Sticks and Stones 22

Christina, the masseuse, was olive-skinned and beautiful with a rounded but sleek face full of Latin fun and mischief. I stripped down to the waist and lay flat on my stomach as she kneaded her oils into my wing. The music was gentle and rhythmic, maybe a Blue Note compilation, and as my mind drifted away from the junkyard that is its home, I felt contented and hopeful. Christina’s talented human touch was making me physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually amazing.
At forty euros the half-hour, I totted up a weekly budget to have her enrich me on a daily basis, and then sighed.
What if we could live together? Perhaps I could take her on holiday for a few days? Was she attracted to me?
In the end, I settled up and booked another appointment, this time for Suzie to enjoy. What else could I do? You may not think so but my conscience is intact.
On the fifth day, I took an early breakfast downstairs and drove into town to pick up the car. All had been done at under a hundred quid.
I returned to the hotel, g’eed Suzie up, went for a swim with Clara while Christina worked her magic. After that, I called down for help with luggage.
We got within thirty miles of Toulouse when a thick blanket of fog enveloped us with the awful knowledge that we lived in the wrong place.
The blanket of fog has not lifted since.
Maddy and Griff arrived back from their father’s house the day after us, and things got out of hand immediately.
Having been back only an hour, Maddy shouted, ‘For fuck’s sake, Clara! What do you want?’ when all she was doing was trying to say hello to her.
Suzie went into one when I asked her to tell Maddy off, and suddenly I was outside, starting up the car and wondering why I’d been kicked out again.
On Christmas Eve, I called her to see which way her mental winds had blown. We agreed that I should be there for Christmas, thankfully, but on the terms that I ‘behave myself’.
Slowly but surely, I was becoming the fifth child of the family.
I went to Leclerc in Gaillac for the mountain of shopping required, dropped it off at the house, then zoomed into Toulouse for some records and stocking-fillers for the kids.
Christmas Day was good, but things soon got out of hand with Suzie, and I now find myself fully ostracised from Clara again, sat smoking and writing in my little flat in Lavaur, wondering where to take her now that I’m not welcome at the house again. Lavaur’s dead but there’s always Rabastens or Toulouse.
It’s the 28th of December, my least favourite day of the year, right in the middle of the festive season.
I got two pairs of socks and a Little Britain poster for Christmas.
I just called Suzie and she’s in need of help. There’s Tigger, who needs the vet, and Griff needs the doctor for Ventolin.
Maddy and Clara need entertaining.
Meanwhile, Suzie is pregnant, getting bigger by the day, losing her temper with me and losing the plot without me, unsure of where she should have her blood taken to check the progress of the baby.
It feels like I am standing at the edge of an enormous crevice, watching the distance between me and my family greaten as the crevice widens.
How can I walk away from lost children?
To cross the crevice would mean sure death, but to turn around and face new life without them would mean pain and heartache; eternal and untenable regret.
Suzie called me back after lunch to tell me she could have blood taken at Rabastens tomorrow morning and that she could get Griff’s Ventolin at the pharmacy without having to go to the doctor. Tigger could be seen tomorrow, hitting three birds with one stone.
She also told me that she’d like to live in London, which scares me to death when I think of the rent there, although Fulham has some nice little houses on offer at about £2,000 a month.
We talked of schools and Suzie started crying when she realised that Maddy may not get the private education she so deserved.
I suggested that Surrey might have some good state schools but she disagreed. She was right in the end. Surrey suffers from the Home Counties’ Disease, where the difference in education between private and state schools is laughably unfair.
The problem with Fulham, and London in general as far as schools are concerned, is that British children are generally in the minority.
There you go, call me racist, only remember that two of my best friends were foreign (Sri Lankan and German) when I was a nipper and we grew up without worrying about blood one bit. We knew that racism was there (I was brought up on the Wirral with all the boot boys in the Seventies) but it didn’t bother us.
I used to stick up for Neil, my Sri Lankan buddy, when angry youngsters noticed he had olive skin, and I had my arse kicked a couple of times, but it never led to anything more than a scrape and a scarper outside the chippy, back home to wash the grazes and cuts from our knees and elbows.
My German friend, Werner, and I made bombs from gardening chemicals bought at the local shop. We lit them in parks and in greenhouses, scaring families and smashing windows. Werner knew his chemicals like the back of his hand and I loved watching the smoke and light fuse so imperially.
The difference between now and then is that the balance of foreign nationals to nationals (in existence then) was manageable. It is not at all manageable now, where an English family is entitled to diddly squat unless they’ve all got ASBO’s coming out of their arses and need to be tucked away. If you’re an ordinary English family, you may as well forget social help.
When I went to Woking council for help with lodgings at the time that Suzie was pregnant with Clara, back in 2002 when we’d been forced back to England from Paris by her ex-husband, it was with no joy that we received our assessment only three points shy of council assistance. It didn’t help when the old biddy took pleasure in telling me that I’d have been home and dry if we were of Asian origin or had a strange religion.
The one thing that stood in the way of my family being helped at this horrific time was our nationality and creed, and that there is racism.
As it stood, I would have to do it on my own like all the other English toilers.
I need to work in England, and at least there is work there. Here, I’m lucky if I get a dodgy ceiling to paint, and that’s only because no one else will do it. There just isn’t the budget for people in rural France doing the do. Even if working means the writing suffers, which may not be the case if I can knock smoking dope on the head, I’ll earn tidy sums from painting and decorating and be able to provide for my two/four children.
The only two snags are that Suzie can’t provide for herself, being pregnant, and I still need to look after Griff and Maddy. Their father’s minimal maintenance will only pay council tax and a few pizzas.
The house will cost about £25,000 a year in rent, food and bills will be another £20,000, clothes and presents for four children will chew up £10,000, and incidentals of £5,000 should take care of the rest.
Then, on top of that, I’ll probably have to live somewhere (a glorified bedsit will do or maybe a shed in the family garden to hobble off to), pay back my loan and account for all the monthly outgoings of a self-employed painter.
So, if I’m a good boy and paying my tax, I’ll need to find £80,000 a year to keep my head above water. That works out as about £2,000 a week, or £400 a day, or £60 an hour, and even then there’s no budget for a little family holiday. Dentists and doctors can earn this sort of money, but I’ve lost most of my painting clients by being in France for too long and I’m sick of knocking on doors in the rain, touting for work.
Suzie tells me I have no aspiration or ambition, that I’ll just sign on and wither away when I get back to England, which makes me angry.
She knows she needs me but she just can’t accept it. She’s the type that constantly needs love but never asks for it.