Years ago I lived in Paris with an artist, how cliché!

We shared a ground floor apartment (read: lean-to) in a courtyard of perpetually damp buildings. The entrance was the kitchen and also the bathroom with a half tub covered with a plywood board. The roof was corrugated plastic so that during rain storms, it was deafening. The toilet was hidden in a cramped closet and here we nailed shelves and stacked them with books. We named the room Loo Read. My artist hubby cut a section of canvas the size of the widest wall of the studio and he painted the interior of Rodin’s sculpture garden. A vista of figures in various stages, and chunks of marble scattered, center stage was a statue of myself, beyond kitsch! We were in love, and it all seemed fantastic. 

My future ex-hubby set up his easel and oil paints on the Pont des Arts, and I sat beside him all day watching the passers-by watching him work. If they interacted at all it was to ask us where they could take a piss. Meanwhile, for the guitar players and the jugglers farther along the bridge these same amblers shelled out coins. So I hung a sign off the back of the easel, ‘My wife is thirsty and needs a coffee. Contributions please.’

Brits dawdled and read the sign, and laughed, and kept their hands rammed deep in their pockets, before sauntering off. American tourists would stop, read the sign and laugh and then they would hand over handfulls of cash. The French, however, took umbrage, accusing us of mocking the ‘tradition’. They never upped a single sous.

Daily we earned enough francs to stuff our faces at McDonald’s. Along with our ‘amburgers and French fries, we raised cups of soda pop, and toasted, ‘Vive La France! Vive la difference.’

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