petite anglaise

My hair, hanging over the edge of the bed, almost touches the floor, brushing against the overflowing ashtray, no doubt. My legs are outstretched, the soles of my feet pressed against the cool white wall above. Without my glasses, my toes are blurred and indistinct. I stretch out my arm slowly, squinting at my hand, eyes narrowed, gauging how far I can see the wrinkles around my knuckles before they, too, recede from view.

I have no desire to move, or dress. Music washes over me, and I close my eyes and let a reel of images play in a loop inside my head.

I see the one who got away, sitting on his balcony, unable to meet my eyes. “Je t’adore,” he says, his unspoken “mais…” hanging heavy in the air between us. I can’t look at him. My eyes are burning. He doesn’t want me in the way I want him too. He never will. There is no explanation for this; I must simply accept it.

He will never see me like this: languid, almost purring with contentment, clouée au lit in a pleasant torpor. He may have slipped in and out of my dreams last night, but something tells me that I’ve turned the corner now. He won’t inhabit my nights for long.

“A quoi tu penses?” asks the lovely, uncomplicated boy by my side, fingers softly grazing my thigh.

“Oh… Rien de très important. Juste à un truc que j’ai envie d’écrire…” I murmur.

“Enticing and intimidating in equal measures, the souk thrills the senses and jangles the nerves” - Lonely Planet, Morrocco.

I sit in the courtyard outside my room, sipping mint tea and chewing on a sweet, oily pastry. It is my first day in Marrakech and I’m trying to summon up the courage to leave the oasis of calm that is my Riad hotel, steeling my nerves for the thorough jangling which the Lonely Planet warns they are about to experience.

The maps in my possession offer little in the way of reassurance. Two or three main thoroughfares are labelled north of the place Djemma El-Fna, but from what I saw when the owner, Hamid, met me at the taxi rank and led me along a warren of tiny, unmarked passageways to the hotel, there are literally hundreds of snaking alleyways joining the dots. How I’d scoffed at the guidebook’s recommendation to bring a compass. Now I can’t help thinking I’d have done well to take it more seriously. Strolling aimlessly, surrendering all sense of direction can be quite liberating sometimes, leading you to places off the beaten track, revealing gems you wouldn’t have otherwise seen. But somehow doing all of this alone is less attractive. And more panic-inducing.

The heavy door swings closed behind me and I look back at the entrance, searching for distinguishing features. There is a number 8, but no name. I retrace our steps with care, trying to memorise the route I’d trodden with Hamid half an hour earlier. The passageway snakes left, under a dark tunnel, then right, left and right again. On the wall there is a phone number, an English mobile number it looks like, with the words “poute” below it. A misspelling of the French pute? A girl who led a local on, perhaps? I’ll never know but it will useful later. A marker showing me I’m on the right track home. Finally I’m delivered, blinking in the harsh sunlight, onto what I think must be the rue Mouassine.

My modest aim for the afternoon is to find my way to the Ali ben Youssef mosque and medersa, the Musée de Marrakech and the 12th century shrine which are huddled around a square to the east of my hotel. My destination should be only a five minute walk away, but I’m daunted all the same. And with good reason.

As I plunge into the narrow passageways my nostrils are assaulted by a million unfamiliar odours. Leather, scented wood and incense, sewerage, donkey droppings and spices. The heat and blinding light of the open alleyways give way to cool dimness; light filters through the woven ceilings in dusty diagonal stripes. The stalls are covered with a profusion of goods of all colours, shapes and sizes. They are grouped by trade, and I pass through the slipper souk, the jeweller’s souk, the tanner’s souk and a square where spices are sold and chameleons and tiny tortoises roam in cages. Through doorways I can see woodcarvers, blacksmiths and dyers at work, a man deftly gripping a chair leg with his toes while he files with his hands. It’s a sensory overload, a fascinating glimpse into a world which seems to have changed little through the centuries. If only I felt comfortable enough to linger, take pictures and soak up the atmosphere.

Sadly, I don’t. I move quickly, eyes hidden behind my sunglasses to avoid eye contact with the stall owners. “Some vendors are aggressive to the brink of assault”, claims the Lonely Planet. I wouldn’t go that far, but the constant onslaught of attention is exhausting, intimidating. As a tourist, and as a lone woman I am seen as a soft target, an easy prey. I can’t move an inch without someone trying to solicit my attention. The catcalls vary from friendly to impatient to annoyed if I don’t deign to stop.

“Bonjour la gazelle!” “Hello!” My carefully calibrated smile is intended to seem friendly, but disinterested. “Venez par ici…” “Non, merci, je me balade seulement, je n’achete pas aujourd’hui…” “Mais venez quand même, regardez un peu…” If I pause for long enough to take a photo shawls are wound around my protesting head, bracelets slipped onto my reluctant wrists, handfuls of dried flowers held up to my nose. Browsing without intent is not a concept the sellers want to understand. Every passer by is an opportunity to be seized. Tourists are fools who can be cajoled, badgered, even bullied into parting with their cash.

At first I’m blithely unaware that I am being followed. But when I turn, I see the boy who’d muttered “fish and chips” as I crossed the carpet souk square. Wrinkling my forehead as I study my map, trying to understand just how it is I’ve managed to walk in circles for the past fifteen minutes without getting any closer to my destination, he circles like a vulture.

“Where you want to go? I show you.”

“I’m looking for the medersa. If I take this street will it take me there?”

“I show you.”

“You don’t need to take me, it’s fine.”

“It okay. No guide. Lovely jubbly.” He scampers off, looking back over his shoulder and motioning to me to follow. I’m still smirking at his odd vocabulary, but this isn’t what I wanted at all. What appears on the surface to be gallant assistance for a damsel in distress will probably end with a request for a tip. But I’m all souked out, I need to find a way out of the chaos. I can spare a few dirhams if need be.

If I’d studied my guidebook more carefully, I would have seen the oldest trick in the book coming sooner. I follow the boy into a shabby courtyard, home to a modest looking scarf shop. Powdered dyes in wooden bowls are spread across a low table, and the vendors make a great show of asking me to guess the colour of the dye before they wet a piece of newspaper and dip it in. A green powder is violet, a deep red powder produces indigo. Every time I turn to leave they block my way. “Why hurry? I show you… You on holiday.”

