French Leave

by Liz Ryan

  Fish and veg, far from provoking pouts, are hugely enjoyed. Vegetables furnish the crucial ‘colour component’ of a meal and are cooked in endlessly imaginative ways, while fish is a point of national pride. I buy mine direct from the trawlers in the harbour, as does anyone who lives on or near the coast, and there is absolutely nothing penitential about the gorgeous crab, sea bass, cod, whelks or sole on offer. Au contraire, their freshness is mouth-watering, an absolute joy. Usually the fisherman will offer to whack the brute’s head off for you, thereby providing your little kiddiwinks with a moment of blood-spattered bliss and something to brag about to their peers back in Buncrana or Ballykissangel.

  But the French are no saints and yes, despite the public ban, they still smoke. I don’t know anyone who’d knock back a whole pack a day, but I know lots of people, mainly women, who insist that their five a day is what keeps off that extra kilo. They’ll have one instead of nibbling those olives before lunch, or instead of dessert afterwards. It’s their tiny treat, so they don’t feel deprived, and attitudes to the occasional puff remain relatively relaxed. One day, a man near me at a café, studying the health slogan on a pack – ‘Smoking can endanger your unborn child’ – sat back and grinned: ‘No it can’t, I’ve had a vasectomy.’ In Los Angeles he might almost have been lynched for this irreverence; in Chartres everyone laughed.

  Last, but not least, there’s the greatest of all incentives to sensible eating: romance. Eh oui, the French really are a romantic lot, big into flowers and trysts and mystique. Le couple remains vital, even to those who have two or three or – what! – more children. Frenchmen worship women, and love them to look beautiful. Every Frenchwoman knows that, if she doesn’t keep her silhouette, her man will soon find someone who does. No way is she throwing away her perfectly good husband for a biscuit or a glass of wine. So she sips, she nibbles – never gorges, or binges, or eats between meals. Her marriage is an investment and she works at it, as does her husband. She makes the effort to look good and he, in turn, shows his appreciation. It’s a joint project. It is raisonnable. (Yes, they do passion too, but only in private: kissing in public is considered distasteful.)

  Is it all exhausting, a constant battle against gastronomic indulgence? No, because French children are brought up to regard food as a joy to be managed from the start. Their menu, and their attitude towards food, is balanced from the cradle onwards. Food and drink are disciplined pleasures, ceasing to be pleasurable if they are abused. It would never occur to a French mother to threaten punishment for a child who doesn’t eat any part of a meal, nor to make food a reward for compliance, and so French kids don’t make those emotional associations. A meal is a necessary and pleasant interlude, no more, certainly not a battleground. French mums just shrug if the menu’s not to junior’s taste: if you don’t like beans or cabbage or whatever, oh well, never mind, chèri. There will be something else tomorrow.

  Emerging as an adult, the young chrysalis doesn’t dive headlong into the first comforting vat of chocolate. He or she instinctively knows – or has learned by example – that feeling fit and looking good is actually a greater comfort. Fitting into nice clothes is far more enjoyable, and attractive, than bulging out of them. Much more enjoyable than stuffing your face with junk, feeling sick, guilty and bloated. No self-respecting citoyen, male or female, would dream of letting a chocolate éclair get the upper hand. Nor do they snack between meals, unless you count the children’s afternoon pot of vanilla yogurt with one plain biscuit. At the cinema, films are not drowned out by the rustle of sweet or crisp wrappers.

  Centuries ago, being fat was a success symbol; now it looks more like a failure. While nouvelle cuisine wasn’t an unqualified hit in its native France, nor cuisine minceur either (most chefs saw both as redundant), the good old days of rich, heavy sauces have faded into the background. Now, you’ll be lucky to get a béchamel once a week, or even once a month – and you’ll savour it twice as much when it does come along. As for McDonald’s … certainly, chèrie, next time we’re stuck on the motorway in a flood in the dark. If José Bovey and his anti-globalisation chums haven’t torched it.

  Like it or not, that’s the French for you: different. They don’t regard food as a substitute for sex or love or parental attention, or whatever the gurus say it symbolises. They simply regard it as food. On weekdays, they eat just enough – high quality, low quantity – and so when they do let rip, they really enjoy it. Until the next time – which will be after a more-than-decent interval.

