Long Haul (pt.2)

Home:

Thankfully, I buy an eSIM for my phone before the flight takes off, so I am able to communicate with the parents I am working for, and promptly find the father, Antoine, in the short-stay pick-up area.

Antoine is tall and slender, with bushy brown hair, a low-set brow, and large red-framed glasses that make his eyes look shrouded, but his smile is welcoming. He helps me with my bags, lifting them into a rented car. I notice that Antoine walks with amazing posture, making him seem even taller.

Dazed and disoriented, I walk around to the left-hand side of the car out of habit, only to see the steering wheel through the car window. I look up to Antoine, who is walking around the car toward me with a puzzled expression, and I blush.

“Ah, wrong side! I’m still in the UK setting,” I laugh inwardly, embarrassed by myself.

I wave my hands around my head in mock of my innocent mistake. Antoine laughs politely. At least this breaks the ice. I’m not sure what our relationship will be. Is he my employer? Is he my friend? Am I his tenant? I assume that just being friendly is the best way to go.

A burst of adrenaline pumps through me, due to the tension of being confined to a car with a middle-aged male stranger.

“So, you work nearby?” I ask, to reduce the awkwardness.

“Ah, yes, about 5 kilometres away.” His French accent is very thick. His use of kilometres is unusual from my British perspective, but I nod in understanding. “It is maybe thirty minutes to the house,” he adds.

“Okay.” I look out of the window for a moment. The landscape is industrial, and we are driving on a three-lane motorway. The high-rise buildings in the city are visible ahead of us.

“Shall I message Juliette, and let her know we are on our way?”

“Um, she can see me on the phone, but you can.”

“Okay.”

“The children are very excited to meet you. They are waiting for you.”

The time on the car panel says 19:37.

“They call you, New Annabelle.” We smile, watching the road.

Annabelle is their previous Au Pair. We are similar because of our age and UK citizenship. Having been in contact over the last few months, Annabelle has helpfully been answering my questions and settling my concerns about the job. Juliette had given me her number before I accepted the position. Annabelle had said to me in our initial communication that she felt lucky to have found this family and that she has had a wonderful experience in Montréal. This reassurance, of course, aids my decision to move to Canada to become an Au Pair.

I ask Antoine how the family's summer in France had been, but he doesn’t understand my question, so I rephrase it. His response doesn’t answer my question, which suggests his English is not as good as I had anticipated. This misunderstanding begins the metamorphosis of the cocooned caterpillars in my stomach.I look out the window while we drive through a tunnel, then a few crossroads and along the riverside where I spot large roller coasters built on an island in the river. The silence in the car does not feel awkward. I sense that both of us are content with a quiet commute. But my stomach is churning with nerves at the prospect of meeting the entire family in minutes.

I’ve had video calls with the mum, Juliette. Two days ago we FaceTimed, and the kids saw me on the screen. They hadn’t spoken English, and now I worry that my novice French will make life harder than expected. I’m here to teach them English, alongside caring for them. Does that mean they speak very little English? Annabelle didn’t mention any language barriers. She is the one who reassured me she had no problems. I’m probably overthinking. Everything will be fine. I’m perspiring and can smell myself. It’s bad when you can smell yourself. Does that mean Antoine can smell me? Oh god, I’m spiralling.

After twenty-eight minutes, we turn off the main road and head down a one-way street, then take a right, and the street is beautifully tree-lined and residential. A park appears on the left-hand side, and just as I think I recognise it from pictures and video calls, Antoine pulls up to the curb.

The sky is getting dim and rosy, and the humidity outside feels damp as I open the door of the air-conditioned electric car. My empowerment has left my body. Antoine takes my twenty-kilogram suitcase up the six steps to the house doors. I follow behind with the small cabin suitcase.

All of the buildings in the vicinity are architecturally similar. Three or four levels high, basement with windows, raised ground floor. The first floor is only accessible by a curved exterior staircase with ornate metal railing. The apartment doors are lined up on the balcony that the external stairs bend to. The upper floors of each building are divided into two, three, or four apartments. The external staircases, like twisted trees, interval the street. They are a statement feature of the Plateau neighbourhood and remind me of Paris. The culture in this residential area of the city is very francophone.

The interior of the house is not furnished as I expect. The walls are white, and the floor is varnished pine wood. My childhood home is primarily carpeted, and each room is coloured, wallpapered, or panelled. The furniture in my parent's house is bulky and intentionally fills the space. It is my mum’s Laura Ashley Catalogue interior design inspiration that I have come from, making this modern minimalist curated space foreign and un-homely. Another initial observation is that the ceiling is excessively high, perhaps 10 feet, and to compensate, the doorways are oversized. My general feeling in the space is that I have taken an Alice In Wonderland potion.

