MY LOVERS

MES AMANTS (MY LOVERS)

TUEUR A GAGE (HIRED KILLER)

JE SUIS WAIWERA (I AM WAIWERA)

AUTHOR/PUBLISHER

CORINNE MAURY

A CROSS BETWEEN FICTION AND AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY

My Lovers

My Lovers is a novel that is part of a trilogy. Its fellow novels being I am Waiwera and Hired Killer.

These novels are autobiographical, with a few fictitious elements thrown in to lighten things up and make it amusing.

I have changed how some facts unravel as the publication of my novels has been compromised for ten years.

Hired Killer was essentially the result of my work as an under-cover journalist between 1987 and 1995, it is now a detective novel.

I am Waiwera tells the story of a Warrior of the Sea in times gone by. The story of a Maori man incarnated as a woman in the XXI century. The latter is preparing for new challenges, as a missionary haunted by flash backs to the XVIIII century, she transports us into unfamiliar galaxies. This book is fictional.

The book entitled My Lovers will take you on a journey around the world.

A menu for life.

An account made up of a hint of derision, a zest of humour and farcical situations.

A simple story of encounters during my various and different stays in Noumea, Sydney, Tokyo, Tahiti, Bordeaux, Paris and Melbourne.

As an aperitif you will be offered “Guarantees for Freedom".

As a starter you will choose between:

“Blondie Locks”, an irresistible man, good enough to eat, or “José, my pen-pal”, a noble soul, a champion of “Che”.

As a main course you will be offered:

“Sabina’s Blind Date”, an hilarious character with numerous conquests or “Nose Bleed”, a brilliant, rather lonely man.

For dessert – “Stalled”, the story of a less than banal car, or “Ham, Stram, Gram”, with his tousled hair and minus his uniform.

Bon appétit!

“Guarantees for Freedom”

Ask the well-off for money - they’ll call you a slut.

Ask your family for money - they’ll despise you.

Ask the poor for money - you’ll be a whore.

Women, whether rich or poor, free and with no ties, feminine or macho, we make decisions and choose our lives.

French women have assimilated almost 300 years of secularism and enjoyment of life, of freedom, of equality and of so-called fraternity. Their social behaviour and the way they run their everyday life are governed by these. And yet our Western world is becoming divided. It is changing, assimilating the sphere of influence of other cultures’ values of immigrants that it has allowed to enter for more than 20 years.

While Africa is dying amid general indifference, Asia is re-building itself and the Arab world is preparing to wage new wars on commerce. Our Western values regarding the rights of individuals established in the XX Century are waning. How will our history be recounted and by whom?

Our human universe comes about, comes undone and comes about again as part of the deal, the net profit margin, audience ratings. Making the best use of scandal-mongering in newspapers is a growing practice and the general public like it according to the markets to be won. An Oil War and, who knows, a Water War may be on the cards as a result of strategies brought about by the so-called big-wigs of the world, according to plans that lack ingenuity.

This “ratatouille” can lead to racism, to hatred and can bring about various forms of religious fundamentalism. It builds on the gullibility of the world as we are only human after all.

Corinne MAURY, is my maiden name.

Corinne means “heart” in Provençal.

MAURY is the name of a river that ran through my great grandfather's land in the Cantal. I am a French woman. My genetic make-up is the result of ethnic miscegenation. My being is made up of various cultural influences I can lay claim to.

Blended from an ascending line of 13 different races, (French from Provence, Haute Savoie, Cantal, cross-bred with Italian, Scottish, Spanish, from the Cape Verde Islands, a hint of Angola, Guinea Bissau, Portugal, a bit of Chinese and Japanese, I was born in Hyères in France in the Var in 1966.

I grew up in New Caledonia. At the age of 30 I had travelled around the world 18 times. I fitted in and lived with all types and calibre of people throughout the world. Sometimes I was a chameleon, and others I was active, visible.

As a French woman, I lived in Southern Asia Pacific from the age of four. I always thought of myself as Australian too. I was a gorgeous little girl. It would seem that I am a beautiful woman and I use such attributes to artistic ends.

My life is one of solitude, rich in encounters and adventures that I am going to let you discover…

Bordeaux 1986

“Blondie Locks”

I took my Baccalaureat in 1983, at the age of 17, in Noumea at the La Pérouse Lycée.

I studied in Bordeaux initially.

In 1986, outside the University’s Faculty of Law, I came across a man with blonde curly hair. I got to know this man over the following months and I learned that he was a fifth year medical student and typically undergoing practical training at a hospital in Bordeaux.

At the start of my stay in the Gironde region I lived in a students’ hall of residence. Then in a flat in the rue de St Genes and finally in the Cour de la Somme. These moves came about as my standard of living gradually declined to its lowest.

I lived in a back street off the Cour de la Somme. The cul-de-sac was a health hazard, my neighbour to the left looked like something out of a Zola novel, and my third year of law was sure to be fraught with problems.

And yet this cul-de-sac had a name, the Impasse Salée.

I had one main room, a corridor that served as a kitchen and a wash room. In all, 15 square metres. Apparently, one day the town hall had had an accent added to the street name as a result of popular demand. The cul-de-sac still remained as crummy.

In a basement at the end of the cul-de-sac lived a young couple with a small child. Upstairs there were two other law students; one of the girls was a friend of mine,

Anne-Sophie, I preferred to ignore the other one. To my right lived another student – he had brown hair, was uncouth and rather bear-like. He never spoke to me - this time it was he who preferred to ignore me.

Bordeaux was a rich, but sad town where you could still sense that terrible things must have happened during the Second World War, just like in Paris. You could sense what remained unsaid - families’ murky past, quarrels among neighbours one minute collaborators, the next members of the resistance – the story varied.

