Part 3

The next few days were a whirl of officialdom. It was felt that I needed a Carte de Sejour to help the process of registering for school, and a Carte de Santé for health and dental care. Then I had to be included on the Gatti's health plan to cover to 30% of health and dental costs not paid for by the State.

To do this certified translations of my birth certificate and the probate registered Will giving the Gatti's guardianship had to be obtained and recorded. Every document seemed to have six copies and all needed passport photographs attached.

It was a difficult few days, but the Gattis smoothed the process through a long familiarity with notorious French bureaucracy.

Finally a bank account was opened in my name and automatic transfers set up for my trust funds in England, then all was ready for the Rentrée, the day in early September when the schools reopen after the long summer vacation.

More photographs were needed, as were more copies of application documents and certified copies in French of my GCSE results. I was amazed to find that I was amongst a group of nine foreign nationals starting at that school that year. The French education system seems to cope with all-comers in a way that British schools rarely have to, or perhaps I haven't been to the right sort of schools! Rural Norfolk is perhaps not the best place to see multiculturalism.

Assessments and introductions took most of the first day and I rarely got to see Sylvie who was also new to the school. As a French national she was expected to cope better of her own!

What was clear was that the way one looked was tremendously important at the senior levels of the school. No school uniform meant that there were a lot of chic dressers. Not to be outdone or show up Sylvie meant several visits to clothes shops in Carcassonne or Perpignan the next weekend to improve my wardrobe. Monoprix or Carrefour, local supermarkets with clothing departments, were OK for younger students but not for the Baccalaureate classes.

Monsieur Gatti, Pierre, came on the first visit to make sure of my sizes, but after that it was Sylvie and I did a 'shop 'till you drop' routine until I was fit to be seen with her. My shoes were a 40, my jackets and trousers a 42 and shirts a 35.

Luckily, the weather would stay in the 20s or higher until November so I didn't have to worry about winter clothes yet awhile. Even so, my CB, Carte bancaire or debit card, took a real hit! French clothes, as I found out, are stylish, but cheap they aren't - particularly when you are thinking in pounds and the Euros are half as much again.

I also put off the buying of ski gear. Like most French people in the area the Gatti family spent most winter weekends and national holidays in the mountains. Andorra was only an hour away in the car, but most times we would go to Ax-les-Thermes with the neighbouring ski centres of Plateaux de Bonascre and des Sadnet. Needless to say, Sylvie and I would have lots of practice sessions to get me up to the standard of the rest of the family. A few goes on a dry ski slope near my old home in England would not help me to be able to hold my head up with Sylvie's crowd who had been skiing since they were toddlers.

Pierre was often absent with away matches for his team at weekends so the two women took me under their wing as it were and under their tutelage my skiing improved in leaps and bounds. Following Sylvie and Sophie down the nursery slopes as they demonstrated some technique to me was always a slight distraction with their tight ski pants, crotch gap and obviously female outline, but I can say that the combination of recent bereavement and gratefulness at my absorption into their family meant that neither girl nor woman seemed in the least bit a potential sexual conquest. Too much was new and too much had to be learned and experienced.

In telling you about my life I have started to say, the rest of the family. Did you notice? It was now only three or four months since Mum had died and here I was with a fuzzy feeling of remoteness about my past life in England and a new family who to all intents and purposes had adopted me. When I had first met Michelle she had hugged me and called me her little brother. She let on much later that her parents had always wanted a son, but a Sylvie's difficult birth had made further children too demanding for Sophie. I had a lot to live up to!

I had been told to call Pierre and Sophie by their first names rather than Monsieur and Madame Gatti, but within weeks I slipped unwittingly into calling Sophie, maman. She just looked at me the first time with a slight smile. I hadn't realised what I had said, but it seemed so natural and so normal, that after a hug and a tear or two, I continued to call her maman.

Sylvie did a double take the first time I called Sophie 'maman' in front of her, but said nothing. Pierre told me years later that my inadvertent slip, a fortuitous one, had caused tears and joy in the household. The son that had been missing from their family had come 'home', as it were. The decision to offer me a home had been a difficult one based on limited knowledge of me. My assimilation into the family so effortlessly had quashed the uncertainties that remained in their minds after all the soul-searching and prayer as my mother lay dying in the hospice in England.

My introduction to the Rugby club... Pierre's rugby club, was a nerve-wracking experience. Whether it was in skiing, making a presentable appearance at school or here, on the rugby field, I could feel the responsibility of the Gattis' support, hopes and encouragement. The club coaches had seen me play and had approved. That much I knew. I also knew that I would be playing with boys, young men really, up to the age of 18. They seemed huge to me but I had speed on my side!

During those first few weeks an assistant coach who spoke good English sat beside me in the team meetings making sure I understood what the coach was saying but it was remarkable as to how quickly I picked up the language and I was glad when the extra translation was no longer necessary. The rugby needed no translation. My speed, the ballet lessons from the previous year and the new skills from skiing made me difficult to catch. My scoring the third under-eighteens team climbed quickly and I soon replaced the left-winger in the Under-18s B Team. The player I replaced was not unhappy. He congratulated me and said that he was being moved to an adult team as he was almost 18. It was made clear to me that if I played my cards right, then I would be groomed for the Under-18s First or 'A' team the following season.

