Paris 03

So I waited in the Scottish pub, a small place on a little street I can’t remember, Rue Francois Miron or something, where they sometimes serve good ale, and had one, or two, or three, watching the football match on the TV. I argued with some Spanish guy when the team I wanted to win didn’t, before the English barmaid tapped me on the shoulder and said, 
        “Are you Ken ?”
She knew my name so I guessed that the phone call must have been from her, the other one, the one I’d seen the last time. For a brief second I thought of you and promised to myself that I wouldn’t fuck this up then answered the phone. She said she’d be along soon, maybe an hour or so. I waited, nervously. 
        When she did come she arrived with friends I didn’t know, and walked past, deeper into the bar, beyond where I sat. Looking at the door and I thought about ill planned escapes but something held me and I walked after her smiling. I had another beer, the fourth or the fifth now I couldn’t remember, and we talked politely as if we were only friends, but I knew there was more going on, there was more underneath. I realised then that we’d drifted into dangerous territory, somewhere I shouldn’t have been. Thoughts about you grew larger and larger in my mind the whole time. I could see in her eyes that she wanted more, that she needed something that I wasn’t ready to give. She wanted back the old days when we had shared each other, but they had been brief and in truth had meant very little. At least to me. So I knew what I had to do. I finished my beer, my head dizzy and dancing and said to her that I was going to leave. She protested, named another bar, more people to meet, but I said no and walked through the door.    
On the late city street it was cold. Jesus, Paris can be cold. I only made it a few steps before she came after me. She wanted to know if I was sure, did I really want to do this, but I knew I had to, and kept on walking. It wasn’t long before I was lost. I waited at the side of the street for a cab but none stopped, less and less people on the corners, the night getting colder each second. For a moment thoughts of returning flared, maybe that was the way things were meant to fall, but something made me not. And as the cabs stopped coming and the people stopped walking, I knew I was alone.
I crossed the street to the metro station but it was locked. Another lost character was lying on the steps asleep waiting for the morning to come and the trains to start running again. I sat across from him. He looked up at me and I looked at him. Offering him a cigarette, he mumbled something in French that I didn’t quiet get, but he took it anyway. For a fitful hour or two I snoozed and fell asleep. When I woke he was gone. I could hear the echoing rumblings of the trains from below but still the gate was closed, so I rose, dragged myself back up the steps and made my way down the street to the next metro station. This one was open. In embarrassment I stood in front of the ticket kiosk and waited until I gained the courage to ask for my fare. 
Standing on the platform with the few lonely stragglers, I couldn’t help thinking about you, and how we would have been in this beautiful city, how the few days that I’d spent here were broken, misshapen, mutations of what really should have been, and how I never wanted to see this city without you again. And so I spent the next day doing the things I had to do, joylessly counting the minutes until the bus would arrive to take me to the airport and I could leave all this behind me and see you, and be in your arms, away from this city that I once loved.

Originally Published online by This Is It Magazine March 2004