by Chloe Rayban
Somehow I hadn’t expected Paris to be so like a picture postcard of Paris. It’s all cobbles and shutters and balconies, striped awnings and tables on the pavement. There are long tree-lined streets and everywhere people are dressed in a way that is just that indefinable bit smarter than England. I try to put my finger on what makes it all look so incredibly Parisian and come to the conclusion it’s to do with the signs in the street which have oddly French lettering. Typically, all of them seem to have something to do with food. My tummy rumbles as I think forlornly of those yummy ham baguettes. Marie-Christine is saying something to the driver and he is swerving to a halt at the roadside. We all spill out and she fumbles in her bag for money to pay him.
I pause on the kerbside and get my first whiff of Paris. It’s a curious mixture of cigarette smoke, roasted caramel and drains. I suddenly feel swamped by Frenchness. Paris is so over-the-top. It’s above and beside and all around me – all it lacks is a man with an accordion belting out ‘La vie en rose’.
But Marie-Christine isn’t pausing. Heedless of traffic, she is forcing her way across the street with the two of us in tow. Cars skid to a halt as she dices with death. She throws the drivers a dazzling smile and somehow all three of us make it safely to the far side and arrive at the doors of a restaurant. It’s a very smart restaurant. There’s a man outside in a big orange rubber apron holding a lethal-looking knife. He’s hard at work opening oysters. He’s piling them up on a great bank of crushed ice and seaweed along with a lot of other threatening-looking marine life which he’s arranged in a pattern like some kind of artwork. Inside the doorway Marie-Christine is greeted like an old friend by a waiter in a smart black suit and we are shown to a table.
I squeeze in beside Matthilde and take in the decor while she and her mother pore over the menu. A trip to a restaurant back home tends to be a big event like a birthday treat, and the places we’ve been to in Normandy are nowhere near as grand. The walls of this restaurant are covered with gilded mirrors and all the waiters have long white aprons. Marie-Christine is spreading a stiff starched napkin over my lap.
‘Thees place is very famous for seafood,’ she says. ‘You must choose something nice.’
The people at the table next to us have what looks like a triple-decker cake stand piled with some of the evillooking sea-creatures from the man outside. Displayed on the ice is a range of stuff I’ve only ever come across on the beach. Surely they can’t be eating sea urchins?
‘Do they have fish?’ I ask, hoping maybe to get off lightly with something like fish and chips. I’m not exactly an adventurous eater and the very sight of a shell or a feeler kind of makes my throat close up in shock.
I’m passed a menu where naturally everything is in French but I spot the word ‘sole’ which luckily for me is the same in both languages.
In the end Marie-Christine chooses a dozen oysters with a glass of white wine. Matthilde has a plate of huge prawns with a side salad and I have my sole which isn’t in batter and doesn’t come with chips but with steamed potatoes covered in butter and parsley.
Some time later, as I wipe my bread around the last of the butter, which it seems is an OK thing to do in France, I feel somewhat less apprehensive about French food. Maybe I’m not going to starve to death after all.
Conversation during the meal hasn’t been a problem either. Marie-Christine speaks almost perfect English and Matthilde seems to know quite a lot. But this brief interlude of normal communication is short-lived. Having finished her oysters, Marie-Christine puts down her napkin and checks her lipstick in her mirror, saying, ‘But, of course, we should speak French to ’Annah. You are here to learn French. No?’
‘Well yes, but …’
‘Uh-uh,’ she said, waving a finger at me.
‘I mean – oui.’
Chapter Two
The Poiriers’ flat is in an area of Paris called Les Invalides. Sounds really promising. As we climb out of a taxi, I’m relieved to see the people in the street look as able-bodied as anywhere else in Paris.
Their flat is in one of those typical tall French buildings with lots of fancy stonework and a frill of balconies at every window. We are taken up to the sixth floor in a creaking iron lift with a grille you have to work yourself. Mum had told me that both Marie-Christine and her husband are lawyers, so pretty rich. I hadn’t expected their place to be so old-fashioned.
