looking for as much fun as there was to be had in a museum.

But there was something about the Psyche sculpture. Perhaps the romance of it; the way the goddess was sinking into Cupid’s arms. Whatever it was, it had triggered a fascination with classical history and art that had never left me.

Amelie walks on, heels clicking on the polished floor. We pass another sculpture. Psyche Abandoned; her face a mask of longing for her lost love.

I nudge Amelie.

“A bit more apt for me now.”

She smiles at me. Not in pity, just understanding.

“Let’s get a coffee. All this culture makes me thirsty.”

In the café Amelie ticks off a list on her scarlettipped fingers.

“We’ll go out to Versailles, Notre Dame . . .”

“Do you have a school disco planned?”

She laughs, tossing her hair, and a man at the next table chokes on his latte. She’s always had that effect on men.

“No, but I did manage tickets for the opera. It’ll be almost as dramatic.”

“Thank you for doing all this. At the last minute, too.”

“Well, we were planning our reunion anyway. I only had to bring it forward by a couple of months.”

A week ago I’d been on my second glass of wine and considering another when Amelie had telephoned. My divorce settlement had recently arrived, the cherry on the cake of an awful year.

My husband had left me for a girl not much older than our daughter and then, out of the blue, I’d been made redundant.

I thought I was coping, but Amelie’s “How are you really doing?” pierced my defences and through tears I admitted how horrendously miserable I was.

The next day an e-mail arrived. Amelie had booked tickets and she would meet me at the Gare du Nord in four days’ time.

I felt a stab of annoyance at her assumption I could just drop everything and go. Except that was the point – I had nothing to drop.

So, here I am. Paris. “Can you believe it’s been thirty years since the exchange trip?” Amelie shakes her head. “But your French is still as bad.”

I poke my tongue out. “I remember how nervous I was, meeting you and your family for the first time.”

My knees had been shaking when Amelie and her parents had collected me from the school coach and taken me home to their apartment. But the minute I’d seen her room, plastered with posters of Duran Duran, I’d relaxed.

“John Taylor!” I mock swooned, pointing to the guitarist, but Amelie shook her head and blew a kiss to a large poster of the drummer.

“Roger Taylor!”

We spent most of our nights debating the relative merits of the two.

In the end we agreed to disagree, reasoning that, once the band had come to their senses and stopped dating supermodels, we wouldn’t be any competition to each other. We could even have a double wedding.

The shared obsession with Duran Duran started a friendship that endured. We’ve shared holidays and gap year travel, weddings and christenings. Joy and sadness.

Paris is as beautiful as ever, the weather kind but with a whisper of autumn.

The leaves are just beginning to yellow, the bustle of the tourist months over. The city is taking a breath, shaking off the heat and dust and chaos of summer.

After the Louvre we stop for dinner. The waiter brings a chilled white wine. He pours it with one hand, the other tucked neatly behind his back.

“Merci.” Amelie reaches for a glass. “So, what now, Carys?”

I take a sip of my wine, enjoying the tartness that coats my tongue, and consider Amelie’s question. What now? What do you do when your life has been turned inside out? When the man you thought was for ever decides that his for ever lies elsewhere?

“I don’t know.”

“What about your art? Your sculptures?”

I can’t remember the last time anything creative came from my hands. I shake my head, deflect the question.

“I’ve told you how well Maddie’s doing in Italy? She’s studying hard, painting in her spare time.”

My beautiful daughter, following my dream. I’d intended to teach art after university, but in quick succession I’d met Alan, got married and fallen pregnant.

When Maddie was born I was happy to stay at home, finding satisfaction in nurturing her. But when I felt ready to return to work, my creative confidence had fled.

I settled for safe, in an office, telling myself I’d work my way back to my dreams eventually. But it never happened. I’ve not picked up a brush or a hunk of clay for years.

“You can’t live through Maddie, Carys. You have to find your own path.” Amelie’s voice is gentle.

“I’m not! We can’t all be free spirits like you. I had

– I have – responsibilities.”

It’s out before I have a chance to claw it back. Amelie was never able to have children.

