French Leave

by Liz Ryan

  Or maybe this isn’t Ireland at all. Maybe it’s Miami, or Bangkok?

  With the Christmas spending spree over, Ireland collapses comatose for a full week before revving up again to plan its summer holidays. This year, it is going, seemingly en masse, to Dubai. Or Florida, Egypt or Australia – anywhere sunny apart from the traditional Canaries, which are now ‘so yesterday’. Spain is out, too: Ireland has ‘done’ Spain. And Ireland itself seems to be ruled out: nobody mentions visiting Cork, Kerry, Galway or Donegal, which apparently will be left to Americans and to the French, who love fishing in Connemara. During the first weeks of January, Irish travel agencies are inundated, and warnings are issued: Book now or miss the boat!

  It can’t be the sun that’s enticing everyone abroad, can it? I’m afraid to ask. After all those reports of sweltering summer, tropical temperatures …? No, they must all be going on cultural tours. Meanwhile, it’s time for me to head back into exile, divided as to whether this visit ‘home’ has been comforting or unsettling. Some people maintain that nobody should visit ‘home’ for at least two years after moving abroad (although I’d now been in France for nearly three) because otherwise the graft will never take. You can’t move forward as long as you’re looking back.

  As the plane takes off out over Dublin Bay, I wait for the little punch of nostalgia, watching the green patchwork fields evaporate below … in spite of everything, Ireland is still ‘home’ in so many ways. Ireland is warm and witty, and it’s where all the reference points still are, it’s where you don’t have to finish your sentences because everyone knows what you mean. It’s where an entire group of people collapses in laughter for no apparent reason, but they know why and so do you. It’s where the mere word ‘Bertie’ or ‘Biffo’ can reduce a whole table to tears of hilarity. Ireland is spontaneous and scandalous and (at this point in time) a big, brash spender, much amused by its own reputation as the ‘Rip-off Republic’. It’s smiley and sociable and, unlike France, doesn’t take life so very seriously. Plus, it has lots of plug sockets and the lights don’t snap off after sixty seconds.

  The plane banks out over the bay, and yes, I feel a pang. Feel torn, divided, not quite ripped up by the roots, but very unsure whether I’m coming or going. Is it possible to love one country, yet be in love with another? If I were going back to a French husband and children, or indeed an Irish husband and children who’d moved with me, would this all be so much easier? Perhaps it’s going back alone that makes me feel ambivalent? Single people know better than to lament their lot (because then we’d never be invited anywhere, would we? In fact, then we’d be French), but yes, life alone can be hard anywhere. Yes, it would be wonderful to have someone to share it with. As the saying goes, a trouble shared is a trouble halved, and a pleasure shared is a pleasure doubled. I’m loving France, but not loving living there single-handed.

  Really, I will have to do something about it. Somewhere on this planet, surely there must be at least one nice man who’d jump at the chance to join me chez les frogs? It is time to find the elusive Monsieur Hulot.

  And then, barely an hour later, the plane is coming down over the green fields of France, landing in appropriately foggy Beauvais. At immigration, to my astonishment, the official recognises me. On the way out, there had been a query about something and he’d helped with it. Now, he beams.

  ‘Ah, our Irish lady is back! Welcome home, madame!’

  Home? Isn’t that supposed to be where the heart is? I hadn’t realised that schizophrenia could be an occupational hazard of moving to France, but maybe it is. Maybe it’s even time to start blurring the boundaries and considering dual nationality.

  I’m confused. But happy to be home. If only I could be sure where that is.

  15.

  Fast Track

  ‘Don’t take it personally,’ the SNCF advises new recruits, ‘it happens to most TGV drivers sooner or later.’

  I’ve been visiting friends near Montpellier and am now aboard a Train Grande Vitesse, which is rocketing back to Paris at five hundred kilometres per hour. As in a plane, there is little sensation of speed. People are idly dozing, chatting, reading, nibbling on the picnics without which no French citizen ever ventures forth. The SNCF runs arguably the best train service in Europe, bar Switzerland’s, and the TGV is its great success symbol. Punctual to the minute, smooth, quiet, laptop-friendly, blissfully comfortable: the 8.15 to Limerick Junction this is not. The passengers wear the relaxed look of punters sure of arriving in comfort, bang on time for their Christmas shopping, dinners, appointments, onward connections; the couple beside me are heading to Roissy for a flight to India. On arrival, I have another train to catch, back to Normandy from the Gare St Lazare, which means a quick Métro dash across Paris. Time is tight, but of course I will make it. The TGV’s punctuality is legendary, and we are already halfway there.