Inside the apartment the place is so stark I wonder if maybe they’re redecorating. There are bare wooden floors, a lot of uncomfortable little antique chairs covered in cream linen and a couple of chests of drawers polished to a glossy finish. These seem to be having a style war with the strange modern paintings on the walls.
I followed Marie-Christine as she walked across to the windows and threw open the shutters. From the balcony there was a view over a stretch of grass set out with odd conical trees leading to a very large building with a dome.
‘That is where Napoleon is buried,’ said Marie-Christine, forgetting for a moment about speaking French. ‘You could go and see the tomb.’
Sounded like a load of fun. But I smiled politely and said, ‘Oh right – lovely!’
Marie-Christine then suggested I should go and unpack and I discovered the truly dire nature of my situation. The apartment only has two bedrooms, so Matthilde and I have to share. I was going to have to put up with Matthilde’s high and mighty down-the-nose expression twenty-four hours a day.
It seemed Matthilde wasn’t too wild about the idea either. She came and lay on her bed and read a book as I took stuff out of my holdall. She had grudgingly cleared two drawers for me and left a small space on one side of the dressing table. I arranged my hairbrush and make-up bag on the ten-centimetre square allotted to me, resolving to get dressed and undressed well away from her gaze, in the privacy of the bathroom.
I was trying to squeeze all my clothes in the drawers when, at the bottom of the holdall, I came across the new top and jeans I’d been planning to wear to the party. The sight of them brought on another wave of fury at the unfairness of it all. By rights I should be at Jess’s house now having a big hair and beauty session, preparing for tomorrow – catching up on all the gossip – probably in fits – Jess has a wicked sense of humour. Instead I was stuck here with Miss Poseur of the Year and the big event on the horizon was a trip to see a tomb.
I slammed the drawer shut with more force than absolutely necessary.
‘Di-don!’ said Matthilde, sitting up crossly on one elbow.
‘Sorry.’
Matthilde rolled her eyes and lay back on her pillow.
I sat down on my bed. I’d finished my magazine and didn’t have anything to read. Matthilde continued turning the pages of her book, seeming blithely unconscious of the fact that I had nothing to do. I sat there for some minutes wondering how on earth I was going to get through the next two weeks. Nowhere had ever felt so foreign. I might as well be planted on some distant planet and have to live with aliens. That’s when I remembered I’d promised Mum I’d call her up to say I’d arrived safely. I clicked open my mobile and selected her number, but when it dialled I got a nasty female French voice saying something unintelligible. I stared at my phone dumbly, realising it had something to do with international codes. No doubt Marie-Christine would know what to dial.
I ventured out into the hallway. I could hear Marie-Christine’s voice on the phone coming from somewhere down a corridor. I tracked it down to a tiny office. It was hardly more than a cupboard lined with books. Marie-Christine was seated in front of a laptop with a diary in her hand, intent on her call. Being used to Mum working, I knew better than to disturb her.
I went and hovered in the kitchen, I could have killed for a cup of tea. I wondered if they would be horribly offended if I made one – which was a bit of a challenge in Marie-Christine’s kitchen. It was so ultra-modern it had taken me a minute or two to work out the light switch. There was no sign of a kettle. At home everything was to hand, the kettle was out on the
worktop with the box of tea bags beside it, and the biscuit tin – biscuits! Here there wasn’t anything resembling food in sight. I started furtively to search through the cupboards. Strange, foreign packs came to light, nothing resembling tea bags. I leaned up and reached for a promisinglooking tin. This brought a cascade of cans and boxes tumbling down on my head. They fell to the floor with a horrible din and a bag of sugar burst open, spilling its contents everywhere. I froze.
Matthilde appeared in the doorway looking cross.
‘Kesketoofay?’ she demanded.
‘I was trying to make a cup of tea,’ I said weakly.
‘Kwa?’
‘Tea.’
Marie-Christine arrived behind her. ‘Keskiesepass?’ she asked.
‘I was trying to make tea and everything fell out.’ I could feel myself going scarlet with embarrassment.
‘Omapetite!’
‘Sorry, I’ll clear it up.’ I was shoving packs back into the cupboard as fast as I could, wondering desperately how I could sweep up the sugar.
