She smiles. ‘Le Dodo Manège.’
Chapter Twenty-Six
When I experienced this day originally, I think I was pretty surprised that Le Dodo Manège was Alice’s first stop on our Christmas itinerary.
I thought I had her pegged as this big-shot marketing executive whose idea of a good time probably involved sipping Instagram-friendly cocktails in some exclusive members’ club. And yet here she was, leading me through the beautiful Jardin des Plantes, just a stone’s throw from the banks of the Seine, towards what appeared to be a children’s fairground ride. It was a nice surprise, to be honest: it made me realise that no matter how much she seemed to have changed, she still had that fun, silly streak I’d been so attracted to at uni.
That said, though, Le Dodo Manège isn’t just any children’s fairground ride. I later learned that it’s a bit of a Parisian legend: a Victorian-era carousel on which, instead of the usual brightly painted horses and carriages, there is a cavalcade of exotic, endangered or extinct creatures. Huge lifelike models of giant pandas, sabre-toothed tigers, various kinds of dinosaurs, willowy gazelle-like things and, of course, a plump, slightly angry-looking dodo.
‘Voilà!’ she says, as we push through the iron gate and it appears before us in all its glory. ‘Le Dodo Manège.’
I nod, and then remember that I am supposed to be seeing it for the first time. I quickly feign excitement and surprise.
‘Oh, yeah! Wow! It’s incredible!’
Alice wrinkles her brow. I may have slightly overdone it. It’s only a merry-go-round, after all, not the Hanging Gardens of Babylon. But then she gives me a smile, apparently convinced that a) I’ve never seen it before, and b) I am suitably impressed. ‘It’s cool, right?’ she says. ‘Come on, let’s get on.’
The carousel is already pretty much full as we arrive – heaving with excited kids and their weary-looking parents. As we clamber up onto the main platform, I see there are only two riderless creatures left. The first is a pretty striking golden mountain lion, which Alice immediately hops up on and straddles, looking vaguely Napoleonic. The other is a giant turtle – fat and squat and about ten inches high – whose seat is basically a small trench that’s been hollowed into its enormous shell. I attempt to retain some dignity as I lower myself into it, but after kneeing myself painfully in the face, twice, I’m not totally sure I manage it.
The plinky-plonky music starts up, and the ride begins to turn slowly. The air is suddenly thick with the delighted squeals of French toddlers. Up above me, Alice is rising and falling gracefully on her mountain lion, and for a few minutes, among the twinkling lights and the soporific music and the gentle spin of the carousel, I actually switch off and lose myself entirely. It’s like my brain fades into sleep mode. It’s actually quite a relief not to have to think about anything for a few minutes.
But then the ride begins to slow, and the music stutters to an end, and I remember that in just a few hours, I will have a huge decision to make. And I have no clue what I should do.
We dismount our charges and wander to a nearby stall to buy hot, sticky Nutella and banana crêpes.
‘So, what d’you reckon to the Manège?’ Alice asks, as we watch the next load of customers pile onto the platform, the children all squabbling over who gets to ride which crazy creature.
‘It was great,’ I say. ‘The perfect start to Christmas Day.’
‘Don’t worry, there is more.’ She pops a slice of banana into her mouth. ‘So. What would you have been doing today if we hadn’t bumped into each other?’
‘Well, I definitely wouldn’t have been sitting in a giant turtle.’ I take a bite out of my own crêpe, managing to smear Nutella across half my face. ‘I don’t know, really. I’d probably be back in the apartment, writing.’
‘Of course,’ she says. ‘How is the writing going?’
If I remember rightly, the writing was going pretty bloody terribly at this point. High on the thrill of seeing Alice again at that first café, I think I’d bigged myself up as something of a budding experimental novelist. I even have a dim recollection of using the term ‘Kafkaesque’ – although I really, really hope I’m misremembering.
The truth is, I spent the past couple of months here starting, and then almost immediately abandoning, a dozen different projects. A TV sitcom script, a dystopian sci-fi story, a truly awful one-man stage play: all of them fell quickly by the wayside.
Paris was supposed to be my last chance to actually give the whole ‘proper writing’ thing a go. And when I failed at it – when I came back to London in January with nothing of any merit on my laptop – it was like a door finally slamming shut in my face. I gave up on that dream right there and then.
Still, I’m sure when Alice asked me this question first time round, I probably tried to style it out; made out that I was effortlessly bashing out page after page of sparkling prose. But now, for some reason, I don’t have the strength to pretend. ‘The writing is … not going very well, to be honest,’ I sigh. ‘I think the chances of me actually getting anything published are pretty slim.’
She shrugs. ‘Ah, well. Who cares about getting something published? You enjoy writing, that’s what counts.’
‘I don’t really enjoy it at all, actually,’ I say blankly.
Alice swallows a bite of crêpe as she considers this. ‘If you don’t enjoy it, then why are you doing it?’
I stare at the Dodo Manège spinning gently in front of us. Last time around, I was trying so hard to impress her, mentally triple-checking everything I was about to say before it came out of my mouth. I was dead set on appearing cool and successful, rather than lost and confused.
Right now, though, I feel an impulsive desire to tell her the truth: to just lay everything out and see what she says. It’s partly the unreality of the situation – the whole thing feels like a strangely vivid dream – but also partly because I know that, whatever I say here, she won’t remember it back in 2020.
‘I don’t know why I keep writing,’ I tell her. ‘Maybe because I think my life will suddenly magically get better if I succeed at it. Maybe because I want to … reconnect with my dad.’
As I say it out loud, I realise how ridiculous it sounds.
‘Sorry. That sounds stupid.’
Alice shakes her head and smiles. ‘No, not at all. I get it.’
Weirdly, it feels like she really does. I remember sensing this a lot during the first term – that Alice instinctively understood me. That we understood each other.
‘Anyway, I’m not sure my dad would care either way, to be honest,’ I say quietly. ‘He left when I was ten. I haven’t seen him in years.’
She balls up her napkin and drops it into the bin beside us. ‘I remember you saying. At uni.’
I look at her. ‘Did I? When?’
She laughs softly. ‘We were pretty close that first term, Ben. I guess you forgot. Remember the last day of freshers’ week? We stayed up all night in my room, talking and drinking that horrendous Swedish liqueur we found under the sink. You told me about your dad then. Not much: just how you weren’t really in touch at the moment, but you hoped some day you might be.’