One afternoon, at the University Campus bus stop, opposite the Aula Magna Amphitheatre I met the gaze of a medical student. He was accompanied by a very beautiful young woman, with long blonde hair, a rare occurrence among French women. The said doctor had a brown leather jacket on; I wanted a jacket like his. In that instant I thought he had a nice air about him and I wanted this man in my bed. That was in September.

In April of the following year, I was opening my shutters onto the courtyard when I spotted my blondie locks. He went by smiling broadly and shouted hello! Taken aback, I quickly responded with a “hi” at the same time lowering my head - I had been crying all night. I had just broken up with Frédéric, my first lover, and I was pleased about it. I just regretted not having done it earlier.

Thierry passed by my window once again. He spoke to me and handed me a note for my neighbour, the so-called “Bear”, his letter box being broken.

I agreed with a furtive and reticent "OK". Thierry seemed in a good mood. He wanted to get to know me better and his approach was gentle and determined.

I don’t know how it came about any more, and I don’t know why, but I let him into my flat. I offered him a coffee and then we made love, just like that. Our little flirt was nice, however, having sex with him did nothing for me.

I had perhaps made love with Thierry to prove to myself that I had a future as a woman. I realised that Frédéric had destroyed something deep within me.

As for Thierry, I had nothing to reproach him for. I had made my choice to engage in a fleeting adventure, but I was disappointed by his contempt the deed done. I had satisfied his fantasy, an insular woman, tropical, easy and weak, with soft skin, and I was quite simply bored.

Thierry knew how to make a graceful exit, like a true doctor. And then I felt a huge emptiness; this feeling of being nothing. I sank into tears and, to forget this intrusion into my life, I emptied a bottle of Cognac to myself.

To my great surprise, Thierry came knocking on my door again one evening. A classic approach – how are you? What have you been up to? Nothing, I’m revising. He asked me out for a drink at the Bœuf sur le Toit, a bar that was in fashion that year. On reaching the Place de la Victoire we came across my bear of a neighbour who was a friend of Thierry's. We had a drink together; eventually I'd had enough of the set-up. I wanted to be alone with him.

Thierry and the Bear began playing Trivial Pursuit, a game I didn’t much care for. I watched as things developed, the language was foul, their frame of mind wasn’t good and I preferred to leave. Thierry thought of me as a bird brain, the bear too, as for me I wanted to leave this France that was making me so miserable. I wanted to be Australian and quit this town where I had neither family, nor friends, nor love.

My studies were a mess. I had done what other people wanted me to do, interfering in my business when the path I was to follow was such a nice one, so clearly marked out. I had always known where I was going and what I was going to do.

I am a French woman from the Pacific. I want to cross this line again a sort of demarcation line I set 20 years ago before and after Singapore. I like my home(land).

As I went down the Cour de la Somme I was apprehensive of the future. I was alone, bogged down by the indifference and contempt shown by everyone. I had lost Eric to suicide; I had been abused by Frédéric. I was fed up with my studies, only one thing kept me going - sport.

I spent most of my time at the Mérignac Tennis Club in the company of Julie, an Australian woman, and Jonathan, an Englishman, and a family from the Reunion Island, Danielle and Bernard.

I spent almost 7 hours a day playing sport. Julie was pregnant by Nicholas and I was watching how her pregnancy evolved with envy, happiness and joy. Danielle was also expecting her first child within a few weeks of Julie. These couples were 27/30 years old, and me I was 20.

These women’s stomachs were getting huge. Julie was stuffing herself with cakes and Danielle was stressed and was doing more and more jobs. Jonathan, Julie’s husband, was the world’s number one player on the professional tennis circuit at the time. As for Bernard, he was the number one player in the Reunion Island's squash team and had been selected to play in the French team in the 1980s. Now he coached.

Danielle was short of money while her father was a politician and a powerful business man in the Reunion Island. He was a close friend of the President of our dear France. Danielle resented that all the family’s business dealings were put in the hands of her younger brother. She needed to be acknowledged and now wanted to work in the bank. Thanks to a phone call, she had succeeded in getting in and that was her accomplishment of the year.

I thought highly of Bernard who became my coach. He was the result of a French-Vietnamese marriage. His father, on the other hand, had produced children all over the place from what he said. I liked his ways and his light-heartedness reminded me of my island and my former well-being.

Julie, the Australian girl, was funny. She used to drink a lot of white wine and she told me she had flirted with Mel Gibs., and that Elle Mc. was her best friend. She loved the Queen Mother’s pearl necklaces. Originally, Julie had been a PE teacher. Coming from a middle class family from Melbourne, she had gone to the best schools the State of Victoria had. She had met John during an international competition. Julie had also been ranked fifth in the women’s tennis. Julie got married after three days. John’s father was a Mormon Minister and John was an adopted child. That worried Julie whilst she was pregnant. What would her child’s identity be; how would she explain it to him later.

I had replied that such problems didn’t matter, it’s love that counts.

Today they have four children.

Friday evening after training and prior to team competition matches we used to look at some slides of court position strategies. These were privileged moments for me; I was so alone and my life wasn’t a pleasant one.

As for tennis when I got on court I felt like a queen. Jonathan was a great teacher, extremely calm and extremely patient.

I learned how to manufacture tennis balls with a young British chap called Mark who was on a practical training course. Space and time at the Mérignac Club was nice. Human relationships were quality ones. It also provided me with a wonderful pool of buyers for the various products I made. I felt really at home in this world.

I spent my time between the Sports Club and the unfit-to-be-lived-in room that served as my accommodation. As for university, I went in less and less.

