Almost French (10 page)

‘Well whatever and whoever they are, they were pretty dull,’ I declare finally.

‘It wasn’t
that
bad.’ Frédéric’s tone contains a tinge of reproach. ‘There were some interesting people there.’

And although I manage to bite my tongue, I can’t help wondering by what secret code he discerned who was interesting and who wasn’t, given how little people talked and mingled.

And so the reality of France today slowly sinks in. Instead of being daring and reckless, the French people I’ve met so far have been rather restrained. Although the country’s past is marked by violent upheavals, at heart its people are traditionalists, clinging to centuries-old rules and formalities which dictate everything from how they set a table to when they smile. This being a land of contrasts and extremes, there is still a core of leftie rebels who have maintained their provocative edge. You occasionally glimpse them on television, spicing up debates with their swearing and combative polemics. Frédéric tells me he has a couple of friends in their
fifties—people I haven’t met yet—who fall into this category. But their revolutionary fervour hasn’t been passed down. The generation of thirty-and forty-year-olds is perhaps the most rigid—the most conformist—in France today. Too young to have been influenced by the radical liberalism of the 1968 riots, they are also too old to be among the dynamic, entrepreneurial French youth fleeing abroad to work.

The trouble is, I only ever seem to meet thirty-and forty-year-olds. Frédéric, after all, is thirty-six and most of his friends are around the same age. After a few months in France I’m dying to meet some people I can relate to. To have a real laugh with someone; to dispel the self-doubt that has seeped into my thoughts.
What am I doing wrong? Why can’t I click with anyone?
I need to relinquish the tension that’s building within, to joke about my lack of social success instead of stewing over it. Before each new outing my hopes are high: maybe this time everything will just fall into place.

During my third month in France, we’re invited to a Sunday lunch in the countryside, one and a half hours north of Paris, near the pretty town of Arras. Many of the people going are Frédéric’s friends from his university days in Lille. Because they all live in the north and he lives in Paris, they don’t see each other as much as they used to. This will be something of a reunion. They’re completely different from the stiff cocktail crowd, he assures me.

We arrive at a lovely country manor which exudes ramshackle charm. A leaning pigeon tower straddles the long dirt driveway, where a gleaming Harley Davidson is parked. We walk past a barn where a bunch of kids are noisily constructing a cubby. As soon as we’re through the front door, Arnaud, one of our hosts, thrusts a potent rum and lime cocktail into our hands.

There’s a lot of backslapping and joking and jovial clinking of glasses amid regular choruses of ‘chin-chin!’. They seem more easy-going than many of the Parisians I’ve met, and I wonder if Jean-Michel might have been right about Parisians being pretentious and snobby. But despite all the positive signs, I don’t feel comfortable. It takes me a while to work out why.

I’ve become invisible. That’s what’s wrong. At least it seems that is what has happened, judging from the way everyone stares straight through me. They might be delighted to see each other but they don’t appear very interested in getting to know me. Nobody asks me anything or tries to include me in a conversation. Then, to my dismay, Frédéric disappears for a spin on Arnaud’s motorbike, leaving me on my own. When Arnaud’s wife Marie-Hélène invites the other women for a tour of the house, I panic. Am I included in this invitation? No, I don’t think so.
Oh come on, stop being so hypersensitive. What are you waiting for—a personal invitation?
Pushed by my own persuasion, I trot after the group, hanging on the edges, wishing someone would just glance my way to reassure me I exist.

By the time we return to the living room, another couple has turned up. Close friends of Frédéric’s, Léon and Caroline live in Lille. They are also mates of Jean-Michel, who I haven’t seen since that wonderful week in Auvergne last summer. I’d kill to see his friendly face right now. Behind his glasses, Léon’s brown eyes sparkle. ‘
Enfin, le kangourou!
’ he jokes, giving me two welcoming kisses. Frédéric introduces me to Caroline whose face immediately splits into a huge smile. Her sentences flutter over me, full of sweetness and warmth: ‘I’m really pleased to meet you … heard so much about you from Jean-Mich … you’ll have to come to Lille
for a weekend soon.’ I’m so grateful I could weep. Not only do I exist but Caroline is already hinting at a future friendship!

