Ooh La La! Connie Pickles Read online

  Two girls from the bar were looking at me and laughing. I said, ‘You could help me if you like!’ but they turned away. Honestly, Snootsville. What I could have done with Julie being there. Or Delilah. Anyone.

  ‘So, you want to go outside? Yes?’ François said.

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘I do not want to go outside.’ He kept putting his arm round my waist and trying to pull me towards him. His eyes were closed.

  ‘Non! Non,’ I said. Then I gave in for a bit.

  ‘OK,’ I said finally. ‘Non.’ And pushed him away from me. ‘I’ve got to go.’

  I got across the room to where Pascale and Eric were getting cosy in the corner. I tried to convince her to come home with me, but she just looked irritated. I could feel François hovering at my shoulder and I tried making eyes of appeal at her, but she didn’t get it. She just kept burying her face back into Eric’s. God, it was frustrating. I know some people think I’m uptight, but there is a time and a place and I don’t think snogging your greasy-haired, spotty boyfriend when your guest, who’s only been in the country five minutes, is having a CRISIS is one or the other.

  ‘Fine!’ I said and turned round. Bump. François. In my face again.

  ‘Look,’ I said. ‘I really like you, but I’m tired. It’s really, really late.’ I mimed looking at my watch, though I wasn’t wearing one. ‘I need to go home.’

  He nodded and disappeared off. Phew. Then he was back, shrugging on a denim jacket. ‘OK. We go,’ he said.

  ‘No. No. I have to go. Alone. You stay.’

  He smiled at me. ‘Chez Pascale, yes? I take you?’

  I gave up. I didn’t know where I was going anyway. ‘All right. D’accord. But no kissing.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘No…’ I pursed my mouth into a kiss-shape to show him what I meant.

  ‘Ah.’ He kissed me again. Everyone was watching.

  ‘No!’ I pushed him off. ‘None of that. OK?’

  He shrugged. ‘OK.’

  So, he walked me home. It took about forty-five minutes – I was very glad to be wearing my lesbian lace-ups. I think he got a bit fed up about halfway there, but I just kept chattering away in English, pretending he could understand. When we got to the house, I said, ‘Merci beaucoup,’ put my hands on his shoulders and kissed him on both cheeks.

  The light was on in the living room so I tapped on the front door and Didier opened it. He raised his eyebrows when he saw François and they exchanged a few words which I didn’t understand. I felt rather dizzy in the bright light. François, who looked much younger next to Didier, turned and went up the path to the street and I went into the kitchen and got myself a glass of water.

  I met Didier as I came out.

  ‘You have already made friends,’ he said, with a tight smile.

  I laughed as gaily as I could, leaning against the banister for support. ‘Yes. Yes,’ I said. ‘Everyone is so friendly.’

  ‘And Pascale, where is she?’

  ‘She is still out. I expect she’ll be back soon.’

  Didier frowned.

  ‘I’m fine,’ I said. ‘I’m fine. Good night.’ He didn’t answer and I went upstairs. On the last step, I tripped and, when I turned to check he hadn’t seen, he was watching me with a funny smile on his face. He’s doing it over his bloody book now. God, I could die of embarrassment. I thought I quite liked him, but I don’t. He’s so patronizing. He must think I’ve never drunk Pernod before. He must think I’m about six.

  My bed, 4 p.m.

  Mysterious afternoon.

  Pascale emerged, the only sign of colour on her pallid form a large red love bite on her neck, as I was writing my last entry. She and Didier had an argument in which I heard my name. I expect she was defending me for getting drunk. The phone went a few times – involving long intense conversations – and then she dragged me out of the house. I asked her where she was taking me but she didn’t say. We walked quite a long way, at one point through an underpass with traffic thundering over us, to a house a bit like hers, only smaller. A woman a bit younger than Mother, in black leggings and a large shirt, answered the door. She and Pascale talked while she looked me up and down. I felt uncomfortable and smiled like an idiot.

  Then we went inside into the kitchen. At the table, a blonde girl with very red eyes sat in a towelling dressing gown. She gave a start when she saw me and began crying. No one paid much attention, though her mother said something that made her look at me and they all laughed.

