Irresistible
Liberté * Égalité * Pharmacie
I can’t help being delicious. Like Lady Gaga, I was born this way.
With a 0-negative blood type, I am officially the universal donor though unfortunately this also extends to mosquitoes. The only repellent which has ever worked was eating several raw garlic cloves which resulted in nothing approaching me for hours (including my husband). We therefore concluded that this should be treated as an extreme form of defence, only to be utilised in desperate circumstances.
Surprisingly, my being reprimanded by a gendarme was not the worst moment of our holiday (in fact, Monsieur Dubosc of the gendarmerie nationale even let me keep the high-vis jacket provided to cover my modesty). No, the real low point was waking up one-eyed because the other eye had served as a mosquito feeding ground during the night.
One could argue that losing the sight in your left eye is a small price to pay for waking up to blue skies, the scent of pine trees, the sound of singing crickets and the all-embracing warmth of the sun. One could.
It had been the perfect evening - even the shooting stars danced! We left the washing up (we’re on holiday - let’s be crazy) and retired to our mis-matched beds as the crickets’ melody became a lullaby. Then, moments after the lights went out, the mosquitoes mercilessly approached from every angle, whistling the Jaws soundtrack with their high-pitched instruments. I succeeded in covering my body but failed to protect my head.
Over breakfast the next morning, dabbing my engorged eye with a damp tea-bag, my husband said it was bound to happen if I left only my face uncovered. Common sense dictates leaving a little something out for the mozzies (like mince pies for Father Christmas). My eye was so itchy and I couldn’t help myself. The children sweetly tried to help by applying Sudocrem to my eye, though it looked as if I had walked into a cake.
My husband just carried on, saying if there was a battle between humans and mosquitoes, they’ve already won. You might as well just proffer a promising vein and join the winning team (à la Buffy the Vampire Slayer). It’s that or fall asleep wearing a snorkeling mask.
Armed with flip-flops, we then went on a revenge rampage, scanning the apartment walls for tell-tale black spots, swatting them dead and leaving their corpses as warnings to the others.
At our beach picnic later, my eye had swollen so much that my husband said it was like being offered nibbles by Rocky Balboa in a bikini. He suggested unveiling les seins again in order to detract attention from my face, even though he knew perfectly well that the condition for my release was that la poitrine would not reappear within a 6km radius of Bandol beach (or the local boys’ school) for a twelve-month period.
There was only one option: seek medical help. I do not need persuading to go into a French pharmacie. On the contrary, I need only an excuse …
The illuminated green, cross-shaped beacon of hope glows from a distance. As you approach, it helpfully reminds you of the time, date and temperature… until you pass through the automatic doors and step over the threshold into medical paradise.
The most magical place in France. No, it’s not Disneyland or the pointy pylon in Paris, or even that restaurant where everyone goes because they think they’ll bump into Diane Keaton and Jack Nicholson. It’s a pharmacie!
Last time I got my pharmacie-fill through indigestion, brought on by a so-called “local speciality”. It is a vicious trick, taking a failed regional dish and declaring it a local speciality so that inquisitive tourists will buy it in their droves, describe it as “interesting” and spend the entire holiday desperately trying to develop a taste for it so they can casually throw it into conversation when home.
“You’ve never had ouzo? Fascinating stuff!”
“The snails are nice but the garlic butter is supreme!”
“Who would have thought panisses [fried chickpea sludge] could be so interesting?”
Whatever. I just can’t lie about these things. Eating andouillette is like swallowing a fart.
The French pharmacie is a wonder to behold, with silky air-conditioning which strokes your skin, and perfect lighting where everything glistens and holds such promise! Not only will these products cure me of every ailment and make me young and beautiful but they will probably make me French…
The queue moves at the speed of a dandelion seed dancing in the breeze, but who cares? At the desk-islands, the healthy, blemish-free, air-conditioned pharmacists (with halos of kefir face mist) work their magic through centuries-old expertise and friendly, comforting chatter with soft, satin voices. Seeking special cures, they spread their gossamer wings under their pistachio-green capes and flit across the pharmacie. Sheer professionals in their field, they are fazed by nothing, with their dulcet tones unwavering, be they singing the praises of osmanthus flower or requesting a stool sample.
