C'est Modnifique!: Adventures of an English Grump in Rural France, page 21
'I'm going to grab him in a minute,' I said to Natalie loudly, there being no need for whispering when no-one else is likely to be able to understand you.
'He has to redouble next year…' Natalie said, by way of explanation. Meaning that the kid was being held back a year and would have to re-do the previous school year because he was either thick or has behavioural issues. I'm not surprised, frankly, with such blatant disregard for sensitive footwear, if I had my way he'd be held back every year. Most of the kids were well behaved, but too many children in France, far too many in my opinion, are forced to wear the kind of glasses that even a 1980s kids' TV presenter would baulk at. In my day, there were NHS glasses, bottom-of-a-jam-jar thickness and held together with plasters – they were bad enough, but here it seems to be the in thing to have your five-year-old wear luminous, enormous eyewear that an early Elton John would have regarded as a bit outré. Poor kids, they look at you through these optical monstrosities with a kind of pleading look in their magnified eyes that just screams 'Help me!'
The performance began with the muffled strains of the Mission Impossible theme tune, surely an irony, as two dozen four-year-olds dressed as pigs were pushed on to the stage. The thing is that these things are compulsory and not everyone wants to be up there, so seeing a number of the porcine troupe in floods of tears was a very long way from joy indeed. Thérence thrives on these things, but he was at the back and as he was also by far the smallest he was lost behind the emotional frailty that was literally breaking up in front of him. I was sitting unhelpfully behind a concrete pillar, being jostled by parents recording the thing on their phones like aggressive paparazzi, unable to hear anything beyond the wails of crying children in brightly coloured fancy dress… and it was only the first of four acts.
The expected 'sound' problems took their toll early on. The audience, and we are among the older parents at this school, were unable to hear much and were losing attention fast. Some of them, barely out of school themselves, were behaving like they were back in assembly and pretending to be quiet while bothering others, and one young dad was actually pulling the pigtails of a 'mum' he'd obviously known since they were the same age as the kids on stage. It all felt horribly chaotic around me – like I said, I'm not good at being in an audience – and I left my seat to go and stand elsewhere in the playground.
As I did so the final act started and was the work of the eldest class in the nursery school. The barnyard theme had been abandoned for these children, who were improbably dressed in Union Jack ties and singing an English song. It looked like UKIP doing Bugsy Malone. Some people turned around to look at me, now standing alone at the back and dressed in what they call around here 'So Briteesh', it was as if they thought I'd influenced the choice of material.
Unfortunately, the kids here had the toughest slot. They were closing the show, the audience had largely lost interest and the sound was as unhelpful as it could be – comedians may fill in the Jongleurs venue of their choice at this point – it all felt slightly harrowing and I started to think about the hen and stag do, city-centre, weekend stand-up gigs I myself was about to leave for back in England. I really did not want this kind of future for my children, I thought moodily and unnecessarily, but then I only had one more weekend to do myself, then it would be les grandes vacances for me too.
A Very Cordial Entente
On the Paris metro I'd recently seen a poster advertising English lessons, and the main picture was of a man with comically black eyes and cuts to his face, the thrust of the message being that if you don't learn English properly you'll get a good kicking. It seems a little strong to me, but in her continuing effort to bring peace and linguistic harmony to the world, Natalie's English lessons were going from strength to strength.
As well as setting up English clubs, offering private tuition and volunteering at local schools, she was also now advertising, despite my curmudgeonly misgivings, intensive 'language holidays', where a student would stay with us for a week, be immersed in the full 'English' experience and have their language skills improved as part of the bargain.
I was a bit dubious at first as I saw it, not without good reason, as a preliminary step on the road from relentless animal adoption to fostering human waifs and strays, which is all very laudable and that, but way beyond my capabilities. Henri, however, a 14-year-old from Paris, duly arrived as our first guinea pig so we set about being as English as possible.