  Yes, it’s all most annoying to the spectator. Which may be why those nations that have issues with food have started to sabotage France’s status as a happy, healthy eater, slipping regular doses of sugar and salt into the ‘convenience’ foods which are now plugged on television. Jealousy, no doubt – or maybe just revenge for Agincourt? Whatever it is, the French seem to have twigged it, because they’re resisting. Yes, muesli bars for breakfast are now a recognised phenomenon, but I’ve yet to see a French child eat a whole sack of crisps, refuse their broccoli or scream for sweets (though they scream for plenty else). I’ve never seen an open box of chocolates in any French home and I’ve never heard a mother say ‘Eat your leeks or you won’t get any cake heaped with ice cream and Smarties and syrup’.

  Oh God, the confusion caused by that kind of admonition! Maybe the French are so busy figuring out Sartre and Rousseau that they just haven’t time to worry about such a conundrum. Or maybe they’re too busy cultivating their tuyaux, or connections, because high-quality food doesn’t just land on the table by magic. Of course you can buy it in the shops, but after a while you get to know where you can lay your hands on the real stuff. You get to know a little man who makes organic cider using apples from his own orchard, a fisherman who can furnish the juiciest sole, a farmer’s wife who makes her own foie gras, someone who knows a vigneron in Champagne … all in good time, and all in the right season. Yes, strawberries are available in December, but they’re only for tourists. You won’t find many French eating them. They’re purist about food, and it shows.

  It’s the season of mellow fruitfulness. An orange moon hangs low in the navy sky, the blackberries have been turned into jam, the cartoon-red apples will stuff Sunday’s pork roast and, in the misty dusk, a platoon of children is marching up the garden path, clutching trident forks, wearing black eyeshadow and purple lipstick.

  Hallowe’en, a huge festival in some countries, hasn’t been an unqualified success in France. It’s a relatively recent ritual, and the French still aren’t quite sure what to make of it. Nonetheless, the local children are toting brooms and baskets, tripping over their Batman capes, witches’ hats falling over their eyes, goblin masks askew as they knock on the door. When it’s answered, they simply stand there, grinning hopefully. Nobody has explained to them that they’re supposed to yell ‘Trick or Treat!’ – or, as one Irish infant leered at me one year: ‘Give us stuff or we’ll burn yer house down, ha ha!’

  These are cute local kids, I know them by name and a wicker basket is ready for them, filled with brand-name candies as well as walnuts, apples, tangerines, little sacks of dried fruit and mini-bags of chocolate. In Ireland, I learned to dish out goodies to each individual child after once making the mistake of producing the basket, which all but triggered a riot. The little savages dived into it virtually headlong, jostling and yelling, the bigger ones grabbing everything before the smaller ones could even reach into it. So, let’s see how the basket fares in France.

  Gurgles of delight. The ghosts and goblins peer in, and their purple grins widen. Nobody tries to rip it from my grasp, but the biggest child, aged about ten, pipes up. ‘Are we allowed to choose?’

  Yep. Two items each, how’s that?

  That, apparently, is great. Grinning, he spins round, plucks the tiniest infant fromthe back of their convoy and propels him forward.

  ‘Guillaume’s only three. Let him go first.’

  Beaming, Guillaume dips in and bags his munchies. Then they all
take turns, working from the youngest to the eldest, and I’m astonished: the nuts and fruit are vanishing as fast as the Mars bars, lollipops and toffees. One child actually identifies the contents of his little sack: ‘Banana! Coconut! Raisins! Apricots! Yum!’ Nobody’s fighting, or bursting into tears or accusing or thumping anyone; they simply seem to be having fun. Where I come from, they’d have my arm off up to the elbow by now, but here they seem to have some innate sense of restraint, and seem delighted with what’s on offer.

  Incredible. Are they, er, kidding? Do they really like dried fruit as much as sweets? I ask and they all nod. One of the girls even insists that she likes fruit better, ‘specially the coconut curls’. And then the spokesman pipes up again. ‘Merci bien, madame,’ he says before turning to his group with all the authority of Charles de Gaulle: ‘Everyone say merci madame!’