“I need to go now,” I say firmly. “Thank you for showing me this, but that really wasn’t what I asked for. I don’t want to buy anything today.”

I turn, brush of the restraining arms and walk away.

“You give me twenty dirham? For guide.” He follows, overtakes me, blocks my way.

“You said no guide.”

“Ok, you give me kiss.” He gestures at his unappetising, pock-marked cheek.

I shake my head, push past him and turn on my heel, heart beating at a hundred miles an hour. I fall into step with some tourists I don’t know from Adam, finding their presence oddly reassuring. Turning the next corner, stepping out of the path of a speeding scooter just in the nick of time, I see a sign for the Musée de Maroc. I head towards it, gratefully, losing myself in the tourist throng.

Marrakech, I think to myself as I flop down in the museum café and order my second mint tea of the day, is not for the faint-hearted.

As I sat on the métro on the way to see some girlfriends yesterday, a bag containing chablis, Nutella and maple syrup wedged between my feet, I couldn’t help thinking back to happier versions of Mardi Gras, and in particular the 2006 edition, in honour of which I threw a pancake party and invited a few friends* from work to my old apartment. It was the first and last time many of them got to meet the man I referred to on this blog as Lover (a pseudonym to which a few readers strongly objected, but I felt then, as I do now, that given just how much time we spent horizontal, the name fit very snugly indeed).

A few days later Lover brought my dreams of an idyllic life together in the Breton countryside crashing down around my ears. I picked myself up, carried on, and so much other stuff happened shortly afterwards that I really didn’t know how to feel anything other than numb for a while.

What this means is that I’ve now been single for almost a full calendar year. It’s a state of affairs without precedent, because after much racking of brains and counting of digits, I can say with absolute certainty that the last time I was single for a Whole Year was in 1988. Although to be fair, at that time I’d been single for a total of fifteen years and was breathlessly awaiting the arrival of my first proper boyfriend.

How do I feel about this? Well, of course I’d rather be happily alone than with someone who was wrong for me. And yes, messing around with few strings attached seemed like fun for a while, but now just strikes me as utterly pointless. As for online dating, I check in to look at my profile from time to time but can rarely muster up sufficient enthusiasm to actually reply to my emails, let alone drag myself out on a blind date.

I know that this year without a special (adult) person by my side has been really good for me, in some ways. I’ve built new friendships, invested a lot more in existing ones and spent lashings of quality time with my daughter. I’m sure I needed to be alone, for a while, and that I’ll appreciate sharing the good, the bad and the ugly with a special someone all the more because of it, when the time comes.

But am I truly happy with this state of affairs? Is single the best thing since the invention of Nutella? Is single the new size zero?

I’d be lying if I said I loved it. Single still doesn’t come naturally to me and I doubt it ever will. So please excuse me while I go and comfort myself with a large pot of leftover nutella, a useful side effect of which is that size zero will never, never fit.

The last time I decided to take myself off on holiday alone was almost a decade ago.

In the summer which intervened between my two years of “teaching” English conversation classes as a lectrice, I found myself in the enviable position of having a three month paid holiday to fill, somehow. None of my friends were at a loose end, so I decided to go it alone. With the wonderful Routard as my guide, I started at Avignon and worked my way westwards towards the Spanish border, staying in cheap hotels and youth hostels in Nîmes, Montpellier and Perpignan, alternating budget restaurants and ravioli from a can, getting from A to B by bus and train. In those days, the Routard rated towns of interest with a helpful number of stars, and I made a point of visiting every place I could get to without a car, and was rarely disappointed. I saw jousting in Sète, fell of a rented bicycle into a ditch just outside Nîmes (due to a tragic combination of sunstroke, oversized bike and too-short legs) and ate fresh anchovies in tapas bar in Coliloure.

At the end of my three week tour I went to stay with a British couple, George and Sylvia, friends of a fellow lecteur, who had chosen to retire in the countryside north of Narbonne and were happy to put me up in exchange for doing a few odd jobs around their house and keeping them company. My favourite memory of that holiday is of the day when George drove me out to a vineyard to buy the cheap local red which he drank with every meal. On the way back to the village he took a turning I hadn’t noticed before, a narrow track which snaked through the vines, bringing us out on top of a hill from which we could survey the surrounding countryside.

“There’s something I thought you might like to see,” said George, parking the car and leading me slowly, painfully to the North side of the hill, leaning heavily on his walking stick. He had a bad leg, and it occurred to me that he was probably over stretching himself.

I followed him, squinting into the sun, thinking that the view was pretty, but not spectacular enough to warrant his trouble until I saw what he was pointing at, and stopped dead in my tracks. From our elevated vantage point the foundations of an immense Roman villa, invisible at ground level, were laid out in front of us. The main road almost clipped the outer wall, but without my guide, the vines would have had no trouble keeping their secret.

“I knew you’d like it,” he said, pleased as punch when he heard my sharp intake of breath. “After you told me about visiting the amphitheatres, the ruins near Nîmes. I knew you’d appreciate this.” He was not wrong.

Ten years later, I found myself once more in the enviable position of having the wherewithal to go away, and the time to do it. Tadpole will be staying with her French grandparents for ten days in February, and as I haven’t been on holiday (trips to see my parents or friends notwithstanding) since the damp and disappointing week I spent in Morbihan, Brittany with Mr Frog in August 2005, I decided to seize the opportunity.

It shouldn’t be too difficult to find some winter sun without breaking the bank, I thought to myself, scrolling through the destinations on LastMinute and AnyWay, clicking merrily through the special offer links on PromoVacances. But my mounting excitement was soon tempered by a feeling of indignant despair, as I saw that not only did most operators charge a hefty supplement for single occupancy of a double room, but in some cases they simply weren’t prepared to let a solo traveller book a room during the school holiday peak period, full stop. It seemed I had stumbled on yet another of those “Reasons Why Couples Look So Smug”, and it irked me no end.

After much dispirited sighing and surfing in ever decreasing circles, I finally found my solution (and it wasn’t a holiday site for singles, although I almost considered it). No, the solution was simply to eschew packages and book the hotels myself, often finding single rooms, and never paying a supplement.

