The footbridge pictured here is the one alluded to below
A feeling of sadness and longing that is not akin to pain, and resembles sorrow only as the mist resembles the rain.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Happily,
I got a job through the good offices of the black-bearded warden of the youth hostel
at Caluire, who put me in touch with a fellow in charge of several labourers
working nearby. I don't recall what the object of the work was, but for me it meant digging, in company with several other foreigners – Algerians, as it happened.
We started at eight in the morning, but about an hour later a fire was set flaming with a pan of water bubbling away on it. Next, a workmate vanished for fifteen or twenty minutes, returning with a couple of bottles of wine and a package that he opened to disclose a couple of onions, a roll of something that looked like white leather and some kind of green vegetables. He peeled and chopped the onions and green herbs and sliced the white leather fayre into strips before dumping the bunch into the pan.
Work ceased at
about ten AM when my fellow workers flocked around the pan, which was by now removed
from the flames. They then set about feeding themselves with their fingers
and passing around a bottle of red wine. When one of the workers offered me a white titbit, I asked what it was.
‘Trip’, was the
reply – 'tripe', in English.
I’d never ever tasted tripe before, because I’d always detested what I called ‘guts’: that is, liver,
kidney and the like, nor did I take to
the tongue I’d once eaten at the holiday camp in Lancashire , though that wasn’t precisely
‘guts’. My common nosh was the flesh of an animal, not the organs. But I
would try this tripe, if only for etiquette’s sake. I took the offering in my
fingers and examined it. It was smooth on one side and furry on the other. I
placed it in my mouth and felt the smoothness and furriness with my tongue.
That was enough. I decided I didn’t like it.
But I got it
down. The Algerians were popping the green vegetables into their mouths and chomping
them whole. I took one that was offered, shiny and tapered in shape, bit off a morsel of it and swallowed. Suddenly, my mouth, tongue and throat were on fire, and then my whole gorge took flame. I’d never ever before devoured anything even weakly piquant, but this was blistering.
“Aaaaaaaah!” I
gasped, and the Algerians burst out laughing.
“De l’eau! De
l’eau!” I cried.
But no one
seemed to have any water. However, someone passed me a bottle of wine. I took a swig, but as that did nothing to soothe my torched internal organs, I dashed this way and that with hands clasped to my mouth and chest, while the
Algerians rocked with laughter. Finally, the fire inside subsided, but I felt
like I’d been stung. Many years later when chillies became widely available in England
Yes, those Algerians
had a good laugh on me that day, but it seems I had them worried about another matter. I recall looking up from my digging more than once to see a
frowning face and a hand wafting up and down as if to say, ‘Slow down’. But I
couldn’t slow down. I just got bored if I did. On my third day I was paid off
the job. As no reason was forthcoming, I assumed I was not wanted because
I worked too hard. After all, I thought, if the boss turned up and saw my
rate of work, he might well wonder why the others couldn’t (or wouldn't) keep pace with me. I
suppose they told him I just wasn’t suitable.
Two letters arrived for me at the Poste Restante while I was in Lyon . One was from my cousin Terry who announced his intention to get engaged to his girlfriend and another from John Coakley announcing plans to get married.
Engagements, marriages, plans for the future. And what was I doing?
Waiting for Melissa.
Still, much as I
idolised the girl, I was not going to burn incense before her image forever
like the deathlessly expectant Jean-Paul. Thus, when I met a pretty little
buxom blonde from Wuppertal
A light or two
glimmered here and there in the obscurity and made silver ripples on the black
river as we crossed the bridge, a perfect opportunity, I thought, for stopping
and staring silently at the scene before interlocking in a lingering kiss...
Well, it
happened in films, you know!
What Dorothea
was thinking I don’t know, as she chatted to me in her flawless English, but
as my left forearm was caressing the swell of her ample right breast in the rhythm of
our walk, I felt a tingling sensation within as I looked down at her pearly
face dimly disclosed in the darkness.
There was just the
faintest of light here in 1965
I drew her
notice to the scene all right, causing a short pause in our walk, but sadly no
kiss of any kind issued from it. Why wouldn’t I learn that things don’t simply
‘happen’ as they did in films? They have to be made to happen! That fear of
rejection again. When I found out now that she was leaving next day to resume
her journey home, none of my hints that she should abide a little while longer could
make her stay. But she did give me her address when I said I meant to pass
through Germany England
However that may
be, I had to pocket some lolly somehow just to go on with it. When I put the problem to
Melissa, she conducted me to an agency called Manpouvoir in Lyon , the equivalent of the
Labour Exchange in England
I hitched to a
little village called Chateauneuf-du-Rhône, lost somewhere in the landscape to
the east of Montélimar.
