Coronet Among the Weeds

by Charlotte Bingham

  A friend of Migo’s told us about these lectures for foreigners at the Sorbonne, so we went along and enrolled. I don’t know if you know what the Sorbonne looks like inside, but they have this enormous room like the Roman Forum with tiers of seats, and the lecturer stands in the middle on a dais. We were fascinated by all the types that went to these lectures. Absolutely every nationality you can think of. The Americans took down screeds of notes, but the Chinese students never had a piece of paper on them, they just seemed to have brains like tape-recorders that sucked everything in. One Chinese boy I used to sit next to, would just gracefully close his eyes when the lecture started and sit immobile till it ended, then he would open them and look inscrutable.

  The first week we were there, a man stood on his head during one of the lectures. Everyone began to laugh, because being in a lecture is rather like being in church; anything seems funny. I asked Migo what he was doing, and she said he was either a Yogi or a beatnik. I was awfully pleased I hadn’t missed him, because he was the first one I’d ever seen. I’d led a bit of a sheltered life, what with one thing and another.

  I got to know the French quite well living with this French family. They’re different from the English. They cook, talk a lot, and don’t wash much. They’re more intelligent than the English because they never stop taking exams. They start when they’re five, then just never stop. And they spend the whole time asking each other about them: when they’re going to take them, how they’re going to do them, whether they passed, why they failed, when the next one is. It’s a sort of social game really. The French have a lot of social games. And they have all these rules about what you can say dans le salon and what you can’t say dans le salon. You don’t have to be dans le salon not to be able to say these things you’re not meant to, you can be anywhere. But you just can’t say them. There’s not much you can say actually, except how’s aunt Ag and the weather and stuff. Migo didn’t have trouble with le salon because of being with Communists. Le salon is absolutely not on with Communists.

  I never had a bath the whole time I was in Paris. The thing was they had a bath but, if you turned on the taps, the ceiling fell down, so there wasn’t much point. I didn’t mind not having a bath, but I got a guilt complex about not washing. I spent the whole time thinking I was dirty and standing in a bucket of water. It was stupid, because not many people wash when they have a bath. I know my father doesn’t. He just thinks and has a bit of a rest. Though not if my mother can help it. As soon as she knows he’s in there she remembers that she’s left half her things behind, or she wants to tell him something frightfully important. Then she starts knocking on the door and shouting, but he turns on the taps and pretends he can’t hear. Don’t blame him really.

  I had quite a hard time learning French, because I’m not intelligent. It’s funny because everyone else in my family is. But they always say your children take after someone obscure. It makes me a bit nervous when I look at some of my relations. My mother kept on hoping I’d be intelligent but I was a disappointment. The first school I went to they had this old Montessori method, where you only do what you want to do. It didn’t work on me because of not being intelligent. I just had this idea it was more fun to play than to work, and didn’t learn to read till I was six.

  As soon as I did speak a little French, I started to go to French dances, but I didn’t have much success with Frenchmen as long as they knew I was English. They weren’t very keen on English girls. Luckily I don’t look very English, because I had one grandfather who was French, so they often got let in for something they hadn’t bargained for. But they couldn’t stand it for long. So I wrote myself a French dance-type conversation, timed it to last half an hour and learned it off by heart. It turned out to be a jolly good thing. I’d just dance away quite happily having this conversation then I’d change partners and I’d start all over again. They all said what a marvellous accent I had and that you’d never think I was English, and I’d tell them about this French grandfather of mine, and they’d say – ah – that explained everything. They even thought I was witty.

  One thing about French men though. They can dance. Which is more than Englishmen can. Englishmen scoop you up if you’re small like me and press you against the side of their ear, and leave you there for the rest of the evening. I once saw a girl scooped right out of her dress, only this nit who’d scooped her was holding her so tight that neither of them could see what had happened.