A week after the Trivial Pursuit evening, Thierry introduced me to his brother, a tennis player who wanted to get into squash. Thierry hadn’t even realised how bored I had been with our shared experience. He didn’t care.

His brother, Patrick, wasn’t good looking. He too had short, blonde, curly hair; he was thickset a science student at the university. We played roughly five matches together; I won three of them. Patrick was a bad loser. Our complicity ended there!

Thierry and Patrick came from an unusual family. Their parents were divorced. Their mother worked for an independent local radio. Their father directed a theatre. They were both based in Pau.

Thierry’s attitude to his family was highly ambivalent. He only ever talked about them indirectly. In fact he didn’t want me to let me into his life.

He had a big party one evening in his new house by way of a house-warming. He had moved into a two-storied, small-sized, bourgeois villa in an upmarket part of Bordeaux. On the ground floor there was a kitchen, living room and dining room with a toilet in the back courtyard.

On the first floor there was a bathroom, a toilet and a bedroom. On the second floor was Thierry’s bedroom; a very big room with a balcony but no view.

He invited me and a hundred or so people to celebrate his moving in. I didn’t like his friends, or the company he kept – they were just like him.

They were mainly medical students and I didn’t find them very interesting. They drank too much, took drugs and found that so cool; it made me sick.

That evening I had said a few words in Kanak and these pathetic little Frenchmen thought I was mad. It would seem that the sounds I made were inaudible! How many languages had they studied in their lives… these pathetic, small-minded people?

I had just taken out a student loan to buy a car on hire purchase. My little red Super 5 was parked in an alley way off Thierry’s street. I decided to leave the house warming party. The ‘bear’ and Thierry insisted on coming with me. I thought they were fond of me and were concerned for my safety. But that wasn’t the case; they wanted to borrow the car and use it whilst I stayed at home. I sent them packing.

Years later I learned that the neighbours that lived in the basement of the building with their young child were acquainted with some nieces of my uncle and aunty by marriage, Pierre and Annick, and that was my first Breton “slap in the face”. These cousins didn’t care much for me.

One evening I had made a Chow Mein and there was enough for ten. I offered the neighbours some. Anne Sophie who was working and ultimately wanted to become a judge refused to taste it. The other neighbours, the friends of the family, replied that they didn’t need me to feed them. I binned the Chow Mein.

I was in need of money and so I began selling house-to-house.

Ironically my neighbour happened to be selected to work in the same area as me by a company called OFUP that had recruited us. Prior to this I didn’t know what she did, whether she was a student or a mother and housewife.

Being a student at the university doing a degree course in history and with a young baby and her husband doing a Masters in English, they needed more income.

We were part of the same team and we ended up becoming quite friendly. I told her about my experience with Thierry. She took it badly. She was a friend of Thierry’s girlfriend. She told me that Thierry had been seeing the young blonde woman I’d noticed him with at the bus stop the year before for almost four years. She was a student in another town.

One evening I decided to pay him an impromptu visit in his bourgeois villa. His house-mate wasn’t there, but some big fat “tart from Normandy” was keeping him company, whilst knitting him a jumper.

This woman was not nice looking. She was one of those people who like to “play at being good mates” so as to spend most of her time with a man who will never have any physical contact with her.

She talked to me about Thierry whilst he was upstairs telling me that I had no business being there; that he was going to get married to his blonde and that he couldn’t care a less about me. I went upstairs and Thierry and I made love. It took just five minutes and I felt nothing. An act that for the second time was my choice that left me feeling empty.

The girl from Normandy had left and Thierry seemed disappointed as she was supposed to have cut his hair that evening.

At that very moment I became a “hairdresser” - I had been one all my life.

My mother was one and I claimed that in my school holidays I had worked with her in her salon. This was completely untrue. She didn’t have a salon; she always worked as a mobile hairdresser.

I began snipping away at Thierry’s blonde curls one by one with great pleasure and a feeling of jubilation. Whilst I was cutting his hair, he was giving me advice and instructions. You do this like that; I don’t have a parting there normally; you need to…; all you have to do is…, etc. Yes, yes, of course …. my sweet.

After ten minutes or so, Thierry started to get worried. No, no, I reassured him; close your eyes and enjoy. He opened his eyes and by now I had really pulled it off. He was almost scalped on one side. A couple of blonde curls were still fighting a dual and his fringe was far too short. He now looked like Bozo the Clown.

Thierry jumped up from his seat, took to his heals and went up the stairs four at a time to look at himself in the bathroom mirror. In that same instant, I too made my exit, leaving everything as it was and running into the street as soon as I got through the door towards the Cours de la Somme. Looking behind me I could see Thierry running after me and then he gave up the chase; I was running faster than him.

The following week I sprained my ankle.

Thierry made sure I was kept waiting 7 hours in the Tripode Hospital’s A&E Department. There were two complex attitudes in the way we both reacted with an obvious difference of sensitivity. Not having sworn a Hippocratic Oath I shouldn’t be expected to feel bad about a few curls and grim sexual relationships; Thierry deserved to be taught a lesson.

Hair grows back, but a sprained ankle hurts for a long time. Was he a doctor or a future torturer?

When the Berlin Wall came down, Thierry told me that he rushed there to see what was happening. He had started to make enquiries to track down his family in Poland; his mother was half Polish.

During the major student demonstrations in 1985 he also went to Paris to protest.

I can’t stand that way of making social demands. We had nothing in common. I left to do a course in Spain and I never saw him again.

