HOW THE ENGLISH SURVIVE ABROAD

 Do you sell stamps for England?”

Asks a loud home counties voice piercing the francophone air in Naville, the newspaper shop in the centre of Verbier.

My mother alarm goes off and I hide amongst the glossy magazine section.  I’ve long ago given up trying to teach my mother French or to translate for her; she just speaks loudly in English and milks the little old lady abroad role for all she can. 

My monolingual mother has been coming out to Switzerland three to four times a year for over twenty years.  To date her French vocabulary consists of:

Two Renversés – two fingers raised.

Bonjour!!

Au revoir

Merci

Oui

When I first came to Switzerland Mum and Dad were regular visitors to my little flat in Plainpalais the equivalent of Camden in London with its multiracial population and popular flea market.  They had problems negotiating the original antique lift with the tricky double mahogany doors and a mind of its own.  I always knew when they were coming as sharp cries of alarm followed by a shout of “All right love?” would travel up the lift shaft and either Dad or Mum would invariably arrive at the top without the other.

            “Les Anglais sont arrivés. » Mr. Jules would say ominously opening the door to welcome them.  In spite of showing no interest in the local language, they were surprisingly adventurous; setting off for the day, map in hand, always ending up somewhere entirely unexpected getting into all sorts of high jinks caused by taking the wrong tram or sitting in the wrong end of the train returning home late like two giggly children, to find me frantic with worry.

            I gave them language tapes at Christmas and birthdays which were received with wonderment and incredulity.  “Oh look Richard, another set of Let’s Learn French.” 

            So Madre is doggedly keeping up their tradition getting by with charm and a smile.  Yesterday, she came to meet us for lunch not batting an eyelid at being suspended half-way up the mountain in a télécabine in order to meet us.  That morning I had written on a yellow post-it

UN BILLET ALLER-RETOUR PEDESTRE SENIOR  à RUINETTE SVP.

for her to announce at the guichet down in Médran, repeating it several times to her.

“How did you get on with buying your ticket?”  I ask over lunch somehow knowing there is a tale waiting to be told.   

“Oh fine,” she says.  “I just stuck your note up against the window and pointed.”

I sit lost for words trying not to conjure up the image of my mother’s contorted face and the yellow post-it squashed against the ticket window. 

She leans over the table towards me,

“My bonjours are beautiful,” she says defensively.