Chapter 4
Chapter Four
Back in my little crooked house, I cobbled together a snack of crackers, grapes – and camembert cheese, which smelled like socks that had been through something terrible, so I resigned myself to the idea that it would be an acquired taste.
I washed it down with some weird black tea that lent an odd bitterness to the clash of flavours in my mouth.
‘Well, that’s quite enough of that,’ I said to myself before tipping the remainder down the sink and washing my one, lonely cup.
I could hear noises in the apartment below me and began to wonder if that was indeed where Madame Moreau lived.
I hadn’t presumed to ask the night before and she was not exactly a woman to shower you with information.
I flopped down on my sofa-bed and tried once again to make friends with the strange sausage-shaped structure that lay at the top of the bed where my pillows should have been.
I pondered over my first few hours in France, which, frankly, had felt like a lifetime.
That’s what happens when you are out of your comfort zone – time stretches like an elastic band, prolonging your discomfort and unease, accentuating your isolation.
Had I expected a grumpy old woman for a boss and a matchbox for a home when I had answered that ad all those months ago?
Did I really think that plonking myself in a foreign country would erase all the painful memories of the last eighteen months?
Was I deluding myself that a dream of living in Paris could really make me happy?
Every thought in my head was telling me what an idiot I had been and that leaving now would be smarter than prolonging the agony.
But my heart wouldn’t let me; despite the frosty welcome and the downright idiocy of acting on a childhood whim, my heart was holding out for something amazing to happen.
And who was I to stand in the way of that?
* * *
I worked with a singular focus all afternoon.
Just get through today, I silently encouraged myself, hoping my confidence would grow with each new customer.
Sure enough, there were quite a few tourists who wandered in, mostly to take photos of a quaint boulangerie.
It was a relief to speak to people in English after a long day of broken French and improvised sign language.
I took an order of coffee and eclairs to a man sitting at one of the tables outside.
He had a cute little terrier on a lead and I brought him out a bowl of water.
‘Is that an Irish accent I hear?’
‘It is indeed,’ I said, taking a moment to catch my breath and let the fresh air fill my lungs. ‘And that’s definitely an English accent. Are you here on holiday?’
‘I’ve lived here for about twenty years now,’ he said. ‘And yourself?’
‘Oh,’ I said, sucking air in between my teeth and checking my watch, ‘about twenty-four hours.’
‘Ah, well, in that case, welcome to Compiègne. I’m Geoff, by the way,’ he said, shaking my hand, ‘and this sweet little girl is Ruby.’
I bent down and gave Ruby a quick ear-scratch.
‘I retired over here a few years ago from Bristol. Well, I say retired, I’m working part-time as a tour guide, mostly for war buffs coming to see the Armistice Memorial,’ he explained, before tucking heartily into his eclair.
‘So what is the … armistice, did you say?’
‘Well, it’s one of the most important sites in France in regard to both World Wars,’ he began, switching into tour-guide mode.
‘The Allies signed the armistice with the Germans in the First World War in a train carriage in the Forest of Compiègne. In 1940, the French signed an armistice with Nazi Germany in the same clearing; Hitler’s way of humiliating his enemies.
It’s really very interesting, you should visit if you’re going to be staying here a while.
’ He handed me his card, then said, ‘If you don’t mind me asking, what brought you to Compiègne? ’
‘Fate,’ I replied, hoping it was true.
* * *
As the evening turned the sky dark and all the residents of Compiègne set off home with their baguettes in hand, Manu returned to help shut up shop.
Like most teenagers, he had few words for anyone, but there was an obvious bond between himself and Madame Moreau.
She never had to tell him what to do since he was industriously following a time-honoured routine they had forged long before my arrival.
As for me, my feet were burning with pain from standing all day, but I wouldn’t give anyone the satisfaction of seeing me take a break.
I could tell from their attitudes towards me that neither Manu or Madame Moreau expected the foreigner to last very long, and despite myself, I was inclined to agree.
Manu and I began lifting all of the chairs onto the tables so I could begin mopping the brightly tiled floor, while Madame Moreau counted the money in the till.
‘?a va?’ he asked softly, lifting his head and casting a glance around the bakery, as if to say, ‘Are you settling in OK?’
‘?a va, I think,’ I smiled lopsidedly. His gentle words almost cracked the hardened veneer I was trying and failing to keep. I wiped my eyes as though from tiredness.
With a swift nod, he headed over to the kitchen, poured himself a large glass of water from the tap and gulped it down in one go.
‘J’y vais,’ he said, taking more boxes with him and once again piling them on the Vespa outside.
I knew that meant he was going somewhere, but where? I figured that was the end of our deep and meaningful conversation.
‘Does he make deliveries, I mean, livraisons at this time of night?’ I asked Madame Moreau as she locked the door behind him, the clock just striking eight.
Instead of just answering the question like a normal person, my new boss had a way of making you feel like an idiot for having asked it in the first place.
‘Non.’
‘Right, understood, or bien compris as you say here. Do not ask ridiculous questions, you foreign simpleton,’ I mumbled, cleaning the glass shelves below the counter, when she appeared suddenly beside me, like a ghost.
‘He delivers to the church, Mademoiselle édith, pour les gens SDF, Sans Domicile Fixe.’ To my blank stare, she added, ‘People who ’ave no place to live.’ With that irritated response, she shut the lights off and threatened to see me at the same time tomorrow morning.
‘Oh, yes, Dad, the people here are just so welcoming and I’ve really hit it off with the owner, Madame Moreau,’ I told my father later that evening on the phone.
In a strange way, it felt kind of nice making up the French dream I had expected to have before I got here and I was so good at it, I almost believed it myself.
* * *
After a long day at work, I decided to go for a walk around the ‘quartier’ to breathe the cool, crisp evening air.
It did my heart and soul good to get out and explore my surroundings a little.
The streets were lit up by elegant street lamps that curled like a shepherd’s crook.
Compiègne’s picturesque thoroughfares certainly held their charm, but I felt so far from home and pathetically alone.
This whole following-your-dreams thing was not at all how I had imagined it.
Where were all the fun friends I was supposed to meet, the fun experiences I was supposed to be having?
I’d watched enough films to know what should be happening when you chase after your heart’s desire, but none of that big-screen magic seemed to be happening here.
It was just boring, lonely and a bit scary.
Everything that had happened since the plane touched down at Charles de Gaulle had only confirmed my suspicions that coming here was a mistake.
I passed by a hairdresser’s on the busy Rue Solferino and saw a photo of a model sporting an Audrey Hepburn-style gamine hairdo.
Her hair colour, a kind of dark chestnut, was quite similar to my own.
Yet while my long, shapeless do lacked any kind of style, her cropped locks were the essence of chic.
I touched my hair absent-mindedly and wondered if I could carry it off.
‘Ca vous irez bien,’ came a man’s voice.
I turned around but he was already walking away down the street. He turned back momentarily, revealing a flirtatious grin, but before I had time to say anything, he had turned down another street and was gone. I think he meant that the hairstyle would suit me.
Maybe Compiègne wasn’t such a big mistake after all.