The language was no problem for us, obviously, but we also had to 'English-up' everything else. I'd planned an English menu (the kitchen being my domain) of sausage and mash, fish and chips, roast beef and yorkshire pudding, chicken tikka masala, belly of pork and the like, also introducing the lad to the delights of specialist cuisine Anglaise like Worcester sauce crisps, Wotsits and Twiglets, Dairy Milk, pork scratchings and proper non-fancy, dry as a bone, long-distance sea voyage-type biscuits. The boys also did their bit by playing English games – for example, Henri arrived in the same week that the Ashes cricket began, so they opened a recently purchased cricket set and introduced him to the delights of a sweetly timed cover drive and silly mid-off, while Test Match Special crackled contentedly in the background. The cricket didn't last long, as Henri, bigger and older than our boys took to the game with great gusto and kept belting the ball back over the bowler's head and into the fields beyond, probably to a watching Girresse's annoyance. In the evening we watched James Bond films with English subtitles to help with Henri's grammar.
In short, the week we had planned couldn't have been more English, unless we'd taught him how to bottle up his emotions, drive on the left-hand side of the road and get drunk, throw up and then carry on drinking. He kept a diary, in English, every day and also had one-on-one lessons in Natalie's classroom, and the improvement in his language skills and therefore confidence was encouraging to see. He also got a very intensive language lesson from me when, investigating the 'noise' coming from the orchard, he found me swearing like the Norse God of Swear at a peach tree. The offending tree, while not producing fruit for two years had now produced so much that its main branch had become too heavy and snapped off; I was understandably furious and gave full Anglo-Saxon invective to the bloody thing while Henri looked on, his head cocked to one side like a confused puppy.
If this was the most English of weeks, though, we were up against some pretty strong French competition as they were countering our Rosbifs-James Bond-cricket mix with two of the most potent symbols of 'Frenchness' going, the Tour de France and Bastille Day. The plan was to go and see le Tour pass by a local town, about twenty minutes away, but in order to do that I had to make it back from London in time. I was hosting a corporate awards ceremony in London on the Thursday night but was due to be on a ferry to Dunkerque at 2 a.m. and land in France at 5 a.m.. It would then take seven hours or so to drive home before immediately leaving to get a place by the roadside in time to see the whole thing pass by. The fact that I made it home without stopping and on time, though wild-eyed and buzzing, just goes to show that Lance Armstrong was indeed correct, the Tour de France is simply impossible without the use of drugs. I had so many artificial caffeine stimulants rattling about inside me I think I could have ridden the stage myself.
We found a spot on the roadside just in time to see the caravane pass by first. I didn't know what this was, and they don't show it on the television coverage, but it's basically a long procession of sponsored vehicles, newspapers, sportswear companies, estate agents, everything you can think of, which pass by about an hour before the riders themselves. The cars and vans are quite often customised: for example in the shape of a can of drink or with giant, and recognisable, advertising figures on the roof of the vehicles, and they play loud music and shout advertising slogans at you as they pass by at some considerable speed. It's like a carnival with 'floats' all urging you to buy stuff but it also makes it look like the Tour de France warm up is a heavily branded episode of Wacky Races as they pass by trying to drum up atmosphere.
Their velocity isn't their most dangerous ruse however, but that they throw 'goodies' from their vehicles, branded goodies obviously, and at you too. It's said that the Isle of Man TT Motorbike Race is one of the most dangerous spectator events in the world, well standing at the side of the road as dozens of vehicles pass by at high speed while launching an assortment of keyrings, pens, hats, madeleines and the like in your direction is a pretty hazardous exercise too, I can tell you. It's a health and safety nightmare. A friend of ours got a rolled up copy of L'Équipe smack bang in his genitalia, a painful business, but which meant that while he was doubled up in pain an inflatable plastic travel pillow, sponsored by Ibis Budget, went flying over his head and cut open Natalie's wrist! I must admit that at the time I missed the whole wrist-slashing-budget-hotel metaphor as I was frankly astonished to discover that Ibis indeed had a 'budget' branch. I've stayed in Ibis hotels on many occasions, and knowing that they now have a budget chain is like finding out Goebbels had a slightly more right-wing brother.
