Yorkshire Writers' Lunch

  “There is nothing certain except that nothing is certain, And nothing more wretched than Man Or more arrogant.” Mattie had hated the school motto from the moment she first saw it. Her eyes were drawn to the stern, black letters, each a foot high, painted on the wall of the high-ceilinged dining hall.   She supposed they had been there for years and years. The plastered wall was cracked and patched under its whitewash, but the words were solid – forbidding and black as crows. She thought they must be repainted every year, ready to frighten a new intake of children. The motto was as stern and incomprehensible as the school itself, Mattie thought.   As she hurried up and down the bewildering staircases and along the endless corridors of identical wooden doors, the words whirled around in her mind in a tangle of double negatives. Did the motto mean that everything was certain, or that everything wasn’t? She felt like Alice in Wonderland, spinning as she fell down the rabbit...

      “Monsieur?” A tone of concern. I can hear his voice, but I’m face down on wet grass and can’t see the man. It takes a little time to get my limbs working. I turn and look up at him. He must be about sixty, balding, a small moustache which looks like it’s been painted on.     “Hello,” I say. In English.     “Are you OK? he asks. “Do you need a doctor?” Do I? There’s this feeling that I should stay away from any part of the system … that something has gone wrong … and until I find out what …     “No, thank you. I’m fine. Too much wine you know!” He looks doubtful. Perhaps I look bad but not in a drunk way. “But could you tell me where I am?”     “Sure. You must have had a good night! This is the Rue Maitre Albert. Notre Dame is just at the end of the street,” he says, turning to point the way. “With the rain overnight, it’s lucky you have a good waterproof.” A pity my jeans aren’t also waterp...