I am sitting in that unsettled state of a traveller ready an hour early to depart, in my case for Roissy airport, to catch a flight to San Francisco. Bags, closed but unzipped or open, waiting for the last minute item surround me. I am still in my nightgown, clothes laid out on the bed. The window is open, shutters still open. What have I forgotten? Nothing, I think, though I could easily be wrong given the rather haphazard nature of my packing yesterday. The plane takes off at 4pm and arrives in San Francisco around 6 pm. Here it is cool and grey, another thunderstorm perhaps brewing like the one that hit the lightening rod of the church across the street and made me jump — I was coming home from a last minute errand, hurrying because the drops had begun to thicken, and when I was still a block from home, then it poured down; I sheltered under an overhang of the altar end of the church, and crackle bang! the lightening hit. Also, military planes were flying low over the city at about the same moment, practicing for Bastille Day on the 14th.

I am travelling with 20 copies of my new collection Apple Thieves (Carcanet, UK), not officially published till August 29, but in print and on websites, including Carcanet’s I haven’t yet worked up the nerve to read past the first section. I need to gauge my mood before I continue reading, one section at a time. I am sorry to leave Paris. But then, once I’m in California, where I have family, I’ll be glad to be there.

I hear a rustle like rain beginning, the silence.

Beverley Bie Brahic