When Marie and I decided to move in together all we wanted was to be alone ... together. Not that we're antisocial. It's just that Paris, like any big city, can get to you in the end. We dreamt of a flat that would be more than a flat - it would be a refuge, a sanctuary, an island of peace .... And what we found looked promising - a pretty sixth floor apartment well above the traffic.
Pretty soon we discovered that there were more people living in the tiny rooms on the top floor than in the rest of the building put together. And they lived like an extended family of church mice. No baths. No showers and only one grim lavatory. It was a real gallimaufrey of humanity.
Above one of our two rooms was crazy Fred. Fred was a latterday hermit and insomniac. He'd been there over 20 years and all night long he sang and danced like a mad imp to his blaring radio. Above our other room were Mr and Mrs da Silva, a Portuguese builder and his wife. We could hear each step they took, and most evenings, round about ten, we could hear them in bed.
In the end we moved - (with a baby coming we needed more room anyway) - and yet, and yet ... as John Donne famously said, 'No man is an island, entire of itself; Every man is a piece of the Continent, a part of the main,' and there are times when I miss the old place. Living there I finally gave up on English insularity. I no longer aspire to island status and have settled for being a promontory, or perhaps, more of a peninsula...