Obviously clients are basically cured just by walking in, but everyone chooses to stay and make the most of the prescribed sick leave to browse the huge array of shower gels made from hibiscus, French bean and stardust. If a French pharmacist proposes a concoction of organic honey powdered with horse dung, the only question one asks is “how much?”
At one point in the queue, I spied some diet pills which would make me look remarkably like Sophie Marceau. Crouching down to read more, I accidentally came uncomfortably close to the posterior of the gentleman in front of me (and noticed his tidy, tight and strangely familiar shorts). Too slowly did I realise why his clothes looked so familiar as, to my despair, the man spun around to reveal himself to be none other than Monsieur Dubosc of the gendarmerie nationale!
I tried to regain composure and say “bonjour” but I got flustered and it came out as “Mon-bon-bosc”.
“Ah, Madame Petitspois-vert, quelle surprise! Comment allez-vous?” He took one look at my eye and sighed in sympathy, then went on to explain that he was here with indigestion after eating panisses. Disconcerted at his overshare but in no position to back away, I nodded and let him continue (the French have a peculiar fondness for discussing gastroenteritis). As I was agreeing over the half-heartedness of supermarket-brand toilet paper, it was finally his turn to be served.
“Après vous, Madame Petitspois-verts,” he insisted, and I gratefully accepted his letting me go first, as he moved awkwardly to one side (releasing a small blast of trapped wind).
A beautiful pharmacist named Sabine, with hair made up of tiny shining strands of aloe vera leaves, floated towards me on a little cloud of bubble bath and cotton wool, leaving a glittery dust trail of sparkly Berocca behind her.
“À nous, madame”, she purred through a dazzling smile, and examined my eye in great detail and with much love. “Obviously you are too deelishoos” she hummed. “Mais, je sais!” I replied, recognising a kindred spirit. Sabine raised a decisive finger as if she were about to conduct a choir of pharmacie-fairies, and said: “Ere is what we will do.”
I was soon skipping back to the Airbnb sporting a brand new eye patch (French flag design!) and swinging a paper bag full of soothing ginger jelly and organic repellents (citronella and horse dung, but one has to try these things). Naturally, I had made the most of being in a pharmacie and thrown in another bag of extra bits to take home.
When my husband saw my new stash, he got agitated about car space and transporting potentially restricted French potions outside of the EU. I reassured him by saying that the vast majority were non-prescription and that I should look like Sophie Marceau within 4-6 weeks. He childishly asked if Sophie wore an eye-patch, to which I retorted “she wishes”.
That night, doused in horse dung, I confidently walked out onto the patio declaring “I’m not afraid anymore!” like Kevin McAllister in Home Alone.
To lessen the risk of a similar incident, however, for the remaining nights, I acquiesced and exposed my least favourite forearm, and also drank a phenomenal amount of rosé. Mosquitoes generally have difficulty flying in a straight line, but after a night with me they were utterly sozzled.
When my final pharmacie delivery arrived on our last day, my husband started huffing and puffing again about limited car boot space. It was all a show, however, as I knew he was secretly rather excited about the higher stakes on the car packing challenge and couldn’t wait to tell people about it. When it comes to packing a car, advice is neither needed nor wanted. Just like one would never get in the middle of fighting cats, one should never intervene with a man packing a people carrier at the end of a holiday.
Tidying after our last meal, there was some relief that we would soon be in our own kitchen. Whilst holiday homes are exciting, they are undeniably full of unwanted items from the owner’s main home - bits which seemed fancy when purchased but for which the novelty quickly wore off, such as saucepans without handles, transparent coffee mugs and vacuums which do little more than redistribute dust.
Early the next morning, we blew a goodbye kiss to the sea and began the long journey home (leaving a trail of hungover mosquitoes in our wake). My father used to say that all good things must come to an end so that the next good thing can start. To cheer ourselves up, we spent the journey brainstorming the ‘next good thing’ and came up with the following list:
Strictly Come Dancing
a decent sausage roll.
The beach incident really was a misunderstanding: here’s a link to explain. It’s a seven-minute read (which is less time than I spent under arrest).
