Chapter 4 Sylvain

“Don’t worry it’s only 07:29 and you are on holiday!”

I love this man very much and with that sentence I realise how much I’ve missed him. We worked together for years but I really got to know him at one of the darkest times of his life. Like me, Sylvain has three girls and a boy, like me he is separated from their mother, like me he was a Software Architect at JP Morgan, but there the similarity ends.

While Rachel let me down gently, probably much more gently than I deserved, even enabling my current home, Sylvain’s partner, indeed wife, was not nearly so kind. The result was he ended up with a job in London and having to find his own place near Paris, where he could have his kids at the weekend. JP Morgan did their best and he was allowed to work remotely on Mondays and Fridays, but as there was no longer a Paris office for technologists he still had to be in London three days a week. So until he found a new job, Sylvain ended up staying at mine two nights a week, mostly on the sofa.

On the face of it Sylvain is much more geeky than me. This man has a disaster recovery router on his home network and I’m sure at some point also had a proper firewall with a DMZ and everything! I took him to Planet Angel, he took me to an airshow, which incidentally I enjoyed much more than I expected. He is technically much more proficient than me. Years after he left JP Morgan I would find bits of his code and marvel at the work. That outer geekiness, though, hides an enormous warmth and a rock like personality.

On Saturday I head south of Paris to Melun for lunch with Sylvain and his children. I’m hungover and late and have to drive through Paris traffic to get there as this satellite town will provide safe parking for Dot until Monday. On arrival I see that my friend has filled out a little, the stresses and strains of the divorce now passed. That, however is nothing compared to Lauriane, Mila, Romane and Guillaume who I swear have doubled in size. Was it really that long since I was last here? I suppose it was!

Lunch is at an Indian restaurant. I’m the only one who drinks anything other than water. I nurse my beer, and get only a wry look from Sylvain as I try to explain the English phrase “hair of the dog” to his offspring. I am told that Melun is having a cheese festival today and, after I finish laughing at the very frenchness of it all, we head off in search of the Guild of Knights of the Brie de Melun. We cross the river Seine stopping to marvel at the boat jousting. Yes I kid you not, people with lances on boats! As we leave the river behind and enter the town centre we can hear the festivals announcements. I struggle to identify where the sound is coming from until I realise that there are tiny speakers on every third building, The town has its own PA system! As I conspire with Lauriane to capture the Marie and put on a rave, the building itself and the various fabulously dressed guilds come into view. Cheese and wine are tasted, cops on Segways photographed and we head back to Sylvain’s for a cup of tea prior to my trip back to the capital.

I return with Molly just over 24 hours later. Paris has been tougher than I expected. I feel, as I so often do, like a tiny yacht with poorly set sails and an unclear course. Then I sight my rock. He offers the showers and warm beds that are so badly needed. Though rested by the morning, I’m still stressed and worrying that I will make Sylvain late for work. That’s when he utters the phrase above allowing me to relax, at least for the moment, and to collect my thoughts and my things and set course for Brive le Gaillarde the next stop on our journey.

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