  Which they do, in chorus, before toddling off to the next house, well pleased with their booty. These are not yuppie children, they don’t go to expensive schools, they’re not called Cosmos or Prunella: they’re the offspring of local farmers and fishermen and I’ve never met such a polite, cheery little bunch in my life. For the first time, the Hallowe’en ritual has been a pleasure rather than an intimidating scrum.

  Other groups follow, and by the end of the evening the wicker basket is almost empty. Just a handful of marshmallows and a lone bar of chocolate remain: the apples, tangerines, nuts and dried fruits are all gone.

  Which is possibly why the visiting goblins were all such bright-eyed, bushy-tailed little devils, rosy and healthy and carrying scarcely a spare kilo between them.

  My English neighbours are equally astonished by this new version of Hallowe’en. ‘It was lovely! Nobody seems to have told them it’s supposed to be a nightmare! And nobody can have told them that apples are good for them, because they scoffed the lot!’

  28.

  Home and Away

  It is a beautiful October day, bright and brisk with a bite to it, and I am walking around the local lake, smiling at the sixteen little boats bobbing on it with their merrily multicoloured sails; the kiddies have just come in from their sailing lesson. In summer the lake gets crowded, but at this time of year you can walk around it virtually alone. As I walk, a thought strikes me: I must have done nearly a thousand circuits of this lake by now.

  It’s a lovely lake, as sparkling and serene now as it was the first time I ever saw it, the day I looked out over it wondering whether to buy the house. It’s full of wildlife and in addition to its numerous other facilities it now looks as if some kind of floating stage is being installed, perhaps with a view to concerts. It’s a great amenity, and an enduring pleasure.

  And yet … a thousand times? Have I really walked around it that often?

  I must have. Because I have kept up my early resolve to walk around it at least twice a week and now, amazingly, I have lived here for almost ten years.

  Ten years is a long time. Time to take stock and, perhaps, make some decisions? It’s hard to pinpoint why this need to assess and evaluate should suddenly arise, because after all, a decade is just a figure, but for whatever reason, I am surprised to find myself inexplicably unsettled lately, uncertain where life goes from here.

  A decade ago, I left an Ireland that had been almost deafened by the roar of the Celtic Tiger. An Ireland that had lots of money, but money that seemed to me to have gone to its head. It was party central, and I was partied out. Was moving to France the right decision?

  Yes. Hand on heart, it was. In exchange for a frenetic lifestyle I got peace and freedom and a rhythm of life that has greatly enhanced my quality of life – even, perhaps, its duration. In exchange for a steady salary, I found new challenges and surprises, discovering a resilience I hadn’t known I possessed, as well as an optimism that, so far, has actually proven justified. Best of all, I have been blessed by the fact that, while making new friends, I have also kept the old ones. There have been days when France has been maddening, but there have been many more when it has been exquisite, a glowing gift, a joy. Living here has been a very great pleasure, and quitting the rat race has been rejuvenating. Against all the odds, the infamous attic has held up, and to my astonishment I’m somehow still solvent. Haven’t gone broke, haven’t been deported, haven’t stormed off back to Ireland declaring the French to be an intolerable bunch of good-for-nothings. No, they haven’t been as exuberant as the Irish, and yes, there is some truth in the old sayings about them: they’re not cold, but they can be cool. That said, they are kind and sincere and, overall, helpful people who mean well. I will always be an outsider – let there be no mistake about that – but we live and let live and get along pretty well together, all things considered.

  Pierre is still mayor, but no, his projected housing scheme hasn’t materialised. Schemes, I have discovered, often remain merely that. The field where village festivals were once held is now a soccer pitch, with artificial grass on which new children play, but otherwise the village remains largely unchanged, the church spire still glowing comfortingly every night. The trees on which blackbirds once warbled have grown huge and now block a good deal of sunlight, but at least the eternally barking dog has gone, and the honking goose has been replaced by tranquilly clucking chickens. None of their owners ever did invite me to any of their barbecues or make any other social overtures, but I did make other lovely friends, some French, some Irish, and some English. A cosmopolitan crowd, after all, and jollier than it would have been had I stuck to my French-only guns.