Pierre watched when he could and offered advice with his huge arm easily enveloping my narrow shoulders. Sophie came occasionally and Sylvie came to most of my matches; even some of the away matches. Often with a friend or two.

At Christmas Tina came to stay. She was the first person to occupy the new guest room that was next to my bedroom in the new part of the house. We talked forever - late into the night about our lives and parted after a few days in good spirits.

After Christmas I was approached by Jacques, a boy in our year, to see if I could put in a good word for him with my sister. This surprised me as I was not sure that after 6 months I was regarded as Sylvie's sister; but was flattered with his confidence. I had to think hard as to whether I felt any jealousy of Jacque's approach and how to deal with his request. Could I say that I felt any yearning to be Sylvie's boyfriend rather than her brother. "Was she someone I wanted to sleep with and make love to?" Did I want to share her in that way? I think I rather surprised myself by concluding; "I want to be a part of Sylvie's life, She is a delight to be with. She has supported me through my integration and she would grace the arm of any boy, BUT I didn't want her to be my girlfriend with all that entails". I wanted her as a sister.

I went to sleep comfortable in the knowledge that I would support Jacques in his quest. He was a good friend and I would like Sylvie and him to get together.

My hints dropped at appropriate moments surprised Sylvie a little I think with comments like... "Do you want to get rid of me so soon?"... but she clearly felt the same way about me as I did about her and she was happy to start going out with Jacques as I was to see them go.

Over the next weeks I spent much of my time with the girls at school. My physique didn't single me out as a sportsman and, my interest in fashion, dancing (all stemming from the ballet classes!) cycling and skiing made me more interesting to the girls than many boys in my year. Did I mention the cycling... no, looking back, I didn't.

"You know the Tour de France; don't you?; of course you do. It occupies weeks on European television and with Lance Armstrong being the tour de force in the sport as it were. Even the most insular American citizen must have heard of the great race. Well, the Tour de France spends some of its time in the mountains each year and hard cycling is thought to be good for building up lower body strength for rugby players. So we cycled as part of our training, and to be honest, you are regarded as being abnormal if you do not cycle in that part of France either on the roads or in the velodrome. When in France do as the French do... and in this case it is vital for your street cred if nothing else. Now that Sylvie was spending much of her free time with Jaques, I was rather on my own and used hard training with cycling and skiing to build up my strength to remain one of the best school sprinters and retain my place in the rugby team.

Nevertheless, being on my own or with an all male group of rugby players or at school did leave me rather alone and I found that I would welcome a girlfriend. I was not that others had noticed my lost looks and sighs, but it must have been so. Over the next few days at school there was some whispering amongst the girls until a deputation visited me. "We think you should take out Laurence." I was told emphatically. "The Committee has spoken."

Now, I knew France was a bureaucracy first and foremost but I didn't think they resorted to sorting out a teenage boy's lovelife. And who was this Laurence, anyway?

Laurence it proved, was rarely seen at the piscine where everyone's private business became everyone else's business. To be honest I had hardly noticed her when Sylvie was on my arm, but one couldn't go out with one's sister; even an adoptive one, so I set out to explore why 'the Committee' thought Laurence was my ideal partner.

She was small, smaller than me and that is saying something. She came originally from Calvados, the area to the north-west of France that borders the English Channel, that the French call La Manche. As such, her accent was not typical of the Languedoc. Old memories die hard in the Languedoc. Folk law remembers back to the time when the South-west was independent of Paris in its own kingdom that included the northern strip of Spain. She was also a little separate from the ebb and flow of social discourse.

Laurence could speak Breton as well as French, but not Occitan. This had singled her out and made her something separate from the rest of the girls. I found that her father and mother both worked in the European Airbus complex near Toulouse and that Laurence's Baccalaureate options were largely Maths and Science based. Not my main focus I had to say.

As I took more interest in her from a distance I noticed the black hair cut well into a pageboy style; the gamine features of her elfin like face. The demure way she slowly raised her eyes, when she knew I was watching. Had the committee seen her as I saw her, I wondered?

I noticed to my surprise that she had a solo roll in an up and coming dance production put on by the dance class of the school; and I also noticed her at the athletics practices. Why hadn't I noticed her there before? She could run sprints without that rolling gait of larger more powerfully built women. She was fast and hungry for success.

In track gear her figure was obviously boyish but her movements were just so graceful. Perhaps it was the unstylish clothing she wore to school that had hidden her from me before.

I booked a ticket for the dance production. The girls selling them said nothing, but smiled knowingly. I was one of only five or six boys at the performance. I didn't know the others, but the body language was definitely of ambivalent sexuality.

Laurence danced her piece of a masked troubador with great vivacity, but also a sensuality and great sadness. I loved the performance and it gave me an opportunity to talk to her the next day.

I saw you there in the sports hall she confessed. I was surprised you were there. As a rugby player I thought you wouldn't be seen dead watching girls doing contemporary dance.