Just over 8 years ago, my father slid from this mortal coil and into the arms of whatever you believe exists after death. Dying, as he did from mesothelioma, asbestos induced lung cancer, the Dust Diseases Board of NSW awarded compensation to his living family members. It wasn’t a lot of money, but it was enough for me to sell up, break up and embark on the dream I’d held close to my heart for a lifetime.
Seven years ago, I took the blood money and I moved to Paris.
The Art-sist-ologer and her share of the bloodied pot came along for the ride and we lived for three months in a garret^ on Rue de Rennes. It was on the 6th floor of a typically Parisian Haussmannian building with no lift. It was so small and so sparsely furnished, I didn’t even sleep on a proper bed. Our ‘kitchen’ was a piece of furniture in a tiny hall between the bedroom and the salon. Between us we could stretch our arms and touch the walls on either side. We laughed a lot, we drank a lot of very cheap wine and she painted between her French language classes. Meanwhile, I was given the chance of a lifetime.
The American, a man wise beyond his years, wickedly smirking at the world from under a heavy but mirthful brow, hired me to lead his team of Paris based recruiters at the Search Engine. I’d never been a recruiter in my life, I’d actually never worked anywhere that didn’t serve food, but he trusted his instincts and he trusted me. I did what he asked of me, very well I think, for just under 12 months, at which point the world economy vomited chaos from within its Goldman’d over-Sachs-ed walls and I again found myself without gainful employment.
Shortly thereafter, the Fruit Company came a-knocking and I was again busy from 9 to 5, albeit with a sister who’d deserted me for Sydney, a crappy leg and an even crappier French boyfriend.
Three months after we arrived in Paris, I was run over by a bicycle and broke both bones in my lower right leg. I learned that the Art-sist-ologer was a dab hand at painting lichen but a little less at ease jabbing needles into her older sister’s fleshy thigh. I subsequently learned how to ascend and descend 6 flights of stairs on my arse as she held the plastered limb aloft. I also learned that the French Administration as it relates to public healthcare (in fact most everything) is an unmoving colossus reminiscent of the Woolly Mammoth; huge, hairy, slow and best left buried under 2 millennia of pack ice. Bureaucracy is, in case you didn’t know, a French word.
The following 5 years, bursting with Fruit flavour, were among the best I’ve yet lived. I travelled the world. I’ve seen San Francisco sparkle in the sunshine, I’ve seen Warsaw radiate the history of a thousand atrocities in the rain and I’ve seen the ancient stones of Rome coated with a blanket of historically unprecedented snow. My most treasured experience occurred only last summer. Wandering the Grand Bazaar in Istanbul on a Friday I stumbled upon midday prayers at the city’s largest Mosque. The moment of peace I experienced as the incomprehensible words of Mullah rang out across the shiny minarets and blue-tiled alleys will stay with me until I take my last breath.
I became friends with some of the best people I’ve had the good fortune to know. The Body, The American and The Fashionista with whom I’d travailed at the Search Engine have kept my weekends filled with prattle, pranks and Pinot. While my fellow French Fruits, New Girl, The Painted Saint, The Butcher and Braveheart have eaten as many home-cooked meals in my flat than I have.
These new friendships, born within the walls of the 75th department of France have proven to be among the strongest I’ve known. Their steadfast support over the past few months cannot go unacknowledged. They’ve also got exceptionally strong livers and tolerate my habit for crying at the most inconvenient moments or singing out loud, in the street, in front of other people. They’ve also borne witness to the many crushes, the 12-month relationship with the Internet Lover and they don’t mind hanging out with a middle-aged, straight woman who wears Doctor Marten’s boots. They’ve proven to be pretty decent, open-minded friends indeed.
Through it all, Louis XIV, King of France, has ably squired me. Despite his changing paramours, his frequent absences, first to Evian and then to London; his advice, his love and his intimate knowledge of the French tax system have kept me out of trouble, out of debt and lightheaded with Champagne. An alcoholic beverage that he claims has the least calories but I maintain has the most alcohol.
Back on the red dirt, I’ve become an Auntie three times over; Sapphire, Smack and Squeal were all born in Sydney’s autumn while I meandered cobbled streets and drank Rosé in the sunshine in Paris’s springtime. I lost two grandmothers. I mourned most keenly the departure of Gramma, who left me only 48 hours after I left her in Sydney. Cousins are engaged, weddings are missed and Motherbear has been awake at 3am to listen as I wailed, lamenting this and that, always by my side in spirit even if she couldn’t be in person.
In Paris, I’ve had the chance to reconnect with The Academic, the exchange student who lived closest to me when, as teenagers, we were both flung into the far south of France. I’ve watched as her little family in the northern suburbs of Paris has grown in number. I’ve been treated to not one, but two, secular baptisms in her local town hall, a ceremony that I didn’t even know existed; a ceremony that most French people didn’t know existed.
I attended the wedding of The Stylist and The Samurai, an Australian woman and a Japanese man who met in the City of Light before returning to Melbourne and having two little girls. Two micro-Melbournians who both have French Christian names in honour of the place their parents fell in love.