I’ll be flying off to Marrakech for five days in late February, staying three nights there, and two by the coast in two gorgeous Riad hotels. My bags filled with books to read on the roof decks, I’ll take a few guided tours, do a spot of haggling, eat tajine and drink litres of fresh mint tea.

And by some bizarre twist of fate, guess who I’ll be meeting for dinner on the first night there?

I frown at my face in the mirror. Make-up still looks good in the right light, but increasingly these days I find that foundation accentuates the fine lines around my eyes instead of concealing them. I prefer myself with my glasses on, because actually they hide a multitude of tell-tale signs. The days when I dreamt of laser surgery are long behind me.

Digging out a selection of eye-shadow colours, I proceed by a process of elimination. The dark brown one I should really throw away, it’s too severe, too ageing. The pearly pale colours are too “teenaged”. Which only leaves a nondescript matt beige and a dusky pink. I choose the former, applying it lightly with a brush. Less is more. The last thing I want is to look like I’m trying too hard. My lips, full and pouty, if slightly chapped, respond well to a coating of lip gloss.

I survey the finished product. Not bad, but not quite me either. My mother used to say she felt the same inside at forty as she did when she was eighteen. I don’t feel the same exactly, but whenever I look in the mirror I think I always half hope to see my eighteen-year-old self looking back at me, and can’t help but feel disappointed that she is never there.

Padding into Tadpole’s room in stockinged feet I open the wardrobe and deliberate about what to wear. I have always been what I would call “pear-shaped”, often with as much as two sizes difference between the top and bottom halves of my body. Despite my New Year’s resolutions and recent gym membership, there are few visible improvements as yet. Now, the party I am getting ready for called for “something red” in the invitation. Hmm… A raspberry-coloured dress bought years earlier, which drapes in a forgiving way around my curves is the only red item in the wardrobe which strikes me as appropriate for a party. I might feel a little overdressed, and if I get cold my nipples will definitely show, but I don’t have time to agonise further. The babysitter will be arriving any minute.

Tadpole looks up from her book and smiles. “Mummy looks like a princess,” she says. And means it. I give her a grateful hug. Thank god for unconditional love.

Later, at the party my friend and I joke about the fact that we are actually several years older than most of the other guests present (understandable, as the hosts are in their mid-twenties).

“You can tell we’re older, because all these younger girls are playing it cool, dressing down, and here we are with our grown-up dresses and our faint whiff of desperation,” comments my friend, wryly.

“Oh god, don’t, my confidence is hanging by a thread as it is,” I reply, and proceed to enlighten her as to the meaning of the wonderful British expression “mutton dressed as lamb”, before helping myself to another glass of red punch.

I’m thirty-four years old, and until now, most people didn’t believe me when I told them my age, or gasped when I told them I had a three-year-old daughter. But something - and I’m not sure what - seems to have dented my confidence lately. Perhaps it’s because there hasn’t been anyone who I could get excited about for a while, no-one’s admiration to bask in. Or maybe it’s the fact that my last boyfriend was significantly older than me, and these days I often run with a younger pack.

From experience I know that it’s impossible to be objective about what you see in the mirror. On a black cloud day I can’t help but hate my reflection. In the throes of a hormone peak I will feel big, regardless of what the scales might read.

I’m looking forward to the day when the mirror throws me back something I like. It will be a sign that whatever was faulty has been fixed, that the storm clouds have finally lifted.

And in the meantime, I’ll just keep on basking in the warm glow of Tadpole’s compliments.

2006 was nothing if not eventful.

I got dumped.
I bought my first home.
I got fired.
I got outed.
I was given an exciting opportunity.

2007 should be a little quieter, less turbulent. A few important dates loom on the landscape. A hearing at the industrial tribunal on 19 February. A first book to deliver by 4 July.

But the thing which I’d most like to happen sometime soon, the thing I finally feel ready for, is the only thing that you can never plan. The thing which you can guarantee will only happen when you stop hoping; when you look the other way; when you least expect it.

I’d like to meet someone. Someone I can lose my appetite over. Someone who fills my head with silly daydreams. Someone who has the power to make me smile at complete strangers in the métro. Someone who doesn’t follow this blog, ideally, as I’d like to be discovered little by little, not offered up in one king-sized serving.

I spent much of 2006 keeping men I met at arm’s length, or pushing them firmly away. Partly, I suppose, because no single person I met was “all that”. Partly because I’d been badly burned and no longer dared trust my instincts. But also due to the simple fact that there was so much going on, so much that was new and terrifying that I wanted to come to terms with all the change before I let someone else in.

Taking stock, as 2006 drew to a close, I was forced to admit to myself that there is something a little empty about this life I’ve been leading. Spending hours alone, writing about events in my past, by day. Partying a little too hard by night, whenever the opportunity presented itself. I’m no fool. I see the binge drinking and bad behaviour for what it really is: a symptom of my malaise, escapism, a temporary stress release mechanism.

It’s time to set my life on a healthier course. Time to let go of my anxieties and enjoy the opportunities which have come my way. Time to let someone in, should a worthy candidate present himself.

Time for petite anglaise to take a step back and let me do the living.

For Tadpole’s sake, I am valiantly struggling to make Christmas feel special.

As with all treats, like a trip to see grandma and grandad, or mamie et papy, or even just the prospect of a weekend with daddy, I enjoy whetting her appetite, watching her excitement build every time I mention it, until, finally, she reaches fever pitch. Because my own childhood memories suggest that it’s the anticipation of the event which is often the best part.

So, on Sunday, despite a mild hangover, I braved the department stores of the Boulevard Haussmann so that Tadpole could marvel at the Christmas windows. Her little ooh’s and aah’s of delight were almost worth the stranger danger terror each time I lost her pigtails from sight for a few heart-stalling seconds. The windows at Galeries Lafayette and Printemps have cunning little boardwalks erected in front of them, you see, and you are expected to dispatch your little darling onto the steps at one end, then wade through the sea of frazzled parents, stacked approximately ten deep from windows to edge of pavement, and intercept your child at the other end. There are some activities which are much more difficult as a single parent, and this most definitely qualifies.