She never had the responsibilities I’ve just laid claim to, and I know more than anyone how much she craved them. We went through her heartbreak together.

I take her hand.

“I’m so sorry, Amelie. That was thoughtless.”

She squeezes back and I know she forgives me. The luxury of old friends.

I look at my watch. “We’d better eat if we’re going to get to the theatre on time.” I pick up the menu, hiding behind it, and Amelie sighs and picks up her own.

Over the course of the week we follow the ghostly footprints of our younger selves, Amelie snapping away all the time with her camera. We climb the Eiffel Tower, meander the gardens of Versailles and take a boat on the Seine.

All too soon it’s our last night. Thirty years ago the school disco had marked the end of the trip. For a mad moment we consider a nightclub, but the thought makes both of us shudder. Instead we take the metro to Montmartre to wander the bohemian quarter.

We walk, breathing in the warm, heady scents of the late summer evening. Amelie rummages in her

handbag, producing a battered notebook. “Remember this?” “How could I forget it?” I take it from her reverently. It’s full of ticket stubs and photos, postcards and menus, even a napkin from a café, coffee stained and yellowed. At the back is the list we made on that last night of all our plans for the future.

Become a famous photographer, marry Roger Taylor.

“Well, this has to be you.”

Amelie laughs. “Respected photographer, if not quite famous,” she says. “Sadly, I think it’s too late for me and Roger.”

I carry on reading. “‘Exhibit at the Tate. Own my own art gallery.’ Nothing too ambitious for me, then!”

The next one stops me in my tracks. Fall in love for ever.

Amazing how quickly tears can come. Amelie puts her arm around me.

“We had our whole lives ahead of us,” I say.

“We still do, Carys. You’ll get through this, I know you will.”

But I shake my head. “I’m too old to start again.”

She looks me straight in the eye.

“One day, you’ll realise how ridiculous that is.”

We find a restaurant. It’s a beautiful evening but there’s a melancholy about it now, a sense of endings.

“I’m going to India in a few weeks,” Amelie says. “A photographic assignment, but I thought I’d add on a few days’ holiday. Why don’t you join me? I’d enjoy the company.”

“I can’t, Amelie.”

She starts to ask, “Why not?” but stops herself.

Instead she picks up the menu and I’m grateful to her for not pushing.

The next morning sees us back at the Gare du Nord. Amelie hugs me tightly, presses a package into my hands.

“Open it on the train,” she whispers, “not here. See you soon.”

And with a flurry of whistles and flags, I’m off.

I sink back into my seat, content for a while to watch France slipping away. But the package nags at me and I finally give in, tear it open.

Oh, she’s good. She must have spent all last night putting it together.

In my hands is the notebook from our school exchange. Inside, Amelie has pasted photographs taken during this week, each one matched with one taken 30 years ago.

I turn the pages, taking in the images. The more I look at them the more I realise that it’s not the differences that strike me, despite the way we’ve changed and aged. It’s the similarities.

I don’t know how she’s managed it, but somehow, despite my sadness, Amelie has captured something in every shot. It’s not always a laugh or a smile on my face now, as there was in the earlier photographs, but there’s a glint in the eye, a tilt of the chin, an expression. There’s hope in every single one.

Looking at the photos, I know that Amelie is right. Now, just as 30 years ago, I have my life ahead of me. I’m free to go wherever I want; do whatever I want.

I can go to India with Amelie. I can visit Maddie in Italy. I can paint and draw and sculpt. I can carry on where my younger self left off.

There’s a note at the bottom, written in Amelie’s exuberant looping hand. It brings tears to my eyes, followed by a snort of laughter. My dear Carys,

I’ve been looking into the story of your beloved Psyche. I know how well you know it yourself, but perhaps its worth a bit of a reminder. It’s the story of the ordeals the soul must face, the trauma we must sometimes go through, before finding happiness again.

She’s often shown with the most beautiful butterfly wings, a symbol of her transformation. I think it’s time for you to find your wings, my friend. Time for you to take flight again. I’ll see you very soon. Love always, Amelie.

PS I’d still take Roger over John.

I’m free to go wherever I want; do whatever I want