Fags, Flirting & Sexy Knickers
(MyWeek As A French Wife)
As yet another new book extolls the virtues of the Gallic way of life and love, Mimi Spencer slicks on the black eyeliner and turns seductress
I
’ve always felt vaguely French. My great-grandmother was a Paris-born couturier and I like to think that I’ve inherited her taste in haberdashery and republicanism – but, if truth be told, I’m a true Brit. You can tell this because I tend to have toast crumbs from breakfast lurking on my chest. No bona fide Frenchwoman would have toast for breakfast, let alone crumbs decorating her
photographs by Diana Gomez
cashmere. All my cashmere is too-small from the wash, and I wear bras and knickers that have never met. My skincare routine embraces a quick splash with eau du robinet (tap water to you and me) and a rub with a towel. But for a week, just to see how our cross-Channel cousins fare in life and love, I will live as a stereotypical Frenchwoman. You’d think it would be a doddle. We’re only separated by 26 miles and the superiority of
English, moi? Mimi gets into her new femme fatale persona
our music industry. But, mon dieu, non! Turns out we’re poles apart in so many ways when it comes to what drives us as nations.
Toujours l’amour Take our views on love. Frenchwomen, it’s widely understood, live in fear of their husbands gallivanting off with a mistress. So ingrained is this that every woman is treated as competition. The answer? Established convention dictates that, as a French wife, I’m supposed to keep myself looking immaculate, a trim size 8-10 and have lots of sex to keep his eye from wandering – oh, and ignore the children (though not at the same time). I find myself trying seduction on a Wednesday night. I’m missing MasterChef, which shows my commitment to the cause. I have cooked, I have cleaned, I’ve done a bit of pouting in the mirror, and now I’m supposed to flirt magnificently, like a Moulin Rouge chorus girl, with the man I have been with for years. In the interests of research, I’ve done YSL red lips and sprayed the nape of my neck with eau de gardenia. I flutter to the door when he returns from work and shove a tumbler of Ricard in his direction, while loosening his tie. ‘Stop fiddling with my shirt collar,’ he says, clearly perplexed. ‘Bleurgh! Aniseed? And, no, I don’t want a foot rub. You’re freaking me out. Have you been drinking?’ No. Because French women don’t drink. Not properly anyway. I flirt on doggedly during supper, giving him come-to-bed eyes over the Camembert (it makes a change from the ‘goand-do-the-washing-up’ eyes he usually gets). ‘Rendezvous at the fridge,’ I whisper. ‘It’s Man United vs West Ham,’ he whispers back. ‘See you in the sack.’ ‘Romance,’ I think, with melodrama in my heart, ‘C’est mort!’ {continued}