SARAGOSA 1987

José, a pen pal

In 1987 I completed the business and law course I was doing at Bordeaux University I. I had arrived in Metropolitan France from New Caledonia in November 1983. For almost three years I had spent the majority of my time with Reunionese, Australians, Lebanese and Latin Americans.

French people from France were rarely interesting. Most of them were racist and narrow-minded, never having travelled anywhere, arrogant in their superior attitude and totally uncultivated.

As for knowing anything about a civilisation other than their own, they were perfectly ignorant, quite simply.

I met some exceptions during my trip to Zaragova in Spain. A young woman aristocrat was to be one of the nicest and smartest people, together with the secretary of the welcoming group, a nice gay chap.

My Spanish lecturer at the university was an Argentine who had sought refuge in France. She had fled the fascist regime by marrying a Frenchman whom she didn’t love. She was a woman with a strong character and had lots of stories to tell.

She had encountered many problems in France. She wanted to divorce her husband but to do so was waiting to be granted residence. She also discovered the condescension of the French towards Latin Americans which is no longer the case today.

When she came to work at the university we decided to organise a stay in Spain, as part of the university course. It took us three years to get this project approved by the institutions so that we could bring it to fruition.

There were sixteen of us when we left, and there were sixteen of us when we got back. When we arrived in Zaragova sixteen Spaniards were waiting for us.

During the stay I was going to turn twenty one on the 11^th April and it was the best birthday celebration I have ever had.

When allocating people pen pals, the secretary asked me if I preferred a male or female pen pal. I preferred a male one of course. That’s how I am; 17 years later I still prefer the company of men and am not too keen on female company.

José was waiting for me at the station. “Ola, que tal? I’m José” He was tall, slim and angular, had swarthy brown skin, was cute, very lively, nice and to top it all, José was a big revolutionary.

When we got to his house, José showed me straight to his bedroom where we were both to sleep.

His little sister had moved into another bedroom with her sisters and the four of them were sleeping in there. I had come to stay with a big family with five children that was not very well off.

The secretary had warned me about this before I left France. It just so happens that your pen pal’s family is the least well off of all the families in the group. Are you sure you want to go there – “no problem; I’ve already set my heart on it.”

José’s father was a taxi driver and his mother was a cleaner; they had five children to feed. It was a family where you could feel the love. There was two years between each child and José was the eldest.

Upon going into José’s room that was also to be mine for a month, I burst out laughing. All the walls were covered with posters of Cheguevarra. I was therefore going to spend my time fantasizing of an evening with the face of “Che”.

He asked me if I minded; I said not, I in fact came from a family who had been members of the resistance in the Second World War. My great uncles had fought against the Nazis and I had been brought up with a fighting spirit and in favour of freedom and human rights.

After that I was accepted into the family with a big slap on the back from José. That was followed by an embrace from his father and some whopping big kisses that his mother smacked on both my cheeks whilst his little sisters danced around us.

This explosion of joy amazed me. I understood in a flash that these people must have suffered enormously, undoubtedly too much under Franco’s regime.

José’s father had been a big activist during the anti-Franco resistance.

His job as a taxi driver had placed him at the forefront of the fight.

He had been involved in arms trafficking, in people smuggling, he was even the brain that had organised the escape of one of Franco’s prisoners.

He was an ordinary taxi driver, but no ordinary man.

She was a small, tubby woman with a body deformed by pregnancies, loved by all who knew her and overflowing with vitality and fortitude.

In Spain people go to bed at two in the morning and get up at midday. They have lunch at one in the afternoon; they go to university at four in the afternoon; lectures finish at ten in the evening and then people go to the cafés to eat Tapas and live it up, singing, dancing, in short, having fun.

This was a chapter of life that suited me; you could even feel a slight time difference between the French and Spanish stations.

Upon getting up in the morning, José’s mother used to make me a tortilla. I will remember it all my life. An omelette with lots of olive oil, with an exquisite taste with potatoes and fatty cheese, cooked until moist - delicious - and served with a green salad with garlic, black olives and a decent cup of coffee.

One evening after a lively discussion, José’s father took me down the cellar. He showed me the arms that he still had; a real arsenal. They were everywhere and big ones.

He told me they were for the Shining Path rebel group, Peru’s freedom fighters. We stand united with all freedom fighters. “We” being the organisation he belonged to.

At that time I wasn’t very familiar with Peru’s history. I preferred to tuck this reflection away deep in my memory. In a “little black box” to be kept quiet as I realised the vital secret that José’s father had just confided in me.

In two days he had had his network verify that my grandfather and his brothers had indeed been part of the resistance. I was therefore considered one of theirs.

During the day José and I used to go to the university where a lot of flirting was going on. The French girls were over-excited by the Latino charisma. My fellow travellers were all alike. They presented a genuine or made-up middle-class profile in their classic navy blue or green business suits, pearl necklaces but, of course, they were under-sexed.

They pretended to be saints “keep your hands to yourself” who kept their hands to themselves and yet some of them were having a third abortion in no time.

In Spain, on the other hand, they no longer needed to hide things away. The community they lived up to in Bordeaux wouldn’t see them let their hair down and all these “prim and proper” young ladies led a debauched life.

José went out with Jeanne-Marie; he’d been taken by her ever since we arrived at the station. I just served as a letter box for their attempts at flirting.

José and I were “fellow revolutionaries” and there was no question of us going out together. We shared great ideas, major discussions and huge plans for life.

José lived with his father’s childhood memories; a time when his father had been recruited by his grandfather to carry out a few missions. Children were good at getting in everywhere. He used to tell me about his past with grandiloquence before we dropped off to sleep after the tapas and partying.

José was so proud of his father and the renown he enjoyed throughout Spain and even in Latin America, that he revealed his code names under Franco and those of the Shining Path.