  There was a Count I danced a lot with in Paris, and he used to take me to the movies, and teach me French argot. French argot is much more fun than le salon French. I got a bit muddled sometimes, and I told a Duchess that I thought French tarts were excellent. It was a bit embarrassing I can tell you. Actually French tarts look jollier than English ones. I had a friend who lived next door to a few. She said they were always singing and laughing and things. Except for one who was called Jeannette la Noire. She was always dressed in black and had long dyed black hair and she never smiled, just played the violin. Of course my mother says that tarts with a heart of gold are a myth. But my grandfather used to say that some of the nicest people he knew were tarts. What my grandmother wanted to know was how he knew. But my mother says that it was different in his day, and you don’t get such a good class of girl nowadays. Of course peak tart-time was the Regency days, there’s no doubt about that. They had a much better time than the wives, and influence over the old Iron Duke and people.

  Migo didn’t go to many dances, because her Communists didn’t have much social life. She said they used to have men in mackintoshes coming to see them at midnight, but none of them seemed to give dances. So she joined a students’ society which gave parties in a cellar, and stately home visits once a fortnight on Thursdays. The cellar parties could be quite fun because a lot of Sorbonne people went, and they had a jazz band. The Marquis’s wife didn’t approve of students or cellars, so I just used to tell her I was doing a cultural course on Eastern philosophy. There were a lot of quite cultured Arabs about so I didn’t think it was much of a lie. A friend of mine called Daphne fell in love with one of them. She wanted to marry him and go back to Arabia with him and everything. I thought it was a good idea. My favourite saint tried to convert the Arabs. He only ever converted one, and he went back to being a Mohammedan as soon as this old saint was dead. That’s why he was my favourite saint. Also, he lived it up like anything before he started being a saint.

  Daphne didn’t marry her Arab in the end actually. She said he wasn’t genuine enough. He didn’t have a camel or wear robes or live in a tent or anything. The Arab was furious when she stopped going out with him. He went round telling everyone it was because he was an Arab and she was prejudiced. It wasn’t that at all; she just stopped being in love with him. But he wouldn’t believe her.

  Some of the cellar parties could get a bit wild. Beatniks got too hep and started throwing things. Sometimes it wasn’t too dangerous, but if they really went potty all the girls had to lock themselves in the loos till they calmed down a bit. It was rather boring sitting in the loos but it was better than nothing. We made up stories and shouted them over the top at each other, because you can’t play hopscotch or anything much in a loo, it’s too small. Occasionally I climbed over the top and had a look at one of the others, but mostly we just told these stories till everyone had quietened down a bit. Once I climbed over to see a girl and she started crying.

  ‘It’s all right, this always happens, they soon stop,’ I said.

  But she kept on crying and saying,

  ‘I’m au pair!’

  ‘We’ll think up a super excuse, don’t worry,’ I said.

  Then she just kept on saying it was all right for me but she was au pair, so in the end I got back into my own loo again. There wasn’t much I could do.

  I thought she was a bit soppy crying, but you had to feel sorry for her. Honestly being au pair in France is pas un joke. It sounds all right, that’s the trouble. What usually happens is you get this poor gir
l who wants to learn French, but doesn’t want to go to finishing-school. So all her relations and friends write off to people they know, and eventually someone comes up with a frightfully posh family who have millions of servants and just want someone to speak a few words of English to one of their nine children for two hours every morning. Of course this poor creature arrives with dreams of gallant Frenchmen paying her court, only to find that she’s washing up till midnight, and the only Frenchman around is old Monsieur wheezing away at supper every night. One of Migo’s cousins went au pair to look after a girl of fifteen. She had to speak English to this drip in the morning, walk her in the afternoons, and get this – give her a bath at night. Honestly, she was really meant to bath this huge great girl every night, wash behind her ears for her and everything. She went on strike after a bit, she really couldn’t stand it. She said the girl’s feet were so big.

