Paris ici nous venons!

That’s “Paris here we come” to you, Avery. Got to brush up on that French home­work! We’re off tomor­row morn­ing on the Eurostar for… Gay Paree! It will be such fun to meet up with Sarah and Eve at our cute lit­tle hotel in the 5th arrondisse­ment (much plushi­er than any of the ques­tion­able places I stayed as a doc­tor­al stu­dent lo these 15 years ago). I think our first-day plans include a mar­i­onette show, a carousel, some shop­ping, and din­ner at my old haunt, Cafe Max. We’ll report back as soon as we get home on Mon­day evening.

Wednes­day saw us at church for the autum­nal Har­vest Fes­ti­val Thanks­giv­ing con­cert. Avery was most dis­con­cert­ed to find that since she did not take vio­lin, and chose Book Club over Choir, she did not get to do any­thing more spe­cial than deliv­er food to the altar and sing “All Crea­tures Great and Small” at the end. So vio­lin lessons are a high pri­or­i­ty, should Mrs D allow it, in advance of any more con­certs. But it was love­ly any­way, and dar­ling Becky shared her girls’ flow­ers with Avery.

We were then off in the clear­ing rainy day to vis­it St Paul’s, a pos­si­ble senior school for Avery. Every­one had said, “Oh, it’s the top school for girls in all of Eng­land, you won’t believe the facil­i­ties [a word I real­ly dis­like],” so we were pre­pared to be impressed. But oh MY. As you can see, just the build­ing itself is love­ly, and it’s sit­u­at­ed on Brook Green in Ham­mer­smith, a love­ly lit­tle vil­lagey cor­ner of West Lon­don, the most per­fect ver­dent lit­tle com­mon you can imag­ine. Then once in the entrance doors of the school you find your­self tread­ing black and white mar­ble and look­ing up at an enor­mous, carved-wood ceil­ing in the great Assem­bly Hall, with seats up in the gallery set along­side a huge floor-to-ceil­ing many-paned win­dow through which the sun began to stream as the High Mis­tress gave her wel­com­ing speech. We found our­selves seat­ed next to Susan, Sophi­a’s moth­er, and so clutched at each oth­er as babes in antic­i­pa­tion of the for­est of com­pe­ti­tion, pres­sure, and hot­house pre­cious­ness that is the famed rep­u­ta­tion of St Paul’s. But I beg to dif­fer. It was warm and friend­ly, open­ly com­pet­i­tive and high work­load, but the gulls who led us around were com­plete­ly charm­ing and relaxed, infor­ma­tive and cute, and the gen­er­al atmos­phere of the school as far as we could infer, was one of hap­pi­ness and total fun and fulfillment.

And even more to the point: there are THREE libraries! Avery’s mouth sim­ply dropped open and stayed open. Floor to ceil­ing books, with slid­ing library lad­ders just like she has always dreamed of. She fell ecsta­t­i­cal­ly upon a copy of “Jane Eyre” lying on a table and said, “I am offi­cial­ly in heav­en.” There were sev­er­al state of the art com­put­er labs, art stu­dios that rival Hunter Col­lege (and sev­er­al art­works on dis­play that I would have hap­pi­ly shown in my gallery in New York), a swim­ming pool, an Eng­lish lab with pro­fes­sion­al­ly-pub­lished mag­a­zines con­tain­ing the gulls’ prize-win­ning essays and short sto­ries. Com­plete­ly impres­sive. All this in sur­round­ings that just oozed with Vic­to­ri­an charm, carved wood­work, old wood­en floors, worn con­crete stair­wells, bell cham­bers and out­door spaces that over­look all of Cen­tral Lon­don. And the cafe­te­ria! Ten or twelve food sta­tions with every­thing you can imag­ine to eat. And in the last two years the gulls can go out to lunch in the near­by High Street, where we saw a gor­geous fish shop, a florist, lots of lit­tle cafes.

