Almost French (19 page)

And there it is—the explanation for Frédéric’s pathological aversion to tracksuit pants. The simple statement that instantly elucidates why in hotel rooms he’ll remove any paintings from the wall that don’t meet his approval. The first time he did it I couldn’t believe it. Coming out of the bathroom, I blinked at the bare walls where less than five minutes ago there’d been three or four paintings, I was sure. And then I saw them, judiciously stacked in a corner on the floor.

‘Why’d you do that?’ I enquired, astounded. He’d pulled a face straight off some toffee-nosed aristocratic.

‘They’re ugly. I didn’t feel well.’

If my tracksuit pants had practically given Frédéric a seizure, now it was my turn to be aghast. Admittedly the paintings
were
bad—insipid watercolours of flowers that looked like they’d been cut from a free calendar. But surely he could put up with them for a night? I mean who appointed
him
the hotel’s arbiter of taste and art? This business of feeling ‘unwell’ struck me as utterly precious. But my objections didn’t make the slightest difference: the paintings stayed on the floor.

‘We’re so much better now,’ he’d declared royally, waving his hand at the unblemished walls. The look of queasy discomfort had cleared from his face; he’d perked up. In his
mind he’d done nothing wrong. In fact he’d done us—the entire hotel, really—a huge favour. It was clear I would have to get used to this foible.

He can’t help it, you see. The thing is, the French are highly sensitive to aesthetics. Anything unattractive—even something as insignificant as an under-dressed tourist—can make them uncomfortable. It spoils the lovely scenery. They become irritable. Unwell, as Frédéric put it. You might think this is ridiculous. But I have witnessed this bizarre phenomenon many times.

One weekend when we go to see Frédéric’s father in northern France we end up stopping at the local Auchan hypermarket to buy a few groceries. It is Saturday morning and the carpark is packed with British coaches which have unloaded their cargo of eager day-shoppers from across the Channel. Compared to England, everything in France is cheap—most notably alcohol. We have to circle several times to find a car space, Frédéric grumbling ungraciously about the ‘invasion’ and how you’d think two centuries of British occupation in northern France were quite enough.

Inside, squadrons of English shoppers choke the aisles, wheeling trolleys piled with wine, spirits and enough beer to sink the ferry on the way home. As they pass in shorts and singlets, thongs and tracksuit pants—
PANTALONS DE JOGGING?!
—Frédéric’s mood sours by the second. Never mind that the Auchan hypermarket in economically depressed Boulogne-sur-Mer is hardly a summit of style (more like a crevasse). Their sloppy dress standards are ‘polluting’ his hometown.

Revolted, Frédéric glares at an Englishman who is bending for more beer, causing his shorts to slide south and reveal a substantial expanse of pink bottom. We are standing
behind him, waiting to get near the shelves, when he farts. Emphatically. Explosively.

It is not the most gracious of gestures, to be sure, but you’ve got to admit the timing is exquisite. What a succinct response to Frédéric’s Brit-bashing! It’s as though the shopper took aim—Frédéric (gassed and stunned) is just centimetres from the firing line. I practically fall on the floor laughing.

But someone experiences a serious sense of humour failure. Frédéric is truly, genuinely livid. The fart is not funny. It is—and these are his exact words—‘a declaration of war! A lack of respect for French standards! AN OUTRAGEOUS PROVOCATION!’. And France retreats in a petulant fury, abandoning the trolley and leaving the alcohol aisles to the enemy English.

If fashion in the provinces can be erratic, in Paris the pressure to look the part is unrelenting. Some streets are especially intimidating. Take Rue du Faubourg St-Honoré in the 8th
arrondissement
, for example, which is famous for the Elysée presidential palace and designer shops and fashion houses. This is where you go for skimpy scraps of luscious lingerie, $550 Hermès dog collars or to add your name to the waiting list for the latest fashion cult handbag. The street is seductive: before you know it you’ve fallen headlong in love with luxury.

Quite unintentionally, I end up there one day with Mum and Dad. It is their second trip to Paris and we’ve decided to go for a walk with no particular destination in mind. Straight off the plane from Sydney, before leaving the apartment Mum had hurriedly changed into a clean pair of faded jeans and a bottle-green jumper which stretches rather unflatteringly over her bottom. We walk to Opéra and Place Vendôme and then finally we’re amid the mix of old-world gloss and up-to-date glamour along Rue du Faubourg St-Honoré.

The pavements are crowded with beautiful shoppers wearing dark glasses and affluent tans. Transfixed by each passer-by, Mum admires the slim cut of women’s trousers, the exquisitely tailored jackets, the way shoes perfectly match violet or pistachio handbags. Usually someone who looks well-dressed and stylish, she is kicking herself for her carelessness. With each metre she becomes more self-conscious, all too aware that she is hopelessly out of place among the strutting glamour.

‘I look like a tourist,’ she says finally. Dad and I giggle. Then, remembering my interview with Inès de La Fressange, she adds, ‘Really offal.’ Dad and I laugh more. Mum ignores us, busily planning her wardrobe for future trips to Paris. ‘Next time I’m only bringing my best clothes,’ she announces. And sure enough, on subsequent visits she’ll arrive with a suitcase stuffed with dressy little skirts, smart jackets and high heels which will be perfect for Rue du Faubourg St-Honoré but conspicuously inappropriate for tripping through French country markets.

Such is the power of Paris. It inspires me now to dress up too. The trouble is I’m inconsistent. The meticulous grooming which comes so naturally to many continental Europeans still eludes me. Try though I have to follow the advice of Inès de La Fressange, looking good all the time
is
an effort. And frankly sometimes I can’t be bothered. Which means that on the Paris style barometer, I’m an unpredictable rollercoaster of peaks and troughs. Catch me on a good day and I can look
soignée
and stylish. But on a bad day, racing through the streets with wild hair and flying laces, I must leave a trail of ‘unwell’ Parisians in my wake.