  Suddenly, like some cosmic arrow, another TGV bullets by in the opposite direction, showering up stones, or something that causes a series of startling thuds. Our train rocks, lurches, gropes for its grip on the tracks as sparks fly past the windows. There is a sickening sense of being sucked into a horror movie as the train brakes, wavers, squeals and screams to a halt, already many miles past where the driver applied the brakes only seconds ago. Totally silent, eerily composed, every passenger grips a table or armrest, inhaling air, sitting bolt upright, refusing to panic. A stoic lot, the French. Shaken but not stirred – just deathly pale.

  The train stops, and it is as if terror takes human form, racing down the aisles, touching everyone so that they remember, belatedly, to gasp, to release the huge lungfuls of air they have gulped. Clearly there has been some terrible disaster, possibly involving the other train – but what is it? Nobody seems to be injured, but neither has anyone the faintest idea what’s wrong.

  Abruptly, the swish, shiny TGV service reverts to twentieth-century mode. There is a very long, very enigmatic silence. And finally a man’s voice, hoarse, quavering. ‘We apologise for this … this … there has been … a … human … incident …’ Trembling with tears, the voice falters and vanishes, its owner audibly traumatised. Across the aisle, a man nods with sudden comprehension.

  ‘A suicide. Someone’s jumped under our wheels.’

  What? But how can he know this? How can everyone be nodding in agreement, as if it’s already a fait accompli, before a word of explanation has been forthcoming?

  ‘Poor guy.’ The man means the driver. ‘Today was his turn. Just hope it doesn’t unhinge him.’ His tone is philosophical, and a murmur of sympathy makes its way down the carriage. Unknown to me until now, TGV drivers are regularly afflicted by people throwing themselves under their high-speed wheels in the desperate conviction that this is the most instantaneous method of death available. In the winter weeks, figures rise, and drivers brace themselves. Today, it’s our unknown driver’s turn to find out whether he can handle this most horrific of occupational hazards. Or is his life, too, about to be devastated?

  Our fellow passenger, a former SNCF employee, knows the drill. ‘The driver’s not allowed to move. He’ll be in shock and the rule is that he has to wait for the emergency services to arrive. He’ll be sedated and interviewed later, whenever he’s coherent. We won’t be going anywhere until a new driver comes. Which could take hours.’

  We are in the pitch-black, bleakest middle of nowhere, on some kind of plain that looks like the Bog of Allen. The lights and heating go off. It’s surreal, like being entombed in a freezer. We know we’re in central France, about two hours south of Paris, but that’s all. As word of the suicide spreads to become fact, an elderly lady turns transparent and buries her face in her handkerchief; someone else sobs with shock and sadness. My own reaction takes the form of an absolute, imperative need for fresh air. Fumbling my way out into the corridor, I find all the smokers already gathering. Rules or no rules, they say, they can’t handle this nightmare. ‘Haven’t had a puff in five years,’ one woman says, ‘but sorry, give me one, wou
ld you?’ Someone does, but her hands are shaking so much that the cigarette has to be lit for her.

  In the carriages, nobody moves, nobody speaks. But out in the corridor, the smokers begin to revive, to pass round ciggies and lighters, to talk, to speculate as to where we are and how long this is going to take. There has been no further word from the cabin. On my mobile, I text a friend at his desk in Dublin. Can he log onto the SNCF website to see if there’s any news?

  Incredibly, there is. He tells me exactly where we are, and that a ninety-minute delay is expected. This information circulates amidst incredulity: some man in Dublin knows what’s happening!? Obviously, then, we are all going to miss our connections, appointments, flights and whatever, but everyone seems resigned, the very thought of shops and dinners suddenly obscene.

