Round and round she goes - Mardi, 06.02.07

Mardi 06.02.07 Round and round she goes

Nic and I are waiting for the bus this fine mystic mist-filled morning when a silvery blue Renault Mégane pulls up alongside us. A speckled, grey bearded, blue-eyed Frenchman rolls down the window and asks if we’re going into town. He turns out to be the husband of the lady who picked me up on Saturday morning in her fluorescent green car. He works at the port and I don’t get a chance to press if he works with the fisheries board as Nicola hops in with a question about boats to Montserrat. A cargo ship may be our best bet but our neighbour says he’ll inquire for us.

We’re dropped off at the port and head straight to a phone box as Nic has to find out just how accommodating Trinity College administration can be regarding her upcoming interview. I think the little faith had in Martiniquan direction spurred her initial fears that the Irish administration would show similar tactlessness. However, the Irish show their true colours by displaying dexterity and helpfulness. All Nic has to do is phone her contact ten minutes after her appointed interview time. It seems strange to call later rather than earlier but those were the instructions.

I’m like a zombie this morning. I start to nod off on the bus but my sixth sense tells me to get off at Chateauboeuf. Madame Dau la directrice greets me. She has some post for me; it’s from Tourisme Irlandais in Paris. They spent €13 sending me brochures on languages courses, holidays, events and excursions in Ireland. All the brochures are in French and I’ve soon set up a lending leaflet library amongst my teachers and other staff members.

I may be finished school at midday but my French fix is only just starting. Nic and I are meeting for lunch with J.P and his Tunisian girlfriend Amelia. Over a bastardised Creole lunch of planteur, fowl, fish and tinned fruit-salad served in plastic cups and wobbly, warm plastic plates in a market eatery we discuss their prospects of working and living in Ireland. I distribute more brochures. For the moment however J.P is staying in Martinique to see out this school year. Well, with a fulltime contract of only 15 hours work a week and a salary triple ours why wouldn’t he?! Amelia is over here on a months holidays but she’s returning to France in two weeks. She works in finance and will be moving to either London or Brussels within a month of being home.

After a substandard lunch we decide to head to a juice bar for some weird and wonderful refreshment. Before we press strange Caribbean fruit we pass an odd Caribbean fella. It takes Nicola a second to register who it is; a security guard at one of her schools. She turns red, waves back at him and tells us he previously asked her out.

There’s a wonderful selection of juices at the bar but I pull the short straw. I could have gone for passion fruit, mango, pineapple, goyave or any other tropical taste but I wanted a corossol milkshake. Amelia did warn me off the maby mixture but I wonder how much worse off I would have been. The corossol milkshake tastes like cake mixture; not unlike margarine, sugar and eggs mixed together. When you’re a kid you’ll gladly dip your finger into the mixing bowl but imagine glugging a whole tumbler of that viscous concoction. Granted it did have a kick of lemon to it but the consistency was awful. Nic’s lemon milkshake was refreshing, Amelia stuck to strawberry and J.P got corossol juice; though he has acquired a taste for it.

We all say our farewells. J.P goes to the Prefecture with Amelia before going back to class. Nic and I resist hurrying for the bus and decide to get some decent drinks - Heineken for her and Coca-Cola for me. We’re chatting away with the bar lady who happened to paint the first friendly face in this country many months ago when another friendly face pops into the picture. It’s Antonio the Salsa swinger from Karaoke Café. He doesn’t look so cheesy in daylight. The tight white shirt and circulation-stopping trousers are replaced with beach shorts and a loose, but neat, t-shirt. We’re each as surprised as the other but we overcome the initial oddness and launch into greetings. He passes on his number and tells us to contact him if we’re going out again. He’s then off around the corner after his colleagues. Nic has gone to the toilet and I’m flicking through another Irish brochure when the tanned Tango man returns. He asks what I’m doing tonight. “Cinema,” I lie. And tomorrow? “Going to the beach with some friends,” I reply truthfully while feigning regret. I suggest we meet for drinks during the weekend but he says he’d like to go to the beach. I tell him I’ll contact him with the details and he’s off in a flash, flashing his perfect beam back at me. I wonder if he has had a few cameo roles in The Bold & the Beautiful or Sunset Beach…

We return home, put on some washing and I drift off to sleep as effortlessly as if I’d been washed up on the set of Sunset Beach. Nicola dreams of Palm Beach, Sydney and I dream of capsizing a rowing boat and floundering for SIM cards and then going on a business venture to Paris; I blame the corossol for this carousel of dreams. I’m beginning to doubt whether those fruit juices where tropical tastes or Magic Roundabout mixtures...