On Monday I heaved a rather soggy Christmas tree home, a fine mist of drizzle making it difficult to see much through my glasses, and causing me to bump into several fellow pedestrians. After some head scratching, I finally remembered that my Christmas decorations had been safely stowed in Mr Frog’s cellar when I moved apartments. Once these had been duly recovered, Tadpole helped me to hang the stars and tinsel - breaking only two paper-thin baubles - and her gasp when I switched on the lights gave me all the validation I needed for spending € 25 at the florist’s for a tree which doesn’t even come up to Tadpole’s forehead.

The presents I cunningly ordered two or three weeks ago arrived from Eveil et Jeux by post yesterday. Or rather, I collected them from the local post office, where unbeknown to me they had been sitting for the past week. I dashed home to wrap them immediately, so that if they were accidentally found, the surprises would remain intact. There are only so many hiding places a 33m2 apartment can afford, and a single game of hide and seek could all too easily throw the whole enterprise into jeopardy.

Our Christmas cards - featuring a festive Tadpole wearing antlers as per usual - were written, signed (both by me and by Tadpole) and posted two days ago. Hopefully the old antlers have a few years mileage in them yet, before Tadpole reaches for a telephone to call the French equivalent of Childline.

It would appear, on the surface, that everything is in place.

And yet, somehow, my heart just isn’t in the whole thing. Whatever we do, it feels as though something, or someone is missing. An extra pair of eyes at the grands magasins, an extra pair of hands helping me to drag the tree home from the florists and hang the decorations, another person to help me choose and wrap the gifts.

There is a Mr Frog shaped hole in our Christmas preparations.

Now don’t get me wrong, it’s not that I want to rekindle the flame with Mr Frog. It’s just that there’s something about Christmas which makes me yearn for his presence alongside us. Watching Tadpole’s delight alone is only half as exciting as watching it with him. Instead of catching his eye and exchanging gleeful smiles, I must content myself with sending pictures and short “guess what she’s done now!” texts to his mobile. It’s not the same.

I’m rapidly coming to the conclusion that there are some parental pleasures which need to be shared in order to be fully appreciated.

It is Saturday evening, a little after 10 p.m. My gmail status - currently one of the most reliable windows into my soul - reads “manshopping”.

Despite the fact that it is a Tadpole-free weekend, somehow I have managed not to sort something out for Saturday night. My inconsiderate friends have watertight alibis: in Australia, watching the rugby at the Stade de France, having friends over to stay. There has been a text message exchange with an antipodean boy I haven’t seen for a while, but even that trail seems to have gone cold.

The previous evening, a “quiet night in” to eat curry with friends spontaneously combusted into an all night chatfest, after which I slept on the couch, stayed for both a (midday) breakfast and an afternoon tartiflette. This should have made me feel better about the small gap in my weekend entertainment schedule. Should have, but hasn’t. I’m bored and borderline desperate. Although slightly hung over, and with my right nostril dripping accusingly, I still feel the need to get out. I crave company.

And so I sit in front of my computer feeling lonely, and it’s probably no coincidence that I’m back on an internet dating site for the first time since May, looking to see whether the shelves of the supermarket of sleaze have been re-stocked since my last visit. A cup of tea steams by my side and I frown at it, wishing I could wave Tadpole’s fairy wand and turn it into a medicinal mojito. My skin is rosy pink, fresh from a short, hot soak in the smallest bath in the world (TM); my towelling bathrobe keeps sliding off my dejectedly drooping shoulders.

Thankfully a girlfriend is home alone too, and available to chat:

a: In on a Saturday, duckling? Everything alright?
me: No! Bored. And ever so slightly man-achey.
a: Man-achey?
me: I need a man for, er, stuff
Wow. The pinnacle of articulacy. I’m sure you can see why I got a book deal now?
a:ah
um
ah
mm
mhm

[A six minute gap. I start to worry.]

me:I scared you off? You went to fetch a toy? Or your best Gainsbourg impression?
a:nono
a drink
similar
but less
you know
frotting

We shoot the breeze for a while, and then I plead fatigue, stick the kettle on for the last brew of the day, cast around for a DVD to watch in bed. Suddenly my mobile phone trills. It is the occasional antipodean boy. He sounds tipsy, and slurs something apologetic about his phone battery and the lateness of the hour. He is in Ménilmontant, it transpires. In a bar, with a big group of male friends. Would I like to join them?

I look at my tea, my bathrobe, and back at my tea again. It’s a ten minute walk, I would need another ten or so to make myself presentable. Hmm. A big group of male friends, he said?

* * * * * * * * *

The next day, my gmail status reads “itch duly scratched”.

a: good GOD
did you hire a male prostitute or something?
or am I going to deeply regret that question?

When I finally took a peek out of my window, towards 2 pm, I was dazzled by unexpectedly bright sunlight. And yet, for some perverse reason, I decided it was a perfect day for an outing to the cinema. A perfect day for sitting in darkness, indoors, alone.

Once upon a time, there was a petite anglaise who lived on rue de la Roquette, and taught English part-time for twelve, maybe sixteen hours a week. She had a student card, and an MK2 cinema card (in those days, the chain of art house cinemas were called Les Cinemas 14 Juillet) and she went to the cinema three, maybe four times a week. Between classes, to kill time, she often went to the morning showing (25 francs). When her apartment refused to warm up in the middle of winter, she saw two films back to back while her toes gradually thawed.

In her time with Mr Frog she still went often, although this sometimes meant reaching a somewhat unsatisfactory compromise. She liked thoughtful, challenging, whimsical; he liked car chases, guns and mechanically working his way through a bucket of (salted) popcorn. Sunday afternoons were often spent zipping down to Bercy Village on the Vespa, munching on a Bresaola toasted sandwich and queuing up for the latest blockbuster. Then Tadpole was born, and suddenly the cinema became a prohibitively expensive outing: €21 in babysitting fees before any tickets (or popcorn) had even been factored in to the equation.

Nowadays, although I have a little more time to myself, I tend to want to spend my precious freedom wisely, preferring to see a friend for a leisurely brunch, or a few drinks, rather than sitting companiably in the dark.

