HE IS 2ft 4in (71cm) long, distinctly pudgy, and speaks no known language. At
present, because he is teething, he has an alarming habit of grabbing his
bare feet, stuffing them in his mouth, and sucking his toes. His name is
Rafe, and he is my seven-month-old son. Having just spent a holiday in
France with him, I can vouch for his sterling qualities as a companion on
the road. And my wife and I have found, to our surprise and pleasure, that
we get distinctly better treatment when he travels with us.
This was not the first time in his short life that Rafe had been abroad: he
flew to Monte Carlo in April, and to Sharm el-Sheikh in Egypt in June. My
wife, Dee, and I have always led a wandering life, and Rafe is to some
extent condemned to share it.
But we compensate by ensuring that we keep to his routine wherever we are. So
even when he was hurtling towards Paris on a train at the start of our
holiday he slept and had a nappy change and ate his meals at the correct
times. As a result, he was immensely jolly, grinning at everyone around him
and chewing his disreputable elephant with its rubber feet.
When we arrived at the Gare du Nord in Paris it all paid off. There were six
of us in our family party, and I was dubious about our chances of getting a
couple of taxis quickly to transfer us to the Gare Montparnasse for the
train to Bordeaux. Not at all: the man in charge of marshalling the taxi
queue spotted me carrying Rafe in his baby pouch and summoned us to the head
of the long line.
“But there are six of us,” I told him. “Pas de problème,
monsieur,” the man said, and summoned two taxis. No one in the queue
said anything; a baby is a higher trump card than even a wheelchair or a
pair of crutches.
The high-speed TGV to Bordeaux was less successful. It was full, and the only
way we could get everyone into the same compartment was to venture into
first class — more expense. Even then we had to sit separately. Dee and the
baby took over a little four-person “silent” compartment, occupied by a man
who had clearly hoped to read his Le Monde in peace and quiet.
“Silent” became a relative term for him. Rafe was at his jolliest: gurgling,
smiling, chewing everything within reach, and occasionally filling his nappy
with single-minded intensity.
Dee felt she couldn’t change the nappy on the empty seat beside her, for fear
of freaking out M. Le Monde altogether; so she set off in search of the
advertised place where she could do the job. It was three long, full
carriages away, and swaying at high speed through the centre of France with
a baby was both alarming and dangerous.
So we were tired and fractious when we arrived. The mood wasn’t helped at the
Hertz car rental desk. A woman who clearly loved to say no sat behind the
desk, explaining to two elderly Dutch women why their credit cards weren’t
acceptable. I made a certain amount of play with the baby as I stood there
waiting: unlike the taxi queue, it didn’t work. At last she rented us a car.
It turned out to have a slow puncture, and the spare tyre was of a different
make from the rest.
But the house we had taken was beautiful. Every other year Dee and I take a
house in the French countryside and invite friends to join us. By the time
all 12 had assembled, the boiler had broken down and we had to wash in cold
water for four days. Rafe likes his bath, but he was as stoical as ever. I
was less so. Negotiating with French plumbers is not my thing.
Once the hot water was restored, though, we had a relaxed couple of weeks
before heading back to Paris. Dee and I have a small flat there, in the 7th,
and this was Rafe’s first visit to his patrimony.
Thirty-two years ago I took my two daughters to Paris, and for one reason or
another things were not nearly so easy. Perhaps the fundamental difference
was my age: people expect a man of 30 to have children, and to be able to
deal with them on his own. With a man of 62 there is a curiosity factor,
which breeds interest and sympathy. Perhaps, too, they think I am too broken
down to be able to deal with him. There are times when I would agree.
Three decades later, having a baby proved to be an immense advantage. We were
walking along the Avenue Montaigne in the pouring rain, when we realised it
was time to feed him and change his nappy. So we turned into the Hôtel Plaza
Athénée, soaked and refugee-like under the critical gaze of the doorman, and
dripped our way across the lobby to the lounge.
A beautiful young woman in a severe uniform took a half-step forward, but her
face softened when she saw Rafe. She showed us to a rather prominent table,
peeled our wet coats off us, and wheeled his muddy pushchair into position
for his feed. The maître d’, grand as the Archbishop of Paris, frowned at
the sight of us, but relented when Rafe grinned at him. The atmosphere was
improved when I ordered two glasses of rosé Champagne; I suppose it made us
seem a little less like Kosovans.
Rafe’s little tub of spinach and fish was heated to the right temperature.
Someone brought a tiny silver spoon to feed him with. Waiters cooed around
us. The archbishop beamed, even when Rafe’s mouth was covered in greenish
slime.
People asked us how old he was, and what his name was, and if that was the
same as “Raphael”. He smiled at them all and kicked his fat little legs and
gurgled, and as a result they treated us like film stars.
Late that afternoon, I took Rafe out to buy a bottle of wine for dinner. In
the past, Dee and I would have gone to a restaurant, but now we have to stay
in and watch a film instead. It was still raining. This time he was in his
pouch or, as Dee and I call it, his pod. (Carrying him in it is known as
pod-casting.)
The rain lashed us as we walked along, so I buttoned my coat around him and
left just his little head sticking out below mine. It wasn’t until I saw our
reflection in a shop window that I realised how weird we looked: like a
two-headed giant. Until then I assumed the people who stared were simply
taken with Rafe’s charm.
Our local wine merchant’s is a grand place, and the man who runs it is even
grander. It was at that point that I realised I scarcely had any money with
me. “What’s the best bottle of bordeaux for 12 euros?” I asked. He wasn’t a
bit fazed, either by the question or by the strange two-headed creature it
came from. He pulled out an excellent bottle of Haut-Médoc. “I think you
will enjoy this,” he said. “And so will the young man.” I used to assume
that a baby would make travelling more difficult. Not a bit of it. If I
could, I would take him everywhere. As a companion, he is simply unbeatable.
John Simpson’s Days from a Different World (Pan
Macmillan, £7.99) will be published on September 18.
