Paris 2012

2012

1 September, Saturday

Le Saint Jean, rue des Abbesses, 3pm. I’m in Montmartre. I just went up to the Sacré Coeur. Now I’ve eaten here and I’m working my way through a short selection of drinks. The sun is shining but this place is on the shady side of the street. When I went out yesterday, I first went to The Cork and Cavan pub on the Canal St. Martin, as planned. It had a young crowd but not of student age.

Later I had some trouble finding The Quiet Man, which was tiny. In looking for it I went a bit too deeply into the Marais, as could be seen by the growing number of gay couples that passed. Anyway, when I found it, about the only Irish thing in there was the green shirt on the barman. Beside me at the end of the short counter sat a young American couple. They were graduate students in California. She was into whales while he was studying the geochemistry of noble gases. She turned out to be related to Michael Fingleton, the notorious Irish banker. “We don’t like him,” she said. She added that “Fingers” had become his family nickname too.

5.45 pm, hotel room. The bells of the church of St. Laurent across the street are banging now. When descending from rue des Abbesses in Montmartre I came out at Pigalle and saw nothing scary on the quiet daytime way except a transvestite who reminded me a bit of Doctor Zaius in Planet of the Apes.

Over here, some of the girls are too beautiful, for anyone with a taste for female beauty. The first time I came here on my own (1996) I was actually a bit lonely. One afternoon in Le Piano Vache in the Latin Quarter an outrageous little flirt named Estelle bent over further than a gymnast when poking in her school bag, across the bar. Elle portait la culotte bleu pâle.

Late on Saturday: I got back to the hotel by midnight. The long walk that ended up at Kitty O’Shea’s near Place Vendôme was basically in vain. It was practically empty, there was a hole in the door window, like it had been shot at, and – another bad sign – it didn’t have any beer mats.

2 September, Sunday

Place St. André des Arts, 3pm, at a café of the same saint’s name, on a cool, breezy side street: I saw a sign earlier that said 28° but I’m erring on the side of chilly here. A girl is upset at a nearby table but the guy keeps talking like his voice is the most important thing to hear. My back seems quite cold. I try to watch my back. I think the guy is dumping her. He’s getting more agitated. He’s dumping her (“Je dépars”). A bunch of teenage girls with female intuition (“Une bagarre,” said one) are now sitting and watching from the other side of the narrow street. But here’s my food. It should warm me up.

3 September, Monday

The early hours. I went back to The Cork and Cavan [Sunday] and sat by the canal until I saw a few older people going in and out. I got a seat at the bar and the young Kerry barman started talking to me and eventually he confirmed that the most tanked-up person in the pub was the owner. I ended up sitting beside him and his Japanese wife joined in and told me they had rows over disciplining their young son. It turned out to be a place that welded a smile to my face.

The owner of the C&C said his son was actually doing more than OK in his class. His wife also gave him credit for doing sports and activities with the boy too but his comically confidential punch-line concerned a key piece of info in the boy’s possession. “He knows I’m a millionaire.” The top man* insisted on getting me a last drink and, before that, the Kerryman had given me one on the house, saying it was a French tradition, like a buy-back, I suppose. I enjoyed the pantomime there.

*The last time I saw him on the premises (December 2013) he was standing on the counter at one stage and speaking Irish at another.