French Leave

by Liz Ryan

  This time he gets the joke. Oh, ho ho! How droll one is! The Irish, they have such humour!

  Only this time he’s wrong. I’m not kidding now. If they can’t apologise, I’m going to move, so please give me my money. And the young fella.

  A pause for thought. Tortured silence. And then: ‘Er … ahem … we are, uh … perhaps you would accept, uh …?’

  He does try, but he just can’t bring himself to say the words ‘our apologies’. Perhaps French mouths just don’t have the muscles. Very well. Let’s say no more, then, about your utter, spectacular, unbelievable incompetence. Unless it happens again – in which case I am both reporting and suing you for malpractice, fraud and embezzlement. Not to mention attempted homicide, because my blood pressure’s somewhere north of Mars. Got that?

  Yes, the manager conveys that he has got that. Marginally mollified, I return to my original transaction. The clerk – who’d nonchalantly started signalling ‘Next, please’ – beams. ‘So, how are things in Ireland? Will you be going over soon?’

  Yes, as it happens I will be going tomorrow. Why?

  ‘Oh, I just wondered … is Bailey’s cheaper there? My wife loves the stuff. Could you perhaps bring us back a bottle?’

  A different bank. A different day. A different clerk. This time, surely, all will be different?

  I am toting a small cheque, drawn on an Irish bank, made out in euro. Euro as in Europe, oui? We are now all in the eurozone, yes? Just as a dollar means the same thing in California as in Connecticut, a euro means the same thing in France as in Ireland? Or does at time of writing, at any rate.

  At arm’s length, holding it up to the light, the clerk surveys the cheque.

  ‘But this cheque is drawn on an Irish bank.’

  Very good. Right first time. And your point is?

  ‘But Ireland is not in the eurozone.’

  Isn’t it? Then how come the cheque is printed and written in euro?

  ‘Ah.’ Long, speculative pause. How the French love an enigma. After an intrigued and thoughtful interlude, the cheque is passed around for all the staff to shake their heads over, and then somebody is sent on a search mission, and a photo album is triumphantly produced.

  ‘Look, madame. Let me show you some samples of Irish currency. It is nothing like euro currency.’

  Which turns out to be startlingly true. The samples in the album, featuring Lady Hazel Lavery, are pound notes approximately forty years out of date. When I recover my powers of speech, I explain this, and the clerk blinks in dubious surprise.

  ‘Ah, bon? Really? Well I must say, nobody told us … I will have to investigate further.’

  And cash the cheque?

  Discreetly, he coughs. Alas, things are not quite that simple. The investigation will take six weeks. And then, should the cheque pass muster, there will be – bien sûr – 10 percent ‘commission’.

  Ten percent! For what? For verifying that this antediluvian bank doesn’t know which countries are in the eurozone?

  ‘But Britain has never been in it, madame … and Ireland is in Britain, non?’

  Now I know why banks are fortified. It’s so you don’t damage the walls when you bang your head on them. And I know why they’re held up so often, too: those hooded guys with the guns probably started out like me, ordinary customers just trying to get their hands on their own money.

  Last, but perhaps not least, there is a cry of despair from Paris. As a rule, Paris likes to feel on top of things, especially in matters of la mode, but finally it is forced to concede the unthinkable. John Galliano and Stella McCartney from Britain, Karl Lagerfeld from Germany, the American Marc Jacobs … not one French designer, bar Christian Lacroix, at any of the major couture houses.

  ‘French talent,’ sobs a fashion insider, ‘simply isn’t available.’

  Ah, well. Maybe some day Tanguy will reach for his sketch pad and do a little doodle.

  26.

  And She Walks Upright, Too!

  As a concept, France has grasped feminism. Paris has its tally of token women, in business as in politics. But as a practice, a daily reality, most Frenchwomen recoil from the glacial prospect of autonomy and economic independence as they might from exile to Siberia. They love being married and besides, if you manage to produce more than two children, you are fêted as a national heroine. You are showered in money and, should you have a little job just for amusement’s sake, you are entitled to … oh, about ten or twenty years of parental leave. After all, raising a young Frenchman is an important project, and even the raising of a young French woman has its challenges. Maman’s concentration mustn’t be interrupted.