Antoine pushes my suitcases into a room immediately to the right of the entranceway. As he moves from in front of me, I see wide-eyed children peering at me from behind a coffee table and chairs in the room at the end of the hallway. They remind me of meerkats at the zoo; alert on hind legs, watching for sudden movement. I greet them in my, probably, comedic French. I slip my shoes off and smile at the children warmly, highly aware that I am a stranger in their home. This is when Juliette comes into view, moving toward me, beaming. She is about my height and size with a slight hunch in her posture. Having been the primary person I have corresponded with over the past five months, we greet each other with a hug, like familiar friends.I am then introduced to the children.

“This is Émile, Alice, and over here is Adéle.”

Responding to his name, the youngest, Émile scurries to his mum's leg and pulls at her trousers excitedly. Juliette picks him up and puts the four-year-old on her hip.

“Would you like a drink or something to eat?” She offers.

“A glass of water would be great, thank you.”

“Water, okay.” She puts down Emile and walks back toward the room at the end of the hallway. I follow behind her. When she passes the two girls lounging on a grey sofa, she speaks to them in French, which I don't comprehend.

Now out of the hallway, I am in an open-plan kitchen and dining space. When I first enter the space, there are two different wicker chairs and a grey sofa placed around a black slate coffee table. There is one wall in the middle of the room with a coal-coloured fireplace built into it. There is the option to walk around either side of this wall into the kitchen area. The kitchen has black work counters and cupboards with a breakfast table and stools. The entire back end of the house is made up of floor-to-ceiling window panels that look out onto a rugged garden with colourful folding garden chairs scattered about. Behind the kitchen island is a long, wood dining table, set with mismatched chairs.

I am handed a glass of water and take a gulp.“

Okay… would you like a tour of the house?”

“Yes, sure.”She looks around and says, “Um, this is the kitchen. Help yourself to food and drink anytime. Do you drink coffee?”

“No, not really.”“Ah, you drink tea, right? Okay, so I don’t need to show you how the coffee machine works.”

We are looking at a spot-lit alcove in the wall where kitchen gadgets are displayed. The silver coffee machine has pride of place, with sprinkled remnants of ground coffee on the worktop beside it. There is also a toaster, kettle, and a large mixing bowl machine that I've never seen before. It has a heavy base with a display screen with various pictured buttons, like a steaming pot and a loaf of bread. Attached atop the base is a large steel bowl and a lid. I am intrigued and intimidated by it.

We move around the kitchen to the casual seating area and back down the hallway.

“This is a place to sit and relax. The children like to sit and read stories here.”

I notice sliding doors hidden within the wall, which can be pulled to separate the open-plan living/dining/kitchen area from the hallway. The mum stops by them and pushes open the first door on the right in the sterile hall. I walk around her to see into the room. It is a bathroom with a pair of circular sinks in front of a screen of mirror-fronted cabinets that extend up almost to the ceiling. Across from them is a toilet, and at the back of the room - there is an alcove wet room with a waterfall shower and a stand-alone porcelain white bathtub.

The bathroom is littered with the remnants of the children's bedtime routine. Toothbrushes and hair bands are abandoned on the ice-rink sink countertop. There are clothes in piles on the floor beside wet footprints. 

Juliette enters the room and opens a cabinet door. “Sorry, it is a bit of a mess. I have emptied this space for you to put your… um..”

“Toiletries,” I answer.

“Yes, toiletries. Your toothbrush and things.” She demonstrates how to use the shower and then guides me out of the bathroom. “You share this bathroom with the girls, but if you need to use a bathroom and this one is in use, then we have another downstairs.”

Also along the hallway are the two girls bedrooms. I observed how they are vandalised by craft materials and unpacked boxes of board games.Clothes are in disarray on the floor and bedding is half hanging off the unmade bed.  Adéle moves between us and begins engrossing herself in whatever creation she had previously been masterminding.

I am briefly shown the office at the front of the house, beside the doors I entered the house by. We go into the space and I see two desks with computer screens. The desks are back to back, to make two separate workstations. The rear desk has a swivel chair but the nearer does not. The desks are in front of a large window that looks out to the road at the front of the house, but the view is partly obstructed by the external staircase that ascends from the street.

The back end of the office is a small library space. There is a full wall of books, a reclined sofa, a coffee table with a chess board set up mid-game, and a tasselled-edged rug beneath it. By the door we just walked through, there are some homeless boxes and children's car seats, which appear completely out of character with the intention of the room. This is Juliette’s office; she works from home most days a week and takes the metro to work if necessary.

All three of the kids follow us into the office and start to talk and play on the sofa. I can tell that their initial wariness is diminishing and excitement is starting to replace it. The last door in the hallway is between the front door and Alice’s room. This is where Antoine had wheeled my suitcases. The children gallop past us, open the bedroom door for me and proceed to laugh giddily as they bounce on the bed and spin around the room.

“And this is your room,” Juliette informs me, “You have a desk, a lamp - this door is the wardrobe. I hope there are enough hangers.” She opens the wardrobe cupboard. It is large and deep with two rows of clothing rails and a shelf. “I have put extra bedding here and some towels.” I nod and express my thanks.

