Franco-British Council Story Prize 1

This month saw the inaugural Prospect/Franco-British Council prize for a short story of under 1,000 words inspired by France. The top four entries in the undergraduate category are below
June 28, 2008
Discuss this article and read more about the competition at First Drafts, Prospect's blog

First Prize

The Face
bySarah Collier, University of Salford, Manchester

What do you see when you look at this old woman's face? Line after line I should imagine. My eyes haven't changed, they are still the same blue from when I was a girl. And what would you say if I told you this face was famous, iconic even, and symbolised peace between two nations?

It's all true. For you to understand I must return to when I was twenty two. I married Isaac, a fifty two year old business tycoon. Isaac had spent his life building up a fortune in sewing machines. It sounds odd, for a man to spend his life manufacturing such a feminine instrument, but he made millions.

I must admit, when accepting him, the money helped. I was twenty two, I looked around myself and saw suitors everywhere, dying for the chance to marry me, however, they had no money, and no prospects. I needed a future, and a rich American could provide that for me. I grew to love him over time of course. He could be a good man sometimes.

He also gave me the opportunity of a lifetime; to move to America. You must understand, France is my heart, my home, my soul, but what an adventure! Despite being discovered four hundred years earlier, America was still regarded as the "New World."

And so, in 1862 I moved to New York, a newlywed, a foreigner, and to Isaac's many important friends, a fairground attraction. They loved me, I was pretty, and most of all, I was French, which instantaneously made me fashionable. Americans love anything fashionable.

We attended parties, ceremonies, balls, I was admired and talked about, Isaac was happy. I was lucky to an extent, I already spoke a little English, my mother was French, my father, from England. However, it was limited. French was my mother tongue, it could never be severed, only harnessed into the sounds of the English language. I generally smiled and joined in where I was able.

I remember well how large the buildings seemed, so much glass and brick, and all so new. Paris was huge and magnificent, but the scale of New York astounded me. It was delightful and so exciting for the first few months. And then the longing for home began.

Isaac would have reams of French finery imported for me to wear, but it only made me feel more foreign. The parties began to look the same, and the people became less interested in me. I had no children yet, and so I wandered around our beautiful town house, desperately searching for something to occupy my mind.

Frustrated one day, I ventured to a fashionable delicatessen. Despite the name, ironically not a single individual was French or spoke French for that matter. I purchased my refreshments and sat alone by a window. It was hot that day, my hat was stifling me. I removed my veil to get some air to my face and as I did, I saw a man I'll never forget.

He entered the cafe, in a bowler hat and tailored suit, ordered his coffee from the waitress, and then sat near to me. I tried to ignore him, as I knew he was looking at me. And then he spoke. He was a Frenchman.

"Good morning, Mademoiselle." He tipped his hat.

"Good morning Monsieur." I continued drinking my tea.

"I beg your pardon, Mademoiselle, would you mind if I gave you a compliment?"

I looked at him.

"I just wished to say, your features are striking."

"Thank you." I replied awkwardly.

"My name is Bartholdi, I am a designer."

"How...delightful." I answered, unable to understand what he wanted from me.

"I have been commissioned to design a great feat in engineering but a man named Laboulaye, perhaps you have heard of him?"

"I'm afraid not."

He smiled. "Well this shall be the construction of the century, believe me."

"What exactly is it you will be designing?" I became less wary, and more interested, to my own surprise.

"A statue." He replied. "I have been searching high and low for inspiration, and I believe I have found most of what I need. However, one aspect is missing." He looked directly at me. "The face."

"Forgive my impertinence," He rose and suddenly sat at my table, such an odd man. "I believe your face could be the answer. May I?"

He pulled a small sketch pad from his pocket, a stick of charcoal, and sat poised, charcoal to paper, waiting eagerly for a reply from me. I was so bemused, I found myself agreeing almost instantly.

