MARCH 1956

PARIS

Fay pushed open the heavy door and followed the other girls into the soft gloom of the interior. The air hung heavy with incense, and it took a moment to adjust to the whispering darkness and the vastness of the space. On either side of the nave, a line of arches undulated towards a light-filled area before the altar. High overhead soared a vaulted ceiling. It was all breathtakingly beautiful.

'Gather round, girls!' Miss Edwards' well-bred English tones summoning her sixth-formers sounded distant and dreamlike. Fay crossed the chequered floor, and lingered at the edge of the group in time to hear her say, 'Notre Dame is French for what? Our Lady, that's right, Evelyn. A masterpiece of Gothic architecture and the heart and soul of Paris for centuries. The cathedral is built on the site of ...' but Fay was hardly listening.

Her attention was attracted instead by a row of stained-glass windows. She edged sideways to contemplate them more clearly. Each was a patchwork of glowing colours with rich, sensuous names. Crimson, she said to herself. Imperial purple, indigo, lapis lazuli. Far from being overwhelmed by the darkness of the church, the colours shone out, their beauty enhanced by it. She was pondering the significance of light shining out of darkness when Miss Edwards said, 'Fay, dear, are you still with us?' which brought her out of her reverie.

'Sorry,' she mumbled. After that she did her best to keep up.

When they reached the open space before the choir stalls and the altar, the girls loitered, pointing in wonder at the great rose windows floating high above the transepts on either side, bathing everything in jewelled light. Even Margaret, usually bored by sightseeing and culture, spread her arms to admire the rainbow on her coat. 'Golly,' she managed to muster, her bold eyes softened with delight. 'Golly.'

Fay smiled at this, but as she glanced about, half-listening to Miss Edwards, she felt troubled. The more she tried to catch at her unease, the stronger it became. It meant something to her, this place — and yet how could it? She'd never been here before. This school trip was her first time in Paris. She knew it was.

Later they explored the aisle that curved round behind the altar and stopped to peep into some of the prayer chapels that fringed the outside walls. Fay and Evelyn liked an altar where there was a carving of the Virgin Mary cradling the dearest Baby Jesus, who reached out a dimpled hand. Evelyn insisted on lighting a votive candle there, but Margaret hung back, more interested in a group of boys in striped blazers who were milling about outside.

'Aren't they with us?' she whispered to Fay.

'I think so.' She recognized one, a tall slender lad with butter-coloured hair that gleamed like a choirboy's in the dimness, remembering him from the Channel ferry. She'd been going up on deck to get some air and had met him coming the other way down the narrow stairway. He'd smiled as he'd held back to let her pass.

The girls were leaving the chapel when it happened. From somewhere high in the building a bell began to toll with a sound so deep and grave that the very air vibrated. Fay clapped her hands over her ears to shut out the sound, but on and on it rang. She couldn't breathe. She needed to get out. Turning, she ran blindly. And barged straight into someone. A hand gripped her arm. 'Whoa!' the someone said softly.

She looked up to see the blond boy. 'Sorry,' she gasped wildly but allowed him to steady her.

As suddenly as it had begun, the ringing stopped. As the echoes died, her panic, too, ebbed away.

'Are you all right?' the boy asked in his clear, cultured voice. He released her and she stepped back, hardly daring to look at him properly. His forehead was crinkled in a frown. Such an expressive face he had, the dark eyes full of concern.

'Thank you, I'm fine now.' She could not stop the shame rising in her cheeks. Evelyn came across to claim her whilst Margaret set off with her funny loping run to fetch Miss Edwards. The boy remained quietly by. His companions hung about in the background, cuffing each other and laughing.

Eventually the graceful figure of Miss Edwards hurried up, and Fay was glad to hear her light tones: 'Fay! That'll do, everyone. It's all over now.' And she steered Fay away with gentle firmness.

They sat together in the chapel before the Virgin and the entreating baby. 'What on earth was the matter, Fay?' her teacher murmured. 'It was only a bell. Summoning people to a service, I expect.'

'I don't know,' Fay answered with a shiver. 'It frightened me, that's all. I'm all right now, really.' She was struggling to capture a formless memory. No, whatever it was had gone.

* * *

That evening, the chatter of English voices rose to the roof of a huge reception room in the Hôtel de Ville. It was like the twittering of starlings in the trees of Place de la Concorde at twilight. At the sound of a car backfiring, the birds would lift together in a great cloud, its shape forming and reforming against the purpling sky.

These were gaudier birds than starlings — several hundred sixth-formers and their teachers from fifteen English schools gathered under one roof for the final night of a spring trip to Paris organized by the League of Friendship. The girls were awkward and self-conscious in their first evening gowns, the boys hot and uncomfortable in formal suits with stiff collars. Earlier there had been lengthy speeches by stuffy French dignitaries, then a buffet supper of strange meats in aspic and an oily salad. Rumours of a skiffle band had been dismissed, but now that the string quartet was tuning up beside the area cleared for dancing, excitement was mounting all the same.

From her place of safety by the wall, Fay scanned the crowd, wondering where Evelyn and Margaret could have gone while she'd been in the powder room. They'd all been talking to two boys from Winchester a moment ago, or rather Evelyn and Margaret had. Fay hung back, unpractised in the flirtatious banter the occasion demanded, and worried that her neckline was sinking too low. She'd muttered an excuse and slipped away.

In the ladies' she'd repinned the dress, then stared at her fragile features in the ornate looking-glass. She tried not to notice how the garment's murky shade of green made her skin look bleached and dulled the blue of her eyes. Her mother, reluctant to let her come on this trip at all, had not been able to afford a new dress to be made up for a single night, so Fay had borrowed one from a neighbour's daughter.

Mummy had done her best to alter it, Fay conceded, and had shown her a pretty way of wearing her dark hair — she tucked a stray wave back into the slide — but they both recognized that the dress would no more than 'do.' Certainly she felt dreary next to striking, chestnut-haired Margaret, sheathed in full-length ivory, or fair Evelyn, pretty as a doll in gauzy blue. She frowned at her reflection, scooped up her homemade evening bag, and set off back to the hall. There must be some boy, she thought grimly, who would save her pride by claiming her for a dance.

Standing by the wall, watching the crowd, she eventually spotted a statuesque white figure that could only be Margaret. As she started to weave her way towards her, someone touched her arm, and a clear voice said, 'Hello, again.' She turned and found herself looking into the face of the blond boy from...