All this gave him the enthusiasm of a warrior. He used to see himself freeing Latin America while I saw myself conquering Hollywood, but I didn’t ever tell him that. He would have strangled me.

In his eyes I would have been milking the pay of the “Americanos” and José was my fellow revolutionary, so I shouldn’t let him down.

What’s more, José organised my best ever birthday. Secretly and with the help of the group secretary, every pen pal and some of the lecturers, they had reserved thirty seats in a Café Theatre reputed to be the most “respected” in the whole of Spain.

Knowing how much I loved dancing and singing, at ten o’clock that evening - the time of my birth - I was invited on stage; I had to scratch the backside of an old transvestite with a big comb, ad-lib a song and I was entitled to hundreds of kisses, a custom I had come across.

For good measure, the entire hall of almost two hundred and sixty people began singing “Felicidades, Corinne, Corazon”. My table of thirty continued the high jinx with “down in one, Corinne and … now the beer”. My table even presented me with a small gift - a soft toy in the form of a bird. It was only the second soft toy I had had in my life; my father bought me a Koala Bear when I was four years old when travelling through Sydney. I looked at what had been chosen for me and what was surprising, even I was surprised, was that I loved it, as at the end of the day I had never owned anything soft. I wasn’t even allowed to be a little girl.

José gave me a present of his own when we got back to the “casa”. A “Che” scarf - the most precious of gifts. He handed it to me like a sword and when I left I wore the scarf around my neck. It went so well with my big kaki fabric coat. The whole family was proud of that. These people had a lot of heart. José’s mother taught me how to make tortillas, but I never find mine as moist and tasty as José’s mother’s. José’s little sisters did drawings for me and made me promise that when I got back to my island I would send them fish. The elder of the sisters took advantage of me being there to practise her French. As for José, as soon as he had saved enough money he was going to come to see me in New Caledonia or Australia, the countries I intended to live in in the future, as in 1987 I was leaving France never to return again, or so I thought.

José died in a car accident in 1988 when travelling on holiday in his country of Spain. One day when I was living in Melbourne I stopped getting letters. I had told him about my new life a few months earlier. José’s little sister, the third one, wrote to tell me. His parents didn’t have the heart it. My revolution died with him.

SYDNEY 1995

“Sabina’s Blind Date”

In February 1995, Sabina asked me to go with her to Sydney’s Hard Rock Café at 8.30 in the evening. She had been asked out for the first time by Ian. It was his tenth ‘blind date’ that month and she didn’t want to go on her own.

Sabina was Australian. I had met her in the Club-Med in Noumea where she worked as a nurse for a year. At that time I was working in New Caledonia as a medical rep in the day and a singer in a piano bar at night.

Back in Sydney, I had been walking around the town since four in the afternoon and I felt at home. The first time I immigrated was to Melbourne in 1987 and that had ended in failure. The Australian Government had not yet revoked a race law whereby descendents of black ethnic races did not yet have the right to immigrate to Australia.

This law was subsequently revoked. I was an eighth generation black woman from the Cape Verde Islands by my paternal grandmother, Elvira Fortes Barboza Dos Santos.

My life as a drifter thus began ten years ago. Suitcases in hand, I compose, sing, sometimes produce and I write and tell stories.

When I was 22 years old I earned ten million FCFP for a company in Noumea by creating the island’s first agenda.

When I was 23 years old I became the youngest recruit of a major international pharmaceutical group.

When I was 28 years old, back in the indigenous land that I have always considered mine, I owed it to myself to fulfil my potential.

It’s a fact that when I was 9 years old I was selected to play Sydney Opera’s little rat/skinflint and was awarded a distinction.

In February 1995 I was young, in good health and my ambition was to shine on stage and be a success.

All that remains of this era are addresses, business cards, flashes of people I met and comical or dramatic situations.

No trophies up for grabs, a few tears, mad laughs and good memories.

Sabina lived in Sydney’s Bondi Beach. When I arrived she was in the process of getting ready – all dressed up and full of hope that she might finally meet a man who was marriage material. At the age of 32 she was bound to by Jewish tradition and yet she was still looking for her soul mate.

As for me, I just wanted to have fun and live life; I had nothing to lose. No baggage and everything ahead of me. I wanted to sing at the Olympic Games in 2000 and finally be an Australian.

Sabina was running around from the bathroom to her bedroom, from her bedroom to the sitting room, from the sitting room to the balcony screaming she wasn’t ready, whilst I waited in the hall. The flat door was open I had been instructed to tell her all about the chosen one when he arrived at the top of the stairs.

Ian had just rung from downstairs. Sabina told me to keep him waiting at least ten minutes until she came out. She had to make him wait. She was pacing the flat nervously. Every thirty seconds Sabina asked me if I could see him coming up the stairs and what he was like.

She had got this blind date through some friends of hers living in the Melbourne area; some girlfriends from university who had just got back from Israel. She hadn’t long been back in Sydney before she began her new life as a medical rep. Having seen the amount of free time I had in Noumea had motivated here to change jobs.

What’s more, we’d had a good laugh. The areas she’d been assigned to canvass were areas where Arab doctors practised. She asked herself light-heartedly why “they’d done that to her”. Her father was a Sephardic Jew, of pied-noir origin, and her mother was a Polish Jew. During our time at the Club-Med we had never had any racial problems between GMs or GOs.

I liked Sabina’s father, he was an unassuming man; a former Director with Hoescht Australia. A meal we had on holiday had touched me. He could no longer speak French; he had forgotten the language. One Sabbath I sang for Sabina’s grandmother. She was proud of me and I never understood why.