Following the caravane we had a picnic and waited for the riders themselves. I'm not all that fussed by cycling normally, but it was clear Henri thought this was a very big event indeed and was obviously excited – and from our vantage point we had a very good view and could see the lead group approach from a few hundred metres away. To be honest, the actual cyclists-passing bit is a bit of a blur, all a bit brief – though in the searing temperatures that may not have been a bad thing – but it's definitely a thrill. There's something about a live sporting event that can give such a buzz. I've been to Wembley finals, Wimbledon and Ashes tests at Lord's and the thrill as the cyclists went past loudly and at incredible speed, even though they were going uphill as they passed us, was right up there with any sport I've witnessed live. You get carried along by the other spectators and their enthusiasm. Henri, and all the other boys, loved it, especially when we got home and we were all on the highlights on the television; Henri could ring home and literally show his parents that he was perfectly fine.
If the whole Tour de France circus is très French, then to have that event followed quickly by Bastille Day is practically a Gallic overload. There is a sense of fun about Bastille Day, a bit like St Patrick's Day, but with less drinking, and without the pernicious overtones of St George's Day. It's huge in France and a public holiday, and it tends to take the same format every year. There's the obligatory brocante, obviously, and also the equally obligatory feux d'artifices, of which this one must have been about the sixth in as many weeks. It was a poor effort, though. The local town normally excels at this type of thing, but as the music cranked up to herald the start of the show and a hush descended on the hundreds of people on the riverbank, I could sense something was amiss. Normally the stirring strains of 'La Marseillaise' begin and end these things and even if you're not French, it's an emotional rallying cry, a proper national anthem. I still get a lump in my throat when I see Madeleine LeBeau sing it to a bar full of German soldiers in Casablanca. However, what we got were the fragile pipes of Édith Piaf telling us that she regretted nothing, French icon to the core no doubt but ill-judged here, and I think this was actually the fireworks director making a point and getting his excuses in early.
Oh, it was poor. A fireworks display should never be lacklustre, but the gap between each firework going off was just slightly too long, making it look like the fireworks themselves weren't really up for it, like moody teenagers forced to visit elderly relatives. The post-fireworks-display entertainment was even worse, as some kind of low-rent accordion orchestra began their set with the improbable, un-French and frankly unwelcome 'Y Viva España!'
Only adult eyes really see these things, though, and all four boys had a high old time, having forged what seemed like a strong friendship, and were joking and giggling away in English. Henri was with us for a full week; a polite, tidy and helpful boy who was staying with strangers and being forced to speak in a foreign language.
We even took him to a concert. Peter our erstwhile guitar teacher was in a band with a local Frenchman, and together they played, largely English it has to be said, rock classics at a local bar. I noticed Henri slope off into the bar during an extended version of Status Quo's 'Rockin' All Over the World', which, let's be honest, isn't for everyone. I found him inside watching the television as the French national football team were in the final of the Under-20 World Cup. I stayed with him and we watched his team win; it really had been quite a week for him. It was obvious at times that he was a little homesick, and a little daunted too, but he never really let on, never moaned or sulked and entered into every crackpot idea of 'Englishness' we had with a very un-teenage enthusiasm. As he never really let on about homesickness, by the end of the week not only had his English massively improved but he'd also developed 'le stiff upper lip' too.
It was, actually, in any case far too hot to be showing any excessive emotion. You couldn't move a muscle without getting a sweat on and while the children were happy to be splashing about in the pool or just lounging in the shade, the adults were getting more and more tetchy.
I find weather talk boring at the best of times, but the constant repetition of the phrase, 'Bloody hell, it's hot' is surely one of the most irritating facets of a heatwave. Yes, it's hot, we get it, stop pointing it out. They're the kind of people who make a cup of tea, burn their lips on an over-ambitious first gulp and then exclaim 'Oh, that's hot!' Of course it is, YOU JUST BOILED THE WATER!