But today I returned and got bitten by the cinema bug all over again.

I bought a ticket for the mid-afternoon showing of Michel Gondry’s The Science of Sleep, then retired to the outdoor terrasse, where I sipped a café crème and nibbled on a cannelé for half an hour, my nose in a book. At the appointed hour I chose the perfect seat (a third from the front, in the middle of the row) and kicked off my flip flops, tucking my feet up under my skirt. The room was sparsely populated and quiet. As the lights went down I felt a familiar tingle of anticipation.

The film was quirky, endearing and occasionally laugh out loud funny. Gael Garcia Bernal was rather delectable in his ill-fitting, large collared suit. Losing myself in a dreamscape filled with stuffed toys, cardboard toilet rolls and eggboxes for a couple of hours was glorious escapism.

As the credits drew to a close, I strolled out into the sunshine and stretched like a cat. Glancing at my watch, I was pleased to note I had a whole hour to kill before Tadpole o’clock. I stopped at a café I’d never even noticed before, on a whim. A table in the sun. The sound of djembé players drifting over from somewhere near the canal. An occasional métro aérien screeching across the metal bridge from Jaurès to Stalingrad. Scenes from the film replaying in my head. A crisp, cold pression. One of the best croque monsieur’s I have sampled in years (it’s all in the topping - and this one was oozing to perfection with thick coating of bechamel).

Bliss.

There was only one false note. From time to time I found myself missing a certain someone. It crossed my mind, fleetingly, that Mr Frog would have loved the film; that he would have adored the café. We would have sat in companiable silence (popcorn chewing excepted), conversation unnecessary.

Ironic, isn’t it, that I should find myself wishing I could spend a few hours of my precious freedom with the one person who can’t be there. Freedom, it seems, comes at a price. And situations are never quite as clear cut as they first appear.

“Et, dites-moi, ma fille, pourquoi vous avez quitté votre mari, hein?” my neighbour enquires, in her abrasive, rather masculine voice.

Head: patchy fog. Limbs: rather stiff. Conversation: undesirable.

I danced until 4am last night in the scarlet womb of the Batofar. At first I thought the drink was playing evil tricks on my sense of balance, but it soon became apparent that the boat really was listing on the starboard side. I chose to believe that an uneven distribution of revellers across the dancefloor was responsible, because even if the boat had been about to capsize, there could be absolutely no question of leaving half way through “Bizarre Love Triangle”.

I finally manage to collect my wits sufficiently to venture out of my apartment twelve hours later. My aim is simply to take out the rubbish, have a peep inside my letterbox and then scuttle back upstairs to bed. Clutching a wad of junk mail and bank statements I begin my ascent. Halfway up the stairs I am waylaid by my new neighbour.

I don’t even know her name, but I am already perfectly au fait with her family situation. A son, living in Israel with his two wives (!) and four children. She was born and raised in Tunisia. There are two grown up children living in Paris, one of whom is a taxi driver. Her husband passed away sixteen years ago. She wears a sleeveless patterned overall over her clothes at all times, which I think Vitriolica would refer to as a bata; a headscarf is knotted around her wispy grey hair.

One thing is abundantly clear: the lady does not do small talk.

In the space of two minutes, she has already quizzed me about what I do for a living (ahem, complicated…) and enquired as to why my daughter isn’t with me. When I explain that Tadpole is at her daddy’s house today, that leads her to the million dollar question: “what on earth had possessed me to leave my husband?”

Executing my very best gallic shrug, I mumble something incomprehensible about how these things happen, which seems to satisfy her, for now. I choose not to correct her erroneous assumption that Mr Frog and I had been married. Now is not the time. It’s not that the subject of our separation is a sensitive one, really, but I suspect that to someone of her generation, my reasons would seem pithy. We didn’t fight tooth and nail. He never mistreated me in any way. We still get on rather well; in fact he’s one of my very best friends. The flame just sputtered out, over time, and we find it healthier to live apart. Even to myself, I now gloss over the leaving him for someone else part, which somehow seems irrelevant.

My neighbour decides to impart some friendly advice, woman to woman. Ever since she first saw me moving in, she has had a soft spot for me, apparently.

“Il faut pas rester seule, ma fille,” she says, putting a wrinkled hand on my arm and looking earnestly into my bleary eyes. “Pas pendant trop longtemps. C’est pas bien.”

I force my lips into a smile, wondering how to extricate myself from the conversation without causing offence. The footfalls of another neighbour in the stairwell give me hope. It is a thirtysomething male, bound for Franprix with a tartan shopping cart. The briefest flicker of irritation passes across his face when he sees my neighbour lying in wait, but, to his credit, he fields her questions about his family and his summer holidays with admirable patience.

I seize my chance and mutter an excuse, darting back into my apartment.

Don’t get me wrong, I think it’s lovely to have neighbours who actually want to have a chat from time to time. It’s usually the elderly who do - younger Parisians rarely take the time to get to know the people who surround them, even if the paper thin walls which divide our apartments mean that we are intimate in many other ways.

But next time I have an errand to run, I shall be checking to see that the coast is clear before I put a foot outside my door. Because there is one more thing you should know about my neighbour: her memory is failing.

We have had this very same conversation three times in the last week. I’m not quite ready for round four, just yet.

I sit cross legged on the floor, biting my lip whilst contemplating several flat packs of furniture and wondering how on earth I had managed to convince myself that I could assemble two gargantuan wardrobes without assistance.

The alarms bells first started ringing when the delivery men seemed to be struggling to even carry the boxes. They became deafening when I gutted the first pack and saw the assembly instructions, which portray a lady on a stepladder holding a wardrobe in place, while a gentleman gallantly hammers in nails and tries to resist the temptation to look up her skirt.

Not for the first time this week, I am forced to admit that I may have bitten off more than I can chew.

Happily, help is close at hand, in the form of a handyman who is coming over to help fix the wardrobes to the wall. When he arrives, I flash him my most winsome smile and flutter my eyelashes in what I hope is a feminine and appealing fashion. I doubt these things alone are enough to make him overlook my paint splattered attire and general state of clamminess, but there can be little doubt that I am a damsel in genuine Ikea distress, and he gamely sets to work while I pore over the instructions.

