Audrey Runs In Paris

"Audrey runs in Paris" was the slogan on the back of a woman's black tee-shirt. We were boarding the 8 line metro at Bastille. It was so early, the only people out were going somewhere for their morning run.

"Audrey". It's an interesting girl's name: classic without having overtones of social class, rare but not unusual. You've heard the name more often than you've met girls called Audrey, because you've seen the poster for Breakfast At Tiffanies so many times. Audrey Hepburn was nothing like the characters she played but made you believe she was. It's a brave parent who christens their daughter Audrey. An Audrey is going to be good at her job and responsible without being serious, with a suggestion that she might just be a little more fun than the Fun Girl in the next booth.

"Runs". Not walk, stroll, daydream, swim, take taxis or buses. Not hide, work, play, party or get stoned. She might do all those things, but what she wants you to know about her is that she runs. Exercises, glides over the pavement in her Nikes, sweats lightly and politely, and she runs somewhere particular, that she needs to take the 8 line to get to.

"In Paris". She's an American in Paris. She runs in Paris, and you are just visiting. She runs here, so she works and lives here. She's on the metro in the east, so she lives in one of the arondissements, not in the banlieues. Maybe she works in banking, or fashion, or perhaps as for one of the French companies that own the bits of the UK that the Spanish don't own.

"Runs in Paris". She runs in Paris - and Paris is not where people go to run. They go to shop, to look at the art, to bathe in the atmosphere, to listen to the organ recital Sunday at Saint Sulpice, to walk by the Seine, to walk in the parks and stroll round the markets, to sit in the sidewalk cafes and eat in the restaurants. But Audrey runs in Paris. Audrey does unconventional things, and running Paris is one of them. Perhaps she dances to drum-and-bass, and is into Wittgenstein, and white fish recipies, and plays Earl Hines and Art Tatum CD's in her flat, and only watches Jacques Rivette movies on her iPad.

One day she will know it's time to go back to the States, and then Audrey will run in Central Park when she does, but until then, "Audrey runs in Paris".