Ooh La La! Connie Pickles

by Sabine Durrant

  Madame Blanc, wearing rubber gloves (see observation two), came into the room as I was reading my book, shook Pascale awake and told her to get up, have breakfast (see observation one) and take me for a walk. It wasn’t that smooth a negotiation. There was a lot of shouting from Pascale and at one point she threw herself into the bathroom and locked the door. But in the end the two of us left the house together, so you have to assume she agreed.

  Once out, she marched off down the road, with me following behind, until we got to a square with a small market. Despite Pascale’s unfriendliness I felt a surge of excitement. It looked so colourful: stalls with piles of cheese and salami; red and white striped awnings; a boulangerie bristling with bread. The sun had been going in and out, but it felt warm for a moment. The pearl-white buildings turned silver. I would have skipped if it weren’t for the look of venom shot my way by Pascale. (Actually she’s right: skipping at my age – not a good look.)

  She wandered idly past a few stalls selling T-shirts and peasant skirts, pausing only to rifle through a basket of sale items, and then went out the other side, across the road past something called an auto-école and into a main shopping street. She went into the pharmacie. Rather feebly I followed. It smelt tangy and medicinal, like the stuff Delilah put on her ears after she’d had them pierced, or like some skin-explodingly expensive face cream.

  Pascale stood by the make-up counter and tried on a black lipstick.

  ‘Nice,’ I said in English. ‘Maybe a bit on the dark side?’

  She scowled and dusted on some powder.

  I started looking at the soaps and a few minutes later realized she’d left the shop.

  She was heading back up the main road the way we’d come. Just before we got to the square she went into something called HyperCasino, which was like a small mall with piped music and a supermarket at one end. I ran to catch up with her. She was flicking through a rail of embroidered kaftans.

  ‘Do you think we might go into Paris later?’ I said. My oral French isn’t bad – I’m in the top set at school and Mother has talked to me in French all my life. My written French is rubbish, which is why I’m writing everything here in English.

  She shrugged. Her shoulder bag – army surplus with lots of graffiti in black pen – seemed to be prodding into me.

  ‘Do you go into Paris often?’

  She shrugged again and moved off, past the small shops, through a door and back out on to the street.

  ‘Is it far to Paris?’

  She tutted and walked even faster. She was heading in the direction of home now. I stopped trying to keep up and trailed behind, feeling stupid and embarrassed. When I reached the house, she was standing on the doorstep being yelled at by a big man in a suit with a neatly cropped beard and small oval glasses. I couldn’t understand what he was saying, but he had hold of her khaki shoulder bag and was pulling items out.

  ‘This?’ he was saying. ‘And this? And this?’

  I recognized a slashed top she’d held against herself briefly in the market, and a black jumper I’d seen her look at in the mall, and the black lipstick from the chemist. I didn’t remember her paying for any of them.

  She saw me coming up and gabbled something shrilly. The man, who, I realized, must be her father, Monsieur Blanc, turned to me and said in perfect English, ‘Constance, nice to meet you. But is it correct? Pascale does not have the money. Is it true that you have purchased these items as gifts for her?’

  She was glaring at me. I was so cross with her I wanted to land her in it, but I also saw a chance to be her friend. ‘Yes, I did,’ I said. ‘I wanted to give something to Pascale to thank her for having me.’

  Monsieur Blanc rubbed his hand over his face wearily. Then he jerked his chin at Pascale. ‘OK,’ he said. ‘Inside.’

  Madame Blanc was standing in the hallway in her rubber gloves, looking flustered. Pascale and I went past her and came upstairs to Pascale’s room.

  ‘You can thank me if you like,’ I said when she’d opened her cupboard to reveal a mirror and started trying on her new top. I got my French dictionary out from my rucksack and flicked through. ‘I don’t like lying much.’

  ‘My father doesn’t like me,’ she said. ‘He only likes Philippe, my brother.’

  ‘I’m sure he does like you,’ I told her. And, with the help of my French dictionary, I said, ‘At least you’ve got one. Mine was killed when I was little. A motorbike accident. He was delivering pizzas.’