At lightning speed my face began to appear on the paper. Whilst sketching, he distracted me with conversation. He asked which area of France I was from, why I was in America, how I was finding it. Indeed, he was such a curious man, I found it difficult to not answer him.

"I'm actually quite lonely." I heard myself say.

"Really? I know the feeling Mademoiselle." He answered whilst my face became more apparent on the paper. "I'm only here for a couple of months to continue design work, then I return home."

"I miss the language most of all, such an ancient, beautiful language. And the art, America seems to have little fine art to boast of."

"The reason they have employed Frenchmen to work on this statue. We appreciate beauty in it's first form."

And with that, she snapped his sketchbook shut, and smiled broadly.

"Thank you madam, for your time and patience. I truly appreciate it." He tipped his hat and duly left.

I remember seeing him leave, and thinking nothing of this "great construction" with which he seemed so excited. It'll never amount to anything, I told myself. I never saw him again.

How wrong I was. I was forty five, when I saw my face, my young face on the statue, on Ellis Island, made of copper, holding a torch, and greeting visitors from far and distant lands.

Second Prize

Jean Paul Sartre Is In My Cornflakes
by Daniel Bird, Loughborough University

JD Salinger once wrote that probably for every man there is at least one city that eventually turns into a girl, but I think the opposite is also true, that a girl can just as easily turn into a city. For me at least, when I think of the girl in question, my mind can't help but be drawn to one place and one place only; Paris.

I have Paris on the brain. The Eiffel Tower pokes out of the top of my desk drawer. Arthur Rimbaud is hiding in my medicine cupboard. Thierry Henry sits on top of my text books. Emile Zola paces back and forth, hands folded behind his back as he strides in stiff-legged bounds across my bedroom floor. Perhaps most disconcerting of all, Jean Paul Sartre stares up at me from the depths of my cereal bowl, a barrier to the consumption of a healthy breakfast if ever I saw one. That's right; Jean Paul Sartre is in my cornflakes.

Yes, I know what you're thinking, and no, I'm not going crazy, at least I don't think I am. I just can't stop thinking about the girl, which means in turn I can't stop thinking about France. Paris je t'aime. It's a vicious cycle really.

After weeks of trying to summon the courage to ask out Camille, the girl, I finally did and she agreed, which should, in theory, have been the hard part over. But ever since she said yes I've been worrying constantly about our date; what I should wear, where I should take her, what I should talk about. And ever since then I've started to see characters from French history, hanging around inexplicably in the most unusual of places.

As I pour the remains of my unfinished breakfast into the sink and stroll into the bathroom to brush my teeth I am startled to find Paul Verlaine leaning casually against my toothbrush, as if waiting for a bus on a hot summer's day.

"Nothing says I love you like flowers."

"Wasn't that Baudelaire? No offence Paul but you don't exactly have the best track record when it comes to romance, and besides, Arthur is around here somewhere, you don't want to break the conditions of the restraining order and end up in la geôle now do you…"

"Where?" Verlaine shouted, and with a whimper he ducked his head out of the way and retreated behind the shower curtain.

After stepping out of the shower, I walk into my bedroom to see Eric Cantona and Zinedine Zidane emerge from the bottom of my closet, talking to each other and flailing their arms about in animated gestures.

"Eric, you must have some advice for me, how am I going to impress Camille?"

Cantona looked at me for a moment, knitting his eyebrow together as if contemplating a matter of supreme philosophical importance, before pushing his chest out and offering a few words of carefully considered Gallic wisdom.

"When the seagulls follow the trawler, it is because they think sardines will be thrown into the sea."

Faintly startled at this response I stand open mouthed for a minute before gathering my senses and delivering my own carefully considered reply.

"What's that got to do with anything? How's that gonna help me get the girl? Zinedine, any clues?"

Zidane shrugged his shoulders and raised his eyebrows in a single, unhelpful gesture of casual nonchalance before turning and walking hand in hand with Cantona back into the closet.

