Carte de Sejour

Well, I finally got it.

It's a great relief, after many disappointing trips to the letterbox.

I've been waiting three months, but it seems longer.

Titre de Sejour ... Carte de Sejour ... I don't know the difference. It tells me the Nature of the Titre is the Card.

I hold it in my hand and look at it intently. It's pink and blue with the outline of a charging bull over my head.

A ghostly image of my face floats in the centre, beside the floral insignia of the Republique.

The stress of the Carte de Sejour (CdS) was not in the gathering of documents, nor the interview; it was the wait.

Last Friday, in desperation, I rang Mme Lafargue, the woman who interviewed me.

Trying to sound casual, I told her my recipisée (application receipt) was about to run out and I had not yet received my CdS.

She said, no problem, I could come in and get another recipisée.

Hang on, she said, let me just check.

She came back to the phone. Oh, it's here, she said.

In the centre of Agen, I sit under a pepper tree at a ricketty table, and marvel at the narrow wedge of city buildings jutting into the square like the bows of ships. Cliona spends time in Galleries Lafayette.

For the first time since arriving in France on the 30th of November last year, I can completely relax.