Unfortunately, at lunch we’re seated at different ends of a long table. Opposite me is Marie, a petite woman in a short skirt and tiny top ensemble, which shows off her honey tan from a recent holiday in Greece. She hadn’t been friendly during the house tour but now that we’re across the table from each other I figure she’ll warm up. Speaking in French, I ask which islands she visited on her holiday. She answers phlegmatically. I sense she’d rather be talking to someone else.

As the cheese platter is passed, Marie leans across to Frédéric, who is next to me. ‘
Et ta petite copine, comment va son français?
’ Her words ring across the table, loud and patronising. How’s your little girlfriend’s French coming along? She doesn’t so much as glance in my direction. Aware that I have heard and understood every word, Frédéric is awkward and embarrassed.

‘Er, I think she can probably answer that herself.’

Now here is my opportunity to put petite Marie in her place. And the Sydney Sarah would have been up to the task. After all, Marie is asking for it. She knows damn well what my French is like—we’ve been discussing her dumb, dull holiday throughout the entire lunch. And what’s with the ‘little girlfriend’ business? Couldn’t she at least have called me by name?

But I am too stung to come up with a retort. Although buoyed by meeting Léon and Caroline, I still can’t fathom the coolness of the others. Besides, two out of twenty isn’t a fabulous success rate. To me Marie’s question is a slap in the face. I take it personally. Suddenly I’m hit by a tidal wave of
homesickness. It has been heading my way and gaining force for some time and now it engulfs me. I want to be in London with Sue or better still back in Sydney. Going out had never required such a thick skin in Australia. Instead of confronting Marie, I retreat to the toilet, sobbing pathetically, willing it to whisk me home.

Hurt turns to resentment, resentment to anger.

‘Why were they so rude?’ I challenge Frédéric on the way back to Paris.

‘Léon and Caroline weren’t,’ he points out. ‘Anyway, the others weren’t rude. They were just …’

‘What?’

Frédéric falters. How do you explain the nuances of the way people interact when you’ve never questioned them yourself before? How can you construct neat answers for customs and codes of behaviour you have taken for granted since birth? Although he seems far more open than many of the people I’ve met so far, Frédéric is immersed in this culture where even something as natural as making friends seems burdened by centuries of complications.

‘They just need a bit of time to get to know you.’

My frustration erupts like a storm cloud, filling the car space with thunder and fireworks. ‘TIME? How much time does it take to be friendly?’

We stare ahead in silence. Seeing France through the eyes of an outsider is a new experience for Frédéric. Later it will be enriching for us both but at the moment our cultures are colliding head-on. On one side there’s me, with my Aussie expectation of easy-going friendliness and rapid rapport. On the other there’s Frédéric, whose loyalties are torn in two. Neither one of us is objective. I’m too vulnerable. And Frédéric is defensive. Deep down I know he feels keenly my
hurt and disappointment. Perhaps he even feels responsible. But this is his country, these are his friends and my confusion is coming out as criticism.

In desperation, I head to the English-language bookshop W.H. Smith, in search of something to help me understand. Apparently, I am not alone in needing guidance. An Irish shop assistant explains the best-known of these guides for expatriates,
French or Foe
, is a perennial bestseller, flying off shop shelves as soon as stocks arrive. I buy a copy.

The book contains helpful explanations and sharp observations. It’s comforting to learn that almost every expat in the city experiences the same cultural confusion I am feeling. Don’t take things personally, reiterates the author Polly Platt, which, of course, is exactly what I’ve been doing. But despite the upbeat, isn’t-this-a-fabulous-adventure tone, some tips are deeply troubling. On going to dinner parties, for example, Platt advises readers to pretend they are chairs. ‘Then, when no-one smiles at you or talks to you before dinner, you won’t be surprised,’ she writes. ‘Who talks to a chair?’

Before, the idea of mixing with other expatriates hadn’t appealed to me. Living in France I’d expected to have French friends, not a bunch of foreign mates. But this book confirms that the business of integrating is going to be a much longer process than I’d initially thought. Suddenly, seeking out other expatriates doesn’t seem such an awful option. What harm is there in hanging out with other English speakers?