Sabina’s family now owned a retirement home and they were amongst the richest people in Australia. You would never have guessed from Sabina.

Ian had been described to her as tall, handsome and strong. Rich, well-mannered and intelligent; he was a brilliant researcher. Charming, and as the descriptions progressed I had the presentiment that it would all be untrue.

Sabina was petite and charming and had wonderful hair. She was no beauty but had “du chien” (style or sex-appeal) as we say in French and knew how to make her friends laugh. Her friends from Melbourne, on the other hand, were bitches. I had witnessed this on several occasions in Noumea when Sabina had ended up in tears.

I didn’t expect to see an Ian resembling the description of an Apollo; a kind soul, maybe, but certainly not someone who would charm Sabrina.

Heavily made up as usual, dressed in red and black, Sabina asked me if she looked nice. Yes, she did, but that wasn’t for me to say to make her feel good.

And then Ian arrived.

I saw him first of course and I quickly went back and forth between the hall and my friend three times.

So, she asked me, is he tall? No, short. Blonde? No, dark haired. Glasses? Yes, Sabina, glasses. And that ended her dream.

Ian was dressed any old how. He wore a beige jacket, a pair of washed-out green trousers, a black polo shirt and trainers on his feet. Sabina uttered a cold “hi” in her confusion and dismay; I attempted to break the ice by asking Ian a multitude of questions in three seconds flat.

Sabina went back into the bathroom, no doubt to cry. Not that this scenario was Ian’s fault, but at the dirty trick played on her by her dear friends from Melbourne who had just come back from Israel.

Ian was indeed brilliant, but his kind of intelligent conversation wasn’t what Sabrina had on the agenda for her “blind date”.

As cold as ice, bitter in her tone, Sabina chose to subject poor Ian to a most unpleasant evening. Piggy-in-the-middle I counted the punches and made a note of the scores. From time to time I acted as referee and then got the game going again so as not to get bored. It was an unforgettable evening and we had a good laugh; Ian who was no fool gave Sabina as good as he took. The repartees flew; I picked up the bits.

Now and again I also stirred things up; there is no denying that Ian had an absolutely unbearable laugh that is very rare in a model of his class.

At Sydney’s Hard Rock Café we couldn’t eat anything. We were used to kosher food and the blind date meal of salad wasn’t great. As for me, I was just a passive onlooker in this blind date masquerade.

Ian didn’t have a car. He had come by taxi and that’s how we left the restaurant.

He had reserved a table for two and wasn’t expecting to have to buy dinner for me too. Polite as he was, he played along and before leaving Bondi Beach he telephoned and requested an extra place setting.

Sabina was already beginning to be unpleasant to him – “Your jacket is awful, Ian, where on earth did you get it from? Did you buy it in a flea market, crummy, eh?” Ian in response, yes it was a real bargain at $10.

Before getting in the taxi Sabina instructed Ian to pay the taxi fare both ways in advance and to book it for the return journey too. He obeyed her instructions.

As we walked into Sydney’s Hard Rock Café I caught the eye of an exceptionally handsome man. Irresistible, with fabulous, blue eyes, covered in freckles, somewhere between brown and ginger haired. Roughly a metre ninety-five tall, built like a bodyguard.

The sort of man you would like to have as your lover in your bed; he oozed sex appeal. A man you could tell was intelligent from his look, but that would not take any messing.

A man whose children you’d like to bear; a man to marry to have a laugh and party with. I wanted this man to look at me; for him to see me as I was, and not like all the other men who saw me as they wanted me to be.

My career as a singer can distort relationships. Men chase after bogus sex appeal in love with the woman on stage.

In the eyes of this man I was bound to be too small, not good looking enough compared to the top models pacing the restaurant. This man wouldn’t notice me.

Observing him whilst Ian and Sabina talked, I imagined this man making love to me; not tenderly, not frenziedly, but with just the right moves to guarantee pleasure igniting passion and the desire to start all over again.

My eyes wandered over his body, my hands undid his trousers, I put my tongue deep in his mouth; and that’s when Sabrina snapped me out of my fantasy – “Corinne, Corinne, Corinne, what do you want to order. You still haven’t chosen; we aren’t going to spend the whole night with this idiot.” In that instant Ian raised his glass with a big smile and eyes that looked languorously at Sabina.

We each had a cold starter; then a hot starter served with salad by way of a main course; then a dessert and a coffee. No alcohol for me. Ian and Sabina were drinking beer.

Ian didn’t stop paying Sabina compliments. She told him how stupid he was. He showed an interest in what she liked asking her what she was passionate about, what her hobbies were. She answered him with a yes or a no or “question of no interest”. Poor Ian!

As for me, I was now completely naked. I was continuing my fantasy without taking my eyes off this wonderful man that I chose to call ‘Aaron’ to add an air of reality to the story.

Our bodies were entwined and I let him do the rest. His hands wandered over my body and heightened the intensity and the level of our desire. It’s a fact that I prefer the pleasure of being taken from behind but perhaps he was a bit inhibited for the first time, who knows?

Sabina was shouting something in my ear that she repeated ten times at least. I was so far gone, lost in my imagination, that it was hard for me to come back to this stark reality, that is to say to my meal.

The first salad had just been served and Sabrina’s face was black with anger; she had already finished hers.

She whispered to me “but what are you doing?” We aren’t going to spend the whole evening with this idiot; do you want to kill me day-dreaming over a couple of salad leaves. Let’s finish the meal; get rid of him and go to a nightclub in Bondi Beach.

I began to make conversation with Ian talking about his work. This man was educated; one of the biggest brain boxes in Australia and the subject became more and more engrossing which really irritated Sabrina.