  ‘Oh, that’s so sad,’ she said, sitting down on her bed. After that, I managed to ask her – doing an imitation of her stalking down the road – why she had been so horrible to me. And she managed to tell me that she hadn’t wanted an English exchange, that her father had made her because her grades were so bad last term. She said she didn’t think we had much in common. ‘Your clothes,’ she said, wincing, ‘are bizarre.’

  I said, ‘Literature?’ She said she’d put that on the end of the form because her teacher had made her.

  I said, ‘Madame Bovary?’ and she said, ‘Madame who?’

  ‘Oh,’ I said sadly.

  I asked her where her father had been, and she said away on business. He supplies furniture to hotels, which involves a lot of travel. Pascale told me one of her brothers, the youngest, is on a school trip to the Dordogne – back next weekend; the other, the eldest, had been at a friend’s for the night and would be home later today.

  ‘Didier – the eldest – is dull,’ she said. ‘But Philippe you will love. Everyone loves Philippe.’

  I told her all about how my mother was French, and explained a bit about my grandparents, thinking that she might be able to help me track them down.

  I got the piece of paper with their address on out of my pocket and showed it to her. She widened her eyes and whistled. She said it was a chic arrondissement. She said she’d take me after lunch. I don’t know if I’ll be able to eat anything now. I feel sick with anticipation.

  ‘And do you have a boyfriend?’ she asked as we were about to go downstairs.

  I began to tell her about William: how he’s a really good friend and how we did kiss once by accident but that I blew it by running away and that he’s now going out with my next-door neighbour… but my French began to go all wonky and so I finished quickly and just said, ‘So, no. No. You?’

  She has apparently. He’s called Eric and he’s already left school, but her parents don’t like him. ‘You’ll see him tonight at the party,’ she said.

  What party?

  Bathroom, 6 p.m.

  Quick update while Pascale is putting on her make-up for tonight.

  After I’d written the above we went down for lunch. Monsieur Blanc was sitting at one end of the table, reading his paper. Madame Blanc was sitting cowed and downtrodden at the other. The television was on – showing some news programme – and she got up at one point to switch it off. Monsieur Blanc snapped at her and she switched it back on. The atmosphere after this was tense. We ate: steak; fried potatoes; salad – served one after another in a row. Monsieur B asked me questions in perfect, very precise English. Madame B, who doesn’t seem to speak a word of English, did all the serving and clearing. I often think how nice it would be if Mother stayed at home and didn’t have to work, but I don’t think she’d like a life like Madame B’s. Monsieur B didn’t help with the washing-up. I think he’s that sort of man.

  I’ve smiled so much today my face aches. It’s exhausting being a guest in a strange family’s home. I’m not sure I’ll ever feel relaxed around the Blancs.

  After lunch Pascale and I set off for Paris. We walked to the RER, which is like a suburban train. It’s ten stops to Châtelet-Les Halles and it takes twenty-five minutes. At first you’re above ground – you see lots of houses with shutters, and shops and cars (small cars, not all those horrible four-wheel drives you get in London), but once you’re at Nation it goes underground and dark. You feel like you’re burrowing into the city like a mouse. Châtelet-Les Halles, this dark,
scary underground concourse, is full of lots of other mice, all going in different directions.

  I’d have turned round and gone back the way I’d come if I hadn’t been with P – I had to run to keep up but at least she knew where she was going. We pushed our way through the throng, through some barriers, and down to another platform where we got Line 4, which is plum-coloured, to Saint-Germain-des-Prés. There were fewer people here, like an ordinary tube station. We got the escalator up into the open air and – there! – my first view of Paris. Beautiful, tall grey-white buildings with wrought-iron balconies, cobbled streets and pavements, mopeds driven by men in suits, red geraniums in pots, chic shops, chic women, a lovely church with a garden, dogs on leads, high heels, pigeons, cafes…

  Pascale set off down a road with Dior on the corner but stopped halfway down to enter a smart jewellery shop. We both had a browse and when we came out she collared a tall, thin man with a tiny dog – a bit like a poodle, only smaller and fluffier. He gave us directions to my grandparents’ apartment while the dog sniffed my trousers. (I’m sure I’ve washed them since I bought them in Cancer Research.) The dog yapped as we set off and when I turned round the man was still looking at us. I suppose we were a funny sight, Pascale in her goth black and buckles, me in my charity-shop men’s trousers. Mind you, a man with that small a canine companion looks a bit odd himself. Cultural observation: in London, people are more size-conscious when it comes to dogs.