"Mon ami, maybe I can be of service?"

I turn to find Jean Paul Sartre stroking his chin and staring up at me from the dim light of the desk.

"Sorry Jean Paul but you've already put me off my breakfast and I don't think I can handle a lecture on Being and Nothingness right now if it's all the same to you."

"Non non my young stallion, I have come to give you advice for getting the girl, eh?" he whispered elegantly, with a sly wink and a friendly nudge.

"Why are you whispering?"

"Never mind that my young apprentice, just listen… with a woman you must be confident… you must give the impression that you have had a thousand women in your time… above all you must be arrogant, les femmes, they adore arrogance. Voulez vous couchez avec moi? Par exemple…"

"Jean Paul! What kind of advice is that to give to the boy? Have you no respect for the second sex?"

I was stunned to see Simone De Beauvoir stood next to my laptop, with a face that, if looks could kill, would have laid out both me and Jean Paul right there and then.

"Of course I have respect for the second sex my darling Simone, but it is true non, the women, they love the arrogance, n'est pas?"

"Of course not! A woman wants to be treated with love and respect as an intellectual equal, we have not gone through centuries of repression only to have to put up with the inane chat up lines of chauvinistic cavemen!"

"But my dear, it worked on you, non? Don't you remember…?"

At this Simone blushed suddenly and turned her head inwards onto her shoulder like an embarrassed school girl.

"Oui, of course I remember, but that was different, that was…"

"Hush," Jean Paul whispered, placing his finger delicately to her lips and joining her hand to his before embarking on a slow and tender waltz, the strained chorus of Edith Piaf ringing gorgeously in the background.

"Non, rien de rien…non, je ne regrette rien…"

I guess existentialists really do make love in Paris.

But still that isn't much help to me and as I get changed and check my hair in the mirror, the sound of the doorbell is enough to give me a heart attack. Composing myself I look back at the mirror one last time before marching down the stairs and opening the front door.

"Hello Christian, are you ready?"

Stood at the door in that oh-so-French pose of hers, looking beautiful in every single way, I am almost at a loss for words. And then, as if from nowhere, I suddenly know exactly what to say.

"Oui madame," I reply, extending my hands towards her in an elaborate mock bow. Simone rolls her eyes in the background. Jean Paul shakes his head. But Camille, she smiles. I figure it's a start.

Equal Third Prize

Poppy
by Rachael Allen, Goldsmiths College, University of London

It was 1952 on a Parisian back street. She had found a tiny florist, which had beckoned her with thick smell and blooming windows. An olive-green sign, painted with the white words la belle fleur topped the building. Inside, she ran her fingers over the violet and scarlet petals, crushing their sponginess and staining her fingertips a dirty orange. She browsed for a while before suddenly becoming aware of herself. I'll have to buy something now, she thought, picking a white lily. The day was hot as she stepped outside, the green door tinkling behind her. She saw a cyclist on a rusty bike, he glanced back, trailing a bonjour! And here is where it began, as he didn't see the car ahead, and suddenly the heat had stopped the clocks, and the cyclist was hit and on the floor and dead; but she didn't know it yet. Blood ran from his nose like a thread of crimson hair. Shocked, she dropped her lily as she ran to him. The florist was there, and screaming in French at anyone, screaming at her. She stood dumb. The florist pushed past her, back into the shop, spilling fast French into a patent black phone.

The sun was still pulsing over aimless spectators drifting about the scene when she felt a gentle touch at her elbow. It was the florist, apologising, asking her inside for a coffee. She was shaken, and was glad to be in the sanctuary of the flowers. The florist looked like a poppy, she thought, with her harsh scarlet bob, olive shirt and leaf green skirt.