‘No,’ said Marie-Christine. ‘Matthilde will do it.’ She then turned to Matthilde and said something at lightning speed in French, which I could only interpret as: ‘Why wasn’t she looking after me?’ Because with a dark look in my direction, Matthilde fetched a brush and pan from a cupboard and put a saucepan of water to heat on the stove.
Silently, she placed three packs in front of me. They had pictures of flowers and leaves on them, they didn’t look anything like tea. But I selected one called ‘Verveine’ and Matthilde took a bag out and dumped it in a cup. She poured boiling water on and I waited as the water turned faintly green. I took a sip. It tasted exactly how you’d imagine pee would taste. I didn’t dare ask for milk or sugar.
I took my ‘tea’ back to the bedroom where Matthilde had reinstalled herself on the bed complete with book and was once again ignoring me. It was at that point my mobile rang.
I clicked it open. It was Mum.
‘You OK?’
I considered the possible replies to this.
a) Yes, apart from having to share a room with a hostile alien.
b) And having to drink pee tea.
c) And missing out on tomorrow’s party, which I’ve been looking forward to for ever.
‘Yes fine, why?’ I snapped.
‘You promised you’d call as soon as you got there.’
‘We had lunch. Then I didn’t know the code.’
‘But you’re fine?’
‘Yes.’
‘And you’re getting along OK with Matthilde?’
I glanced across at Matthilde. She was still lying flat out on her bed treating me as if I was part of the wallpaper.
‘Yes,’ I snapped.
‘Doesn’t sound like it.’
‘Well, what do you think?’
‘Make an effort.’
‘I am.’
‘What’s their apartment like?’
‘Posh.’
‘Is that all?’
‘Very French.’
‘OK, I can see there’s no point in talking to you while you’re in this mood.’
‘I am not in a mood, Mum.’
‘I’ll ring you on Sunday, OK?’ Heartlessly she rang off.
I clicked my mobile shut.
Marie-Christine appeared in the doorway and said something incomprehensible to Matthilde. But whatever it was seemed to rouse her and she half-heartedly suggested that we: ‘Go see the tom’ of Napoleon?’
I shrugged. I wasn’t going to give her the satisfaction of leaping to attention. ‘If you like.’
‘No. Eez if you like.’
‘You decide.’
Matthilde rolled her eyes and closed her book. Grudgingly, she swung her legs over the side of the bed, raised herself to full height and reached for her jacket. I watched as she stood in front of the mirror, zipping up her jacket and winding her scarf with a professional flourish.
Once she’d finished admiring her reflection, she said, ‘OK, we go.’ I dragged on my coat and trailed after her. Tomb or no tomb, anything was better than sitting on my bed watching her reading her book.
Actually, as tombs go, Napoleon had one of the better ones. It was totally OTT, like a gi-normous marble sleigh bed on legs. Which explained the dome. Well, you’d have to have something pretty grand to go over a tomb like that. There was a balcony built round on which all these serious silent people stood respectfully looking down at the tomb. Down below there were plaques on the walls commemorating all the victories Napoleon had won in a really showing-off sort of way. Frankly, it made you want to shout ‘Trafalgar!’ really loudly.
Matthilde showed me round it seeming rather proud of a person I’d always been told was a cruel and ruthless dictator. But I guess if you were on his side, you’d see things differently.
We got back to find that Matthilde’s father was home. He opened the door to us and Matthilde made a great fuss of him, calling him ‘Papa’ in a sickly sweet tone that was positively puke-making. He was tall, balding slightly and wearing a smart grey business suit and the kind of cool designer steel-rimmed glasses you generally see on a younger person. He greeted me oozing fake charm, taking my hand and giving a little half bow over it as if he was going to kiss it or something. But I wasn’t going to fall for it. This was precisely what I’d been expecting – typical French behaviour – totally insincere.
‘But you are almost as beautifool as your motheur!’ he said.
‘Merci, monsieur,’ I said coolly, in response to this dubious compliment. Christ, I hope not: Mum’s well over forty!
