Autobiographical

When the year came to its inevitable end and I said my farewells to both pupils and teachers, I really didn’t want to leave. I had no desire to return to England after a break of nine months, which was no doubt the reason why I had been more than happy to spend time with my mum and dad in the quaint village of Saint-Quentin-la-Poterie and to pass three weeks with Robin in Chicago, Wisconsin and Minnesota in the Easter break, even attending a few classes at Madison incognito. 

Once again, fate was to come to my rescue, admittedly bolstered by curiosity and determination on my part. In the last few days of the school year, I was called in to see the director of the school. He told me that the feedback had been universally positive on my performance as a teacher and readiness to take up extracurricular activities such as writing and acting in a play and promoting the region and the school. I asked him whether there might be any opportunities to work at the complex in the summer as I had heard that it was open all year round. I was aware that I would be able to retain the flat, enjoy free breakfast and remain eligible for the discounted cost of lunch and dinner. He informed me that there was a summer scheme and that I should apply to the events director Jean-Louis. 

Upbeat, I duly went to see the director. However, his response was blunt. There were no vacancies that summer. Surprised, I went back to the school director. An hour later I was told to go and see Jean-Louis again. Now his demeanour was totally different. He smiled and went on to explain that there had been a misunderstanding. It now transpired that there had been a vacancy all along, but it had been reserved for someone else. However, they were no longer available. I was naturally overjoyed, as that solved finance for the summer and next year – I had not been eligible for a university grant for a couple of years under Thatcher’s reforms of the education system, so I would do my best to earn as much as possible every summer to cover the year. Funds would be boosted this time by the savings from teaching, as private lessons had covered most expenses.  

I returned home for two weeks to do some shopping and catch up with my good friends Chris and John, playing tennis and losing, and suffering a similar fate in snooker. It always looked easy on TV, but was much harder in practice. 

Then it was time to take the buses again from Victoria to Paris and Paris to Nice where I would have to catch another bus. I was about to do so when I heard some furious beeping at the stop. I turned around to see that it was emanating from a brand new red Ferrari. And I immediately recognised the laid-back driver.

It was Momo, a good-looking six-foot two prince from Cameroon, one of the business students I had got to know at a couple of soirees held by CERAM. For some reason, as soon as I got in, Momo was keen to let me know that he had bought his driving licence back home. As my nostrils detected a clear whiff of weed, Momo decided that it was now time to flaunt his ability to drive at a speed I have never known before or ever want to experience again. Death never seemed so close for 30 minutes. Still I was grateful for the ride and offered him a beer at the local café-bar at the entrance to the school complex, but Momo declined, citing romantic plans. By contrast, I slumped into a comfortable couch there and I immediately ordered a pint that was downed more rapidly than usual.

The school made the most of the empty rooms in the summer, offering the equivalent of cheap guest houses for local and foreign tourists keen to explore the south and have access to a hot breakfast and a canteen serving more than passable meals. I forgot to mention that throughout the school year and the summer I had also partaken of the breakfast of hot coffee or hot chocolate with fresh baguettes, butter and jam. 

In a way, the job was reminiscent of my experience at the camp site – accompanying guests to their rooms and providing keys, taking a passport and deposit, taking payment, exchanging currency and on occasion making the beds and cleaning the rooms if other members of staff were not available. I worked as part of a team with a number of young and amicable French kids aged 19-22. On occasion we would head down to Antibes, local bars and midnight swims.

As well as enjoying their own trips into town and to the beach, the tourists could participate in sports programmes at the complex (basketball, football, other games), as well as day tours organised by a couple of young former university students from the South of France Jean-Christophe and Thierry Plompen. Thierry has been a good friend ever since. Incidentally, he grew up not far from Saint Quentin. He has had an extremely successful career as an international consultant, working primarily in Luxembourg and Paris, although he did come over to Moscow the early 1990s on one occasion on an assignment for a courier firm where we got to meet up and spend most of the evenings and week together. 

Robin also visited in early August. We had the good fortune to see Bruno as well, who had found work in the region that summer and bought us tickets to see The Cure playing in Fréjus, a resort and port town in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur region. They were superb and the three of us danced the night away. The Cure had a tendency back then to end concerts with their debut single Killing an Arab, which is based on the novella The Stranger  by Albert Camus. Owing to misunderstanding of the meaning of the lyrics, some rocks started to be thrown – clearly, it was time to leave. Interestingly later on the Cure stopped playing the song for a while due to the response internationally, before reviving it in 2007-2008 as “Kissing an Arab” and then later “Kissing an Ahab.”

As well as making a good friend in Thierry and enjoying the chance to consolidate my friendships with Bruno and Jean-Pierre by heading to Paris with them at the end of my stay, I left on good terms with Jean-Louis who frankly acknowledged to me at the end of that summer that I had done a good job, adding that I would always be welcome back there. In another life I might well have taken him up on that offer. Alas, it was not to be.