petite anglaise

When I arrive at the Centre de Loisirs, cheeks flushed from another two-hour session at the gym (my anti-anxiety drug of choice), the children are outside in the cour de récréation.

It takes me a while to spot Tadpole. She’s not dangling upside down by her knees from the climbing ropes, a sight which set my heart fluttering last week. There is no sign of her queuing to go down the slide, either, and she doesn’t appear to be under the inverted V-shaped structure the kids all refer to as la cabane.

Then I spot her, sitting by the edge of the playground alone, back to the wall, hands cupping her chin. With her long, spindly arms and legs Tadpole is often mistaken for an older child. She’s inherited her father’s body shape, something I’m sure I’ll be intensely jealous of one day. At her age my knees were surrounded by little rolls of fat; the kindest adjective to describe my legs would likely have been ’sturdy’.

As I stride towards her, I am waylaid by a black girl whose name escapes me, her hair separated into an elaborate patchwork of squares, each ending in a little knot, bound with a thin band of colour. ‘Elle a fait une bêtise,’ says the girl, gesturing towards my daughter. ‘Elle nous a montré ses fesses au milieu de la cour.’

‘Ah bon?’ I say, trying not to smirk as I imagine relaying this exchange to Mr Frog, later. I have no idea what could have possessed my daughter to lift her skirt, pull down her pants and moon in public, but the mental image it conjures is priceless.

‘Honey, why did you show your bottom to the other children?’ I say, in a neutral voice, dropping to my knees and ignoring the tale-teller, who stands to my left, her arms folded across her chest.

‘Because Edith did tell me to do it!’ says Tadpole, scowling. ‘And then I did get into trouble, and not her. It’s not fair.’

Tadpole stands her ground with me (and the other adults in her life) all the time, but I’ve noticed her behaviour in the presence of her peers is very different. She lives in a cruel world where a classmate may decide to be her best friend one day, her sworn enemy the next. ‘Dina didn’t want to sit with me today because I was wearing trousers and not a skirt,’ she once told me sadly on the way home from school. She refused to wear trousers after that. It went on for weeks. The shy, bespectacled four year old I once was can’t really blame Tadpole for seeking the approval of her peers. But she’s going to have to learn some boundaries. Because I’d rather not pick up the pieces when Edith dares her to jump off the top of the slide.

‘Well,’ I say, ‘maybe next time Edith or any of your other friends asks you to do something that you know is silly or naughty, you should think about saying no. There’s no friend worth getting yourself into trouble or hurting yourself for…’

‘I know that mummy,’ Tadpole says indignantly, pulling herself to her feet. ‘But I didn’t think showing my bottom was a bêtise. At home when I take my clothes off and wiggle my bare bottom you do always laugh.’

‘At home it’s different,’ I say firmly. ‘Outside there are different rules. It’s rude to show your bottom to a waiter in a restaurant, or to children in the playground. But I’m allowed to laugh when you show it to me, because I’m your mummy.’

Life lesson delivered, we head for home, where my rules are law.

Choosing ‘writer’ from the drop down list of professions when I came to fill in my online dating profile was a decision I would come to regret. It seemed to bring out the very worst in my suitors. A couple of hundred extremely verbose, overwritten emails later and it’s no wonder I found The Boy’s one-line dig about my taste in TV so refreshing.

That makes a change from ‘j’ai cru voir un ange passer en regardant ton profil’ I thought to myself, enjoying the sensation of not feeling like I was going to throw up into my mouth, for once. I clicked through to my provocateur’s profile and took a look. There was a single black and white photo: short hair, six o’clock shadow. Either squinting into the sunlight or frowning. Or both.

I found his profile blurb amusing. Using the simple ‘j’aime/j’aime pas‘ format was not wildly original, but the things he professed to like were random and thoughtful enough to pique my interest. Among them were: penguins and otters; bananas flambéed with rum; raw scallops; curling; bad jokes; magic; history books; Desproges (plus several other writers I’d never heard of); bad weather when I’m warm indoors; sleeping; my apartment; living in Belleville…

I replied to his email, defending my taste in TV and noting that we appeared to be neighbours and ought to maybe meet for an apéro Aux Folies sometime. I had this vague idea that it would be nice to make a friend in my neighbourhood. Nothing more than that, because my head was elsewhere. Over the past few weeks I’d made obsessing about a frustratingly elusive man I’d met on the same dating site almost a full-time occupation. Going out to meet him, refusing to read the billboard-sized signs that he just saw me as a friend/drinking buddy, making excuses for his rebuttals (’he’s damaged, he has issues, I’ll overcome them…’) and generally breaking every single rule of ‘He’s Just Not That Into You’. (Another thing I can’t read without a little bit of bile creeping up my throat).

I finally set up a date with The Boy after a resounding rebuttal involving a fruitless sleepover. Time to diversify, I said to myself. And so I dug out The Boy’s MSN address and popped up on the screen of his work computer late one Wednesday afternoon.

Almost a year later, and a little over a month before we say ‘I do’ (or, to be more accurate, ‘oui‘) I’m struck by how true everything in his dating profile was. I’ve witnessed the bad jokes firsthand, adopted him an otter for Valentine’s day, inspected his bookshelves and marvelled at his ability to sleep through just about anything. It’s all true. Every last word.

So this week I shall be adding rum to the shopping list. It’s about time I tasted those bananas.