Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris & Mrs. Harris Goes to New York by Paul Gallico Page A

grey carpeted stairs at Dior. They paused for an instant uncomfortably. M. Fauvel managed to stammer: ‘Tonight I shall be showing Mrs Harris something of Paris. She has begged that you would accompany us.’
    ‘Oh,’ murmured Natasha, ‘Madame Harris has asked? She wishes it? Only she?’
    M. Fauvel could only nod dumbly. How could he in the chill austerity of the grand staircase of the House of Christian Dior cry out ‘Ah, no, it is I who wish it, crave it, desire it, with all my being. It is I who worship the very nap of the carpet on which you stand.’
    Natasha finally said: ‘If she desires it then, I will come. She is adorable, that little woman.’
    ‘At eight then.’
    ‘I will be there.’
    They continued on their routes, he up, she down.
    The enchanted night duly took place. It began for the three of them with a ride up the Seine on a
bateau-mouche
to a riverside restaurant in a tiny suburb. With a wonderful sense of tact and feeling M. Fauvel avoided those places where Mrs Harris might have felt uncomfortable, the expensive luxury and glitter spots, and never knew how happy Natasha herself felt in this more modest environment.
    This was a little family restaurant. The tables were of iron, the tablecloths checkered, and the bread wonderfully crisp and fresh. Mrs Harris took it all in, the simple people at neighbouring tables, the glassy, shimmering surface of the river with boating parties gliding about and the strains of accordion music drifting over from the water, with a deep sigh of satisfaction. She said: ‘Lumme, if it ain’t just like ’ome. Sometimes, on a hot night, me friend Mrs Butterfield and I go for a ride up the river and drop in for a pint at a little plyce near the brewery.’
    But at the eating of a snail she firmly baulked. She examined them with interest in their steaming fragrant shells. The spirit was willing but her stomach said no.
    ‘I can’t,’ she finally confessed, ‘not arter seeing them walkin’ about.’
    From that time on, unspoken, the nightly gathering of the three for roamings about Paris became taken for granted. In the daytime, while they worked, except for her fittings which took place at eleven-thirty in the mornings, and her tidying of Fauvel’s premises, Mrs Harris was free to explore the city on her own, but the evenings were heralded by the arrival of Natasha in her Simca, and they would be off.
    Thus Mrs Harris saw Paris by twilight from the second landing of the Tour Eiffel, by milky moonlight from LeSacré-Cœur, and waking up in the morning at dawn when the market bustle at Les Halles began, and after a night of visiting this or that part of the city of never-ending wonder, they breakfasted there on eggs and garlic sausages surrounded by workmen, market porters, and lorry drivers.
    Once, instigated somewhat in a spirit of mischief by Natasha, they took Mrs Harris to the
Revue des Nudes
, a cabaret in the Rue Blanche, but she was neither shocked nor impressed. There is a curiously cosy kind of family atmosphere at some of these displays; whole groups, including grandmothers, fathers, mothers, and the young come up from the country for a celebration or anniversary of some kind, bringing along a picnic hamper; they order wine and settle down to enjoy the fun.
    Mrs Harris felt right at home in this milieu. She did not consider the parade of stitchless young ladies immoral. Immoral in her code was doing someone the dirty. She peered interestedly at the somewhat beefy naiads and remarked: ‘Coo - some of them don’t arf want a bit o’ slimming, what?’ Later when an artiste adorned with no more than a
cache
sexe
consisting of a silver fig leaf performed rather a strenuous dance, Mrs Harris murmured: ‘Lumme, I don’t see ’ow she does it.’
    ‘Does which?’ queried M. Fauvel absent-mindedly, for his attention was riveted upon Natasha.
    ‘Keeps that thing on ’oppin about like that.’
    M. Fauvel blushed crimson and Natasha shouted with laughter,