Let me see if I can pos­si­bly relate the Byzan­tine struc­ture of the school years. They begin in Low­er Fourth, then go to Upper Fourth, then Year Nine and Low­er Sixth, then Mid­dle Sixth, then Upper Sixth. I think. Or maybe not. I could­n’t keep track. And some­times they call the Low­er Fourth “Year Sev­ens.” I will nev­er be able to keep track. Our guide, Amy, could not have been more poised. Wear­ing a lit­tle blue pol­ka-dot­ted dress with a Peter Pan col­lar, topped by a short tar­tan jack­et and with lit­tle embroi­dered flats, she was like a book illus­tra­tion for “Charm­ing Eng­lish Teenag­er.” But sharp as a whip. Tak­ing four A‑levels in chem­istry, physics, biol­o­gy and… art! She’s a pho­tog­ra­ph­er on top of all her sci­en­tif­ic skills. And she’s the first per­son I’ve ever met in real life who is plan­ning her Gap Year! And no, it’s not a year spent fold­ing clothes and dress­ing man­nequins, it’s the year between high school and uni­ver­si­ty when upper-class Eng­lish kids get to bum around and play, pre­sum­ably before the unbear­able pres­sures of Oxford or Cam­bridge dig in their claws. Would you believe: 40% of all Pauli­nas (isn’t that an almost too-sweet des­ig­na­tion for girls at the school) go to an Oxbridge school. Incredible.

We all emerged with the def­i­nite sense that what­ev­er it takes, with­in rea­son, for Avery to get to go there, we will try to achieve. She absolute­ly loved it, and I can def­i­nite­ly see her at home with­in those walls. So fin­gers crossed! The entrance exam isn’t until a year from Jan­u­ary, so I’m actu­al­ly glad we had a chance to see how won­der­ful it is and have a year to pre­pare. We’ll see. Avery has the right atti­tude: “It would be per­fect for me to go there, but if I don’t get in, anoth­er school will be won­der­ful too.” She’s right.

Thurs­day saw me at my screen­writ­ing course, screen­ing the first half hour of “Ed Wood,” which left me com­plete­ly cold. But it was good to ana­lyze anoth­er film. Next week Dalia and I are meet­ing up in advance of the class to com­pare notes on the one-page film out­line we’re meant to bring on Thurs­day. And big sigh of relief: I hve fin­ished my 2500 words for the fol­low­ing Sat­ur­day’s fic­tion class. It’s so hard to read aloud! I read it to John who had sug­ges­tions, and I think if I read it sev­er­al more times I’ll be bored enough with it not to care how it sounds in front of 20 strangers.

Today was a half-day for the begin­ning of the half-term break, so the gulls were allowed an “own clothes” day. I will nev­er for­get a year ago today, going back to King’s Col­lege after Avery’s inter­view, once we had decid­ed to attend the school, to tell Mrs D she would be com­ing, and feel­ing at home in her “own clothes.” The gulls then donate how­ev­er much mon­ey they like to a named char­i­ty, for the hon­or of leav­ing their uni­forms at home for a pre­cious day. I remem­ber Avery going up to Mrs D hold­ing out her pound coin and smil­ing shy­ly. “I’d like very much to come here to school, if that’s all right.” It’s been quite a year. It was fun­ny at pick­up to see all the out­landish cloth­ing items that emerge to cel­e­brate their free­dom to choose what to wear! Fake fur, sequins, much-tat­tered jeans, and the SHOES! Dress-up pumps, cow­boy boots, Avery’s own blue fur­ry Mary Janes, which beloved shoes turned out to be too small, and so they belong to Anna now. The girls and I went to lunch with Becky, in the cool blinky Octo­ber sun in the Maryle­bone High Street, and now we’re on our way to the Fri­day skat­ing les­son and din­ner out. Then, we must pack! And go off on our French adven­ture. I hope I remem­ber the language?