  Except for the old Count and a few French types I met at dances, I didn’t have many boyfriends. Migo and I mostly went around with a mixed bunch of people. There were some English cads, and a lot of pre-deb type girls who went around behaving badly with various weeds. They really were weeds these boys, anyone could see they were. I couldn’t understand these girls swooning over them; I don’t think they were in love with them. They were just bored. Nothing to do so they let these weeds drool over them. I can’t understand people going on like that. I mean, okay super if you’re in love with somebody, but just any old drip because you’ve got nothing better to do – I don’t get it, honestly I don’t. I mean you should have seen some of them. Not even the cat would have brought them in. And they used to do it all over the place. You couldn’t even go to the movies, and you’d look down the row after five minutes and everyone was locked in someone else’s arms. Anyway, Migo said it was unhygienic.

  There was this girl called Jennifer like that. She was really embarrassing with these complete weeds.

  ‘Do you like them making love to you?’ I asked her once.

  She gave me a deep look, then said, ‘No.’

  ‘Well, why do you let them?’ I said.

  ‘If you’d had a father like mine, you’d know why,’ she said.

  ‘What did he do to you?’

  ‘He gave me an inferiority complex.’

  ‘What’s that got to do with weeds making love to you?’

  ‘I don’t feel so inferior,’ she said.

  One or two girls went Latin Quarter all in capital letters. They weren’t very good at it, but anyway they did. You know: grew their hair, dyed it and didn’t wash. It would have been all right if they’d been amusing, but they weren’t. They just slept with a few beards and went round talking about it rather loudly, pretty boring really. I mean it’s not as if it’s difficult.

  I suppose youthful impressions of Paris are corny. Actually I suppose Paris is rather corny. I didn’t think so. Even accidents were fun. Everyone shouted happily, the whole boulevard stopped and took sides, then they all went home to lunch and discussed it over the pâté. There was one thing that was a bore though, and that was being hooted by men. It’s not a compliment, because they just stop and shout at anything when they’re not in a hurry. Most of the time Migo and I didn’t really mind, we’d just hum a little tune and pretend it wasn’t happening. But every now and then we’d get dead tired of it, so I’d shut one eye and limp, and Migo would help me along looking very po. It always worked. They wouldn’t whistle or anything, just pass us by looking rather sad.

  We went round one or two of the old monuments, and the Louvre and all that. It was okay if I went with Migo or somebody, but every now and then the Marquis’s wife would arrange for one of the daughters to go with me, and that was hell. They were a bit serious about culture, ’specially the Egyptians, and there were all these mummies in the Louvre. Genuine ones all right, but they all looked the same to me, so I’d take a few peppermints in with me and sit on a mummy till it was time to go home.

  I liked the art galleries though. I’ve always wanted to draw, but I’ve never been any good. At school I had a cart-horse fixation. I never stopped drawing these nine-legged cart-horses everywhere, I don’t know why. Anyway, my favourite art gallery was the one with all the Impressionists in it. I liked Toulouse-Lautrec one of the best. He was fantastic that man, he really was. He could draw all these things like prostitutes waiting for a medical, and lesbians in bed, but he never made you feel sick. You just thought they were sad and funny and everything. It meant quite a lot to me being able to look at those pictures actually; because, though I thought knew about lesbians and people, I didn’t really.

  There was one picture of a woman that made me cry. Mind you, anything made me cry then. Honestly, I couldn’t even see a beggar in the Metro and I’d start crying all over the place. Anyway, this picture made me cry because this woman had sad feet, they really were the saddest feet you’ve ever seen, with shoes with droopy rosettes on them. Whenever I was bored I’d go and sit in front of these feet and cry, and when the actor I was in love with came to Paris for a few days I was dying to show him. I kept on going on about this picture, and eventually he got to see it.

  Do you know, he didn’t like it. It nearly killed me, don’t ask me why, but it did. I mean it didn’t matter that he didn’t like it, he was nice enough without having to like this picture too, but I still went on minding about him not liking it. I told someone about it afterwards, and they said it was one of the facts of life. You just can’t share everything with your superman. You have to tell yourself they’re super, and forget the rest.