  ‘Poor bastard,’ someone sighs. They are not referring to the suicide, whose gender remains unknown, but to the driver. ‘Some of them crack up, you know. It can even drive them to suicide themselves. They feel responsible – as if anyone could possibly stop a TGV in time.’

  Eventually, the emergency crews arrive, men in yellow jackets flashing torches in the darkness outside. There are also blue ambulance lights, more likely for the driver than the victim: the train has travelled several miles past the site of the initial impact.

  ‘That other train was in trouble too. It’s a miracle we weren’t all killed.’ (Later information discloses that yes, it was a very narrow miss.) Some of the passengers are now getting angry with the ‘selfish’ person who jumped between the two hurtling trains; others are hoping that he or she ‘was well anaesthetised, chock-full of whisky or painkillers, or both.’

  Precisely ninety minutes later, a new driver announces our departure. During this time, there has been no panic, no chaos, no unseemly behaviour at all. The French, it must be said, are a calm and orderly nation. There has been no black humour either, as would almost certainly be the case in Ireland. I feel hollow with horror, some kind of delayed shock making me long for Ireland, where even in these politically correct times someone might say something so appallingly irreverent you’d have to laugh, and we’d all bond, head off to the bar for ‘first aid’ to calm our nerves. Irish behaviour would arguably be loud and in terrible taste, but it would be more natural, more comforting, than this forlorn, awful sense of acceptance.

  On disembarking in Paris, there’s no avoiding the front of the sleek, beautiful train – a tragic sight. Its conical nose looks as if it’s been in a fight, peppered with dents, a steel plate hanging loose. Since the demise of Concorde, the TGV has more than ever been France’s icon of success; how ironic that for some citizens it should be an instrument of death. From somewhere, a memory floats into my mind, a headline on Marianne magazine claiming that seven million French citizens are hooked on antidepressants. Seven mind-boggling million, in this country of peace and plenty.

  ‘Ah well,’ sighs a man in a trenchcoat, surveying the battered train, ‘they’ll have it fixed by tomorrow. The SNCF is well used to suicide damage.’

  As, apparently, are its passengers and its drivers, who have to try to harden themselves. It’s the only way they can cope. For all France’s wealth, for all its beauty, for all its symbols of speed and success, suicide still goes with the territory. Like the drivers, I find myself having to acclimatise to suicides too; incredibly, the next time I travel by train, it happens again.

  16.

  Shop Till You Drop

  Okay, chaps, you can probably pop out for a pint now while we girls dress up and head out for a little retail therapy. We promise not to spend too much if you promise to meet us back in time for the next chapter, fair enough? Which gives you the whole day in the pub (after you’ve mown the lawn and put up those shelves and fixed that tap), because shopping in France is a major, gruelling challenge. We don’t expect to be home before nightfall, and yes, it would be lovely if you’d have a reviving gin and tonic on standby.

  My first experience of le shopping was in a centre commercial roughly the size of an Irish county, so big that I’d even been given the name of the restaurant where, at noon, I would refuel without having to leave the premises. The restaurant where I’d discreetly ask the waiter to place a bucket of ice under the table, into which I could plunge my sizzling feet – before buying new, much bigger shoes. This centre, I was warned, was absolutely vast, a full day’s work, and even then it would probably defeat all efforts to conquer it. Oh nonsense, I snorted, it’s only a silly shopping centre for heaven’s sake, how big can it be? Of course I’ll get round it all. I’m Irish, I’ve had lots of practice at shopping. Wheee, watch me!

  Wrong. Oh, so very wrong. It did defeat, comprehensively, it won hands down, I never even heard the referee’s whistle. Admittedly, Britain has similarly huge complexes, but by Irish standards this was enormous: a consumer Mecca, a veritable shopaholic’s souk. Best of all, I didn’t actually need anything – which is of course the ideal mode in which to go shopping. No racing round in desperate search of Christmas presents or a spanner or a precisely pale-blue blouse; just blissful browsing, maybe coming contentedly home at the end of the day triumphantly toting an eyeshadow.