The kids clearly want my attention, so I smile at their silliness and pretend to tickle them when they come close, which makes them laugh and hop away.

The defining feature of the room is the bay window that expands almost the entire width of the room and looks out over the park across the street. Outside, the sky is dim and blue now. The park is picturesque, with numerous trees and benches; I see a children's play area at the back of the park. Someone walks past the window and crosses the road towards where a dozen city bikes are stationed.

The window has a stained-glass upper panel, which I adore because it brings back the original architectural charm of the building. This green and orange stained glass does not match the clean interior design, but I appreciate the character. It reminds me of the churches I admire in my hometown. From what I have seen, I feel I have the best room in the house because of the window and its view.

An IKEA desk and a wooden chair are in front of the window. Upon a large chest of draws is a small Aloe Vera plant and a beautiful antique globe. The double bed is directly in front of the door, with hot pink bedding. Above the bed is a framed print of flowers. This room is definitely my style and I feel as giddy as the children at the prospect of making this room my own.

“Up,” says the mum, and we all leave my room, “I can quickly show you downstairs.” 

To get downstairs, there is a staircase by the open-plan seating area. The stairs lead to a lounge-cross-playroom. A smart TV hanging on the wall opposite a three-person sofa and the rug on the floor is a kid's play mat, with a cartoon diagram of a town on it. It is like a rug my brother used to play on as a child.

The walls are covered in various pieces of children's artwork, and there is a long shelf packed with children's books. The mum says they are a mix of French and English books. At the base of the stairs, Juliette motions her arm to our left where a garage space filled with various bikes and winter clothes are stored. 

To the right is a short hallway. We don’t walk through it. She summarises that there is a laundry room and bathroom, Emile’s bedroom, along with her and Antoine’s bedroom. 

“That is everything.”, she says, clasping her hands together at her chest.

“It’s a lovely house. How long have you lived here?” I ask.

“We have lived here for ten years but got the house renovated about four years ago. We hope to get the garden landscaped next year, too.”

I nod in appreciation.

Back upstairs, Antoine is eating dinner at the dining table and scrolling on his phone. The children are back on the grey sofa chatting in high-pitched voices. They haven’t said a word in English yet. 

“You must be tired. Do you want to eat or shower before you go to bed?”

“I would love to shower. I feel like I smell.”

“Of course!” Juliette exclaims, understandingly. 

I look at the kids. “I do have some presents for you and the kids, that I would like to give them before bed. Is that okay?”

The children's attention peaks and the mum's eyes widen. “You got us gifts?” She clarifies, “You did not have to do that.”

The eldest, Alice, repeats, “Presents?”

I laugh at how comedic her interest is.

I hurry to my room, where a WHSmith’s bag contains British-themed goodies bought at Heathrow Airport Duty-Free.

I kneel beside the slate coffee table and pull out the bag's contents; two notebooks for the girls - decorated with different London landmarks. Alice is the first to choose the one she wants, leaving Adéle with the other. For a moment, I worry there will be an argument between them. But Adéle is perfectly happy with having the one Alice rejected. Next, I take out a miniature London double-decker red bus for Émile. It includes a small Paddington Bear figurine. Emile is pleased with the toy and wants to open it immediately, running to the kitchen for scissors.

The mum chuckles at the children’s excitement. “I don’t think Émile knows who the bear is. It is… err,” she clicks her fingers, thinking of the words.

I help her out. “It’s Paddington Bear. A famous British film.”

“Yes. This is not a toy he would usually play with. Thank you very much.” She directs her attention to the children. “Say, thank you to Lily.”

The girls say shyly, “Thank you.”

Alice spots something else in the plastic bag and takes out the tin box of English biscuits. 

“These are for the whole family.”

“Ahh biscuits! Thank you.”

The children beg to open the red, white, and blue box. I realise it's quite late to be eating biscuits. I probably should have waited until the morning to give gifts. The children are wide awake now, it is almost eight thirty.

Juliette gives in to their pleas. We all move to the breakfast table and stools to have a biscuit each. I explain the difference between all the butter biscuits. I quickly find out that Alice is a major chocolate lover because it takes her less than two seconds to choose the Bourbon biscuit.

The box gets passed around to everyone and after a few minutes of them discussing it in French, Juliette declares it is time for bed.

While I am in my room digging out my toiletries and pyjamas, I can hear the children chattering and moving about in their rooms. I enjoy a warm shower and completing my evening skincare routine. By the time I leave the steamy bathroom, switching off the orange light, the hallway is quiet. The sliding doors are pulled closed and the girls quietly shuffle in their beds.

The hallway lights are dimmed and I creep to my room. I check my phone, knowing it is 2 AM in England and no one I know is awake. I start feeling tired but I want to stay awake until 10 PM. However, after five minutes of reading, my eyes are straining. I lean over, turn the bedside lamp off and lie in my new room across the world from everything I know. 

The butterflies in my stomach spread their wings at the slow realisation - the enormity - of my distance from home. However, butterflies only live for a few weeks.