  We left the main road and wandered down a few side streets – all equally Parisian and gorgeous – until we were standing outside a large, smart white-stone building with a striped awning over the porch.

  ‘Voilà!’ said Pascale. I grabbed her and pulled her over to the wall. There was a man in uniform standing by the main entrance.

  ‘Oh my God,’ I breathed. ‘Mon Dieu, I mean. I’m so nervous.’

  She shrugged and said, ‘Well, let’s leave,’ but I said no, that now I was here I wanted to do it. So, I went up to the man, plucked up my courage, and said, ‘Bonjour. Je cherche Madame et Monsieur de Bellechasse.’

  He said, ‘Pardon?’

  At which point Pascale intervened and started gabbling away far too fast for me. I think she might have been telling him about my mother and my whole story because at one point he lowered the sides of his mouth, and when a motorbike screeched past they both winced. Anyway, at the end of it he said something that I could tell wasn’t very hopeful by the accompanying shrug and Pascale said: ‘They’re not here.’

  I must have looked as shattered as I felt because the concierge said in English, ‘I am sorry.’

  I felt really tired suddenly – the exhaustion of travelling to Belgium and back and all the smiling since seemed to catch me up at the back of my legs. I would have just gone straight back to Pascale’s house if she hadn’t pulled a notebook and a pen out of her shoulder bag and they both hadn’t just stood there watching me.

  In the end I wrote the note in English.

  Dear Madame and Monsieur de Bellechasse,

  You don’t know me, but I am Constance your granddaughter. My mother is Bernadette who you haven’t seen for all these years. She wrote to you recently, but you never contacted us. I am in Paris for a fortnight, staying with my French exchange family in La Varenne. Their phone number is: 42.88.56.01. I am fourteen. I would love to meet you while I am here.

  Yours truly,

  Constance (Pickles)

  PS You may have heard my father is dead. Mother married again and had Cyril and Marie. Unfortunately she is now divorced. Please don’t be cross.

  We came straight back here after that. I felt too tired and tearful to do any sightseeing and Pascale was twitchy about getting ready for tonight’s party, which I still don’t know much about.

  Her eldest brother Didier was in the house when we got home. He’s got glasses – little ones with no rims – and hair you only see in those pictures in old-fashioned barber shops, almost impossibly neat. Clear complexion, full lips, triangular brown eyes rather like a dog’s, and a surprisingly deep voice. He shook my hand and said, ‘How do you do?’ in English when we were introduced. Monsieur Blanc was being irritable with Madame Blanc for having thrown away a newspaper or something and I saw Didier put his arm round her in the kitchen, whisper in her ear and help her go through the bins.

  Later, when we were having a snack (some little fruit tarts from the boulangerie), he said to me, ‘So, you haven’t met Philippe?’

  I said no.

  ‘Philippe you will love,’ he said.

  Isn’t it funny how nothing is more likely to put you off someone than people telling you you’ll like them?

  So, now there’s this party to go to. I’m not sure I want to go. But I am sure I don’t want to stay behind with Pascale’s parents. I feel embarrassed and tense just being in the room with them. I wonder when my grandparents will ring. I wish I could see Julie. She’d tell me to go to this party, wouldn’t she? Pascale is out of the bathroom. She’s wearing a necklace – a purple cross on a thick gold chain. I could swear we saw it in that shop we went into today.

  I will go to this party. I will be poised. I will be mysterious. I will be the cool, detached English girl who everybody wants to meet. I will be the ambassadress of London.