The florist noticed her hands, beautifully pale, except the dirty orange staining on the tips. She half smiled, stared at the British slip of a girl in front of her, the picture of nerves, shivering after the accident. She knew broken English, the other broken French, which was enough for a friendship to start. They talked for hours, and discovered their shared loneliness. The girl was escaping a new marriage, just for three weeks, having already spent four days alone. The florist was just lonely. Seven o'clock surprised them both, and the florist led her to the door, telling her to come back whenever she wanted. She promised she would, smiling, she was glad she had bought the lily, that when she left was gone from the cobbles where she had dropped it.

She came back the next day, the same time; smelt the lilac on the air before the olive sign came into sight. She came back the day after as well, and after that, they went out to eat, to the market, to the hidden cafés. They spent a week teaching each other a language, friendship, and how not to be alone. They spent long afternoons just dancing around the florist, the powder of the flowers staining their trousers, their hair spilling loose from pins, and a wailing wireless sung them and spun them around.

They visited the bridge over the Seine one Saturday, their young legs dangling through the railings, they had hitched up their skirts. They talked about love, and the girl confessed that maybe, she had been married too soon. The florist just listened, staring at her friend. She said she could never get married. Men never seemed to appreciate her.

The florist knew she was falling in love, she would watch the girl's shape, the pale bend of her elbow with its dark hair when she rolled up her sleeves, the dip below her ankle, the crater of her temple. She guarded this, could never say Je t'adore. She knew her friend was nothing of her kind, stifled the urge to wrap her arms around her beautiful waist, or speak her confession like a flower spewing pollen.

The third to last day came, and as usual, there was coffee on the stove and pastries sitting on the china plate. The florist waited, until the clock chimed seven. Bitter, her heart hurting, she scraped the stale cakes into a bin. As hot tears seeped onto her blouse, she locked the green door. How had this happened again?

The girl waited around the corner from the florist. Her legs were firmly rooted, shivering to her hips. Because she too had fallen horribly, blackly in love. Horribly in love with a woman, as her husband waited for her at her home, and her unknown child of two months was unsettling itself inside her. The air dragged over her as the day turned. Finally, she heard eight o'clock ring. She knocked at the green door, the florist answered, her scarlet bob ringing with the familiar. A light is lit on both faces, and within an hour they were pulling each other down, surrounded by the still petals, under watching flower heads, and the ink of the sky outside is smattered with the eyes of the stars. Her husband is asleep, and her unborn baby will die tomorrow, it is unsettling itself inside her.

Back in her room, the penultimate day, bleeding with the pain of loving someone she can not and smelling French lavender all over her skin, the girl undressed. Blood, boiling red, like the crushed petals of the flowers of last night, had dribbled from her. It was hot like the day of the accident. There were screams and a hospital. She is sure she is being punished, and cuts everything she ever felt for her Parisian flower, she has closed herself. She will never, ever see the red bob of her beautiful florist ever again.

And now, at seventy six, she deeply regrets the love she lost. She sits in her doily-beige home, where it smells weakly of age. Her husband often asks her why she buys a lily every week, he has never liked them. And why she cuts her hair so short. She always thinks ce n'est rien, but says, "oh, it's nothing."

Equal Third Prize

La mère, la femme
by Kitty Wheater, Somerville College, University of Oxford

From the balcony window, Emily could see lightning in a 180-degree sweep of the night sky. The rain poured, the cicadas were silenced, and a lone red light as some aeroplane negotiated the storm caused her to bite her lip a little; perhaps Paul was on that plane, coming into Bordeaux. Was she facing west? She had no idea.

Their small rented house was 100 miles east of Bordeaux. In daylight, the sweep of darkness before her was little more than countryside—trees, lots of trees—and narrow winding roads. In the other direction lay the village, and somewhere beyond there was apparently a lake. The other English family staying on this market square came here every summer, and imparted gossip. Gillian looked out eagerly for a glimpse of the famous French film producer who apparently voted for the Césars and had a swimming pool.

