Show me the Souvenir!

It’s a Saturday, it’s twenty six degrees and it’s a very popular day to be in the park. I choose an empty bench. I want to be still and enjoy this special park for the last time before moving to the Marais. I watch as the sun unfurls pairs of old people, dressed in their sunny-day best. They slow-walk around the lake, arm in arm, weaving to follow the shade, and then they turn back before the path’s incline. Their knobbly hands drop bread crumbs on the lake’s edge as they stop to rest and watch the ducks.  

The park is alive with the squeals of children, playing football, climbing trees, hanging off statues and running races. With fairy floss-stained cheeks and grass-green knees, they frequently bounce back to their families, who are sprawled on picnic rugs, snoozing and reading. Breathlessly, they give urgent reports of who’s winning, or running the fastest and who’s fallen over, and then they dart off to join their friends again. 

Oblivious to the ducks and children and old people, are the young lovers, entwined, hidden in their own delicious world, under trees and behind benches. Under the park’s rotunda, sixties rock and roll music plays and people, of all ages, dance like no one’s watching.  

I’ve only been on my bench for about ten minutes when Jacques (who is so handsome that I can’t quite believe it) says Bonjour and sits next to me. And then after a brief silence he’s smiling at me and prattling on in French. All I get is 'something, something, travailler, something, interior designer, something, something...'  and all this time he’s moving in closer to me and I can’t get a word in to tell him I don’t understand what he’s gabbing on about.  

When he finally takes a breath, I say five French words, Je-nais-parle-pas-Français...and that seems to stop him in his tracks. But then he’s saying, 'OK, I speak a little English' and he leans in and with his minty breath says (in an impressive mix of English and French) 'J’adore - I love the femmes' and he puts his hand on my knee.  

I remove his hand from my knee.  

He then tells me he’s married but because he’s Parisian he needs to be with other women and he likes me and would I like a 'souvenir' of Paris?  

WOULD I LIKE A SOUVENIR OF PARIS?!!!!!

Now, I do realise that saying ‘yes’ to his ‘souvenir’ would make for a more compelling blog entry and I’m sorry to disappoint, but I respond (as any good prude would) by telling him to leave me alone; that my very tall, bad tempered, on parole, long-finger nailed(?), rugby playing, sumo wrestling, no, Giant Haystacks look-a-like (see British wrestling), Olympic gold medal sprinting, boxing instructing, sometimes axe- depending on his mood- wielding, former-policeman and part-time lawyer boyfriend will be here any moment! And he won’t be happy to see the hand of a married Parisian on my knee!  

Well, I seem to make myself understood because this is enough to make my handsome and inappropriate stranger turn from black to white and up and run...but not without an Au revoir, Mon Chérie and a kiss on the hand!!! Incorrigible!!!! (Poor Jacques – He probably thought he had me at Bonjour)