After about twenty minutes, the driver’s incessant muttering and covert whistling made Chris suspicious that he and Amélie were being taken on a circuitous, costly route: “I’m thinking anywhere here will do,” he said, firmly, when twenty minutes had elapsed and he hadn’t recognised any of the street names on his map. “Arretez ici, s’il vous plait!” “No, no, we are near,” replied the driver, who brought his cigarette arm back in through the window, performed a swift U-turn amidst a cacophony of blaring horns and steered them down a side street: to Chris’s relief the Rue Saint Georges. The metre displayed a fee of seventeen Euros: feeling it was within his moral rights to play the witless tourist that he had been cast, Chris proffered fifteen: “Sorry. It’s all I have. Merci,” and he, Amélie and their luggage hastily scrabbled out of the taxi. Their hotel was a smart Parisian townhouse situated near a Metro station. They climbed a few steps into a tiled reception area with an elaborate wooden desk and a revolving plastic stand bedecked with Tourist Information leaflets: everything from bateaux trips on the Seine to evenings of glamour and enticement at the Moulin Rouge.