Seeing as Matthilde’s father was back, it occurred to me that it was getting on for supper time. There was no sign of a meal being prepared. Marie-Christine was still at her desk and I wondered somewhat anxiously whether the lunch we’d had was going to be ‘it’. No wonder French people tend to be thinner than us. Back home around this time I’d be changing into my slippers, delving into the fridge, slumping down on the sofa in front of the telly. But it seemed there was going to be no kind of slumming it in this household.
‘Not “monsieur”, you must call me Pierre,’ Matthilde’s dad continued. ‘And how is your lovely motheur? I remember her well. In Grenoble. We were students together.’
I stared at him, trying to picture a younger, less bald Pierre, long-haired even – probably dressed in a polo neck and jeans, a Gitane no doubt glued between his fingers. And not yet married to Marie-Christine.
I followed him into the living room where he was mixing himself an aperitif. Matthilde had disappeared into our bedroom with her mobile. I was left alone with Pierre to be oozed at. He offered me a drink and when I refused, saying rather primly that I wasn’t allowed alcohol, he said, ‘But of course not, I was going to mix you something far more special.’
He went into the kitchen and came back with a long glass chinking with ice filled with what looked like orange juice with a splash of something red dissolving in it.
‘Orange et grenadine, tchin-tchin,’ he said, lifting his glass. ‘Come and sit down and tell me all about your motheur.’
‘Tchin-tchin,’ I said and took a sip. It was quite nice actually.
Why was he so interested in Mum? I eyed him suspiciously. Maybe he’d tried his charm on her. Way back in those student days they’d shared. Maybe he’d even snogged her! This thought made me feel kind of weird.
I told him how Mum was now working as a freelance translator and how she was at a conference in Amsterdam all next week. And I told him about Dad too. In fact, I laid it on a bit about Dad. I suddenly felt rather protective of him. Dad’s a history teacher at a not terribly successful comprehensive. It’s a nightmare job and he often comes home totally frazzled. But he actually gets some of his students into university, which is a bit of a victory in a school like his.
Pierre then asked me what I thought of our current Prime Minister and I suddenly found I was way out of my depth trying to come up with my own personal views on British p
olitics. But he kept up the fake charm, making a big play of listening to everything I had to say, giving the odd comment here and there, as if my opinions mattered.
By this time Marie-Christine had emerged from her office and promising sounds and smells had started to waft through from the kitchen. Matthilde appeared with a tablecloth and a pile of knives and forks and gave me one of her looks, which I interpreted as an invitation to help her. So I escaped from Pierre before I could display too much ignorance, to lay the table.
Dinner at the Poiriers’ was a far cry from Mum’s familiar spag bol and casseroles. We started with some strange little dishes shaped like the Shell symbol, filled with hot seafood in a creamy sauce which Marie-Christine said apologetically had come from someone who sounded extremely untrustworthy called a ‘traitor’. I did my best to force mine down with a lot of bread and hid the wibbly bit under my shell – it was bright orange and tasted of car tyres. Pierre insisted I had the tiniest sip of white wine in my glass as it was a special bottle from somewhere called ‘Alsace’ and very light.
I noticed that both Matthilde and Marie-Christine fussed around Pierre as if he were royalty. There was none of the free-for-all we had at home. It seemed Pierre’s only task was to look after the wine: to open it, to taste it and to pour it. After the first course, which they called the ‘entrée’, we had ‘bifstek’ and salad. The steaks looked lovely and brown on the outside but when you cut into them they were so raw they were all blood and jelly. I did my best to eat all the outside with loads more bread. I felt pretty full after all that bread but afterwards there was a huge plate of cheese and a yummy apple tart. So all in all I went to bed that night feeling totally stuffed.
I hoped to be asleep by the time Matthilde joined me. No such luck. Just as I was dropping off, she barged into the room. She spent ages at the dressing table doing stuff with cotton wool and cleansing lotion although as far as I could see she didn’t wear a speck of make-up. After that she had a long whispered conversation under the covers on her mobile then she reached for her book. I was really tired but I can never sleep with the light on. Whatever she was reading held her attention for a good half hour. Knowing the French it was probably something incredibly intellectual like Mum is always going on about, like Jean-Paul Sartre or Colette.