We are in the middle of pulling the first wardrobe upright when the telephone trills. I make a mental note to find a ringtone which doesn’t set my teeth on edge at the first opportunity and pull the phone out of my pocket with my free hand. It is someone from a radio station, whom I had rather inconveniently managed to forget about. I am supposed to wax lyrical about my dismissal on live radio in one minute’s time.

I wonder whether I am about to be the first person to ever give a radio interview whilst standing on a stepladder and holding a wardrobe upright. Given the surreal turn which events have taken since the first piece appeared in the press two days earlier, I am not sure that anything would be capable of surprising me any more. The first media call, on that fateful Tuesday, came from Radio Five Live, whilst I was sitting in the ASSEDIC (unemployment benefit) office, completing my paperwork.

The handyman, once he has heard my bashful explanation, kindly offers to refrain from hammering for the next two minutes and takes my place on the stepladder.

Realising that the level of background noise from the works being carried out in the courtyard may prevent me from making myself heard, I repair to the quietest room in my new apartment and close the door behind me.

And so it comes to pass that I give a live radio interview whilst perched on my toilet.

I find myself strangely unperturbed that there are no men to speak of in my life at the moment.

A few month’s back, among the flurry of well-meaning comments and emails, a few people trotted out that old chestnut about how some me-time would do me good. That alone doesn’t necessarily mean feeling lonely; it can be a very positive, healthy state of affairs. I knew that there was some truth in these words, but at the time I was still feeling brittle, wobbly, and just a little bit lost at sea. Feeling good about being alone seemed remote and unattainable, and I wasn’t even sure it was what I wanted to aspire to.

After all, I’d been “with someone” for the best part of the last decade, and was terrified I could only function as half of a couple. And what was more, single motherhood was a concept I found terrifying, riddled, as it can be, with negative connotations.

But somehow, over the past few months, so gradually that I barely noticed, a subtle change wrought itself. And one day I realised I had finally arrived in that place people had spoken of. I have found a level of self-sufficiency I never would have thought possible. The ability to revel in my new-found freedom.

I feel whole. More complete than I did when I was living en couple.

The new apartment symbolises this new phase in my life. I chose it, alone. Pored over the paint colour charts, alone. Sanded the walls and painted them, alone. Decided on a kitchen plan, bought some new furniture. There will be no-one’s imprint but my own (and Tadpole’s, although if I’d gone with her paint colours, I do not think the outcome would have been a happy one).

On my Tadpole free nights, I seek out the company of friends. After dabbling a little with internet dating, I decided not only that I couldn’t be bothered to invest enough time or energy in it - whether it be to find a mate, or just to satisfy more pressing needs in the short term - but also that there simply isn’t enough of me to go round. And what time I have, I prefer to spend with friends, old and new, rather than stumbling tongue-tied through an interminable dinner with a stranger, secretly wishing we had arranged to meet for just a coffee instead.

So let the men cross my path, or not. I’m not actively looking any more.

In London recently, I marvelled at how my two good friends from university, who had been confirmed bachelors for many years, were now attached, whilst I was not. A surreal reversal of what had long been the status quo. And yet it soon became clear that in some ways they envied me.

One of them noted that because of Tadpole’s existence, I am doubly free. In his opinion, the fact that I’ve already had a child means my body clock has stopped its ominous ticking, and I am free to go forward, unhindered by those considerations. Choose a companion who doesn’t want children of his own without it being a problem, if I want to.

It was an interesting point, I thought, and not one I expected to hear. (Whether I agree, is another thing entirely, I’m not sure I do.) I always imagined single motherhood would be perceived by others as a life filled with constraints. A negative state of affairs. I have certainly been experiencing it as a positive phase of my life, but I didn’t think other people would fully understand.

Sometimes it makes me very happy to be proved wrong.

I am meeting two old university friends at a pub by Hammersmith bridge, and I squint through my sunglasses at the swarms of drinkers soaking up the last lazy rays of the day by the riverside, fervently hoping it will not be too difficult to spot them. A little of my schoolgirl shyness tends to rear its timid head when I find myself scanning a crowd for familiar faces.

As it happens I needn’t have worried, there they are, pints of lager in hand, propping up a wall in front of me. I grin widely, enquire as to the whereabouts of their girlfriends, who are conspicuously absent, then deliberate about what to drink. The afternoon - spent with a handful of “friends I met on the internet” - has drifted by in a comfortable haze of Pimms and lemonade. Pacing myself has now become imperative.

We shoot the breeze while I pick at my pub food (fish, chips and mushy peas, my second platter of the weekend, which tasted all the better for being eaten outdoors), and I realise with a pang how much I have been missing platonic male company.

Back in my university days, with the exception of one special girlfriend, my closest friends were male. There was rarely any ambiguity in these relationships, as I was seeing someone for much of the time, as were they. The contents of our underwear were therefore refreshingly irrelevant. So many memories from that happy time make me smile when I replay them in my head. We were on the same wavelength. Our friendships were marvellously uncomplicated, yet rarely shallow or superficial. And in the case of present company, they proved to be enduring.

Arriving in France, and, in particular, falling in with a French crowd when I met Mr Frog, I realised that being “one of the lads” was no longer a very popular option. However well I might hit it off with his male friends, they remained his property. If there were girlfriends in tow, I was expected to gravitate naturally toward them, leaving the boys to their own conversations. On the rare occasions when I did allow myself to indulge in a little harmless banter with one of the boys present, his girlfriend was liable to frown and place an impeccably manicured, restraining hand on his arm, silently voicing her disapproval. Despite my own attached status, I was, in some way, perceived as a threat.

I do have a few male friends, these days. They are invariably expats. Or gay. Or gay expats. Which does little to dispel my theory. I resolve, hurtling back to France on my Eurostar, to seek them out more often.

Because for all her eleven years in France, this petite anglaise will never change her English ways. And she still yearns to be one of the lads. Sometimes.

Thursday - “The Stripper Who Came to Tea”

The doorbell rings, and Tadpole shrieks with delight, always ridiculously pleased to welcome a new visitor. At the door, an elfin slip of a girl with a rucksack twice her own body weight. And a laptop bag. Definitely a blogger. Hot, slightly flustered: it’s Mimi in Paris!

