The Girls from See Saw Lane (28 page)

T
here are
674 steps to the second level of the Eiffel Tower. I know because I counted as I climbed and I dedicated each step to my friend Mary Pickles.

It was a bitterly cold day, February. Paris was ice-cold, stone-cold, everything grey and hard, even the pigeons that fluttered from the eaves were grey, as if they had been carved from concrete.

After I left the hotel that morning, I walked through the city streets, along wide grey pavements, weaving amongst people wrapped up in coats and fur collars, hats pulled over their ears and scarves wrapped over their mouths and noses. It was a cold unlike any cold I'd ever felt in Brighton. There was something exhilarating about it. It was different. Everything was different in this city of dreams.

I saw a man with an organ grinder and a monkey. I saw a woman lean over the railings of a bridge and throw roses into the water below. I saw a man on a bicycle with a trombone strapped to his back.
Mary would have loved this,
I thought, and I smiled and I tucked my hands into my pockets and my chin into my collar.

The light from the cafes and bars was warm golden-yellow. It spilled on the grey, ice-cold pavements, and through the windows I could see waiters carrying trays at shoulder-height and serving coffee and pastries to the men and women who sat at the tables. The grey-blue smoke from their cigarettes curled through the warm colours inside the cafe, through the mirrors and the chandeliers, the reds and the golds and the greens of the paintings on the walls, ornate and gorgeous in their gilt frames.

I noticed everything. I tried to remember everything. I put it safe in my heart, for Mary.

I walked through those wide streets, past those grand, tall buildings with their little wrought-iron balconies, I walked along the side of the Seine, grey and oily, to the Eiffel Tower. And then I climbed the 674 steps to the second stage.

Up there the air was even colder. Up there I felt a million miles from home. I felt as if I could stretch out my arms and take a deep breath and fly; I would fly away. I would fly to Mary.

The city lay beneath me, neatly laid out as if somebody had drawn it on a sheet of paper, the river winding through, the islands and the church towers, the squares and parks, the magic of the place.

I walked around the second level, buffeted by a rough wind. I saw Paris from every angle, and then I got into a little creaky lift and a man in a uniform cranked the door closed and took me up to the top. The lift cage rattled and creaked as it climbed. I thought of the chains and wheels pulling me up in the little cage. I thought of the wind that blew through across the city. I thought how little control we had over any of it. There was nothing we could do but accept what came to us.

The top of the Eiffel Tower is smaller than you'd imagine, a balcony that runs around the top of the tower, but oh, the views! The gardens below stretching out into the distance and the streets that run parallel. In the far distance, the city meets the clouds at the horizon. In the end, I thought, everything goes to where it is supposed to be. My breath shrouded my face. I held onto the railings and I gazed out.

This had been Mary's dream, not mine. It was Mary who had always wanted to come to Paris with the boy she loved. It had been Mary who wanted to climb to the top of the Eiffel Tower, Mary who wanted to see what I was seeing, to do what I was doing, to live the life I was living.

This had never been my dream. All I had ever wanted was to marry Ralph Bennett and for us to have a family together and to grow old with him in our council flat in Brighton.

I missed Mary so badly I felt as if my heart was breaking. I gazed out at the sights she would never see and I thought of how it would be if she was here.

‘This is all for you, Mary,' I whispered.

I imagined her hand on my arm, I imagined her smile, and for a moment it was as if she was there, beside me, looking at the view with me.

‘Wow,' she whispered, in my mind, ‘isn't this fab! Isn't it just simply as absolutely incredibly amazingly fabulous as I told you it would be?

Fighting back the tears I looked out over Paris.

‘Yes my dearest friend, this is as absolutely incredibly amazingly fabulous, as you told me it would be.'

T
hank
you so much for reading my book
The Girls from See Saw Lane
. Brighton in the 1960s was truly amazing. It was a wonderful time to be a teenager.

It was a time of coffee bars, frothy coffee, the Beatles, the pier, and the pebbly beach. I hope that my story has given you a sense of that time and that place.

I wrote about friendship because all my life my friends have been so important to me, and still are. I hope that you have grown to love the characters of Dottie and Mary as much as I do.

Thank you for reading my book. I hope that you have enjoyed reading it as much as I have loved writing it.

If you have enjoyed it, can I ask you to leave a short review? As a new writer it would be really helpful. If you would like to know what happens next, the sequel to
The Girls from See Saw Lane
is entitled
Counting Chimneys
and will be out in Spring 2016.

To keep right up-to-date with the latest news on my new releases just sign up here:

http://www.bookouture.com/sandy-taylor/

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S
o many people to thank
: my amazing children and grandchildren, Kate, Bo, Iain, Kerry, Millie, Archie and Emma, for all the joy and love they give to me. My brothers and sisters, Margaret,  Paddy, John and Marge, for always being there and being proud of my writing. All my friends, for their encouragement and belief that I would one day get a book out there.

Louie and Wendy, with love always. `My talented friend Lesley for her ongoing support and help. Richenda Todd, for her invaluable insight and help in the early drafts of this book. The team at Bookouture: my  publicist Kim Nash, thank you for your warm welcome to the Bookouture family, and my lovely editor Claire Bord, for taking this book to the place where it needed to be. Last but not least to my amazing agent Kate Hordern for seeing something in my little story and taking a chance on me ( Bad grammar and all). You are not only a wonderful agent but a friend. Thank you.