  However, despite being a maman of four, a woman almost miraculously decided to present herself for election to the 2007 presidency. Yes, of France. Unknown only six months earlier, Segolène Royal was suddenly everywhere: on television, on billboards, on magazine covers, so ubiquitious that it was difficult to buy a facecloth that didn’t bear her effigy. Awestruck, France gazed at her good-looking, well-groomed image (yes, her politics are left of centre, but even the left has copped on to the power of haute couture) and wondered how this could possibly be.

  Wondered to the point where, one night on TF2, the current-affairs programme Arène devoted itself entirely to the phenomenon that is Segolène, entitling its debate Une Femme Peut-Elle Diriger La France? (Can a Woman Run France?)

  Yes, I might have replied, had anyone asked me. Ireland has had a female president for nearly thirty years. In fact, it has had two. Both ladies – Mary Robinson and Mary McAleese – have been very popular and very efficient, making some of the initially chauvinistic suspicion of Ms Robinson (nearly three decades ago!) look ludicrous. Both highly qualified, experienced lawyers, they were elected without fuss and no, Ireland was not subsequently struck by lightning, a comet, a cruise missile, or even a bedazzled sense of its own audacity. It simply never dawned on anyone to query a candidate’s sex as a danger to the nation.

  But TF2 was now querying Segolène’s. Bear with me here. I am not making this up. The patronising, mind-blowingly idiotic programme went as follows.

  ‘This country,’ opined one panellist, ‘is petrified.’ Yes, petrified of Mme Royal, that is, because she … well, um, apparently because she lacks a penis. No other explanation is proffered.

  ‘I,’ quaked another panellist, ‘have never before seen a blonde president’ – Segolène had dyed her hair – ‘and besides, this lady is image-obsessed!’

  Yes, that’s what he said – the man who’d never envisaged a blonde in the Élysée.

  Another old duffer piped up. He – an academic of some kind – had written a book aimed at women entitled Votre Devoir Est de Vous Taire (Your Duty Is to Shut Up) and, incredibly, some publisher actually unleashed this tome on the gullible nation. I have never seen it in the shops, but suddenly I understood where Savonarola was coming from, and made a mental note to bring a box of matches next time I visited my local maison de la presse. Not that it matters, of course, what I think of any presidential campaign, because I am not allowed to vote for Segolène, or anyone else. To pay taxes, yes; to exercise all my civic duties, yes; to separate my glass from my plastics, yes. But to vote, no. France only believes in European integration up to a point. After all, if resident Europeans were allowed to vote, the Africans and Arabs might want to too!

  On and on droned the dreary, antediluvian debate. Yet another male panellist piped up to voice his worry that Madame Royal’s ‘menstrual moods might be a problem’.

  Yes, that’s what the man said. Given that Mme Royal was already fifty-three, his fears seemed somewhat neurotic. I found myself wondering what he might do should he ever board a jet for Australia which, after take-off, turned out to be piloted by a woman. A normal, healthy woman, in full menstrual flight? Would he demand a parachute, wrench open the door and throw himself out somewhere over Somalia? What if he should be whipped into hospital for emergency surgery, only to find his surgeon a woman of, say, thirty-five
or forty? Would he leap off his trolley and sprint down the corridor in his lace-up paper gown, bellowing for the police?

  ‘Or,’ mused another panellist (honestly, this is gospel), ‘she might get pregnant.’

  In which case, Mme Royal would indeed become the focus of some attention. Not just for producing a fifth child – itself something of a miracle in France – but for doing it at fifty-three, while the rudderless nation collapsed around baby Royal and sank without trace to the bottom of the ocean. Clearly, the man’s fears were well founded.

  In case it sounds as if this panel was composed exclusively of men, let me point out that in fact it included one Geneviève de la Fontenaye, who famously runs France’s annual Miss France contest. Alas, I can’t tell you what Geneviève thought of Segolène’s prospects, or talents or anything else, because Geneviève did not at any stage of the discussion utter one syllable. She simply sat there, wearing her hat, which is what Geneviève does. Either she was afraid to say ‘No, a woman can’t run France’ or ‘Yes, of course a woman can run France, you bunch of idiots’, or she was literally dumbstruck by the gaggle of cretins around her.