  We didn’t stay long. On the way back, I asked her in French why her friend had been crying.

  ‘Oh, just because. She is sad.’

  ‘But why?’

  ‘Because last night her boyfriend went to a party and got off with somebody else.’ (I think I’m translating this correctly.)

  ‘And why did she laugh at me?’

  ‘Because you were the one her boyfriend got off with.’

  Honestly! It seems she’d taken me there to make her friend feel better. ‘Look at the frumpy English girl who seduced your boyfriend! Nothing to worry about there – he must have been drunk!’

  It’s so disorienting living in a foreign country. My French seems to be coming back to me; I’m not managing too badly, but it’s still as if everyone is in on some private joke that I don’t understand. You have to work so hard to keep up. And try and look deeply fascinated and fascinating while inside you feel quite stupid.

  So, I arrived back here, feeling cross and bothered, and that’s made me feel homesick. I wish – I’ve got to stop this – that I could talk to William. He never makes me feel foolish, or frumpy. I know he thinks my clothes are weird and he must like girls in make-up or he wouldn’t be going out with Delilah – but when I’m with him, I feel interesting. Take that time the other day when we were cycling to school together and passed those trendy sixth-form girls in miniskirts and flowery wellies. William said, ‘You’re ahead of your time, Con, ahead of your time. You’ll have to stop wearing wellies now, if they’ve actually become cool.’ He sounded quite proud. I could have hugged him.

  Living (though atmosphere more ‘dead’) room, 4.30 p.m.

  I was writing the above when the phone rang and Madame Blanc tiptoed up and tapped on the door.

  I leapt to my feet and charged downstairs, my heart in my mouth, thinking ‘My grandparents, les de Bellechasses!’

  I had to take a deep breath before picking up the receiver. My hand was shaking. ‘Hello,’ I said. ‘Bonjour.’

  ‘Con! It’s me!’

  ‘Delilah?’

  ‘Guess where I am!’

  ‘Er. At home?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘At William’s house?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Buckingham Palace?’

  ‘No, stupid.’

  ‘Dubai?’

  ‘Con. That’s not till half-term.’

  ‘Skiing?’

  ‘You know I’ve just been. Give up?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘PARIS!’

  A variety of emotions fought their way across my heart at this point. Delilah is the only child of affluent parents. There is not much Delilah wants that Delilah doesn’t get. It’s just typical that if there’s one thing I’ve got that she hasn’t – in this case a French exchange trip to Paris – she should end up getting one too. At the back of my mind, I sometimes think she’s only interested in William because he is – was – mine.

  She started filling me in – her father had this friend from work, he’d relocated to the Paris office, had a daughter of our age, they lived on the Île de la Cité, yacht in the south of France, blah, blah – and suddenly I stopped feeling cross and all I could feel was relief: my friend Delilah was on the other end of the phone. My friend Delilah was in Paris!

  I couldn’t tell her everything that had happened to me because Didier was in the room, rustling a newspaper called L’Équipe. But I’ve checked it’s OK with Madame Blanc and we have arranged to meet outside the Pompidou Centre to
morrow afternoon.

  Still living (I am anyway) room, 5 p.m.

  Another phone call! Julie!

  ‘Con,’ she hissed. ‘I’ve got to get away. I’m living in a house full of small children – including my French exchange, who’s about ten. I’m going mad. Chatter, chatter. Cartoons. Plastic toys everywhere. And I think they’re poisoning me.’

  ‘Poisoning you?’

  ‘It’s really weird. They put food on my plate and then they all sit back in their chairs and watch me while I eat it. And it tastes funny.’

  ‘Are you sure they just don’t want to see your appreciation of what they’ve made? The local delicacies, etcetera?’

  ‘It’s chicken nuggets, Con. And they taste different. They’re poisoning me. When can I see you?’

  I told her about Delilah and meeting her tomorrow outside the Pompidou Centre. She huffed about D (they’ve never liked each other, which can make things awkward) but she’s going to join us anyway.

  Encore living room, 7 p.m.

  Another phone call! Just call me Mademoiselle Popular.

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘Hello, Constance. C’est François.’

