Hotel Sully, Rue des Ecoles, Paris, 5th May 1990
7.30 am. Down on the street an old woman is bending over a dustbin going through old clothes. Close by a waiter has washed down the pavement and is putting out tables and chairs. A man in a peaked cap walks a dachshund. A slim figure in white underwear appears on the balcony opposite and waters the flower box.
A day of wandering follows.
10.30 am. The Place d’Aligre market: close packed stalls, noisy, bustling, pushy. Variegated pyramids of strange fruit and nuts, knotty ropes of garlic, mountains of white, pink and brown mushrooms. The smell of approaching summer from bruised strawberries and the fresh tang of mint from a stall piled high with green fronds. Tight wrapped banks of flowers in a mosaic of reds, yellows, purples and blues and quivers of gladioli waiting to find their targets. Mounds of grimacing cooked sheep’s heads, Promotion 20Fr, heavy grey-white curtains of tripe and flies swirling around bloody red-brown meat. The tempting aroma of cooking chicken and lamb. A butcher singeing plucked chickens over a naked flame sending tiny curls of pale acrid smoke into the air. A matron shuffling a stack of loaves to find one the suited her. A working class market; faces of the Arab diaspora.