R J ODonnell - France, the Soul of a Journey

Arriving in Calais reminded me of my first trip to France when I took off on my own to Paris with just a single address in my pocket. Back then all sorts of prospects spread out before me in a dreamy haze. I hadnt even planned where I would spend the night. I didnt know what a bad idea that was. Bad ideas belonged to the world of adults. Adults created their own needs by thinking they needed them, like arrangements for instance. How charmingly half-baked I was. Time sure alters things. Once cooked fully, life has a habit of forming a hard crust around the soft dough of wide-eyed youthfulness. These days I wouldnt stir outside my door without allowing for every conceivable risk and, indeed, some not so conceivable. Sometimes Id love to shed all that good sense I once managed so wonderfully without. But I bet if I tried that, things wouldnt happen with the same lightness as they did then.

Back then I got a job minding two children with a family in Paris. I understood just about enough French to know that the youngest, Delphine, a feisty five-year-old, told her mother anew each morning how little she liked me, that she preferred Emily, my predecessor. I let on not to understand but that only made me look dim, which, combined with being unloved made for a poor mixture. Delphine had her way in the end, and her mother, who used to kiss me on both cheeks each morning, was plotting behind her hugs to find someone else for the job. I found out when I took a phone call from a young woman speaking strongly accented English. Could I give Madame Le Clerc a message, she asked.

And what is the message? I asked helpfully.

Tell her Ana is not interested in the job as au pair.

And I did. I delivered that message as meekly as if it had been in my favour.

Im so worried about you going off on your own, Madame Le Clerc said, half crying, when I said I was going to join my friends in Jersey.

Dont worry, I couldnt meet anyone worse than you, I said. Actually, I didnt say it. But I thought it with a vengeance.

These days when Im in France, in this country of rolling hills, sunshine and gastronomy, I can hardly believe its the same place that I viewed so long with the weight of au pair baggage. These memories had well dispersed that day we arrived in Calais: Steve, Treasa, Declan and I. Our holiday began eagerly, perhaps not quite the youthful dreamy kind that I experienced on my first trip, but exciting enough considering the hard crust of adulthood had by now securely encased us.

*

Steve is great fun. To get a flavour of him is to see him at a party, getting the singing going and drawing even the most reticent into the enjoyment. He says that a long time ago, when he thought of all the things he could worry about, he decided not to worry at all. I reckon that someone who has made that leap in attitude is the ideal journeying companion. He is good at lightening sulks and broodings, and on holidays that particular skill is much called upon.

Treasa brings a gust of passion to the group. She says that being burdened by neither the practical nor the technical (she claims that she can just about tie her laces) allows her to take a jaunty approach to life. She all but bursts into hymn at the most ordinary of things, and her lyrical outlook contrasts comically with Declans take on life.

Declan is very rational, good with plans, maps, directions, proportions, those sort of things. Often, while the rest of us are chatting, his head is stuck in a map. I sometimes think he must feel very bored for the rest of the year, when he knows exactly where hes going. A few years ago he was whipped off in an ambulance in the middle of the night with a chest pain. The paramedic kept asking him if he knew where he was, to test if he was still conscious, I presume. But he told him, not only did he know where he was, he knew the exact route they were taking to the hospital, even though he was lying on a stretcher. The question was not repeated. Maybe the paramedic was afraid to ask in case the patient would suggest a better route.

No one has told me whether I bring any special quality to the group, and I dont intend to ask in case someone is cruel enough to reveal some truth Id be better off not knowing.

*

As we drove off the ferry in Calais, Treasa said, Theres something about ports and boats that bring to mind half-remembered nursery rhymes of seafaring and mariners of old. She didnt notice the side-glance Declan gave her, and she went on: I just love the double clang of the ferrys ramp against the harbours edge as you drive into a foreign land.

I was sharing her joy. Its one of those instants of raw exhilaration the different accents, the road signs in a language that isnt yours, shops with strange-sounding family names, driving on the wrong side of the road, which makes you feel youre going to spend time in a place where the rules of everyday life are about to be subverted.

Declan wasnt wistful at all. He was muttering that the journey would have been so much easier by plane. His idea of a holiday is to go, in a mere few hours, from warm clothing to a destination where you can dine beneath a tree or sip your drink outside in the fading light until midnight without putting on an extra layer. Treasa has a name for this kind of point-to-point travelling arrivalism. Real travel is a slow process, she believes.

To go through the soul of a journey, it has to be felt from start to finish; anything else is cutting through its heart, she said. Its like the difference between slow cooking and microwave food.

OK, OK, point made, Declan said grumpily.

It wasnt really a struggle to get his agreement, because essentially Declan is easy-going, and besides, hes blessed with enough logic to know that with Treasa disagreeing with him and two more weighing in on her side, the odds were stacked against him. Besides, having the car meant that he could bring back some local wine so maybe he wasnt so very opposed to this slow method of travel after all.

My reason for going overland was not as lyrical as Treasas. I hate heights. Three steps of a ladder is the limit of my upwards journey, maybe four if Im in an especially adventurous mood. Ive tried to overcome it. Ive read every book in sight about the fear of flying. I did a course that was supposed to have me flying without a care in the world. It involved a simulated flight on a vibrating platform, with a helmet-like thing on your head and an image of the inside of a plane before your eyes. The patient woman who was directing the course asked me why I hadnt broken into a cold sweat like I normally do when Im on a real plane. I told her that, with all due respect to her power of transformability, I knew I wasnt on a genuine flight. I was as conscious of my whereabouts as Declan was in the ambulance that night he was hauled off to hospital.