We eat. We drink. We wait impatiently for another blogging friend to arrive bearing multiple bottles of champagne. The conversation veers from the banal, to the satisfyingly crude, and back again, with many shades in between. Utterly fascinating.

Afterwards, I was thoroughly pleased with myself for having thrown caution and convention to the wind, by welcoming yet another online acquaintance into my offline life, letting my gut feeling guide me, poo pooing my mother’s objections on the telephone.

Mum: “A stripper? Will Tadpole be with you?”

Me: “Mum, she’s an Oxbridge graduate stripper, and anyway, she’s hardly going to teach Tadople how to hang upside down on a pole while my back is turned for five minutes, is she? And even if she did,” I add mischievously, “I’ve always thought children should be made to earn their keep…”

My only cause for disappointment, on this particular occasion, was that I couldn’t entreat Mimi and her sister Piu Piu to stay on in Paris until Saturday, the night of my upcoming party.

Because no party is complete without a stripper…

Friday - “proceed to checkout”

Mr Frog calls from the airport to say that he has landed on time, and will be able to take Tadpole for the evening after all. It is Friday night, and due to his previous uncertainty, I have made no firm plans for the evening. I resign myself to a night in, catching up on “Grey’s Anatomy”, my latest addiction, and trying not to think about the boy who wants to be friends without the addition of inverted commas.

A friendly little message arrives on meetic chat, out of the blue. In English, which is very refreshing indeed, as participating in chat, in French, on meetic, is comparable to having your fingernails slowly pulled one by one.

A little light-hearted banter ensues and before I know it, I have agreed to go out for a drink that very same evening. I will draw a veil of mystery over what happened next, but suffice to say that there were mojitos. Many mojitos. And a hasty “walk of shame” come Saturday morning, just in time to attend a fête with Mr Frog and Tadpole at her future playschool.

Just what the doctor ordered.

Saturday - “throwing quails’ eggs at parked cars” or “does my bum look big in this age 3-4 fairy outfit”

It is 3pm. I am immersed in a cool bath, having just taken 2 nurofen tablets, and am massaging my throbbing temples to no avail. In my kitchen there is a forest of mint, a dozen or so limes, and a large bottle of rum. Because, of course, the plan had been to make a vat of mojitos for my party. And now, quite frankly, I wouldn’t be sorry if I never have to smell another mojito as long as I shall live.

Bad planning.

Thankfully, by 9pm, when the guests begin to arrive, I have perked up considerably. The apartment is however like a furnace, on account of the rather too clement weather we have been having, so we all repair to the balcony at regular intervals to admire the view and cool off.

“Look at my gorgeous view - it’s my masthead image!” I cry.

This elicits blank looks from most people, bloggers included, and I realise that the mojitos are causing me to speak in tongues. And apparently no-one else present speaks xhtml or css.

5.30 am. Only the hardcore remain, including nardac and steve, elmer and chris. I don’t remember clearly what possessed us to fetch all of Tadpole’s headgear from her toybox, but everyone seems to share my enthusiasm for donning reindeer antlers, bunny ears, elephant and monkey masks and sparkly tiaras. Elmer in particular looks very fetching in Tadpole’s fairy outfit, complete with wand.

We throw quails eggs - which no-one seemed to want to eat, and why would they? - at parked cars, and pose for a series of deeply unflattering photographs.

* * * * * * * * * * *

Monday: still tired. Wondering if I will be able to afford rehab if things get too much. Slightly apprehensive about the prospect of a sweltering day at Disneyland Parc tomorrow for Tadpole’s belated birthday celebration.

But every time I think of my weekend, I have to stifle a delighted giggle.

Thank god for the internet.

The conversation is stilted, maladroit. We blunder around in ever decreasing circles, searching, in vain, for our habitual articulacy. So many words hanging in the air uselessly, devoid of actual meaning.

This sorry state of affairs is my own fault.

The previous night I proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that 2 G&T’s + gmail chat + petite do not comfortable bedfellows make. And now I hide behind my hair bashfully. Afraid my eyes will mutely implore something, against my wishes, when all I want is to keep a few precious fragments of my dignity intact.

Granted, something had to give, sooner or later. We both agree that the transition from banter to bedroom has become more awkward, more contrived, with the passage of time. An unnatural transaction.

But my laborious preparations, the nail varnish, moisturiser and depilatory cream, bore witness to the fact that I had still hoped for something, tonight. Something which was not forthcoming.

I bolt the front door behind him, with an audible sigh I pray he doesn’t hear. Tell myself I should be relieved to put an end to all that ambiguity; the gnawing, insidious incertitude.

And yet I can’t help wishing I could just rewind the clock to the previous night. And pour myself an orange juice instead.

Tadpole is sitting on my knee, stabbing at the keyboard, attempting to type her name. Her efforts are fairly impressive, when you take into account the fact that I am simultaneously tickling her ribs:

tttaaaaaaaadddddppmollllleeeeee

Master of shortcut key combinations of which I do not even suspect the existence (she toggled my keyboard into thinking it was English the other day and it took the longest time to figure out how to make it French again), she abruptly closes the word processor window. A backgrounded firefox window is unveiled, revealing a motley assortment of meetic members currently online.

Today we have:

• Monsieur Clope au Bec, puffing on his gaulloise, face obscured by a cloud of smoke, the mere sight of which makes me wrinkle my nose in distaste.
• Monsieur Pectoraux, who is probably too busy working out to have a love life, and looks like he is in need of a long shower. I am starting to feel relieved that scratch and sniff profiles have not yet seen the light of day.
• Mr Infidèle, who has opted for a badly cropped photograph of himself with his current wife/girlfriend, her cheek pressed against his, her arm draped across his shoulder.

Tadpole is looking intently at the screen, although it’s hard to say what has grabbed her attention. I suspect it may be the attractive fluffy dolphin posing alongside Mr Shiny Shellsuit.

“Mummy, how do you say chenille in English?” Tadpole asks, a little randomly.

“It’s caterpillar, darling,” I reply, “like in the book about the very hungry caterpillar.”