  It was jolly nice when that actor came to Paris actually. We didn’t do much, just walked around and looked at everything. We didn’t talk much either, come to think of it, or make love or anything. It doesn’t sound very exciting, but it was. I cried when he went. That’s the trouble when you do meet a superman.

  Paris is the best place to be if you’ve got to be hopelessly in love, because of its being so gay, as I was just saying. And Migo shut me up if I started going on too much. You can be hell’s boring when you’re in love. I mean you try to think it’s all a big joke but you just can’t. You try and think of things to make you laugh but you just don’t find them funny. In fact I don’t think love on the whole is very jokey really.

  Then old François caused a diversion. Poor old FranÇois. He was the most good-looking man you’ve ever seen. You know, tall, slim, bronzed, Grecian features and a medal on a piece of leather round his neck. He played the guitar in a relaxed way, giving you deep looks every now and then. I never know what to do when people give me deep looks. I usually stare out of the window and pretend I’m thinking.

  I met him because I wore a hat for a bet. You wouldn’t think that was very daring unless you’ve lived round the Left Bank. It’s just one of those things you never do, wear a hat. Anyway, I was dared to wear this hat in one of the students’ restaurants. Boy, you try it. They drum their knives and forks on the tables until you take it off, shouting ‘Chapeau’ like the revolutionaries shouting ‘à la guillotine’. When they all started shouting at me I pretended I didn’t understand (it was a very English hat). So old François came up and explained to me in English that I had to take it off, or they’d do it for me. I refused because it was part of the bet that you had to keep it on for ten minutes. I must say I got pretty nervous when they all started to get up and move in on me. I could see my entrails scattered all over the Boul’ Mich, and headlines: ‘English Student torn to Bits’; ‘Peer’s Daughter Savaged in Restaurant’. Or only a very small paragraph at the bottom of page six: ‘The arm of a woman, believed to be English, was found outside a pissoir in Paris last night. The French police are making inquiries.’

  I didn’t get savaged because old François marched me out of the restaurant, fighting off pursuers. He looked madly noble, guitar in one hand, me in the other. After that I was rather stuck with him. You can’t just drop a man who has rescued you from the jaws of death, but he was so damned boring sometimes I wished I’d never w
on that bet. He thought he was the complete James Dean. Especially on Saturday nights; he’d get terribly droopy over his guitar and look tortured by Life, and all wrought up inside. Then on Sunday he’d be the old Frenchman sitting in church with his mother and wearing one of those ghastly French suits.

  Migo and I decided to go home for Christmas, because Christmas abroad can be pretty depressing. I mean they don’t do the same thing or anything, and it could make you miserable no one doing the right things. I don’t want to be corny, but that’s one thing I don’t like about being grown-up: Christmas isn’t the same. I mean it’s funny and all that, and you get presents and stuff, but it’s not mysterious like when you were young. Everyone spends the whole time quarrelling. Honestly, our family have all their quarrels at Christmas. They save them up the whole year and then have them at Christmas. They sit about after they’ve eaten lunch and opened their presents (swopping the bills so they can take them back again) and quarrel about who was rude to whom before the war. You should hear them. I don’t know how they remember so far back, but they do.

  We went back by boat, because my mother is scared stiff of aeroplanes. I’m not, I like aeroplanes, but my mother doesn’t and she was paying so we went by boat. We had tea with a whole lot of finishing-school types on the boat. They were coming home for Christmas too, and a lot of them weren’t going back. None of them had learned any French, they hadn’t gone to Paris to learn French, just to get finished. I don’t know how you get finished but anyway they had. Migo said it was just so that their mothers could stomp about showing off about them.

  My mother was waiting on the platform when we got to Victoria. I ran up and kissed her. She held me away from her, a look of horror on her face.

  ‘Darling,’ she said, ‘I wouldn’t have recognised you, you’re so fat.’

  I looked down.

  ‘Gawd, so I am,’ I said.