In the back of my address book is a list of contacts in Europe—friends of friends to call if ever I happen to be in the same city. One of the names belongs to an English girl living in Paris, Alice, who has set up her own language
school teaching English to French executives. I call, feeling like someone with no friends, which I suppose is what I am. But Alice quickly dispels any awkwardness with her warmth. We arrange to meet one week later at a Montmartre fondue restaurant where she is going with some friends, plus a few newcomers to Paris who, like me, had been given her number.

Inside, diners are squashed along loud tables with chequered gingham tablecloths which line two sides of a small, skinny room. The scene looks quintessentially French in a rather clichéd way. But what are those things on tables, in people’s hands and mouths? Baby bottles? I stare, amazed and repelled. No, I’m not hallucinating: everyone is sucking wine through baby bottles. Apparently it’s a gimmick this restaurant has developed to amuse tourists. (They are obviously targeted at tourists because Parisians would not think this detail is funny.
I
don’t think it’s particularly funny.) The waiter waves towards twelve tight places sandwiched in the middle of the row, which have been reserved by Madame Aleeece, who hasn’t arrived yet. The only way to get to our seats is by standing on the banquette and climbing over the other diners, so I decide to wait in the middle of the restaurant, the only space available.

Alice’s friends trickle through the door. Introductions are made in the effortless, upfront manner I’m used to and when it’s clear our growing crowd is getting in the waiters’ way we climb over the other guests to our table. Alice eventually arrives, flushed and out of breath, creating instant gaiety with her exclamations about ‘how nice it is to meet you,’ and ‘hello, haven’t seen you in aaaages’ and ‘oooohh don’t you look wonderful!’. Immediately I’m glad I came. This is more like it. Although she’s up the other end of the
table and we don’t get much of a chance to talk, she soon has us all laughing at her mad adventures while travelling the world and working as a fortune teller.

Apart from Alice, most of my potential new friends appear to be in Paris only temporarily. Bringing us together had been a gesture of great kindness. But we make a motley group: our only common ground is that we speak the same language and that many of us are struggling to find our feet, somehow. Several people complain about the French and I cringe, hearing how I must sound to Frédéric. There’s an underpaid English au pair with a slightly vulnerable air. One bloke is struggling to break into the Paris advertising world and spends his days making coffees for difficult art directors. There’s the girl who has had it up to here with France and is so, so, sooo relieved to be leaving. And then there’s me. What am I? Where am I going? I pray that no-one asks.

An accordion player bursts through the door and the tables of tourists who have poured from the coaches parked near Pigalle start clapping to ‘
La Vie en Rose
’ minus Edith Piaf’s distinctive rasp. Someone orders more wine and we suck awkwardly through the teats of the baby bottles.

It has done me good to get out on my own and meet some new people. To be among a group that guzzles wine instead of sipping it in measured quantities. But surveying the scene I can’t help feeling dismayed by the ridiculous baby bottles, the grating gaiety of the accordion player, the clapping tourists.

Nothing—but nothing—could have been further from the sophisticated Paris of my dreams.

That evening leads to another dinner a few weeks later.

This time the venue is Alice’s boyfriend’s apartment. Frédéric has a work function that night so I make my way to
the 11th
arrondissement
by metro, pleased to have my own social engagement, looking forward to seeing exuberant Alice again, reassured that this time there’ll be no baby bottles.

There’s quite a crowd gathered in the lounge room by the time I arrive. Obviously it’s a big dinner party. I’m introduced to an English lawyer called Rupert, who asks politely what I do. I’m a freelance journalist, I say, trying not to sound despondent.

‘Oh, you must meet my wife, then,’ he replies. ‘Alicia. She’s a freelance journalist, too.’

I know he means well, but privately this doesn’t seem like such a great idea. Alicia is probably some big name writer, rolling in pounds and prosperity. Still faxing forests each week to editors, I’m in no mood to meet someone who has the whole freelance scene sewn up. I resolve to wildly exaggerate my own writing success.

Wrapped in a pair of Dolce & Gabbana leopard-print trousers, Alicia is in the kitchen, emptying a bowl of chips. Her sentences spill out in a rush of enthusiasm and energy that somehow fills the room. Quickly, I discover she arrived in Paris at the same time I did after Rupert—who, like Frédéric, is a lawyer—joined a French firm. The conversation turns to our work and Alicia explains she writes for fashion magazines. My casual tone rings fake and forced.