L'amour Actually (2 page)

  Everyone was crowded round a rather Heath Robinson baggage reclaim belt, which was little more than a long table with rollers. Through the plastic flaps in the wall, I could just make out a sturdy, thickset man, complete with bushy moustache, frantically slinging all the cases onto the table. The eager hands of the passengers propelled them along the rollers to their owners, while the unclaimed ones were left to drop unceremoniously onto the floor. Until I was sure I was going to stay in France, I had decided to downsize my life into one very overstuffed suitcase. The rest of my belongings were in my parents' loft.

  Barging my way desperately through the milling passengers, I just managed to catch sight of my beloved vintage Louis Vuitton suitcase (genuine, of course) as it arced off the baggage reclaim belt and onto the cement below. To my horror, it sprang open as it hit the floor, spilling out my clothes and worse still, my best La Perla lacy knickers which were immediately trampled underfoot. Silently I cursed my sister for losing the key.

  Uttering cries of 'Excuse me' and
'Excusez-moi'
, one of the few phrases I remembered from my GCSE French (which I'd failed dismally), I pushed through the crowds and threw myself down on the ground to wrestle my clothes from beneath the feet of my fellow passengers.

  'Do you mind?' I shouted crossly, trying to extricate a pink thong from around the ankle of a military-looking man.

  'What in God's name are you doing woman?' he boomed in a clipped, upper-class voice.

  'Isn't it obvious? I'm trying to get my knickers off…'

  'I
beg
your pardon?' he choked; his large, veiny nose glowing purple and his eyes bulging.

  'No, off you, not off me! Look!' I pointed at his feet.

  The man looked down to see a tiny scrap of material wrapped around his size ten Church's brogue. 'Call those knickers? More like bally dental floss if you ask me.'

  I smiled weakly as he lifted his foot to release my thong, while I scrabbled around on the floor, shoving assorted items of well-trodden clothing back into the case.

  With all items restored to their rightful place, I straightened up, smoothed down my ruffled hair and joined the queue for what was laughingly called Passport Control – just the one very grumpy-looking border guard sitting behind a little wooden desk. Thinking I'd better give home a quick ring to say I had arrived safely, I rummaged in my handbag for my mobile. Pressing the 'on' button, I waited for it to burst into life. Nothing. The little phone icon had a nasty black bar going through it.

  'No network,
mademoiselle
,' said a lady standing near me, her English heavily accented, 'you cannot get a signal 'ere. You 'ave to use the phone box.'

  'Does it take bank cards?' I asked.

  The lady looked at me quizzically. 'Cards? Non,
espèces
only, 'ow you say, cash.'

  'Cash? Gosh, I haven't seen a phone box like that for years. How quaint. OK, thanks anyway, um,
merci
,' I said, wishing it had occurred to me to bring some euro coins as well as notes.

  As the queue gradually got shorter, I indulged in a little bit of people watching. There seemed to be far more English voices than French. In fact, it reminded me of a donkey sanctuary what with all the braying that was going on. When I finally got to the head of the queue, I wished the border guard a cheery
'bonjour'
and handed over my passport. He looked at it closely then looked at me. All right, so my passport did make me look like a member of a terrorist cell, but wasn't it a universal truth that passport photos made you look either slightly deranged or like the latest mass murderer?

  He narrowed his eyes, studying me from beneath a pair of spectacularly shaggy eyebrows, then slapped my passport closed and shoved it back at me with a gruff
'merci'
. I had hoped for something a little more auspicious to mark the beginning of my new life in France. Surely it warranted bells and whistles or something? Taking my passport and suitcase, I headed outside to the taxi rank – except there didn't seem to be one. I threaded my way through groups of hugging relatives and friends to have a better look. Nope, there definitely wasn't one. Maybe you just had to wait and one would turn up.

  Lugging my increasingly cumbersome suitcase to the front of the terminal building, I cursed my decision to make a pair of spike-heeled Louboutins the footwear of choice for the trip. There wasn't even a proper footpath, just what looked like builders' rubble everywhere. Not ideal in heels. Must be all those builders from Birmingham emptying out their boots before they start their new lives as retired brain surgeons, I thought, making my way carefully along the path.

  From out of nowhere, a huge people carrier with blacked-out windows purred up to the kerb, the rear door sliding open automatically before it had even stopped. A young woman wearing oversized sunglasses which covered half her face pushed past me and, almost knocking me off my feet, jumped into the back. 'Well don't mind me!' I shouted crossly.

  The woman didn't even look up as the door slammed shut and the car took off at speed. I glared up the road after it.

  'It was her, I'm telling you Mum,' I overheard a teenage girl say as she passed me.

  'It can't have been. What would
she
be doing here?' her mother replied.

  Who? I thought, wondering if I dare ask them. In my line of work, I mixed with famous faces all the time and although I had only glimpsed the woman briefly, she certainly didn't strike me as anyone I should have known. Oh well, now I'd probably never know.

  Dumping my suitcase on the ground, I sat on it and waited for a taxi to arrive... and waited and waited. Half an hour later I was still sitting there, increasingly hot and bothered and wondering whether I would ever make it to Les Tuileries this side of Christmas. By this time, the airport was deserted, my fellow passengers had long since left. Who would have thought it? An airport deserted in the middle of the day. Where were all the flights? In desperation, I went back into the terminal building in search of someone, anyone, who might be able to help me find a taxi.

  'Hello, hello. Anybody there?' My voice echoed around the empty building. 'Hello? Please, is anybody there?'

  I heard the muffled sound of footsteps and eventually a door opened, revealing a middle-aged woman with a shock of frighteningly orange hair.