On arrival, I
presented myself at the Hotel De La Poste, as instructed by Melissa, and was assigned
to a bed in a room shared with a young Frenchman called René.
Hotel De La
Poste, Chateauneuf-du-Rhône. It's still there!
Later, I was
shaken about with my fellow workers in the back of a camion, one of those
corrugated contraptions common enough on French roads at the time, en route to
our place of work. Naturally, I felt a little ill at ease here, as
I could not really commune fluently with my new companions, but my isolation
did not disturb me to the extent it had done in Paris
The vehicle came to
a halt in front of a row of gigantic greenhouses, where I alighted with my
new fellow workers. The concrete supports for these structures were twice as
long as the structures themselves, which were clearly mounted on rollers, for
one of these immense glass sheds had been levered backwards out of line with the
others. Following one of my new companions into a greenhouse, I sniffed
a lush scent and my eyes were greeted by a spectacle of row upon row of tall
green plants sprouting stems topped with pink blossom.
I was now shown what to do. Since all this verdure needed support while growing, it had to be interlaced with great webs of string - 'ficelles' - fixed to tall stakes. It took my workmate just a couple of minutes to show me how to tie the stems of the plants to the stakes.
I learned only later I was toiling away like a spider in the carnation export industry.
Every morning now, I descended the stairs of the Hotel De La Poste to join my workmates for breakfast – bits of yesterday’s bread and a bowl of café au lait – at a long wooden table in the dining room. Then we trooped outside to climb into the camion for transport to the location of our botanical labours. After five hours’ work we were shunted back to the hotel for lunch.
The meal lasted two hours, as each of its elements was served singly
– for instance a plate of simple runner beans would make up a course – and afterwards
the workers cleaved to their seats, chatting over half-empty glasses of wine.
While I awaited the return to work, I grimaced at the two or three flies
inevitably speckling the cheese plate and wondered why no one ever bothered to
shoo them away. Then we’d cram into the
camion again to commence a second session of five hours’ work prior to transit
back again for the evening meal and bed.
My roommate and
I got on well from the start, despite my frail command of the French language and his
lack of a single word of English. With his short stature, dark complexion and
thick lips held round and slightly apart, René was a typical French specimen.
He was not blessed with the best of intelligence, that’s true, but that meant
his talk was limited to simple words that I had some chance of
understanding.
For the rest, we used the language of humour. I even learned a little French vocabulary from him. For example I gathered that the word ‘frappe’ meant a knock or blow of some sort, for whenever a jet plane roared overhead, as it sometimes did, René would close the fingers of his right hand into a fist and, looking meaningly at me, punch his open left hand, rapping out: ‘Force du frappe francaise!’ I reacted with the same tactic, hitting my hand more forcefully and roaring: ‘Force du frappe canadienne!’, though well aware that the Canadian ‘frappe’ was pretty insignificant compared to the French one. Then we fell into a contest of ever harsher discharges of the same refrain coupled with punches so hard that my hands were left stinging.
He never called me by my name. I don't think he even knew it, or was curious enough to ask what it was. He called me couchon, which would have been downright rude and unacceptable if it had emanated from an intelligent mind, or he called me ‘Popeye’, God knows why.
For the rest, we used the language of humour. I even learned a little French vocabulary from him. For example I gathered that the word ‘frappe’ meant a knock or blow of some sort, for whenever a jet plane roared overhead, as it sometimes did, René would close the fingers of his right hand into a fist and, looking meaningly at me, punch his open left hand, rapping out: ‘Force du frappe francaise!’ I reacted with the same tactic, hitting my hand more forcefully and roaring: ‘Force du frappe canadienne!’, though well aware that the Canadian ‘frappe’ was pretty insignificant compared to the French one. Then we fell into a contest of ever harsher discharges of the same refrain coupled with punches so hard that my hands were left stinging.
He never called me by my name. I don't think he even knew it, or was curious enough to ask what it was. He called me couchon, which would have been downright rude and unacceptable if it had emanated from an intelligent mind, or he called me ‘Popeye’, God knows why.