  Or a ride-on lawnmower. Or a fridge-freezer. Or a new kitchen. The hypermarket that was first port of call – before even hitting the boutiques, the delis, the florists, the opticians, the travel agencies or the toy stores, all under the same roof – was so huge that the floor staff were gliding round on roller skates and the checkouts went on into infinity, their receding numbers like an eye test: I could only count up to about forty before losing sight of them. Trolleys were, clearly, not just for filling up but for jumping aboard and using as scooters when your feet wouldn’t take you any further, when you’d bought your computer and television and garden marquee and dozen cases of wine and six-foot shark, but still hadn’t reached the bikes or blenders or three hundred varieties of cheese.

  So, accompanied by my masochist friend Véronique, I seized a trolley and set off, gazing around like some idiot infant in Santa’s grotto, patting my mobile phone to make sure we could summon air-sea rescue when we got lost, as appeared to be inevitable. Maybe Ordnance Survey maps of this hypermarket were available, but if so we missed them, and were soon as comprehensively lost as if we were in some Amazonian jungle (indeed, there actually were flocks of birds flying around up in the roof.) What to buy first? Suddenly we seemed urgently to need stacks of shampoo, and Garfield cartoons, and a kilo of cuttlefish and hey, that foie gras looks heavenly and how about some of this divine asparagus and dear God, those mangoes are irresistible and yes, it is high time for a new sound system and let’s get some CDs to go with it and how convenient, the DVD players are in the same section, good grief look at that gorgeous pair of sandals and that linen suit is perfect with them, now there’s a sexy swimsuit and wow, raspberry chocolate, really? Oh what the hell, let’s get the lime and tiramisu too … black pudding from the Antilles, we must try that, yes of course with apple sauce and a skateboard and an iPod and is there really such a thing as green-tea ice cream? Would that go with lychee liqueur and octopus and those boots are gorgeous and how about a new watch and some lilac paint …?

  Next thing it was noon, we’d walked about seventeen miles and we were wondering whether there might be a pedicure service on the premises. Also whether we should have brought sleeping bags. Three hours in, and we’d still barely scratched the surface (now we knew why hypermarkets are called grandes surfaces) of this first shop in this first section of this hypnotically appalling complex. Never mind, we could buy sleeping bags, plus pyjamas, toothbrushes and a tent, all the gear we’d be needing for an overnight stay. Down but not out, we stopped for lunch – yes, even in a shopping mall it was delicious – and then, revived, we pressed on to check out the smaller specialist shops – only about thirty or so of them – for silk scarves and silver earrings and all those other household essentials. (As it later transpired, the ten-euro scarves were the same ones that were on sale in Dublin for
seventy euro.) After that, it was time to hit the big warehouses – Casa and Fly for housewares, Castorama for hardware, Conforama for furniture, Gémo, Kiabi and Les Halles for clothes … on and on we slogged, thinking that maybe we should have got this marathon sponsored for charity, and starting to see too why the Third World would hate the First, because the entire place was a monument to unbridled consumer avarice. And it wasn’t even Paris, with its lush, shiny, endless shopping; it was just a suburban complex, one of hundreds of almost identical complexes all over France. It was eye-popping, it was ludicrous, and it was exhausting. Just before closing time at eight, we conceded defeat, broken in body and spirit. Next time, we swore, we’d buy all we needed in our little village street, toting one wicker basket and stopping when it was full. Exhausted, we headed for the car, pushing our overflowing trolley-ful of insanely indulgent, largely superfluous purchases.

  And couldn’t see the car anywhere. Ten hours after parking, we hadn’t the remotest recollection where we’d left it, amidst the thousands in the car park the size of Andorra. Oh. Whoops. What now?

  For a while we slogged on, trundling our teetering trolley, peering into the gathering darkness, realising with horror just how many Renaults are manufactured every year, wondering why every last one of them seemed to be parked in this gargantuan shopping centre. After maybe half an hour, they all looked exactly alike, and our legs and our lower lips were starting to tremble ominously.

  Which was the point at which, miraculously, a jeep drew up. Driven by a security patrolman, with the complex’s logo on it, it seemed to be circulating in search of precisely such situations as this. Dementedly, I hurled myself at it, babbling our predicament, bleating piteously for help.