Drove for miles and miles, past les vaches et les four-wheelers et Monsieur Muffler et Le Future Store, and finally crossed the mighty Fleuve St.-Laurent, and now here we lie, in a beige room on Rue Guy, a mere block away from the Bar Barn. Last night, as the Farine Five Roses sign flashed outside the window and James attempted to watch "South Park" in French and Tom attempted to watch "Carrie" in French, I lay on my side of the beige bed and read Rumer Godden's The Greengage Summer. We had just returned from the Italian restaurant where we had accidentally eaten dinner, and which had accidentally had turned out to be charming and more like Rome than anywhere I'd been since Rome. We'd ordered a bottle of wine; and when the waiter returned with it, he just naturally filled James's glass . . . and so that was very exciting as a birthday present, let me tell you: to be 16 years old in Montreal lifting your first glass of wine to the amused "Saluts!" of your parents. He ended up drinking hardly any of it, but the small caveat of not-really-liking-wine-yet did not take the shine off the occasion, not at all.