The floorboards creaked upstairs. Gillian must be crossing to the window; yes, there was the click of it swinging open. Emily worried about these night-time tropical storms and the temptation to open the windows, breathe in the fresh wet air and disperse the heat of the day; the floorboards were wooden and she didn't want to leave water marks. Gillian had done it anyway. Emily committed her own act of rebellion by sliding the balcony door open a little, just a little. The floorboards went quiet; Emily felt a sense of companionship with her daughter, both standing at the window on different floors, appreciating how different this was from home. Life in Manchester seemed a thousand miles away. But Paul would come later tonight, bringing a little bit of it with him, the best bit.

They had gone to the beach that day, taking the bus to the next town where there was a station, and taking the train all the long way to the sea. Asking for tickets, inquiring about the best train to take, ordering lunch and a glass of Duras, had impressed her daughter, who admired her mother's fluency despite herself. At home Emily generally came in for disdain about being a dusty academic: Gillian appeared to have this picture of her spending her days in a grey library, adorned with mouldering books and archaic paintings on the wall. But when they came to France this image was shattered: Emily chatted easily, trying to include her daughter with eye contact. Gill responded at first with delight and then, remembering herself, with a jealous grumpiness. This grumpiness had settled in on the train and Emily, recognising it, had sat back with a book and a quiet sigh. It was that age. It had been 'that age' for some years and would probably continue to be for some time. Gillian was seventeen and scared about applying to university: scared about money, about travelling, about being alone.

At the beach she refused to swim. Emily suspected it was because she didn't want to wear a bikini – the scar, the reason they were here, was a visible mark down the middle of her chest. The recuperation, the weeks in bed, had also made her self-conscious. Her weak muscles protested when they went for walks, and Emily had learned not to push her. Anger sat squarely in Gillian beneath the surface—"why me?"—and it exploded when she felt that Emily did not understand.

So Emily had gone down to the water by herself. She was forty-three and not prepared to forego swimming merely because she was pale, or had a seventeen-year old Caesarean scar. The sand was damp beneath her feet; the tide had only just gone out. She paddled cautiously and looked back: her daughter sat in a preoccupied huddle of sunhat and sleeved t-shirt. Behind her lay sand-dunes, baked and shining in the sun. Emily's giddy secret rushed into her head at the sight of them. She plunged into the water in a surge of exhilaration and emerged coughing and gasping from the cold. What would Paul say?

Now, looking out at the wide darkness, Emily continued to wonder. Her sabbatical began in three months and her plans for it, begun tentatively, now looked stark and daring. She was not going to do research. She was instead going to get on a plane and go to the Carolinas, then north to visit her mother's family in Quebec, left behind when she came to England to marry Emily's father. If she did not go, she knew she would spend her sabbatical coaching Gillian through A Levels; she would sit at home and sort out the attic, the kitchen, the books, in between week-long trips to Paris on the Eurostar.

These were things that needed sorting but Emily had decided that actually they didn't matter. What would happen if they were never sorted? Well, nothing.

Paul would look at her with troubled eyes when she told him this. "Are you sure?" he'd say. He would not voice the worry, the fear that she was showing the seven-year-itch again, that she was in fact leaving him and Gillian to snatch back her aloneness, something which was always there. So she was not sure whether she would be able to reassure him, to say that no, she was not leaving him as she had left Jacques after seven years of marriage and a baby; she would come back. And Gillian? Gill would be silent, perplexed; or perhaps apoplectic. The dusty academic was stepping outside the picture-frame Gill had around her mother.

The wooden floorboards creaked. Gill was moving swiftly towards the stairs—she had heard something, and at that moment Emily heard it too: the burr of a taxi's engine outside the house, stifled by rain. "Bonne nuit." She slid the balcony door shut and tucked her hair behind her ears, moistened her lips, went to the door. There stood her husband: the man she loved, the man she would come back to.

Discuss this article and read more about the competition and authors at First Drafts, Prospect's blog