  ‘François!’

  I made a frantic face at the room. Pascale and her parents were watching television – a dubbed version of Only Fools and Horses which had been making me feel homesick. Only Didier seemed to notice, but he stared at me as if I was quite mad and then looked back down at his book.

  ‘Please can we have a date?’

  François – bless – had obviously been practising his English.

  I said, ‘François, I’ve met your girlfriend. She was crying. Or she was – until she saw me.’

  ‘Pardon?’

  ‘No, we can’t have a date. Sorry. Bonsoir.’ I hung up.

  Didier, the patronizing creep, was laughing. Where does he get off?

  Back in P’s bedroom, 9 p.m.

  Three phone calls, but none from my grandparents. Why haven’t they rung?

  Chapter Five

  New vocab: un appartement très class (a cool flat)

  Monday 31 March

  RER, line A, just past Nation, on the way home, 6 p.m.

  Very busy day, first chance to write in here.

  This morning I went to Pascale’s school. It was all a bit of a blur. It was their last day before the Easter holidays so there weren’t proper lessons. All the children kissed each other on both cheeks when they met up. French teenagers en masse are much cleaner and tidier than English ones. You see a lot of outdoor wear – jackets saying ‘Umbro’ – but they aren’t worn ironically, or fashionably, like they are at Woodvale Secondary, but more for practical reasons. I spent lessons not understanding a word and trying to look invisible at the back of the class and my free time trying to hide from François, who waved at me across the outdoor concourse. He’d have caught up with me if I hadn’t ducked into the loo. There was no one from Woodvale there. They’re all at different schools.

  I was hoping Pascale wouldn’t come to Paris. I told her Virginie, Julie’s FE, wasn’t coming, but she said she was coming too and nothing would shift her. I felt quite cross at first. Didn’t she have an Eric to sneak away and snog or something?

  We walked to the Pompidou Centre from the station at Châtelet-Les Halles. It’s less grand there than in Saint-Germain-des-Prés: cheaper shops, more tourists, the odd homeless man with a dog on a string. I bought Marie some coloured glass beads and William a T-shirt with ‘Vespa’ on the sleeves because he’s always said he wanted one (a Vespa, I mean, not a T-shirt). I hid it deep in my bag so Delilah wouldn’t see it.

  Delilah and Julie and another girl were already there, sitting on the ground, on a long, shallow step, in the shadow of the Pompidou. The outside of the building is extraordinary: blue and red and bubbly, like the dissection of a body or something Cyril might make with leftover Harry Potter Lego. I was so glad to see them I ran, leaving Pascale to catch up.

  They jumped to their feet when they saw me and we all hugged. Then Delilah introduced me to Mimi, her French exchange girl. ‘Hillo,’ she said poshly and I remembered that she was English. She was wearing white linen trousers (which must have had a grey bum now from her sitting on the ground) and a light blue cardigan that crossed over and tied up at the back. Pale blonde bobbed hair. Très sophisticated. Then Pascale came up and I introduced her to the others. She smiled nervously. I had this uncharitable feeling of having the upper hand and for an awful, fleeting moment thought of somehow taking my revenge for the Crying Girl, but luckily managed to fight it down.

  We had a hot chocolate and a crêpe at one of the cafes close by. Mimi, who gave the impression of knowing more than everyone else about everything, said it was ‘rather overpriced’, but I loved the fact that everyone was sitting staring out at the street in rows, as if they were at the cinema. Julie, Delilah and I ran through what we’d been up to; Pascale glowered, not really joining in; Mimi kept on translating the menu to us – even though we’d already ordered – just to show she could. (An English person speaking with a proper French accent actually sounds pretentious. This is an observation I should probably take to heart.) Julie and Delilah seemed to get on for once. Julie said Virginie, her FE, was wet and that she was really homesick. I couldn’t say I was too because of Pascale being there. Delilah and I tried to convince Julie that she wasn’t being poisoned, that she only thought that because she was feeling displaced. She said, ‘Yeah, but you didn’t have to eat last night’s burger. It was, like, raw. And no bun.’

  Mimi said, ‘Steak tartare,’ but we ignored her.

