We heard the news in the car, en route for the Good
Wife's expert comptable not far from
the white elephant that thinks it's an international airport. I was heavy with
guilt, born of fussing too long over figures to be declared to the fiscal
authorities.
Even though I was pretty damn sure that we were declaring
everything to be declared down to the last centime, because the system of
family parts and tax credits and what have you is so darn incomprehensible, my
daydreams are haunted by the idea of that fateful knock on the door. Grave men
in uniform, there on account of some heedless transgression to put the cuffs on me and lead to the French equivalent of a
Black Maria parked in our drive.
It's probably as ludicrous a notion as my wife's fear
that she had failed her TCF, her Test de Comprénsion
Français. Our friendly neighbourhood factrice
had handed over our post for the day and Debs guessed that the big brown
envelope would be a notification of her result. She ripped it open without so
much as a by-your-re-cycling. Like all official documents here, the content is
not immediately apparent. Yes or no? Hit
or miss, jury? It was, I gathered, rather difficult to say.
We figured out, though, that they wouldn't have sent an attestation for anything other than a
pass. Later, the Daughter helped decipher the finer detail. Her adventures in
the wonderful world of French education have equipped her well for such work.
The C2 for the oral element was the best mark she could've obtained and meant
that she spoke like a native. The B1 for the written comprehension was a dodgy
pass that meant she had been right after all to fear the dull dialogue on which
was based the 26 questions.
So now comes the real hard work: the assembly of our collective
family French citizenship dossier, with copies and translations of a whole raft
of documents to prove that we are whom we claim we are. And this hinges on our
comprehension of the guidelines that accompany the intimidating application
form. My goal is to complete, collate and deliver everything to the authorities
in Toulouse well before the 23rd June – when my dad celebrates his
89th birthday and Britons vote for or against the Brexit.
The process of handing over our intimidating file of
documents to unsmiling bureaucrats also triggers imagined angst. I'm absolutely
certain that they're all trained and geared up to reject dossiers for the
slightest transgression. As a former civil servant myself, I know the score. Keep
files on the move. Never let them settle like dust on your desk. Pass it on or
pass it back. Monsieur, where are the reply
stamps to the value of €8?
Was it like this in the
old days? Surely it was easier. Surely procedures were more transparent. To help
me find the answer, this month I started the formidable second volume of David
Kynaston's epic history of post-war Britain, Tales of a New Jerusalem. I found a hardback copy of
volume 2, Family Britain, in
the Oxfam bookshop in Romsey and hauled it back home across the Channel with
the aid of ropes and chains.
My anticipated wallow in
nostalgia presents a few practical problems. Since I usually only find time to
read – and read slowly – in bed, it means signing up for the long haul. Several
months at least, I shouldn't wonder. And since I can't do what I usually do and
let my book drop on the floor before turning off my bedside lamp lest the
weight of this book wakes the rest of the household, I must prop myself up with
pillows to read it – thus risking a potentially wakeful hiatus between the
decision to stop reading and the onset of blissful sleep.
Not to worry; I'm sure
another visit to the world into which I was born will be well worth any such
minor tribulations. What's immediately apparent is how well every diarist
wrote, even the so-called down-trodden lower classes, whose education would
have no doubt been curtailed by the imperative of work. Everyone could turn a
decent intelligible sentence. Even on the on-line Grauniad these days, the comments left by
readers are so breathless and mystifying in their complete lack of punctuation
that you wonder how anyone of a certain generation manages to apply for let
alone hold down a job.
But, ah... that far-off genteel
world of a north London suburb, with its horse-drawn milk floats, coalmen in
their protective leather 'backing hats', surreptitious visits next door to
watch with friends Robin Hood and
other programmes on the banned ITV channel, the lodger on the other side with
his noisy racing-green 3-litre Bentley that dated back to the dawn of motoring,
Watch with Mother and Tonight with Cliff Michelmore on the
green Ekco television, the maternal grandparents round the corner and the
paternal grandparents an epic journey away on the southern suburban fringes of
London, the weekly Topper with Beryl
the Peril and others of her kidney, primary school at the bottom of the road,
summer holidays by steam-driven train to the south coast...
It was a privileged world
for a middle-class child (only threatened by Teddy Boys and the coming
disruption of a move to Belfast) and there were distant echoes of it the other
night when I sat up late to watch the Young Jazz Musician of the Year Final on
BBC4. The five finalists seemed to come uniquely from very privileged families
– and most of them from London. Two indeed came from the same family. There
were intimate shots of music nights in the Ridout family living room. The
family that plays together clearly stays together. There was dad on jazz
guitar, mum on piano, the youngest lad on drums, oldest lad on tenor sax and
15-year old sister on trumpet. They don't make 'em like that anymore.
Another 15-year old, with
the telltale first name of Noah, played a number associated with the great
romantic pianist Bill Evans with a poise and sensitivity way beyond his tender
years. Julian Joseph, the chairman of the panel, a pianist himself whom I once
saw in concert at The Leadmill, Sheffield, now doubled in size to the girth of
an Oscar Peterson, liked his style but informed us that the unanimous winner
was... the young Ms. Ridout.
When interviewed and asked
how it felt, the winner in her endearingly frumpy evening gown giggled
nervously and said it felt cool. As
well it might. At 14 or 15, I dabbled with the trumpet but got no further than
'Twinkle Twinkle Little Star'. Even that was a stretch. And even though Stevie
Wonder hadn't written it at the time, the idea of bringing off an effortless
version of 'Golden Lady' would have been fantastical.
One wonders how her
talented big brother will cope with little sister's victory. They look a
close-knit and loving bunch, the musical Ridouts, but you never know with
families. All those rivalries and petty jealousies.
What have you done with my flugelhorn?
I haven't touched your flaming flugelhorn.Oh no? I know you! You've had it in for me since...
Infamy, infamy!
Get lost!
You hum it, I'll play it...