Tadpole nods, then points at the screen. “Why that man have a very hungry caterpillar crawling on his chin?”

I giggle. It does indeed look very much like a furry caterpillar has lost its way.

“Maybe it’s his pet caterpillar?” I suggest. I point at a Rod Stewart look-alike with an impressive mullet, hugging a labrador: “look, that man is in the picture with his pet animal too…”

Surfing once Tadpole is safely tucked up in bed, I realise that the unsightly facial caterpillar phenomenon is more widespread than I had initially realised. They are everywhere I click. The worst are those which steal upon me unawares, when I select the profile of an attractive looking gentleman, then note with dismay that all the other photos he has included are overrun with lepidoptera larvae.

<ew></ew>

As you may have gathered, meetic isn’t exactly working for me, thus far.

I move slowly through the park, my steps perfectly in time with the music filling my head, hair buffeted by squalls of wind. The asphalt is coated with a thick layer of pale pink blossoms; the tiny flowers drift, confetti like, from the trees, into my hair, onto my shoulders. I flick at them, absent-mindedly, lost in my thoughts.

A year ago today, I wrote a post about leaving the father of my child. Re-reading those words now, it almost feels as though they were written by someone else. I suppose, in some ways, they were. The woman who wrote them had been sleepwalking for the longest time. She knew her life wasn’t making her truly happy - and writing this blog had helped her come to this realisation - but was terribly afraid she did not possess the strength to break away, start a new life. She was beginning to see the light: that being a mother didn’t have to mean burying her own personality, her own needs, deep inside; denying their very existence. That way only bitterness and simmering resentment lay.

There followed a turbulent year of dizzying heights and desolate lows, filled with an intensity I would never trade for a return to my old life. Out of the ashes of the relationship which ended in March stepped a woman who has finally learned how to feel comfortable in her own skin. Who has understood, at long last, that being alone can make a person feel more whole than being one half of an ill-matched couple.

Out of habit, I still lie on the right-hand half of the bed, rarely straying over the invisible line which divides it in down the middle. But I no longer sleep fitfully when there is no-one by my side. And the nightmares have left me.

I move slowly through the park, buffeted by the wind, music filling my head. And realise I am smiling at no-one in particular.

A good friend of mine revealed to me the other day that she had signed up to the meetic online dating service. I told her a cautionary tale, about a girl I know who was stalked by an over-enthusiastic meeticboy, who bombarded her with texts, emails and calls when she declined to see him for a second date, until finally a male friend was drafted in to warn Mr Unwanted Attentions off, for good.

I advised her to meet prospective beaus on neutral territory, preferably by day, and to avoid revealing where she lived (or letting any gentleman, however gallant he might seem, escort her home after a first date). Deliberated with her about the pros and cons of adding a photograph to her profile.

Then I thought little more of it, preoccupied as I have been with somewhat unexpected and dramatic events in my own life.

That is, until hordes of meetic-matched couples began to waylay me at every turn.

First, there was an acquaintance at a party, who pointed out a guy at the other side of the room, whispering conspiratorially in my ear: “lui, c’est mon mythique”. At first I frowned, unsure as to what she meant. Later, when the conversation turned to online dating, the penny dropped, and I realised I hadn’t misheard, only misspelled.

A couple of days later, invited to a picnic by the Seine in honour of the first balmy evening of Spring, I listened, fascinated, as an attractive couple, ostensibly in the grip of that first heady rush of infatuation, recounted their online meeting, and compared the pros and cons of meetic versus match.

Faced with the evidence that perfectly normal, well-adjusted, good-looking people use the services of this kind of site, as a means of meeting new people, outside the confines of their immediate circle of friends, I am beginning to wonder if I’m not cutting off my nose to spite my face by holding back. After all, I did meet Mr Frog in not dissimilar circumstances, albeit on someone else’s blind date.

And I regularly meet fellow bloggers and commenters, both male and female, so why should meetic be any different?

Two things are currently holding me back. The first is this famous blog, now published as a book, chronicling a year of casual meetic encounters in explicit and misogynistic detail.

The other is the fact that men have to pay, but women can sign up for free.

The jury is still out.

I choose my outfit, my undergarments with care, because I know from experience that a drink, with him, will lead to much, much more.

In the bar, I bask in the glow of his attention, happy in this moment, knowing full well it will be fleeting.

He seems most comfortable recounting anecdotes, in that theatrical way of his. His stories seem to form part of a cloak he draws around himself; a shield which I don’t even attempt to penetrate. Superficiality is an integral part of the unspoken pact between us.

I lie in bed, his sleeping body curled around mine, his arm around my waist, marvelling that someone can be so close, skin against mine, but simultaneously seem so remote, so inaccessible.

When we part the next day and I hear the words I fully expected to hear - “well, I guess I’ll see you in a month, when I get back” - I feel a twinge of something I was determined not to feel.

A brief pang of remorse that I may have been selling little pieces of myself to the lowest bidder.

Can you simply make a decision that you won’t form a deeper attachment to someone? To say that you want nothing more than witty conversation and lighthearted physical proximity? A fling. Uncomplicated fun.

Because I haven’t had chance to get used to this vibrant single life of mine and all the new friendships and opportunities it has to offer. Because I’m finding I take a selfish pleasure in living only for Tadpole and myself, taking no one else into account day to day.

Because it’s much too soon to allow anyone to slip inside the invisible circle I have drawn around myself. Too soon to let the firm ground beneath my feet shake and tilt. Because even though, on the surface, I feel lighter, stronger, more whole than I have in a long time, I am still conscious of a soft, vulnerable centre. Unwilling to test the limits of my new found strength.

Because I’m convinced that, flitting from city to city, this elusive boy seeks no ties.

Wandering around Nice, taking in the opulence of the hilltop villas from the vantage point of an open topped bus, hair buffeted by the wind, cheeks warmed by the hazy sun, tiny details kept insinuating their way into my head. The way his voice changes when he smokes a cigarette. Dark chocolate eyes. The bar where we drank jus de gingembre until the owner chivvied us out of the door, when suddenly we realised chairs were stacked on tables around us and not a soul remained.

And so I shook my head vigorously to clear it, banish those unbidden thoughts, and turned to face my travelling companion.