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finding everything very funny and then going to bed. These parties were nothing like hers, where the wildest thing was a Blondie record. I would really look forward to these mad nights and would choose to stay up sticking cutlery to walls or trying to lift cars long after she had sniffily said goodnight. The sun was nearly always up when I finally climbed the ladder to my bedroom of bliss. I felt like a teenage Andy Capp returning to a very grumpy Missus.
    The sex between us was . . . well, I’m guessing it wasn’t great because on one of these nights in the strange room upstairs she told me that she thought I was gay. Two thoughts: couldn’t you just throw my dinner in the bin like any normal pissed-off girlfriend, and secondly – of course Iwas gay. At the time I still hadn’t realised this, but it must have been so obvious: how could she ever have thought I was straight? The fact that the rest of the world could tell I was gay didn’t help me, of course. I was furious. How dare she presume to tell me what I was? But at the same time I was sort of delighted that someone was helping me face up to the truth. Back in Paris I began to look at men and wonder if I was attracted to them. It all seemed so seedy – and that was to a boy shagging a woman in her mid-thirties in the flat of her dead friend.
    One night after dinner in a restaurant with Alex and more of his friends giggling in French – ‘ II est un pouf! ’ – we got back to the flat and Esther took me to one side. Did I mind if after I went to bed she spent some time talking to Alex, because she felt he wanted to talk about Sarah? Of course I didn’t. I said goodnight and headed off to bed with my diary. As I filled the pages with long descriptions of French trees and reflections on the Seine, I was aware that things in the flat had gone very quiet. The music had stopped. I could just about hear whispering. Then total silence. I lay there listening to the sound of my own breathing. Then some creaking floorboards and the clicking of light switches. A door closed. I couldn’t quite believe what was happening. I’d agreed to Esther giving Alex a shoulder to cry on, not a vagina to stick it in. I felt in my own childish way that she had once again misjudged her response to a friend in mourning. Didn’t she know it was possible to buy special sympathy cards?
    My mind was racing. Lying in a bunk bed surrounded by pictures of Babar the elephant and a dead woman, I considered my options. My thoughts froze when it came to whatI should do, but the one thing I was certain of was that I didn’t want to be here in the morning. No croissant could be buttery enough to tempt me to that particular breakfast àtrois . So that was a sort of decision – I would leave. As quietly as I could I packed my things back into my summer-of-adventure backpack. Then I turned my thoughts to the note I was going to leave for Esther.
    The fact that I made a duplicate copy of the note for my diary says quite a bit about my excruciatingly self-absorbed state of mind at the time. The note itself tells you everything you need to know about my relationship with Esther: a little bit of sexual frisson topped by catering portions of pretentious wordy nonsense. When I rooted it out and read it again after all these years for this book, I was appalled. My hand is itching to give myself the most enormous slap. I really hope I wasn’t the person who wrote this note and that it was written by the version of me that went out with Esther. I’m probably wrong – I’m sure friends would say that I not only was but still am the kind of person who wrote this:
    Dear Esther ,
    My leaving like this may seem a bit childish and hypocritical but let me explain . . . Actually I can’t so let me say that all of this has been marvellous! Back to Paris, the twist in the plot, my cinematic departure, long may such silliness continue!
    I’ll write to you again but then I say that to everyone but I think to you