FIDELMA COOK

AFTER we’d done a tour of the storm damage, the man representing the company designated to fix it came in for a coffee while I signed the consent forms. His accent was so negligible it was a pleasure to chat without entering the parallel universe of most of my neighbours.

We were as one, having a fluid, interesting conversation without me mentally pausing and thinking: “What the hell word was that?” (I must have told you that often Miriam, from Nice, translates Pierrot’s French to me in French. She says she doesn’t understand him half the time either but actually it doesn’t matter.)

So I said to him: “You’re not from around here, then?”

“Yes,” he said with some surprise. “I’m from Montauban.”

Montauban is our departmental capital around 50 minutes’ drive away and where we often have to go for all major medical and legal stuff.

Yes, the accent is, in hindsight, much less pronounced, although the twang and the “g” ending on certain words is still there. I often forget now that even adventurers from the big city find the inhabitants of my little area of village and hamlets almost incomprehensible. So really I’ve done pretty well in my time here.

Anyway, as he downed – in two gulps – the shameful instant coffee I’d served in the tiny cup the French prefer, we started to talk about language. And that is when I discovered it is not only les Anglos who have a problem but les autres.

“My father-in-law is Portuguese,” he said. “He came here 30 years ago and he couldn’t have the conversation we’re having now.

“He never even tried; never wanted to learn French. He got by in his job on building sites but never made one – not one – friend.

“That was the way he wanted it. He was here, but not here.”

As is often the case, it was his wife who quickly assimilated into the culture; quickly spoke good French, helped by having a little girl who was more French than Portuguese.

“My wife, of course, speaks both languages but, unless speaking to her father she prefers French,” he continued as I refilled the thimble cup. “That has never been a real problem for me because when we all meet, my wife or her mother are the interpreters between me and her father.

“He never says much anyway. I don’t know if that was always his way or if the language made him uncomfortable.”

I told him I found this fascinating as, in my ignorance, I’d always assumed this to be a British problem, especially as this region is populated with Portuguese, Spanish and Italian descendants.

“No, no,” he said. “It’s across the board.”

However, such intransigence often brings sadness. Had it been just him and his wife, my assessor could have coped with it. But now they have a little girl – a little French girl.

“She cannot talk to her grandfather and he cannot talk to her,” he said, shaking his head at the absurdity of the situation.

“I cannot tell her what Grandpa is saying because I don’t know. Only her grandmother and mother can interpret.

“How can they ever have a real bond without a common language?

“She stands by him, her hand on his knee and talks to him. He can only look back and ask his wife or his daughter for help.”

His wife has no real desire for her daughter to learn Portuguese beyond simple sentences. No, English is the language she must learn – and will learn in school.

Her husband feels the same. “Yes, it must be English first and foremost. Of course I’d love her to speak many languages but we have to be sensible.

“English now is the language of the world. Our French language is no longer the important one.

“I did English at school but I went no further than Montauban and so it’s almost gone.

“I don’t want that for my daughter. I want more.”

From there, of course, we went on to Brexit, Trump and the spectre of Marine Le Pen. All three combining to create a new yet horribly old world of protectionism, paranoia and inward rejection of common union.

He became quite excitedly fierce, this young man – something I have not seen in these jaded parts.

“I don’t want a world like that for my child,” he said. “I don’t want her to be like her grandfather, refusing to learn, refusing to speak the words of the country he lives in. I want her to be like … like you; living in another country, speaking a second language to someone like me.” I laughed and matched his enthusiasm with many yesses and without, in truth, much thought about what he’d actually said.

It is only now writing this I realise how moved I am by his words. This was the world I was brought up to believe in even as it seems to be shattering around me and tribes regroup in suspicion.

And now to hear another little girl is being brought up to believe the same ideals fills me with hope.

There is always hope. There has to be.