  Serge Reggiani is dead now, as are Jean Ferrat and Charles Trenet. France’s music has changed, become more international and less haunting … or am I the only one who has difficulty distinguishing the singers, and the songs, from each other? At any rate, it’s no longer as important to me as it once was, I wouldn’t move here for it today. Nonetheless, I’ve been to some fabulous concerts, and achieved my ambition of seeing George Moustaki perform live. I’ve been to – and, more importantly, followed – fascinating films, I’ve danced at great parties, seen fantastic exhibitions, eaten fabulous food, celebrated with champagne, shopped in Paris, swum in turquoise water, lazed on sunny beaches, watched dazzling sunrises and blazing fireworks, cuddled new babies, laughed with friends, learned to roller skate (ish), visited magnificent abbeys, played tennis, been racing at Longchamp, walked through fields of blue flax and citrus rapeseed, through pink orchards and purple vineyards. I’ve read, and revelled in, the hundreds of books I never had time for before. I’ve cycled thousands of kilometres, and dispatched more delicious wine than I dare to think about. France continues to be a marvellous unfolding adventure, and there is no reason why it should not continue to bewitch me for many more years … for ever? Or for how long, exactly?

  Ah. Ah ha. That’s the question. How long can you stay away? How long before you feel the pull of your roots? How long before you start having inexplicable dreams of Slea Head and Claremont beach, of banter and bodhráns, of Galtee sausages and heated, hilarious conversations, of people screeching at each other on Liveline and The Late Late Show?

  H’mm. Well, let’s not go too misty-eyed here. As I write, Ireland’s not entirely a pretty picture. The overheated economy is royally banjaxed, there are savage cuts on the way, and even my stalwart mother, aged ninety, is feeling the chill wind of a cold climate. The kids are still studded and tattooed; the girls are taller, blonder and more beautiful than before, but look somehow cloned. Crime continues to cause many heartaches, and no, I still wouldn’t walk around the city centre at night with the same insouciance I do here. As for the health system – well, reports make it sound like an episode of MA*S*H*. Drug dealers routinely shoot each other, and it’s a good thing that public transport has improved, because your car stands an excellent chance of being stolen, vandalised, clamped, towed away or burnt out on a sink estate. The weather can still be grey for weeks on end, and—

  And yet.

  And yet, the hill of Howth on a summer’s evening, the bay twinkling fa
r below, the shipping slipping into a necklace of glittering lights. The theme tune to the Ronan Collins show. Chicken and chips after a walk in the Wicklow hills. Art on the DART. U2 at Croke Park. TG4, Galway oysters, Leopardstown, Lisdoonvarna. Irish coffee, which only properly exists in Ireland. Reeling in the Years. Walking Portmarnock strand, climbing Slieve League. Turf fires, Eamon Dunphy, black humour, autumn ivy glowing scarlet on Stephen’s Green. ‘The Fields of Athenry’, Dunnes Stores, Grafton Street at twilight. That sense of communal loss and support when something sad happens, when a Gerry Ryan or a Mick Lally dies. The outrage when we’re done out of the World Cup, the cheery, tireless fund-raising – and yeah, let’s get in a takeaway and light the fire and switch on all the lights we like!

  As the saying goes, you can check out but you can never leave. Unless you emigrate very young, you will always remain spiritually attached to the land of your birth. Even if you fall in love with France, or anywhere else, you will still love the country that nurtured and educated you. Its hold is proprietorial, parental, and over time you come to recognise its power.

  But is it powerful enough? It must be said that, at the moment, France is doing itself no favours. It’s in turmoil, rioting over the proposed raising of the retirement age to sixty-two, while Ireland is stoically accepting that its citizens will have to work on to sixty-eight. Sometimes I feel a strong urge to seize France by its shoulders and shake it – one of the most prosperous nations on earth, has it no idea how lucky it is! Whereas Ireland, with its prosperity in tatters, is swallowing the bitter pill with dignity: there is shock and anger, certainly, but no rioting, no senseless destruction which would only have to be repaired at yet further expense. If it has huge problems, it seems to recognise that some are self-inflicted, and it’s too late to exact retribution for the others; ironically, it’s the one now doing the Gallic shrug, with a wry smile. Ah sure, the Celtic Tiger years turned out to be expensive, but hadn’t we great fun while they lasted!