After all, this wasn’t my blind date. This man had done nothing to me and I was beginning to find my friend on the borderline of being downright impolite.

On the second salad she flicked sauce on his shirt with her spoon. Then she dipped her paper serviette in his beer to try to remove the stain leaving huge marks on his shirt. As she did this she made the comment “in any case, this shirt is hideous.”

Stop it, Sabrina… I tried to stand up for Ian from time to time, but he just stupidly replied, I quite like my shirt… So, there was nothing more to be said or done.

During the dessert, Sabina knocked her glass of ice cream and whipped cream over onto the table. She must have been aiming for Ian’s jacket, but she missed.

Then she told him nicely that he couldn’t come to the nightclub with us with a shirt like than. The doorman wouldn’t let him in. Straightaway, Ian replied that that wouldn’t be a problem. The doorman and the owner of the club we were going to were his first cousins.

In that same instant, Sabina’s coffee was dedicated to Ian’s trousers, but lucky for her by the waiter, as she was getting ready to do as much.

She was delighted – “there’s really someone up there who loves me and is thinking of me” she said looking up to the heavens. What a girl!

Ian headed for the toilets and I took the opportunity to point out to Sabina the man who since the start of the meal had been sending tingles up my spine.

Sabina told me to go and speak to him. He was so handsome, too handsome perhaps? I pointed out to her the eighteen women from amongst Sydney’s top models who had all over him since the beginning of the evening.

My fantasies would remain dreams.

In fact, we had had a good evening. Mad laughter, highs and rumoured comments, a bit of high jinx with the flying glasses and suchlike and as a grand finale me referring to Ian’s coffee spattered trousers as ‘caca d’oie’ [Translator’s Note: literally goose poop green, but generally translated as a yellowish green].

The blind date as such was a failure for Sabina, but we had made a friend; despite how he looked and his awful clothes. In the end he was coming with us to the night club, no regrets, he’d been adopted.

Prior to leaving Sydney’s Hard Rock Café, Sabina had the cheek to ask this man that I was fantasizing over from the start of the meal if he wanted to come to the Bondi Beach nightclub with us. She added that I liked him a lot pointing me out. I was a French singer and a future star. He sent me a message that she hurriedly brought back to me and that stank of a set-up – “He’s asking how you are at blow jobs?” As I made my way towards the exit I told him I wasn’t in the mood. In fact I hadn’t yet integrated this stage of bodily contact into my “fantasy embrace” scenario.

The taxi we had ordered was waiting for us. Ian also had his own taxi, so we arranged to meet at the club. On the way Sabina changed her mind and the taxi took us to Circular Quay. A new night spot was celebrating its opening and Sydney’s upper crust was headed there.

After five minutes in the queue to get in, not recognising anyone we knew, I saw my fantasy man arrive with his multitude of model chicks; every one of them was as well dressed as the next made-up like in “Elle and Vogue”, next to them I felt insignificant, a no-one, with no make-up and my hair in a mess.

Apart from this guy whose name I didn’t even know wanting me to possibly give him a “blow job” (admittedly, you don’t need to know a bloke’s name for this delicacy), but well... To start off my new life and to mark my arrival in Sydney I fancied living an adventure. A nice one involving conversation, telephone calls, jet-skiing and other … pleasures. In my little imaginary film during the meal at Sydney’s Hard Rock Café the sex scenes I had imagined were not romantic ones, but more vigorous, not vulgar but to my taste. So, no blow jobs in the loo like in an old American detective novel.

In fact, I didn’t fancy giving him a blow job in the first episode of my fantasy, who knows perhaps in the second one, or not at all.

When he arrived at the entrance to the nightclub this gentleman didn’t queue. On the contrary, he knew everyone and before going in he asked the bouncer to let us in at the same time as him. Sabina was delighted, as for me I was feeling uncomfortable. And then the nice scenario in the coolest sense and a happy ending flashed through my mind. So, “blow job or no blow job”?

Well, no, the said Apollo was a renowned homosexual who made no secret of it from his multitude of eclectic male partners.

By the way, we lost Ian. Sabina didn’t have his mobile number on her and our taxis went to different destinations. He must have been lost somewhere in Bondi Beach.

Before going into the nightclub I looked at the boats and listened to the sails flapping against one another. In that instant I dreamed of really becoming Australian; having a blue passport; the European one was brown; producing all my albums; making my own short films; studying journalism again and getting laid … that’s normal!

Paris 1998

“Nose Bleed”

I met Pierre at the Paris Dauphine University in October 1997, the day I enrolled at the Sports Club. I used to play polo and squash and I boxed. I was the only girl and I loved it.

As President of the Sports Club, Pierre was the first person I met in my new life as a student. I was doing a Masters in Export Market Negotiations as part of a continuing education course.

Pierre was tall, had short, auburn brown hair that bordered on ginger at times, was covered in freckles, had greeny brown eyes, a smooth voice and a very soft skin.

From a middle-class Parisian family, his father worked for an American oil company and his mother was an executive secretary in a big international group. His sister worked for the European Court dealing with the standardisation of nomenclature.

This little cherub’s milieu appeared to be beyond reproach, perfect.

He was betrothed to a physicist with whom he’d been going out for 7 years.

Once he’d got his Masters he would marry her and continue to live in the vicinity of his parent’s property and the St Germain en Laye Golf Club.

A short stay in the USA and New York would make his CV look good prior to embarking on working life.

Pierre told me all this whilst he was filling out my membership form in the Sports Club. At that time I was 32 years old; my water polo man put my age down back to front. He wrote 23. Was he dyslexic or uneasy?

