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the goats’ cheese, heads shaking at the mauvais temps which has produced a lot of vers . There is a lot of heavy sighing happening and it seems appropriate to join in, although I have absolutely no idea what they’re talking about.
    Later, the source of their concern becomes all too apparent. Poised to slice into a chèvre on my plate, I notice the rind is wriggling with maggots. Unphased, Jean-Michel is shaving off his crawling crust. Revulsion rises in my throat and I try to overcome it, not wanting to offend. No-one else appears shocked. And so I copy Jean-Michel, telling myself that I’ve eaten worse. Once, in northern New South Wales where I’d gone to do a television report, a group of Aboriginal kids presented me with a six-centimetre long, raw witchetty grub. Bush tukka, they’d giggled, bright eyes daring me. My weak, white, urban sensibilities were on trial and it would have looked bad to refuse, I’d thought. The liquid explosion in my mouth had almost made me retch.
    I wipe some cheese onto my bread and bite.

    The table erupts in peals of delighted laughter. It had been a test, and quite unwittingly I’d passed with flying colours. In fact, except for Jean-Michel, the others had been feeling squeamish just contemplating the plate. But used to foreigners wrinkling their noses at pungent, unpasteurised French cheeses, my new friends are immensely flattered by this gullible show of gameness. It’s as though I have just leapt on the table and delivered a rousing rendition of La Marseillaise . Anyone willing to eat wormy chèvre must be okay, read their expressions. Even Jean-Michel is impressed. ‘An American would never had done that,’ he remarks admiringly.

    By the time we return to Paris, the gloriously long days are getting noticeably shorter. There is a sense of something reaching an inevitable end—and not just summer. Everything seems to herald change, the new crispness in the evening air, the shrinking queues, the city streets. The tourists with their shorts and cameras have been replaced by purposeful people with caramel tans and bright highlights in their hair. Parisians. Back from their holidays for the September start of the school and working year, known as la rentrée .
    These changes seem to be a sign. Having already stayed far longer than I’d intended, my holiday in France is over too. I can’t keep prolonging my departure. Besides, Frédéric is about to go back to work. It’s time to hoist my backpack and pick up my travel plans: back to London, then Greece, then onto Turkey where Sue will fly over and meet me and from there perhaps an overnight bus back to Bucharest.
    Everything seems to have happened so quickly. In onemonth, my relationship with Frédéric has shifted from holiday romance to something more serious. In retrospect, right from that second night in Bucharest I think I sensed that given half a chance it would. But now this seismic shift has occurred I feel the need to slow down the pace. To take some distance. A few weeks ago I’d felt carefree and unconcerned. Everything had seemed crystal clear—I was in Paris and in love! But our wonderful holiday together has raised the possibility of a commitment—and with it confusing questions about my future. Do I want to live in France? What if I take the plunge and stay and then everything with Frédéric falls apart? All clarity is clouded by a sudden premonition of the complications involved in letting this relationship run its course. As my departure day looms I become increasingly impatient to go.
    Frédéric takes me to Gare du Nord station. My train will stop at Calais, connecting with a ferry to Dover, where I’ll catch a bus to London. His face is long. At least I have my travels to look forward to, whereas he has only work. We talk about meeting up in the near future for a long weekend in London or maybe Istanbul. This is not really a goodbye, we reassure each other. But there is a poignancy to the moment,