I spent weeks drenched in duck fat, Roquefort and Madiron with my wonderful French family in the south and rediscovered a love for a man who doesn’t love me back, but who will one day realise what he’s missed and lament my departure. I was also briefly engaged to be married to another French man, The F-Word, who dumped me rather unceremoniously when I was visiting him in Bologna. That happened 3 years ago, I’ve never fully recovered, I probably never will, but I’m stronger and wiser and drunker for the experience.
Through it all, I’ve lived in a little flat on the hill that looks down over Paris. I tread the streets in shiny red boots in the winter or shiny red ballets in the summer. Everyone, including the homeless dude with ever-changing puppies around the corner, knows who I am; I am L’Australienne.
Azzam the Pizza man downstairs who has fed every member of my family with really bad pizza and expensive wine will be sad to see me leave. He’ll have no one to flirt with, although he did give me a lift home one day when he saw me on the street in town. His countrymen, who own the 8 à Huit* a block below will miss questioning my preference for buying fresh milk rather than the more popular UHT variety. I’ve never understood why a country that is so widely known for what it can do with lactose prefers to drink heat-treated milk.
Down the road, the Pharmacist and his wife, have sold me everything from the needles I jabbed myself with during the Broken Leg saga, to the control tights I’m now obliged to wear in the summer to keep the busted foot from swelling to alien proportions, to my anti-anxiety medication and most memorably, the 4 litres of liquid one is required to imbibe before a colonoscopy. With every transaction, they’ve asked after my wellbeing, taught me how to self-inject and questioned the health of my Godmother, for whom I also purchase a particular mineral salt in massive (no doubt illegal) quantities, a mineral salt not sold in Australia.
Just next to the chemist are Samir, his brother and their myriad sons. A bevy of well built Tunisians who sell the best fruit in the 18th Arrondissement. They’ve given free strawberries to Sapphire & Smack, they’ve spoken in broken English to everyone who’s ever stayed with me, they’ve had the unique pleasure of selling me grapes that don’t come in a bottle.
A bit further down Rue des Abbesses are Jacky and his Butchery cum Sweeney Todd slaughter chamber. When they aren’t doing unspeakable things to the gutted remains of a pig, they revel in the delight of harassing L’Australienne as the Wallabies continue to lose rugby matches in all corners of the globe. Guillaume, the hot one, is married, but like all married French men, continues to seek the pleasures of the flesh beyond holy matrimony and winks artfully at me as he minces my steak or slices my sausage.
Keeping this Goliath of a woman clean in her all-together are Laura and Muriel who paint my feet and do delicate things to my delicate parts on the Rue des Martyrs. Along with Stephane & Muriel who bleach and frizz the hair on my head to keep it in the electrified, kissed-by-the-sun mop of a Medusa that tops my grey matter below. They’ve all suggested that I continue to return to Paris to maintain my treatments, because where I’m going, women don’t care about that kind of thing the way parisiennes do.
Most of all though, I’ll miss my friends at Le Miroir. Seb, Julien, Kathrine and the team have always greeted me with a smile. They’ve put up with my dining alone every Saturday accompanied only by a computer. They’ve watched as I wrote the many thousand words that you’ve read on these pages. They’ve kept my glass full and they’re going to help me throw a party to celebrate my ‘exit stage left’ from Paris. They’ve always been so very kind to their singular Australienne.
A title I won’t hold for much longer.
I’m about to embark on another adventure; I’m reclaiming my birthright and moving to Great Britain. My father, who never lived to see me live my Parisian dream, would be proud as punch to know his daughter is taking advantage of the greatest gift he ever bestowed on his three children, a British Passport. He’d also take advantage of a free place to stay…
I never expected to see my Parisian dream become a reality; I never really expected it to end quite so abruptly either. But most of what happens to me is unexpected. It’s often the result of chance, of being frustrated, of being happy, of being inebriated or a blinding hangover.
I’m off to discover what its like to live in a single city that houses the same number of people as the entire continent of Australia. I’m off to be berated up close and personal every time we lose the cricket. I’m off to learn how to say Aubergine or Courgette instead of Eggplant or Zucchini; but in English and not French. I’m off to learn how to use 5 vowels rather than the single ‘eh’ that Australians use. I’m off to live in the same city as Tom and Benedict.
After seven years of kissing frogs, it must be time to kiss a Prince.
A Paris, nous avons vecus des belles moments ensemble, nous avons rigolé, nous avons pleuré, je vous aime tous, et non, je ne regrette rien.
^In French, these type of flats are known as chambre de bonne, meaning housemaid’s room. Think Downton Abbey, where Anna lives
*In France, we don’t have corner stores open 7-11, they prefer the more manageable hours of 8 to 8
Entertaining reading about ur adventures, best of luck with this exciting chapter, ur dad will be proud! Xxxx
Posted by: Aoife ward | 03/02/2014 at 07:39 PM