I’m only in school five minutes when my mobile rings. It’s Jossylene my responsable. I instantly think she wants to change our meeting again but she mutters something about correcting an essay. She says she can’t get to school but will give it to Claude, who happens to be her neighbour. At that instant he walks into the library and a while later I find a pink folder on my desk with a 26-page business research essay on French transnational subsidiaries in Brazil. Exciting stuff. I should have been in Martiniquan mode and flashed a fee for my services. It can wait.
Madame Bois is out this week so I’ve a free first period. I stay in the library and read until the school nurse appears to set up shop. Children file in and out as they’re weighed, measured and quizzed about all things healthy, hygienic and wholesome. So many kids seem to take chocolate milk with their cereal – even if the cereal already contains chocolate. One little girl admits to only having fruit for breakfast and she gets informed about balanced diets and good eating habits. I eavesdrop so much I find I’ve been re-reading the same two pages for almost half an hour. Elizabeth appears and I finally put the dog-eared book aside as we chat away. Elizabeth has been on the lookout for a new job, as a school secretary, ever since I met her. She admits that teaching is tough and she wants a change of scene. I can empathise with her and I’m sure many other teachers would to.
Elizabeth pops in to see Madame Dau. She was out towards the end of last week but she’s back and looking surprisingly prettier, younger and relaxed dressed-down in a pink and white sports ensemble. She’s normally dolled-up, well-heeled and over-accessorised but this casual look suits her better.
My first class of the day is with Mr. Carval. Christophe has been landed with some of Dominique’s class today. Usually, even with Dominique in the classroom her brood are unruly though it’s discouraging to see them act in a similar fashion when they’re put up by other classes. Of course the bitchy bunch is up to their usual tricks. Poor Nelly is up the front, mingling with Christophe’s crowd, while the five jackals are cackling down the back even before I enter the class. It’s only 9,00 and Christophe already looks spent. As it happens I don’t have enough cut-outs to go around everyone. Christophe’s group are priority and so I tell the cacklers rather bluntly to carry on with other work. They’re not impressed but they stay silent throughout the class. Nelly is left to participate but she seems to get some stick from the others too. She’s possibly a bit too diligent for everyone else’s’ liking.
My other two classes, with Madame Lucy Pamphile and Madame Catherine Edragas so swimmingly. The children are occupied with their worksheets for the final quarter hour. Well, those who haven’t lost their sheets are content but there’s always one or two, or five in my last class, who have mislaid their work. Catherine is worried that some of her children are not up to speed. I reassure her that language acquisition relies on repetition but I resist adding that absenteeism doesn’t really help the whole process. I agree to slow things down to accommodate the weaker students.
I’m almost dying of the hunger when I reach Pointe Simone. Fortunately I get a set on the bus. We’re just turning unto the road when I catch a glimpse of Gethin. He’s in jeans and runners – the mad yoke must be sweltering; himself, myself and Nicola are meeting David for lunch at Rond Point. I arrive to find Nic and the Birthday Boy smoking on their hunkers beside the trolley stall. Gethin appears minutes later.
We get filled in on the scandal from Bea’s birthday bash over the weekend. A local fisherman made a fortune that night by ferrying the 50-odd revellers to and from the island. Judging from the pictures on Face Book a lot of alcohol was washed down; and a lot of action was witnessed too Gethin tells us. He got his share. He hooked up with Jasmine, the newest LDN assistante. However, he has no sooner returned from a midnight swim than she had drifted into Rodolfo’s arms. Tsk. Tsk.
David and Karla didn’t have such a cosy time on Montagne Pelée as the mist lead them up the route. David has pictures of Karla clenching her teeth as she clings to the crater and in others David is shrouded in a cloud of clinging dampness. At least my short-armed rain-jacket came in handy.
The chat stops when we reach the canteen counter. There are almost too many things on the menu but Nic and I have been here so often we know what we want: chicken, pureed potatoes, vegetable gratin and lentils drizzled with that zingy garlic sauce. My meal however, goes cold as I wait by the till to direct the guys and pay for David’s birthday banquet. He can’t manage to finish the feast of fish but he somehow finds a space for the rum-laced chocolate cake. Gethin distracts him while Nic and I light the candles and assemble his gold crown. The poor guy turns as red as the cherry on Nic’s rice pudding when we sing Happy Birthday in the packed dining hall and we turn him into a Burger King Birthday Boy by placing the cardboard coronet on his haloed hair-defying head. King David. Some people at the table beside us even wish him Bon Anniversaire as they leave. David too has to leave. He has a class at 14,00 in Schoelcher. It nearly seems like the perfect excuse to run out on us but we make him agree to meeting for drinks in the Mayflower later on.
The Three Stooges go to Deli France for post-feast coffee. Gethin is in a shopping mood; he seems to be flashing the cash since he got back from Wales. Nic and I leave him to check out the wares in Sports 2000 but within no time he’s on the blower telling us to come over and see the deals. 40% OFF. We see the deals alright but we can’t see Gethin. He soon appears from a randomly placed cubicle in blue Quicksilver board shorts. Many other items are examined before we go but when we reach Fort-de-France Gethin still has the urge to splurge. We settle for one drink in the Mayflower before he announces that he’s hitting the shops for a while before David appears. It’s such as role reversal with Nic and I beering and him browsing. He’s in a strange mood and it’s confirmed when he calls to say he is meeting his landlady’s daughter and getting a lift home within the hour. He lives in Ducos. The TaxiCos will soon be leaving but we could have easily put him up, though it’s probably as well we didn’t as I could be €5 poorer…
David comes for drinks. We have the craic but David’s smile cracks when the newest army dudes enter, approach our table and embrace us. They sit across the room with their bottle of whisky so all’s calm, well as calm as a place is when its topped up with testosterone. There’s a pool tournament down the back and to get to the toilets you have to weave in and out of the onlookers. One guy stops me on my way back from the bog. His name is Nick and he’s from Brazil. He’s in construction; and self-destruction by the look of him.
The hunger is on us so we traipse off to the nearest eatery – MacDo. Oh no… Things turn a bit crazy. We start ordering food as if we’re on a drinking binge. Round 1: Nic has a Nine Nugget meal; David gets a Double Bacon Burger Meal; and I have a Big Mac Meal. Round 2: Another Nine Nugget deal; and Carmel Sundaes. Round 3: More damn nuggets… I think the barbeque sauce is the undoing of us all. Somehow we waddle outside and we soon find ourselves back in the Mayflower for some reverse absorption action.
All too soon we have to head home. A taxi is called. David and Nicola head up the street to the ATM while I stand by the taxi. Sebastian the speckled soldier comes out for a smoke and starts chatting to me. I hear a stifled scream from Nicola; some dirty rat just got chased across her path by a fat cat. David has to overstep a sleeping drunk to get to the ATM machine but I don’t hear him scream. David is soon lying like the liquefied luder, Nic is chasing men in her drowsy dreams and I’m nodding off to the MacDo theme tune and the effects of sugar-loaded barbeque sauce.
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