A year in the south of France? What they don’t tell you about the school drop-off

The night before school starts, I nervously try to pull “first-day” outfits together. We’re living in Sommières, a small town in the south of France, and the children I’ve seen here look pretty snappy. Their shoes are clean, their clothes well ironed, their short hair pomaded into place. Generally, they are turned out with care and precision.

I look at my three. Tabitha is wearing two odd shoes, Biggles is wearing nothing but a single sock, and Mabel looks as though she has survived some kind of charity-shop explosion. They are playing Farting Rainbows with the Friendys, their stuffed-animal family. This is a game in which the Friendys compete for the crown of Queen of Farts.

The complicated rules of the game are too disgusting to outline in mixed company, but there is an overarching storyline that involves eating magic beans that allow Friendys to fly using bottom propulsion. I am nervous. Will Farting Rainbows translate? Will it – in some international language of comedy, perhaps – bridge the gap between my scruffy surf-rat trio and the small, wily local children darting through alleyways on their oversized bikes?

On Monday morning, it’s show time. The first day of school. We’re all jangling with nerves, but my husband, Keith, and I try our best to hide our anxiety with brio. Down the cobbles of Rue Canard we go, through the square, to École Albert Camus. The school is a small, two-storey structure curved around a dusty cement yard dotted with a few stunted, dehydrated trees. The building is encircled by a high steel fence and the gates are bolted shut.

“Tabitha is wearing two odd shoes, Biggles is wearing nothing but a single sock.”

There are small groups milling about outside and the parent committee has set up a trestle table serving welcome-back coffee for la rentrée, the return to school. We stand awkwardly about for a while before I decide to brave the P&C.

“Bonjour,” I say brightly.

“Bonjour,” the elfin brunette behind the table replies.

“Ça va?” I ask, and she blinks at me suspiciously.

“Ça va,” she spits out, and turns to fiddle with her urn.

I smile weakly. The awkward silence burns between us. Eventually I help myself to a small paper cup of black coffee. There are masses of sugar packets but no milk in sight, of course.

“Merci,” I say.

She nods and I retreat, burning my tongue on the first sip of the bitter brew. It’s the worst coffee I’ve ever had, and after a few weeks in France I’ve had some shockers.

The coffee problem is hard to come to terms with, considering the country’s wonderful food. Here in France the cheese is delectable, the pastries divine, but the coffee is like the piss of a necrotic wolfhound. It’s not only bitter, but often served cold. Coffee is the most critical segment of my food pyramid, but I have yet to clap eyes on a coffee machine in Sommières. My favourite breakfast culture doesn’t exist here.

Looking around, I feel a long way from Coledale, our home town south of Sydney. Cigarette smoke, a fragrance that will become a Proustian sense-memory of this place, winds through the air. I am no longer in the land of turmeric lattes and sourdough, I realise. The markers of this place are baguettes and cigarettes, and, in perhaps the most jarring culture shock of all, none of the women sport activewear.

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Other parents shoot side-eye and kids encircle us curiously but nobody approaches until a buxom woman with a long plait, clearly an envoy from the group by the fence, comes over, her intimidating rack reaching us moments before the rest of her.

“Bonjour,” she says. It’s a question.

Keith takes on the conversation. Hello, he says, we are from Australia and the children will be going to École Albert Camus this year. She asks a couple of probing questions before nodding a sober goodbye and returning to the watching group to relay the information. There’s a burst of chatter from them, but we still stand alone.

Biggles and Mabel clutch my hands tightly. Tabitha holds on to Keith. I feel a little sick as I watch a woman with a short dark bob and a beautiful scarf unlock the front gate. There’s a burst of activity as children kiss their parents goodbye and stream through. We make our way over, and Keith explains to the teacher at the door that we’re here to enrol.

Looking astonished, she gestures to us to head inside and up the stairs. Children stare as we go through a corridor hung with posters until we find an office where a red-headed woman sits behind a large, untidy desk. This is our first encounter with Madame Montagne, the principal or directrice.