In 1998 I had hair down to my lower back. Introducing myself to another member of the Sports Club a few seconds later I caught a reflection of myself in the window and saw Pierre stroking my hair whilst I had my back turned. He was also wrapping a curl around his finger, he reminded me of Eric doing that.

Pierre only came to water polo once that year. He had had a serious accident some years before. All the left side of his face had had to be rebuilt. A metal plate had been inserted under his cheek bone and he’d joked about it saying “when I go through the metal detectors at the airport, I set the alarm off.”

Once or twice in the year we had a coffee together. Now and again he helped me with my course. At the Dauphine sports evening in the fashionable 16th district of Paris I met a Mirage pilot. After a few drinks he told me that he used to wake up in the night and beat his wife. I left him at the bar with his drink.

At this evening do I also met Pierre’s girlfriend.

Sophie was angular and slim. She had straight, dull brown hair and her brown eyes were lifeless. Dressed any old how in a pair of beige trousers and a beige T shirt, she was of a beauty that men like to surround themselves with to stand out in company, but the kind of intelligent woman men get bored with in private.

An Engineering Physicist, one day she would nonetheless manage to bear him two children once they were married. The children will be well behaved and undoubtedly very clever. After five years of holidaying in La Baule, Biarritz and Courchevel they will each have their summer and winter adventures and the children will grow up. Now and again they’ll be tempted to get divorced, but they will put the family, friends and their careers first. As for the property that they will have acquired together, it would be too complicated to split it up. Therefore they won’t ever get divorced.

Whilst Pierre introduced me to his girlfriend, I had projected his life onto a screen that didn’t belong to me.

Then in May 1998 Pierre asked me to go to a medical evening with him. Be his lady partner for the evening. In the Dauphine water polo club we had members from all the Paris universities. We had forged links with some young second generation North Africans who were studying IT and medicine - Mamoun, Oliver and others. Mamoun, a Tunisian, was in love with me. As for me I had a thing about Olivier. One evening I asked Olivier to walk me home and to come up to my studio to make love. He turned down my offer and we had never spoken about it since.

Nothing happened at the medical evening in the 16th district of Paris.

Mamoun was sulking. Olivier was accompanied by an idiot of a girl who was a bundle of nerves and was wearing a stupid wig that was jumping around. I danced to a few rock songs with Pierre and then I went home alone. Another lost evening!

A period of course work, exams and vivas followed.

After my viva I bumped into Pierre near the coffee machine on the ground floor of the university. He was in a period of transition and was asking himself lots of questions.

Walking together and talking about the past year, we sat on the dirty stairs between two floors of the best university in France. I watched these French people walking along the corridors. They were part of France’s future elite. I was a part of it and yet, we had nothing in common. I wasn’t part of this present day France.

Were they more French than me?

These students had different values to mine; they were growing up in the context of a new emerging European continent. My “Asiatic continent” so informal had been created differently. I found the Africans, the North Africans or Caribbean people more Metropolitan than me.

At the end of the day, there was a difference between being Metropolitan French and being French.

A French woman from overseas, from Southern Asia Pacific, is something else.

Our base values as responsible citizens were different.

It’s best to take what you want from each world you know, but Europeans don’t accept that either. Metropolitan France is intolerant.

Metropolitans smoke in public without asking people if they mind.

Their universities are like pig sties.

They study in dilapidated surroundings; their toilets are filthy; there is unsavoury graffiti all over the place.

In industrialised Asia, as in Australia, New Zealand or Japan, etc public areas are a privileged social milieu, gladly preserved as such and respected.

I had no desire to live in Metropolitan France.

Pierre was waiting for a reply form New York University regarding his course.

Before leaving for the States he had decided to split up with Sophie and he was naturally disorientated; he had never been on his own.

Now he dreamed of rebuilding his future life with an American woman. She would be blonde like in the TV series, something between “The Young & The Restless” and “The Bold & The Beautiful”.

Before he left Pierre invited me to spend an evening with him. Why not?

We met outside my building at 7.30 in the evening. We went to a café in the street that runs parallel to the Champs Elysées; a popular café that I wasn’t part of. They were all under the influence of Ecstasy or otherwise debilitated and there was awful techno music playing.

We decided to go somewhere else and to go on a barge.

We got in his car and got caught up in a traffic jam.

We turned around; we parked and started out again.

By way of a meal we had a McDonald’s, not wonderful, but we were at the end of our tether. It was two in the morning when we left the American chain.

Then I invited Pierre in for a final drink. He happily accepted.

My studio was very small but well-kept. Pierre looked at my stones, cast an eye over my books and I did a few Capoeria moves on him jokingly and we began to flirt.

It was good; it was nice and I liked the way he had of encircling me, of linking his body with mine, of unbuttoning my blouse, of slipping his hand up my skirt, of lifting my hair and holding the back of my neck in his hand. His tongue was licking my breasts, he was kissing my neck and I could feel our desire growing; I wanted him.

Then suddenly I felt a strange liquid running down my neck. Pierre’s face suddenly drew level with mine and I was stupefied to see nothing but red. His face was covered in blood. I put my hand to my cheeks and I looked at Pierre, taken aback. He headed for the bathroom holding his head back.

A nose bleed had got the better of our sexual feelings.

He took to his heels and I never saw him again.

Before dashing off down the corridor he told me this nose bleed was in my honour! What a macho!

Three days later I rang him. His father told me that he didn’t want to speak to me. I tried again five days later and his silence annoyed me.

Pierre took my last call. I’m leaving for New York, Corinne, next week, so ‘bye…

Not adieu and I hung up with the memory of a nose bleed.