  Another panellist was now anxiously speculating whether ‘Mme Royal has had a facelift? She looks young for fifty-three.’

  Suddenly, I knew what Mme Royal should do should she find herself installed in the Élysée. She should bring back the guillotine. Round up all these panellists and order an execution, just like they used to do in the good old days. Only now, even better, it can be televised. We can get in some popcorn and enjoy it live.

  Finally, this tragic emission petered out. But no sooner had I picked myself up off the floor than another programme came on, this time featuring an actor called Astrid Veillon. Mlle Veillon is young and pretty, and so the interviewer came up with a brilliant question: does she find her youth and good looks a career handicap?

  Switching off, I contented myself with imagining her answer. ‘Ah well, you know how it is in the movie business. Being young and pretty is even worse than being old and ugly … Johnny Depp finds his youth and looks a terrible handicap too. Of course things could always be worse, one might be tall or short, or Jewish or agnostic, or Scots or Hungarian …’

  Next time I want to find out anything about a female French presidential candidate, I’ll watch one of those wildlife programmes about a chimp in a safari park. Has anyone told David Attenborough what he’s missing?

  As things turned out, Segolène (who, by the way, spent the summer of 1973 as an au pair in Dublin) was not elected. Many believed that this was because of her gratingly nasal voice, which sounded so whiny that even the French couldn’t stand it. But not to worry. Since then, she has allegedly taken elocution lessons à la Margaret Thatcher, her voice has softened and she has split from her dreary partner François Hollande (also a politician). She will, she asserts, rally to fight another day. Personally I can’t stand the woman, but would like to see her elected, if only because even the most demented of detractors can hardly worry about her becoming pregnant in 2012, at the age of fifty-eight, or how she or France might cope with a baby Royal. Meanwhile, her rival Nicolas Sarkozy was elected and promptly ditched by his wife Cécilia (who refused even to vote for him) and, within weeks, had married singer Carla Bruni, the elegant ex-model who is rumoured to lead him a merry dance. Rumour has it that Carla is bored stiff with life as First Lady, but she does her duty on state or other public occasions, demurely dressing the part – or did up to this morning, anyway, which is about as predictable as Nicolas’s wives ever seem to get; by the time you read this, who knows what might have happened. Curiously, Nicolas Sarkozy seems to be one of the very few Frenchmen who actually enjoys the company of spirited, albeit volatile, women. So far, he’s married three, indicating that even when they tire of him, he never tires of them.

  Feminists (should any remain) be warned. France adores women, but chiefly when they are whipping their coq au vin out of the oven, wearing a frilly apron over black stockings and a vast smile of welcome for their Superman husbands. Unless, of course, his name is Nicolas.

  27.

  Weightwatchers

  When I was eighteen, a starving student, I was invited with a friend to the home of a French couple for ‘afternoon tea’. Fresh off the ferry from Rosslare, living on oranges, we were even more excited by the prospect of real food than by meeting our first ‘frogs’.

  Things were superbly formal and we, in our tatty denims, were as daunted as delighted when, eventually, a porcelain pot of Earl Grey appeared alongside a plate of exquisite, tiny cakes. Just four minuscule cakes, one each: it was all we could do to restrain ourselves from grabbing our hosts’ share. Their swift demise (the cakes, not the hosts) was followed by a long pause, in which we wondered whether maybe the French did things backwards, whether a big fry-up might now be served … bacon, sausages, eggs … oh yes, please!

  But no. After an excruciating interval, in which our tummies rumbled audibly, a box of chocolates was produced. Fabulous rich dark chocolates … well, we knew what to do with those. No Irish Christmas was ever considered a success until the entire kilo of Quality Street had been scoffed. We dived in. Twice. And then – horror, mystery, diplomatic incident – the box was sealed, removed and put away. Just like that. No apology, no explanation, rien. There was nothing left for it but to pretend that we’d had enough anyway, heft our rucksacks back on and leave, muttering scandalised invective about the meanness of the French as we trudged down the long, bleak road. One tiny cake each, and two chocolates! How paltry can you get!