“I am no longer in the land of turmeric lattes and sourdough, I realise. The markers of this place are baguettes and cigarettes.”

“Oui?” she asks, looking slightly affronted. Her desk is strewn with paperwork and she is clearly busy.

“Bonjour,” I say, before launching into the standard speech I am starting to think of as “The Spiel”: “We are from Australia and we are living in Sommières for a year, and the children will go to École Albert Camus …”

“Nous sommes de Australie, et nous habitons à Sommières pour un an, et mes enfants attendant École Albert Camus cette année …”

Madame Montagne removes her glasses and levels her piercing gaze on me. The children press closer. I trail off. I’ve run out of French anyway. Keith takes over. Soon comprehension passes over Madame Montagne’s expressive face and she breaks into an enormous smile. “Ah! The Australians!” she says. I sigh with relief at her English. She inspects the children.

“Parlez-vous français?” she says.

They shake their heads. “Well, I speak English,” she continues. “I worked in California for three years. But I will not speak English to the children. They will not learn French if I do this.”

She asks their names and they answer in soft voices. Overwhelmed, Biggles is unable to answer her at all. “Speak up!” she says. “It is your responsibility to make yourself understood.”

Then she directs a flurry of French at me. “Désolée,” I say. “Je parle français juste un petit peu” – “Sorry, I speak only a little bit of French.”

“A little bit” is a vast overestimation of my capabilities. “This is no good,” Madame Montagne says. “You must get a job, in a French office, otherwise you will not learn.”

I am too scared to go into any kind of explanation as to our strict visa conditions, let alone my inability to think of what office this small town might hold that would employ a non-French-speaking donkey who would leave work three times a day to walk children to and from school.

Despite her fluent English, Madame Montagne then reverts to French, addressing rapid-fire instructions to Keith for 10 minutes before standing to dismiss us. I realise this is the end of our interview and my heart sinks. I have no idea of the details of school life and this is my only chance to find out. “Madame Montagne, what school supplies do the children need?”

“I have no idea,” she says. She is more confused than scornful.

“And lunch? Do they pack food and snacks for the morning, or …”

“Well, if they want to, I suppose,” she says. “I really could not tell you.”

She ushers us to the door. The interview is over. “Welcome to École Albert Camus,” she says. “I am very busy, as I’m sure you understand. If you like, you can make an appointment to come back in six months and discuss the children’s progress. Now I will take them to their appropriate classrooms.”

We give the children hard hugs and leave the room. Heading back down the stairs, my throat has a large, painful lump in it. This school culture is very unfamiliar, and I have a sneaking suspicion that our “challenge to build the children’s resilience” may in fact be a massive crock of shit.

Soon, my phone alarm beeps for lunchtime pick-up. Other parents are again watching us as we wait outside the school. Tabitha has her game face on, and when Biggles spots us he runs at me and buries his face in my belly, hard. Mabel is holding the hand of a small girl in a red dress. The little girl runs off to her mother and I can see her talking animatedly and pointing at us.

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The woman approaches us, smiling. She is tall and lovely, with dark skin and a cascade of braids. “Bonjour,” she says in a warm, kind voice.

“Bonjour,” we say.

Mabel tugs my hand. “That’s Clémentine,” she says, and then adds proudly, “my friend.”

“Je m’appelle Rachael,” I say to the woman.

“Je m’appelle Chloé,” she replies. She shakes my hand, smiling, and I feel comfort settle into my fizzing stomach.

“Nous sommes de Australie …” I begin.

I deliver The Spiel, and the predictable happens: Chloé answers me in a stream of incomprehensible French. I turn to Keith. He takes over.

Mabel and Clémentine are holding hands and smiling up at us, proud to have found each other. One of the three children is happy? Feels like an excellent start. I’ll take it.

Edited extract from Pardon My French (Affirm Press) by Rachael Mogan McIntosh, out now.

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