Expats

Advertising shows us glittering seas, white beaches and smeary fuchsia bars far from home. The holiday or travelling setup works to provide us with a mythical space of ease and luxury, or one of goodwill and dedication if we choose to travel with a cause. This fantasy only works on a place because we are there as a tourist; the ideal only exists because it is a purchasable fiction through which we move in ‘time-out-of-life’. The sense of freedom and appreciation for the beauty of a place is perhaps because we know we will leave it again. My mind buys into fairytales when I leave home.

Some hours after midnight, in a ‘tapas’ bar in the French Pyrenees, someone from the gaggle of high-spirited older men at the bar bursts into song. It’s a French reggae song about the mountains. His tobacco-stained teeth and enormous grin signal a presumptuous challenge. From the table, a diner empties the last gulp of a glass of plonk, and, raising a hand as he swallows, jumps up and jangles out of the door to a van parked outside, from which he emerges fully prepared for the evening ahead. He now grasps a bottle of eau-de-vie and a gaffa-taped acoustic, bringing a breath of cold, rain-rinsed air back in with him. Outside, in the narrow pebbled street, a church spire can be seen beyond the high rooftops, and beyond that, the dark cloud-shrouded mountains.

The singer lights another cigarette and comes to join our table. It is illegal to smoke indoors in France, but the laws seem to fade to a matter of convenience when you’re this far-flung from civilisation. A provocative comment on the matter resulted in a laugh of ‘F*ck Sarcozy!’, and a top-up on the drinks. An atmosphere of involvement and enthusiasm with politics is perhaps fuelled by French local government which is broken down to a local level. It seems that there is a strong political force in France, on both the left and right. Anarchist groups who have been widely acknowledged and let-be in France are feeling targeted by the French government at present. Accused of terrorism and illegal activity, the divide in opinion is only fuelled and the blind belief in a cause is pushed further from a central dialogue.

The ‘Eau de vie’ now being trickled into glasses, has come from a local distillery which is contributed to by locals. Amongst these people the brandy seems to be related to a communal right to drink, to swear, and to be slightly mad. Amongst the raucous singing of eight or so people and the two-tone strum of a guitar, the bar owner, a happy, pretty butch woman brings a board of different scraps of yellow French cheeses and a honey jelly condiment to our table. This isn’t high-class table-service, though; just sharing. Food seems more personal and familiar here.

An olive-skinned high cheek-boned woman has migrated from the bar to our table, wanting to practice what she describes as her ‘bad’ English. She tells me about her teenage days; Mohican haircuts and school trips to London; and speaks of her ability to relate to people without language, beyond the barriers of words. The eyes of these people sparkle despite their worn hands and sun-scorched skin. They laugh and drink and eat with casual defiance. Surprisingly, perhaps, many of them are not from this area. Expats and northerners come to live an alternative lifestyle here, one of hard work, near-isolation, and borderline self-sufficiency. With these things come the incredibly close mountains, a definite sense of community, and heightened passions.

After a drunken brawl, in which nonsense, a black eye, and the practicality of making up afterwards come together, I wonder if we have a thing or two to own to the chaos of our whimsical wants. The expats I mention aren’t heading back home.