  Chapter Four

  New vocab: se peloter (to get off with each other)

  Sunday 30 March

  My bed in Pascale’s bedroom, 11 a.m.

  Err. Agh. Blughhhhh. What exactly is Pernod?

  Still my bed, 11.15 a.m.

  Oh God. The events of last night are beginning to unfurl in my head. I can never show my face in La Varenne again.

  Kitchen, 12 noon

  I’ve staggered downstairs into the pristine kitchen, where I am humming to conjure the illusion that I am on top of the world (as opposed to squashed underneath it). I have gagged my way through a bowl of hot chocolate and am now picking at a piece of dry baguette. Madame and Monsieur are at church. Didier is opposite me at the table reading a book called Sartre et l’existentialisme and keeps shooting me amused glances over the top of it.

  We didn’t go straight to the party. We got a bus and went to a bar where Pascale met up with lots of girls and boys she knew. Someone handed me some Pernod, which tasted disgusting like liquorice, but which I sipped to keep my hands busy. No one talked to me, but they stared a lot. One of the girls – in tight stone-washed jeans and a matching denim jacket – kept looking at me and laughing like a fly trapped under a glass. Pascale and Eric, who has greasy black hair, wears leathers and looks about eighteen, played baby-foot. I stood next to them trying to look interesting. I was hoping there would be people from Pascale’s school and there might be some kids from Woodvale with them, but there weren’t. They all seemed a bit older.

  Finally we left the bar. To my horror, Pascale got on to the back of Eric’s motorbike and roared off, leaving me to mill on to a bus with the others. It all started seeming a bit surreal. A boy in shorts and sneakers sat next to me, taking up all the room with his legs wide apart, and asked me questions very loudly, then shouted to his friends over my answers. Luckily quite soon everybody started crowding to the door and we got off. There was a little alley and down the end of it was a sort of scout hut, from which came the sounds of a party. Inside was a jukebox and a table covered in bottles of beer, and a lot of people dancing. Pascale was sitting on Eric’s knee at a table in the corner and when I went up she said something to make the others laugh. She wasn’t an ally any more. It stopped feeling like an adventure. I was wearing a dress I had found in Trinity Hospice – red and white polka-dot satin – with some purple tights and the shoes Julie calls my lesbian lace-ups. Before we left, I’d thought I looked Bohemian, but now I was here, with everybody else in jeans and polo shirts, I felt like a child in fancy dress who’d wandered into the wrong party.

  I left Pascale’s table and went over to the table where the drinks were. A boy who’d been one of the most energetic dancers came over to me. He h
ad an interesting face: a cross between an axe murderer and a teddy bear. He was dripping with sweat and his T-shirt was cut off so you could see the hair under his arms. He started trying to make conversation – which was hard over the music and without my dictionary – and was pouring me more of that gross Pernod stuff. He was called François. I was trying to be all poised and ambassadress-like, telling him about Woodvale and my plans for GCSE, but the more I sipped, the more the sound in the room began swirling in my ears, and the bodies gyrating looked like strobes and I couldn’t concentrate. The next thing I knew I was on the dance floor and François was prodding the air above me and yanking my arms up and down until I started giggling and thought I was going to fall over. In fact I did fall over and François gathered me up and put his tongue in my mouth.

  It took me a few minutes to come to my senses and pull away. It was technically my third kiss and maybe because of the Pernod I am prepared to give it seven and a half out of ten.

  Previous scores

  That boy at the youth club last summer: 5/10 William two weeks ago: 8/10 (would have been higher but points taken off for embarrassment)

  ‘Merci,’ I said, smiling politely, in the manner of an ambassadress. I meant ‘merci for picking me up off the floor’ but François seemed to think I meant ‘merci for kissing me’, because he lunged at me and did it again. This time I said, ‘Non, non, non,’ – a firm ambassadress – and went over to the wall. I slightly misjudged it and banged my shoulder (bruise this morning). François followed and tried to do it again.