  
'Oui?'

   'Do you speak English... er,
parlez-vous anglais
?' I asked hopefully.

  'A little bit. Can I 'elp you?' replied the woman.

  'I need a taxi,
un taxi
. To St Amans de Pierrepoint.'

  'A taxi,
hein
? You call Gérard. I give you his number. He 'as a taxi. He will come.'

  She scribbled a number down on an old boarding card and handed it to me.

  'Um, there's one other
petit problème
,
madame
, I don't have any coins on me, only notes. Could you change a fifty-euro note?'

  The woman raised her eyebrows so far that they disappeared into the orange thatch.

  'I am not
une banque
,
mademoiselle.'
Muttering to herself, she rooted around in her pocket and withdrew a handful of cash mixed up among a load of old sweet wrappers.

  
'Tenez,'
she said, handing me a euro before disappearing back into the bowels of the terminal building.

  
'Merci, merci, madame,'
I called out to the woman's departing back. She responded with the slightest of Gallic shrugs.

  Thankfully the telephone was working, a welcome change from the ones near my flat in London. Not that I ever used them of course, who did these days? After a few rings, a deep male voice answered the phone.

  
'Allo, oui.'

  'Er,
parlez-vous anglais, monsieur?
'

  
'Non, désolé, français.'

  Bugger, bugger, bugger! I took a deep breath to compose myself.

  
'Je voudrais un taxi
to St Amans de Pierrepoint from the
aéroport,'
I said in my best French, hoping I had got my tenses right. Never mind integration, it was conjugation that really mattered.

  The man replied in a machine-gun staccato of completely unintelligible French. I didn't catch a single word. Damn, I thought, wishing I'd put more effort in to learning the language. A friend was studying French at night school and had given me some tapes. I could say a few useful sentences, but I had completely overlooked the fact that the French would then reply to me in, well, in French. I hadn't a clue what he was saying. I decided to keep it simple.
'Taxi, oui ou non, monsieur?'

  
'Oui, mademoiselle,'
the voice said slowly, over-enunciating as if speaking to a slightly stupid child.
'Cinq minutes.'

  
Cinq, cinq?
That's five. Five minutes. Brilliant!

  Outside, I slipped my aching feet out of my shoes, perched on the Louis Vuitton and for the first time since arriving in France, sat back and took stock of the surroundings. The sun shone down from a cloudless, blue sky with just the faint wisps of a vapour trail breaking up the vast cerulean expanse. I slipped off my jacket and took advantage of the wait to catch a few rays. No more spray tans for me now, I thought, remembering the embarrassment of standing in my kitchen, stripped down to a pair of paper knickers and a fetching plastic cap while Kelly, the local beauty therapist, did her work with a spray gun.

  Tilting my face skywards, I felt the sun turning my cheeks pink. It was heaven… if only that God-awful smell would go away. Still, wasn't this so much better? Life in London had become such a slog recently and I'd been overtaken by a sudden urge to get back to the land and grow my own vegetables. It was quite out of character considering that I originally came from Beckenham, and struggled to keep alive the little pots of basil and coriander on the kitchen windowsill in my London flat. I'd even thought about joining the Women's Institute. Instead, I had bought a copy of
Smallholder,
'the leading monthly magazine for the amateur small farmer' the cover told me; as well as a rather lush shabby-chic Cath Kidston gardening set – currently unused.

  It had seemed serendipitous to come across an old school friend, Polly, on Facebook. She had moved to France to 'live the dream' a few years previously and now ran a bed and breakfast in the Loire Valley. It had piqued my curiosity. I'd always found the idea of moving out of London unthinkable, but the more I talked to Polly, the more intrigued I became. There was a real sense of community in the French countryside she had told me, unlike London where I barely even knew my neighbours. Mind you, with Tattooed Mary and her Rottweiler in the flat next door, I wasn't sure that being friends with your neighbours was all it was cracked up to be. It didn't matter how many times Mary told me he was a pussycat, every time I met the huge, slavering beast, I expected to lose an arm at the very least.

  Polly had told me how everyone looked out for everyone else in the country and hardly a day went by without some shiny, happy local leaving a box of muddy potatoes or a few freshly laid eggs on the doorstep. I could just imagine if someone left something on my doorstep in Wandsworth. It would be gone in a nanosecond.

  Yes, this was altogether much better. I checked my watch. The taxi should be here any moment now.

Half an hour later, I was still sitting there staring hopefully up the long, straight road that led from the airport. Gérard, the errant taxi driver, clearly had a different understanding of
'cinq minutes'
than I did.

  So far, the first impression I had formed of France was, well, that it was all very... empty. The stinking cows, chewing the cud and contemplating me with their large, brown eyes, were my only companions as far as the eye could see. They were starting to give me the creeps.

  In the distance, a cloud of dust finally heralded what I hoped was the arrival of Gérard. An ancient Peugeot 106 slid to a halt. Hmm, not much chance of air conditioning in that then, I thought.

  Gérard, a small, squat man in old jeans and a T-shirt that showed evidence of the remains of his breakfast and possibly last night's supper too, jumped nimbly out of the car, bid me
'bonjour'
with a toothless grin and swept up my suitcase. He pulled on an old piece of baling twine that was fed through a hole where the lock should have been, and the boot popped open. I wondered what he'd last had in the boot. Fowl of some sort judging by the amount of feathers and what looked suspiciously like bird droppings, and now he was about to put my favourite suitcase in there.

  
'Non!'
I shouted a little too loudly, making him jump back like a scalded cat. He shoved my bag at me.