Good start, I thought. I’d just got back to Paris after several months in America, where my French had faded away like a winter suntan. It felt good to be topping it up again. ‘Je m’appelle West. Paul West.’ I slid my credit card across the counter. ‘You can speak English with me. Many foreign visitors come to our bank.’ Ah, the new generation of French workers, I thought. While their parents are moaning that their language is being killed off by English, the kids are merrily going global. ‘Merci.’ I told her she was very kind but I really needed to speak French. ‘J’ai travaillé en Amérique,’ I explained, ‘et mon français, er …’ How did you say ‘faded’? And what the hell was ‘winter suntan’? ‘Mon français est blanc comme l’après-ski?’ I hazarded. The woman was looking confused, so I gave up on the improvisation and returned to the speech I’d prepared earlier. I informed her that I had transferred ‘beaucoup de dollars’ from California, and wanted to consult my ‘solde’, or balance.
