vendredi 15.12.06 French invasion
I should have just stayed up all night. My two hours of sleep has left me worse for wear. However, I’m up and at the bus-stop for 5,50 but by 6,10 there’s still no sign of the bus and I’m beginning to think it may be a sign… Nicola isn’t feeling on form and she decides to retreat back home. The bus does come and there’s no traffic jam to shudder through. I’m in school by 7,30 and I thankfully I only have to repeat yesterday’s lesson plan with the kids. Dominique’s class are more dynamic than usual. Aurore is back in Christophe’s class and the kids seem more pliable than usual. Elizabeth seems to be having a rough day too. She’s making English Certificates for her pupils which is an idea to poach for the end of the year… Jossylene appears at the break. Supposedly she left a voicemail last night saying that she would be in to catch up with me. I honestly never got it. But it doesn’t matter. She sits in on Madame Pamphile’s class. The children are quiet but a bit too much so and I find myself making most of the noise. Jossylene asks if she can have my cut-outs when I leave. Sob. Sob. Maybe I’ll want them L But of course she can have them. We organise another meeting after Christmas and I hop along to my last class with Madame Edragas. The card activity keeps this bunch quiet while Catherine and I talk about the How Things Work book which we both have!
I can’t wait to get home and sleep. The only thing which keeps me awake is the sight of the decorations around town. There are a few scooters in the centre-island decorated with tinsel; their Santa Hat wearing owners are hanging around under the fairy-light adorned trees while the smaller side streets have hanging light displays with bulbous candle, angel and Santa motifs ready to be lit-up. It’s all a bit odd considering I associate these things with cold, dull days which long for artificial light, and wild, swirling nights which make bulbs blow and Santa’s sway.
The buses are slower and more erratic than usual but the pervy drivers are the same. The young driver who likes to chat us up is on the bus but he’s not driving – instructing rather. He grins at me and I’m so happy to be heading home that I give him a comic wave and grin back at him. I absentmindedly get my phone out and start texting. I can feel his eyes boring into me and sure enough when I look up he’s staring at me. He makes a phone-me motion and swiftly strides down the bus and sits beside me. I get the third degree as he tries to get my number. I tell him it’s my Irish phone. Now he knows I’m Irish and not Metropole so he thinks I’m a tourist and not actually working here. He tells me he does tours around the island and offers to give me one. Ah, a Christmas gif’; just like in Dominica and Guadeloupe. I tell him he’d do more business over there as a dual-driver. He knows we’re almost at my bus-stop and he gets up to let me out. Just before I alight he enlightens me that he lives down the road next to mine. He invites me to pop by some time. That’ll be the day… the day it snows in Martinique.
I start to stir about 20,00. Nicola taps on my door and asks if I want to head out with the Frenchies. Tanks, eh, rather Thanks but no tanks. I just want to recoup. I tell her she’ll be fine heading out with them. That finer Christophe will keep her equipped. He looks like Jake Gyllenhall – and we tell him that when he appears at our terrace. They try to persuade me to go but I’m not budging. Super Mario drives the car so he’ll be a chauffeur and a spare wheel. Quelle dommage! There’s a warm, Ruth-shaped hollow waiting for me to wallow in.
When it comes to counting sheep I can turn on my unyielding Cavan mulishness and pig-headedness to full throttle. It needs to be done tonight. Men will be men. Even though they’re French, not Martiniquan, they still have that unrelenting froggedness. I’m not going into the sheep-dip, getting shorn and coming out in my winter woollies just to be a second spare wheel in a ba-ba-bar. The puppy-dog eyes, whimpers and sighs are trying but I’m not buying. They finally let me go and I settle to watch Dominique beat Mariana into the final of Star Academy. Nicola and the garlic guys head to La Feuille de Tôle for a few quiet ones while I have a few quiet hours to myself. It’s not long until Nic’s back – sans les mecs. She has taken a shine to Private Gille’s buffed stars; who know what solar plexus or flexes may be soon sighted…
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