It all began in 1978 when eighteen year-old Erica was enjoying her summer holiday abroad before starting university back home in England. It was on the steps of the Sacré-Cœur Basilica in Paris that Erica met Laure.
Parisian Laure was hung-over, and all she wanted to do was read and smoke in the shade of the July heat. Laure was a PHD student who also tutored at the Sorbonne University. She smoked too much, drank too much and ate too little. Erica was fascinated.
Erica was self-conscious about her weight and wanted to do something about her unremarkable life. She was open to new experiences, and one thing lead to another in the city of love, even though she insisted that she wasn’t a lesbian and could see a husband and children in her future.
Laure introduces Erica to an exciting life in the art galleries and lesbian bars of Paris and, despite preferring to have unavailable married women as lovers, Laure finds her jaded self falling in love with the young English woman.
It is a passionate love affair, but at the end of the summer, both Erica and Laure go their separate ways. Erica goes to Oxford University in search of a creative writing future and Laure falls into the depths of alcoholism while still maintaining her university position.
Interspersed with quotes from Roland Barthes’ A Lover’s Discourse which explores the complexities of love, the narrative catches up with Erica and Laure over the next 35 years as their affection for each other defines their lives in many ways.
It is a story of paths not taken, of not being able to hold on to something precious … of lives that almost were. Occasionally the two women get within touching distance of each other and potential pathways open up before them. In the end, it is a story of a life-long affection that began as a summer fling and kept its tentacles around their hearts.
Lezly Herbert
