secret garden. The faded blue and terracotta pots have been planted with red and white flowers.
‘Who owns the courtyard?’ I ask, as Tobi sets my bag beside the bed and hangs my coat on a hook on the back of the door.
‘It belongs to the building and we all pay maintenance, so I guess we all own it. A few of the residents keep it looking good. Later I’ll show you how to get down there, if you like. I don’t use it much but Luc sometimes paints there in the summer.’
‘I’d like that.’
It’s such a luxury to have any kind of green space and to be honest it’s the only thing I missed about home when I moved in with Meg, Osh and Gabe. There are parks everywhere in London, of course, but having a bit of green you can call your own is special. I think the courtyard and I might become well acquainted. I love the idea of snuggling up with a book in a little hidden square of Paris.
Turning back into the room I see that the entire wall behind the head of the bed is covered with white bookshelves. The spines provide a blast of higgledy-piggledy colour like the cushions on the living room couches and are lovely to look at. The sight of them makes me feel at home.
‘Meg said you would be happy here,’ Tobi grins, nodding at the wall of books. ‘Many of them are in English – I rearranged them at the weekend so you have a whole section to choose from. I know you’re a book lover.’
My heart swells. His thoughtfulness sends the last of my concerns about being in a new place floating away like dandelion seeds on a summer breeze. ‘It’s perfect. Thank you.’
‘My pleasure. Now, make yourself at home and I will fetch the wine. Are you hungry?’
Right on cue, my stomach growls and we both laugh.
An hour later, Tobi and I are relaxing in the living room, a bottle of wine almost drunk between us, catching up on the gang’s news. We’ve just started talking about Gabe’s new play when the door swings open and Tobi’s husband Luc strides in. His bag, coat and scarf are dropped in a pile in the middle of the parquet floor and I’m suddenly airborne, lifted into his hug.
‘Phoebe! You made it! Welcome!’
Luc embraces me like a long-lost friend.
‘Nice to meet you,’ I laugh, as he sets me down.
‘You too. And you’re as gorgeous as Meg said.’ His Canadian accent is unmistakable and his laugh rivals Tobi’s for volume and enthusiasm.
‘I rescued her from the station.’ Tobi heads into the kitchen for more wine, pausing to kiss his husband. I see the sparkle between them and it’s the loveliest sight.
My mum and dad sparkle like that, even now – almost forty years since they got married. My brother and I pretend we’re embarrassed by their enthusiastic PDAs whenever we’re out together, but really we’re proud. Being as daft with each other as you were in the first flush of love is rare.
Will Sam and I still be as besotted forty years from now?
When we’re basically four-hundred-year-old breathing dustbags…
‘Tobi has been reviving me with wine,’ I say.
‘Excellent plan! I’ll join you.’ Luc kicks his things behind the largest couch and accepts a huge wine glass from Tobi. ‘Sit, sit, Phoebe Jones! Tell me everything.’
So as Tobi makes dinner Luc and I talk about the journey here and the year ahead of me. Being in Paris, talking about my plans, makes them feel startlingly real. I’m here – and my adventure has already begun.
‘Tomorrow I don’t have work so I can take you on a tour, if you like? I mean, I know you know some of Paris, but I can show you all the cool bits we love.’
‘That would be great, thanks. But I don’t expect you both to take me everywhere. I know how busy you are.’
‘Luc likes to think he’s a Paris expert,’ Tobi laughs in the kitchen, releasing a cloud of fragranced steam when he lifts the lid of the pan on the hob. ‘Five years as a Parisian and he knows this place better than me.’
Seeing the city from a resident’s perspective would be good, I think. I have a list of places I’d like to see – standard tourist stuff from the guidebook I’ve marked with so many sticky-note strips its pages resemble a rainbow. But I also want to experience life here as a local; I want to discover my own special place.
Meg believes that if a city wants you to love it, it will reveal a place that’s special, just for you. In London I discovered mine in the heart of Notting Hill, in a small private park Gabe blagged us admittance into, late one night. Back then he was in a crime drama that had the nation gripped and was discovering all the good things that a single, well-placed mention of Southside could bring him. Sneaking around the darkened garden in the moonlight was when the city came alive for me and I’ve loved it ever since. Gabe’s special place is just outside the Almeida Theatre, where he made his first professional stage debut; for Meg it’s Golden Square in Soho; for Osh the centre of the Millennium Bridge at dusk, gazing out at the lights of London appearing either side of the Thames.
‘All cities have the potential,’ Meg assured me during one of my late-night wobbles in the weeks before I travelled. ‘You just have to turn off the guidebook in your head and feel the city in your heart.’ I hope she’s right.
Tobi serves dinner and we work our way through two more bottles of wine. My head will hate me in the morning but tonight I don’t care. I’m celebrating.
Ah Glasgow. Hello, old friend.
I’m aching and tired from the journey, but the sight of Glasgow Central’s vast, glass vaulted ceiling fires my body back into action. I take my time collecting my things and stepping down from the train, the need to hurry gone. My fellow passengers have mellowed somewhat, too, many of them lulled to sleep for part of the journey creating a symphony of snores around me, which amused me no end. I swear a couple of them even managed harmony at one point. Even so, when they disembark I see their steps quicken as our merry company disbands to our own adventures once more.
I reckon I slept too, a few half-hour snoozes at most, although my memory of the journey has already passed into a sludge of sameness. One thing’s for certain: I’ll sleep tonight. Especially if there’s alcohol involved.
I managed to get a message to Donal before reception deserted my phone completely and the reply I received was typical him:
Nae bother, pal. BEERS tonight!
Man, I’ve missed that guy.
I thought about Phoebe a lot, as the towns and cities passed into green and the hills rose to become mountains. It rained almost solidly from Lancashire onwards but as soon as we crossed the border the rainbows began. I can’t remember the last time I saw a rainbow, but on this journey I’ve seen seven. I’d forgotten that about this train journey. But now I remember travelling south from Edinburgh to Carlisle as a kid: me and my brother with our snotty noses pressed against the train glass, spotting rainbow shards illuminating passing glens and moorland.
Does Phoebe like rainbows? I didn’t ask, but I’m guessing she does. They’re bright and unexpected, completely spontaneous and elusive, and I kind of think that would appeal to the woman who’s just stolen my heart.
But a year apart from her…
I know what we said before we left London, but it struck me as I was travelling here just how much of a challenge we’ve set ourselves. Emails and postcards and once-monthly chats are all very well, but twelve