I managed to
convey to him that I couldn’t spend any money, for I had to save it all for my
trip back to Canada. He made a deprecating gesture. Then we climbed into his car and his
engine went resonating through the empty French countryside to the town. When
he’d made his purchase at one of the numberless nougat shops lining the main
thoroughfare there, he led me into a café where we stood silently at a counter
smoking, him with a demi-tasse of coffee and me with a bottle of beer. We had
only the one drink, at Renés expense, before motoring home in the dusk.
Eventually, I received a couple of postcards from Melissa. One pictured the Roman Amphitheatre we had visited in Lyon . She writes: ‘Do you
remember, dear Colin? It was the last day at “the Roman Theater
And she takes up
the tail of the ‘a’ at the end of her name and forms a little flower on the end.
The second postcard showed trees in the Parc de la Tête d’Or. Here she writes: ‘On the last Friday
we were walking here, Colin. Do you remember it?’
No. I only
remember her.
‘I hope so. It
was another nice day. Now Lyons Lyons
Once again the
language is quite intimate, but what did it all mean? Those two times we spent
together clearly meant something to her, but what did I mean to her? That’s what I wanted to know. However, in retrospect
I deem it unreasonable to have expected any such revelation, as I’d never dared
to tell her what she meant to me. But there is a strong note of monotony in the
second card. Was I not just a novelty to furnish a bit of diversion to a somewhat lustreless life?
In the first
week of October, René went away for a couple of days’ holiday. He sent me a postcard addressed to Canada (Popeye),
Hotel de la Poste, Chateauneuf du Rhône.
‘Cher camarade,’ he writes, ‘Un bonjour de Giens à mon gros couchon. Amicalement, René’.
It has taken me to the time of writing this post to discover what he meant by 'Giens'. It is a peninsula on the cost ofFrance Toulon
‘Cher camarade,’ he writes, ‘Un bonjour de Giens à mon gros couchon. Amicalement, René’.
It has taken me to the time of writing this post to discover what he meant by 'Giens'. It is a peninsula on the cost of
In the second
week of the month I received a letter from my mother stating that my brother Ian was
now attending a university course at United College Winnipeg
But fate was
busy putting an end to all that. On the 15th October, as near as I
can make it, René told me sadly that we'd both been sacked. I was astounded. Why?
I asked. He said we’d made too much noise engaged in a pillow fight the night before.
But couldn’t we have another chance? I urged.
Apparently not, as we’d been warned about noise before.
Warned before? I cried incredulously.
He just looked guilty when I stared at him.
But couldn’t we have another chance? I urged.
Apparently not, as we’d been warned about noise before.
Warned before? I cried incredulously.
He just looked guilty when I stared at him.
I was back at
Caluire once more on Saturday, 16th October. Apparently I’d
arranged to meet Melissa on the Sunday, but did not succeed in seeing her, for a
letter arrived dated the Tuesday, very different in tone from the two postcards
she’d sent.
‘I do not understand anything really!’ she rote petulantly. ‘I was waiting for you on Sunday morning, you did not come so I was thinking, “he has changed his mind, he does not want to see me anymore!’
‘I do not understand anything really!’ she rote petulantly. ‘I was waiting for you on Sunday morning, you did not come so I was thinking, “he has changed his mind, he does not want to see me anymore!’
She could not have been more wrong!
She went on then to say: ‘I was wrong
maybe because Geneviève said to me yesterday, you were waiting for me into the
room (did she mean the studio?) and you did not come on Sunday morning because
you were sleeping! Poor boy! Sleeping!!!!!!
How in hell could Geneviève
know so much about my private life? She was no acquaintance of mine!
'On Sunday evening I went out of
Lyons with my father…’, and then she said how she'd seen ‘some modern
buildings, sculptures and new bridges’ somewhere or other, got back at six and
then went out to see some friends. Next she said that she and Geneviève were to
visit Paris
Actually, she is
the one who sounds 'crossed'. And I smell a rat. How could her friend,
Geneviève, a creature I'd had nothing whatever to do with, know so much about my
movements and whether I was asleep or awake at any time of the day?
This was a
meeting that had somehow gone drastically wrong, ending in a disastrous misunderstanding, but
how much was she attempting to blame me for her failure to make the dangling ends meet
in her own frenetic existence? And what accounts for the indifferent tone?
Could it be that the trip to Paris Canada
I believe I met her once or twice more that week before she left for Paris Britain Winnipeg,
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