  ‘Why would they want to poison you? What’s in it for them?’ I said.

  Nobody could think of an answer to that.

  We walked round the shops a bit more then – Delilah bought some eyeshadow, Julie a bright-pink scarf, Pascale a few beaded necklaces. Mimi wanted to go to Gap. The others went in but I stood outside. I told them I wasn’t wasting a minute of my time in Paris in some American capitalist conglomerate. ‘Stay there then and smell the car fumes,’ said Julie. When they came out, loaded with bags, we walked down some more small streets, across a busy road, past a really posh hotel called Hôtel de Ville, and down to the Seine. I made everyone stop so I could breathe in the smell – brown and dank and delicious. Then we crossed a bridge, which was covered in scaffolding, to an island called Île de la Cité. And here, in a little street, was Mimi’s apartment.

  It was amazing. It was everything I –

  Here’s our stop. More later.

  P’s bedroom, 7 p.m.

  I’ll have to describe it in detail.

  1. Entry through tall double doors into a little courtyard with a fountain in the middle. Moroccanstyle tiled floor. Door over to left to…

  2. The most wonderful creaky, cranky cage-like lift, with brass knobs and a double door like an elegant gate which took you to…

  3. Third-floor apartment – with view of glamorous white roofs and snaking river from the living room. Also…

  4. Wooden floors, two white sofas, marble fireplace and…

  5. Three bedrooms including Mimi’s – stylishly minimalist, one canopy bed, one mattress on the floor. (Something I have that Delilah hasn’t – a bed!)

  Mimi’s parents, who, according to Delilah, are really really (or rather ‘rilly, rilly’) nice, were out, so we just lazed around in the sitting room, eating several bars of chocolate we found in the fridge. (French chocolate bars have nothing on Cadbury’s.) Pascale spent a long time in the loo and Mimi had a long, giggly phone call with a friend, so I made the most of the time to tell J and D about François and his insistent tongue, which made them both laugh a lot.

  Julie said, ‘I’m not getting off with anyone while I’m here because my heart belongs to Karl.’

  ‘Me too,’ Delilah said.

  We all thought that was hilariously funny and fell about laughing.

  ‘Not Karl, William,’ she squealed, finally. ‘My heart belongs to William. I’m
going to be faithful to William.’

  I felt a pang so, to suppress it, I said, ‘Ah well, not me. I’m free and single. Watch out the Parisian male. Unless your name’s François.’ And that set us all off laughing again.

  We had such a nice time. No grown-ups, no school, no parents, no home at all. It was like the essence of friendship. It was horrible when we had to leave.

  Mimi mentioned that we weren’t far from Saint-Germain-des-Prés so I persuaded Julie and Pascale to do a quick detour past my grandparents’ apartment and get the metro back to the RER from there. All three of us were tired so we walked in silence across another bridge and down Boulevard Saint-Germain. When we got to the building, there was a different concierge on the door. There were lights on the upper floors. A woman was standing by one of the windows; a small boy stared out of another.

  ‘So, are you going to see if they’re in?’ asked Julie.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because of the letter. They’ll contact me if they want to…’

  I stood staring up. Julie lit a cigarette. Pascale bummed one off her, but I could tell she didn’t normally smoke by the way it kept going out.

  ‘OK. Let’s go,’ I said. We turned and started walking down the street, back in the direction of the river. Halfway down, an elderly couple came towards us. The man, thinning grey hair, stooped shoulders, wearing a thick green coat and what you would have to describe as a handbag over his shoulder, was talking intently. The woman, much smaller, with a grey bob and a pretty lined face, appeared to be listening, but she was also looking into the window of the shop we were passing, where the mannequin was wearing a slate-blue wool suit.

  I didn’t say anything, but I knew. When we got to the end of the street, I turned and I was right. They were walking into the apartment block. I knew as surely as if it had been written across their foreheads that they were my grandparents.

  I haven’t said anything to the others. They won’t understand why I didn’t just introduce myself, why I didn’t just walk up and say hello.

  I’m not sure myself. I keep thinking they don’t want to meet me. Otherwise, why wouldn’t they ring?