They didn’t even attempt to get a seat, clinging to the handrail facing one another with their rucksacks still glued to their backs. Chrissy could feel her dress sticking to her skin and she noticed fellow passengers were frowning, no doubt jealous of their great adventure. The doors beeped shut. She grinned at Juliet, screwing her eyes to suppress her excitement as the train jerked on its way.
In spite of all that Paris had to offer, Chrissy was keen to move on. ‘Tant de choses à faire et si peu de temps,’ she said as they had emerged at ground level at Porte d’Orléans. But her romantic notions soon vanished when they were confronted by booming traffic, tall buildings, wide boulevards and a frenetic intersection of roads. ‘What now, Ju?’
‘Not sure, I haven’t hitched from here before.’
‘Well, I thought you had.’
‘I never said that,’ Juliet protested, removing her rucksack. ‘On parle bien le français, hein? You stay here with the bags. Someone’s bound to know where the Périphérique is.’
Chrissy watched her go, massaging her shoulders as she walked; envious that Juliet could still look that good even in their dishevelled state. As she waited, she looked around, taking in the street names: Boulevard Jourdan, Avenue du Général Leclerc, Boulevards des Maréchaux. They didn’t mean much and she hated not knowing where she was.
‘Right,’ said Juliet, returning with a paper bag, a smiling orange croissant on the front. ‘We need to be opposite those traffic lights.’
‘Which traffic lights? There’s hundreds of traffic lights.’
She waved a map in front of Chrissy’s face. ‘Knew that would make you happy,’ she said.
Chrissy stuck her tongue out and snatched it from her. They ate their croissants as they went, but a sense of unease began to set in when cars honked their horns and well-dressed Parisian women on their way to work shook their heads in disapproval. Was this a crazy thing to be doing? Chrissy asked herself. Putting themselves at the mercy of complete strangers, with their false smiles and Juliet’s cardboard sign that said ‘La côte SVP!’
‘Why can’t it be somewhere more specific, instead of just saying “the coast please”?’ Chrissy had queried. ‘Like Lyon? Or Autoroute du Soleil?’
‘Trust me, will you? I’ve done this a zillion times.’
Juliet stuffed the screwed-up paper bag into Chrissy’s hand.
‘Well, not from here you haven’t.’
She tapped Chrissy over the head with the cardboard sign, saying: ‘Told you, you always worry too much. Finish your croissant. You’re so tetchy when you’re hungry.’
They were not the only ones hoping for a lift. Chrissy counted four young men spaced at intervals by the side of the road with their thumbs out, and one middle-aged woman with a ferocious-looking dog.
‘I bet you we get a lift before any of them,’ said Juliet.
Twenty minutes later a lorry pulled in. Juliet could have choreographed it herself. The driver shook his head at the four young men bounding towards him, pointing to the two of them instead. The woman’s dog began to bark, upset at the unfairness of it all, but she held it back, resigned to the fact that the lift wasn’t hers either.
He was a Spanish trucker, obsessed with The Beatles, and had to finish off his rendition of ‘Let It Be’ before he spoke, unfazed by all the horns blasting in protest of his stopping.
‘Buenos días. I’m going as far as Dijon,’ he said in a mix of French and Spanish. ‘Ça va?’
‘Yes,’ said Juliet. She turned to Chrissy for approval.
‘Don’t we need to go more like Orléans, Ju?’ She was about to get her Michelin road atlas out, but was getting ‘that look’ from Juliet.
‘It’s not a taxi service, Chrissy. And it’s still south. The main thing is, do we get a good vibe?’
Chrissy peered inside his cab. A photograph, presumably of his wife and daughters, was attached to the mirror. ‘Well, I guess so. Do you? You’re the expert.’
Juliet tossed her bag in and climbed up.
Chrissy had never ridden in a full-sized truck before. It was even better than her dad’s van, giving her a real sense of the open road. She noticed Juliet grinning at her, mocking her innocence, so she gave her leg a sharp pinch.
‘Ouch. What’s that for?’
‘Looking smug.’
It was a while before they cleared the sprawl of Paris, and Chrissy was still desperate to get out the road atlas to see where they were heading, but couldn’t because her bag was trapped behind the seat. Juliet would only give her grief in any case. She began to feel more at ease when it became clear that the only thing the trucker wanted in exchange for the ride was a translation of Beatles’ songs. He fished out a bundle of shabby, handwritten lyrics and Juliet set to work. Chrissy must have fallen asleep because, the next thing she knew, a whole four hours had gone by and they seemed to be pulling onto the hard shoulder.
‘This is where I drop you,’ she heard him say. ‘The turn off for Dijon is in seven, ten kilomètres. You should stay on this road.’
Chrissy looked out of the window. This really didn’t seem like the ideal spot to try and pick up another lift.
‘Here?’ said Juliet, also surprised.
But they thanked him for getting them this far and he pushed their bags out onto the tarmac, wishing them luck as they jumped down. The traffic thundered past, kicking up swirls of dust.
‘Don’t let les flics see you,’ he shouted as he swung his door shut.
‘What did he mean?’ yelled Chrissy, rolling her rucksack out of the way of the motorway blast, pinning her hair down with her hand. She got out her Michelin road atlas and felt slightly better, climbing up onto the metal crash barrier where it felt that bit safer.
‘What are you doing?’ Juliet screamed. ‘Get your thumb out; it’s the only way out of here, Chrissy. You should dump that. We don’t need it.’
Chrissy ignored her. She remembered seeing signs for Lyon. At a quick glance she noted it was almost due south of Dijon so this was taking them in the right direction. Slapping the atlas shut again she put it back inside her rucksack and began slowly edging her way towards the wall of traffic. She took hold of her corner of their cardboard sign, trying her best to smile even though she feared for her life. ‘You never said it was breaking the law, Ju.’
‘Just look gorgeous and we’ll be on our way again. Laws are for breaking in any case.’
It seemed like hours before any lift came, but when Chrissy looked at her watch it had only taken twenty minutes for a bright green Renault to come crawling along the inside lane, a line of juggernauts hot on its tail. The one immediately behind flashed its lights at the late indication to pull in, and Juliet nudged Chrissy out of the way just in case.
It was a French family from a town north of Paris. The mother was driving and the father was in the back, a baby on his knee. ‘Which part of the coast are you trying to get to exactly?’ said the mother, referring to their sign. She spoke French, shouting over the roar of the traffic.
‘Montpellier,’ Juliet yelled back. ‘Marseille. That sort of area.’
The woman raised her eyebrows. ‘Well, we are actually going to the Alps but we have to go via Lyon. Ça vous va?’
Chrissy nodded to Juliet. She wasted no time in clambering into the front seat with her rucksack, leaving Chrissy to get