Our different attitudes to dress are by no means the most important cultural clash Frédéric and I have to face. There is one subject which creates a chasm between us every time it is raised. Often, our cultural differences are a source of jokes and teasing, but not this one. Incomprehension snowballs into conflict until eventually just pronouncing the odd-sounding name risks igniting an argument.
Baincthun.

French people unfamiliar with place names in the country’s far north trip over the curious combination of consonants, the clumsy phonetics, which colour the region as a result of several centuries of English occupation and the close proximity of Flanders. ‘Bunktung’, you say, clipping the invisible ‘g’ so that it’s barely pronounced. It is an unpicturesque village about six kilometres inland from Boulogne-sur-Mer, and even if you have driven through it—which I sincerely doubt—you wouldn’t remember it. Cars whip past the mud-grey concrete façades bordering the road, not paying the respect of slowing down. There is a run-down café, one rather bad
boulangerie
, a church which could be lovely if some money were spent on it—nothing, in other words, to distinguish Baincthun from hundreds of villages in northern France.

Except that this is where Frédéric comes from.

His family home is a lovely farmhouse overlooking an expansive, cobbled courtyard, enclosed by the long, low barns which are typical of the region. The first time I came here was during my month-long summer holiday. Frédéric’s father, Alain, was away. Cottonball clouds bobbed in a luminous sky. The white shutters dazzled in the sunlight. The garden, which covers one hectare, was ripe with fruit and flowers. Roses and lavender sprayed the weathered stone walls. I marvelled at the perfect curves of a yew sculpted into a topiary ball—so different from the stringy gums and rambling shrubs you might find in an Australian country property.

Frédéric had wanted to show me the house where his father lives because he loves it with all his heart. For him it is not merely mortar and stone but somehow part of him—a living thing he and his family rescued from ruin, carefully restoring it in a way that respected history but also allowed air and light to flood the previously dark, closed rooms. He’d indicated the date engraved in stone beneath the eaves: 1619. To me, growing up in a four-hundred-year-old farmhouse seemed wonderfully romantic, straight out of an old-fashioned story book. Inside, there are massive exposed beams and period fireplaces big enough to sit in. Every centimetre of wall space is covered in paintings, every polished wooden surface strewn with objects: family heirlooms, primitive sculptures from Mexico, silver boxes from India. Each room is a testimony to the French habit of collecting things not for their material value but simply for their beauty.

But when I settled in France, Baincthun took on an entirely new meaning. According to the French social code, this is where I’m expected to spend weekends at least once a month. Before meeting Frédéric I’d never even contemplated
what lay north of Paris. Privately I’d curse my bad luck: why couldn’t he have come from Arles, Aix-en-Provence or Avignon?

Roots are everything in this country. The French are incredibly attached to their
pays
, which in this context refers to the region where they grew up. Despite France’s modernity—the TGV and the Concorde, the exemplary autoroutes—its people often proclaim they are
paysans
. While being called a ‘peasant’ is an insult if it refers to taste or manners, when the label is used to emphasise a person’s links to a particular part of the countryside it is worn proudly. Throughout history, French writers have drawn inspiration from their rural provinces: Balzac from his native Loire Valley, Flaubert from Normandy, Pagnol from Provence. Radical urbanisation has really only occurred in the last forty years and practically every adult Parisian has cherished memories of growing up in a village or small town—or at least spending summer holidays there.

On weekends, Parisians are united in wanting to recapture their idyllic childhoods, recreate them for their own children. They return en masse to their
maisons de familles
. (According to the weekly news magazine,
L’Express
, the French have more secondary homes per head of population than any other Europeans.) Parisians who hail from far away regions buy
maisons de weekend
in Normandy or northern Burgundy. The countryside carries mythical importance: this is the real France, the French tell you, believing their own myth-making.

And so despite fifteen years in Paris, for Frédéric what’s real is the Boulonnais, as the
pays
around Boulogne-sur-Mer is known. The region represents his roots, his identity, a sense of belonging. His family is part of the north’s
grande bourgeoisie
which once earned its wealth from fine-quality woven textiles until recession hit in the seventies and the company was sold. It is a conservative, Catholic world of large families where three or four generations still gather round the table for Sunday lunch.

It’s also a world that is totally foreign to me. For starters I can’t get over this awesome proliferation. Frédéric’s grandmother had ten siblings, his mother had seven, Léon who helped us move apartments is one of eight, his lovely wife Caroline one of nine children and his friend Thibault has five kids. Frédéric, with only one sibling and no children is an exception. And if
he
is an exception in this environment, then I am utterly alien. Not only am I not from one of the region’s
bonnes familles
but I’m not even French! Worse, I’m getting on for thirty and I don’t have any children! ‘How many do you want?’ the women ask anxiously, barely able to stop themselves from saying, ‘You better get on with it.’ One day, when yet another person asks, I decide to put an end to their fretting.

‘Two,’ I say, thinking this is realistic, although Frédéric and I have barely discussed kids.

‘Two? Is that all?’ She is dismayed. ‘
Seulement deux
? Oh that’s sad.’

Separated by distance from relatives in New Zealand, my notion of family had been limited to a nucleus comprising a brother, sister and parents. But Frédéric grew up surrounded by stern grandfathers and eccentric great aunts, hundreds of cousins and second cousins. Imbued in each generation is a sense of continuity. He is the first chink in his immediate family chain to leave northern France, and even though Baincthun is only three hours’ drive from Paris, he feels this distance almost as much as I feel the separation from Australia.
He likes to return for weekends as often as possible. To see his father, to be with old friends like Jean-Michel, mostly just to
be
there.