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the edge of swimming pools in the Essonne. Roger, going under a lorry with his bike, hiding his lacerated, stitched face from me. Roger at the Marley concert shouting ‘No woman no cry,’ mouthing the words in English, eyes shining with joy.
    And now, Roger in a cell in La Goutte d’Or, destined for Fleury-Mérogis. I go back up towards Barbès Métro station: Mekloufi’s is still open. I park the car twenty metres away and go in.
    Mimine is settling into an impro, picking up the melody from place de Brouckère. He’s learning new tunes, that’s good. I sit myself at the bar and ask for a Kronenbourg. Thinking of my boy. A few minutes later, I go down to the phone booth in the basement and call Patrick, my ex’s, number.
    ‘It’s me, I’m calling from Barbès.’
    ‘Lydie. D’you know what time it is? What’s going on?’
    ‘It’s not good. I picked up a young black kid and we were held up. He was knifed and Roger’s been busted with a load of coke on rue Myrha.’
    ‘Good God, Lydie, I live in Nice, remember?’
    ‘I know.’
    ‘He’s my kid, but he chose you. He chose Paris. Listen, I’m not saying it’s your fault.’
    ‘It’s always the parents’ fault.’
    ‘I quit the drugs squad in Nice. They offered me organised crime, it’s more hands on. You want me to put a call in for Roger?’
    ‘I haven’t seen him in six months. But yeah, I think we’ve got to do all we can. He’s at La Goutte d’Or, d’you know anyone there?’
    ‘The captain, Delpierre; I’ll call him, he owes me one.’
    ‘Thanks. I’ll finish my beer and go and find my darling boy. It’s good to hear your voice.’
    ‘And yours. Keep me in touch.
Ciao
Lydie.’
    Now I’m walking towards the dark, narrow Goutte d’Or. Yes, I’m walking towards Roger – a man, it’s true. The kind of guy I’d have hated at twenty. I think of Patrick, cosy and warm on the coast, of the years I’ve spent in city streets, of the bad smells in the early morning, the bad food, the bad fucks. Of the guys I ditched, of life’s irony which made me save Roger’s lookout’s arse. The dozy police station is 200 metres away when suddenly I see two black guys in Tacchini tracksuits coming towards me. And I recognise them.
    ‘So, grandma, gonna show us your gun? We didn’t have time to see the make.’
    I step out of the way to avoid them. We’re alone. As I walk faster, the bigger one’s hand stops me.
    His body’s glued to mine and the bastard hisses in my ear:
    ‘You, you’re just pretending, but I’m for real.’
    And he sinks a knife in my back. Christ, my legs give way, my head hits the edge of the pavement. I hear their steps retreating. I try to shout but there’s some kind of bubble between my lips. I think of all the things I haven’t done, the froth on a beer, triumphant jazz, the cops I’ll never see again. That’s the good news. My body shrinks. I say ‘Roger’.
    And then.
    And then I say nothing.
    Translation © Lulu Norman and Ros Schwartz

NEW SHOES by JOHN WILLIAMS
    Sometimes when it’s late and you’ve been listening to Lucinda Williams and you have a bottle of Gigondas empty beside you and the noise from the drinkers in the rue Mouffetard down below won’t let you sleep, a line from an old song gets lodged in your brain,
And I can never, never, never go home again
, and you can’t help but remember, remember how you got here.
    In the spring of 1981 there were only three places in Paris to busk. The first and easily the best, probably the best place in all of Europe, was outside the Beaubourg. Can I start to explain how fabulous the Beaubourg was back then? This building with its primary-coloured plumbing on the outside, with its giant Perspex escalator clambering across the front. I can hardly credit it myself – twenty-five years of living in this city has allowed familiarity to do its job of breeding contempt – but really back then it seemed to represent a whole world of possibilities, a future in