Of course, my slightly irritable mood might have been down to the fact that it was so bloody hot. The difficulty with being a mod is that the rules are never relaxed: the temperature doesn't hit 90 degrees and we all go out wearing cut-off jeans and sleeveless T-shirts, the rules still apply – as anyone who saw me almost turn into a pool of water while wearing a mohair suit in Bangkok once will testify.
The last canicule (heatwave), in 2003, was reportedly responsible for 70,000 deaths across Europe, mainly old people and goths, but the effect on France in particular was profound. Nearly 15,000 people died in France alone as temperatures stayed in the forties for days on end. Normally this isn't an issue in most of France, as the nights are colder so the cooling cycle of old-fashioned stone, concrete or brick houses (which hitherto hadn't needed air-conditioning) meant that buildings didn't become too hot during the day. In 2003, however, the nights didn't cool down, so houses became like ovens. In August when most people were on holiday there were a catastrophic number of deaths, which even the Red Cross blamed on 'isolation and insufficient assistance'. Everybody blamed each other, the government blamed people going on holiday (even though the health minister Jean-François Mattei didn't cut short his own) and everybody else blamed the government for not doing more. It has left a legacy of more environmentally sensitive house building but also a national sense of mourning that France, which prides itself on its sense of family, could have left its own to die in such numbers.
Every time temperatures go up, then, and more to the point stay there, there's a disquiet and everybody is reminded through news bulletins and so on of their social responsibilities. Even so, I felt Natalie was taking this too far.
'What do you mean we're having a barbecue for twenty-one people on Saturday evening?!' I asked with genuine exasperation.
We were only a week into les grandes vacances and already exhausted, and this just seemed to be the stuff of madness, plus a lot of the invitees would be kids from Samuel's theatre group, so it would be like being on a day course with TGI Friday staff. Also, and I was getting a bit sniffy about this, whenever we invite people round for dinner or whatever, and this happened when we lived in England too, we would very rarely have our invitation reciprocated. Also, if it was too hot for Natalie to be cleaning up poo from the horses' field once a day, as apparently it now was, then surely it was way beyond the reasonable temperature to outdoor cook for twenty-odd French people? And a barbecue too, literally my bête noire.
I went off to sulk somewhere cooler than in the fiercely hot front room, and also to secretly do my 'Barbecue to-do list' and also a 'Barbecue to-do list – Appendix 1 – Shopping list' list as I knew that I'd lose the argument and that the barbecue would go ahead. The beauty of the weather being like this was that at least it was quiet. For most of the day the boys, now that Henri had gone home, were languishing inside, as were Natalie and the dogs, the cats and so on. The horses and goats were trying not to get in each other's way in the stable and even the hens were clucking less. In fact, they were doing everything less. I've no idea if this is the case with all hens but after an initial flurry of eggs they seemed to have become ridiculously sensitive to the weather. It was either too cold or too hot, a bit windy, too damp, it never seemed to be just right and egg production had practically ground to a halt.
It all seemed to be Monica's fault, again showing the curse of all hens named after songs by The Kinks. She was broody yet again and therefore refusing to leave the nest area of the coop. Naturally this was putting the others off laying at all, or at least certainly in the coop, and we suspected that the three others were taking themselves off elsewhere for a bit of egg-laying privacy. We had searched everywhere else but apart from the odd stray egg we couldn't find where they were now laying, if they were laying at all. The chicken man in the market was convinced that they would have found somewhere else but other people, French people at the barbecue I must add, laughed that off and said that as the hens were French hens they were therefore on strike. I separated Monica, put her in solitary confinement if you will, and was hoping that this would make a difference so that I could avoid the last course of action which – and again I quote a chicken farmer here – was to 'dunk her silly arse in cold water' like she was a medieval witch.