  Only years later, when we related the incident to a new French friend, was light shed on it. That wasn’t meanness, he asserted, it was simply (a) the standard menu for afternoon tea, and (b) that no French person would ever contemplate eating more than two chocolates. It literally would not cross their minds. Sweets were rich and fattening, and solely for treats. To offer more than two would be to insult the recipient – a subtle suggestion that he or she was a greedy pig of uncontrollable appetite.

  It took us a long time to digest this. Only when we both came to live in France did we gradually grasp the vital fact that the French have an entirely different attitude to food. An attitude which – despite the most glorious food on every table – keeps them slim. Slim without even trying, dammit – which is why French magazines rarely feature diets, and nobody’s ever heard of mad projects such as the Atkins. The French just don’t think about food the way other people do – which is to say, virtually 24/7.

  An average French meal sounds enormous. Apéritif with canapés, starter, main course, salad, cheese, dessert, two or maybe even three wines, possibly a digéstif afterwards … phew. Yet nobody (bar the genetically or resolutely obese) gets fat. Why?

  Because (a) this is the legend, not the reality. The reality is a far lighter meal, maybe only soup for supper (from which the word souper comes), the full monty strictly reserved for Sundays or holidays. (b) Big meals mean small quantities of each component, and (c) every meal contains balanced portions of nutrients. Vitamins, proteins, carbohydrates – they’re all tucked in there somewhere, which is why there will always be cheese and a salad. If it’s one of those vast celebratory meals you see in French films – a wedding or festival, for instance – there might be as many as eight or nine courses, lubricated with numerous wines and chest-clutching shots of calvados. It goes on all day. But between each course, there’s music and dancing, nobody starts the next course until they’ve worked off the last, and the following day you can be sure they’re all ‘downsizing’ on fruit and yogurt, with a swim or a long cycle thrown in. That’s simply how they live. As one French maman remarked to me one day: ‘The greatest gifts you can give your child are confidence – so food isn’t a crutch – and discipline, so food is never the boss.’

  When I first moved to France, food threatened to become the boss. It was so beautiful, I just couldn’t seem to stop thinking about it. Nor seeing it either, because it was everywhere, out on the str
eets, stark naked in every market. Every shop window glowed with goodies, radiating temptation, and I began to feel like an alcoholic in a distillery. One day I stood mesmerised in front of a confectioner’s window in Honfleur, gazing at crystallised fruits glowing ruby, emerald, diamond and topaz, until I had to be forcibly dragged away. But then, after a few weeks of this torture, I realised what the solution was: give in. Give yourself one month of unbridled indulgence. Eat anything you like, try everything new, let rip – and then, get a grip. Unless you want to look like the Queen of Tonga, you will wake up one morning finally acknowledging that the party’s over: from now on, you are simply going to have to be firm with yourself. And, eventually, enjoy the wonderful gastronomy all the better for not being a slave to it.

  Doubtless to counteract all the edible distractions, sports facilities are a priority in France. These widespread facilities are largely financed by household rates, and the French believe in getting value for their money, while the government regards sport as a primary health-care investment. (Indeed, the government might even be taking it a stage too far, as in the case of our mayor, Pierre, who wants to turn the football field into a ‘health track’.)

  There aren’t any pubs. Sure, you’ll find a gang of lads sinking beer in any brasserie – but outside the cities, the brasseries close at dusk. Drinking is not a national sport, not regarded as an activity in itself. It’s really very difficult to put on a beer belly: you’d have to be utterly determined, and prepared to drink alone. Even more alone than before, now that the smoking ban has cleared Paul and Pierre off the barstools on which they’d been perched since 1868. Instead, people drink at home (by which they mean wine to accompany meals) and many homes have wine cellars – which is a lot less ritzy than it sounds. These cellars are not designed for the kind of clinical, sterile storage currently in vogue amongst wine buffs in London or New York, there aren’t any thermometers or climate-controlled fridges. They’re just careless corners in dusty basements, strewn with onions and potatoes and strings of garlic, amidst which Pépé vaguely thinks he may have put down some nice Burgundy back in 1965.