My Good Life in France

by Janine Marsh

  That night we went for a walk around the village. There are no street lamps in the little roads and there were no Christmas lights on or signs that it even was Christmas – even the string of lights in the tree by the town hall were switched off. The wind had died down and the clear sky was full of twinkling stars; the more we looked the more we could see, millions and millions of tiny diamonds in the sky. We wandered with a torch, scaring wild pheasants and grouse from under the hedges when the light shone their way. The fields were covered with a delicate dusting of frost that shone softly. Owls hooted, calling to each other across the red tiled rooftops of the village houses, and a few dogs barked as we passed the gardens they protected. Other than that it was truly a silent night. The air was scented with the sweet smell of wood-burning fires of our neighbours. We held hands and walked until our noses felt frozen.

  We passed a house where a man had popped outside to put empty bottles into a crate by the front door, ready to go to the village bottle bank in the morning. ‘Joyeux Noel,’ he called out, and we wished him a Merry Christmas in return.

  Back inside, we were both agreed: though it was neither fun nor pleasant to be damp and cold, as it was in winter in this old building, we would always try to enjoy Christmas Day there. It was a hint at the little corner of paradise we had found for ourselves.

  CHAPTER 7

  Getting to know you, getting to know all about you

  FOR THE NEXT four years we spent several weekends a year at our French house, but nowhere near as much as we had that first summer. We fell in love with life in France: the tranquillity and space in contrast to London was alluring. It got harder and harder to go home each time. Sometimes quite literally. It rains a lot in this part of France and occasionally our car got stuck in the mud in the garden. One Sunday night we prepared to return to London and found the car just wouldn’t move.

  ‘I’ll push, you drive,’ said Mark, only to be covered in sludge as the wheels spun furiously, digging deeper into the mud as ferocious rain lashed down and the air boomed in a full-on thunderstorm.

  We thought about asking one of the farmers to come and pull us out with a tractor, but it was dark and Sundays with the family in France are sacrosanct and we didn’t want to interrupt anyone.

  ‘What a stupid idea,’ said Mark when I suggested we pour a bag of cement powder around the wheels of the car and let it harden overnight. But after an hour of trying to come up with something better, that’s what we did. In the morning, much to my relief my ‘stupid idea’ worked and we managed to get back to London in time for work.

  The whole point of buying the house had been to enjoy our place in the sun, but what actually happened was that we spent much of the time restraining the rampant growth of grass and hedges. Dad usually came with us to ‘help’, but only in the summer. Generally speaking, his assistance consisted of telling us what we had done wrong after we’d done it. When we had to cut down a willow tree because the roots were starting to lift up the walls of the house as it had been planted only feet away, Dad was on hand to advise. The tree was huge – my neighbour recalled it being planted fifty years before – and I hated to see it go, but it had to be done. It was a hot day. Mark fired up the chainsaw and climbed a ladder that was propped against the vast trunk. He cut branches while Dad kept a foot on the ladder to steady it and I dragged the branches over to the bonfire area. Mark built a sawhorse to lay the biggest branches on to make them easier to cut; ‘time wasting’, Dad called it, until he saw Mark’s angry, hot, red face and decided to take an afternoon nap.

  It wasn’t all work, though. We did find some time to start discovering the local area, which, since we had bought the house in the first place knowing nothing at all about it, could have turned out disastrously. It was, in fact, amazingly special. The Seven Valleys turned out to be rural France at its best: sleepy, peaceful villages, uncrowded country lanes, friendly bars and cafés – Dad said that it reminded him of England half a century ago.

  The nearest big town is medieval Montreuil-sur-Mer, a walled hilltop time warp of a place, and it became a favourite destination. People come from villages far and wide to shop and meet in cafés and buy fresh vegetables and produce from the market stallholders on a Saturday morning. With its ancient cobbled streets, narrow passageways and stunning old buildings dating back several centuries, it looks like something out of a picture perfect history book and, in some ways, it is exactly that. The great French writer Victor Hugo spent an afternoon there in 1837 canoodling with his mistress in room 12b at the Hôtel de France, which was built in the sixteenth century. Years later his memories of the town, the people he met and the things he saw served as inspiration for his famous novel Les Misérables, published in 1862. While there he witnessed a horse-drawn coach crash in the steep street called Cavée Saint-Firmin, which became an important scene in the book; and he made Montreuil the birthplace of one of the lead characters, Fantine, apparently after he saw a sobbing woman emerge from the town’s church.

  Every summer the people of Montreuil-sur-Mer pay tribute to the great writer and put on a musical version of Les Misérables on the ramparts, complete with galloping horses and booming cannons. Around six hundred people take part, making costumes, acting, dancing, singing; it is a joyful and exuberant event. It usually starts at 10 p.m. when the summer sun has sunk below the citadel and everyone has eaten in one of the local cafés and restaurants without rushing (that would be so not French). If you happen to be in the town on a night when a performance takes place, you are likely to see soldiers in nineteenth-century uniform, nuns and milk maids quaffing wine and smoking in the square, or chatting with Victor Hugo who happens to work for the tourist board but bears an uncanny likeness to the town’s hero.

  It’s a lovely place to visit, with a market that’s quintessentially French. Little old ladies sit at foldaway tables with a few vegetables from the garden competing with stalls brimming with lush and exotic fruit; long plaits of locally grown and smoked garlic, pungent cheeses and salty charcuterie. There’s a lady who sells underwear that you would expect to see in an Ann Summers sex shop alongside voluminous thick cotton nightdresses that a family of four could live in, as well as artisanal bread and cakes that make you drool.

  You can walk round the ramparts just as Hugo did, although many visitors are astounded to discover that there are no railings – with a thirty-metre drop to the bottom of the town. At dusk, watching the sun set through the arrow holes built into the massive stones walls is a must before heading to the town for an aperitif in one of the lively squares or narrow cobbled streets. These elegant squares, the higgledy-piggledy houses leaning against each other for comfort (and to stop them from falling down) and numerous bars and restaurants make this town a magnet for tourists, and it is a lively, thriving place all year round.

  In July every village puts on a show of straw sculptures to celebrate the fertile land, the summer, the harvest – any excuse, really, for a festive event. Preparation is a closely guarded secret, and everyone who participates in putting the sculptures together is sworn to complete silence. Woe betide anyone who leaks information to the opposing teams.

  Using a few props is allowed but strictly controlled and the aim is to create something that is more than 90 per cent straw and is limited to one creation per village though it may take the form of a tableau or a single item. It must be aesthetically pleasing, topical, and a bit of humour helps.

  It’s a fiercely fought competition. One year, one of the villages (I can’t say which; I do have to live here, you know) got very ambitious and tried to create an ethereal concept (no one seems to know exactly what and those who do aren’t telling) off-site. However, on the day when the team had to erect their masterpiece on the village green, disaster struck. Their creation was so huge and complex that the whole thing collapsed. The village was disqualified. As a result they refused to take part the year after.

  The straw sculptures are planned for weeks in advance and, at the crack of dawn on
the day that they are to take pride of place in each of the dozen or so participating villages, the committee members meet. Formed of volunteers these are the groups who have debated and argued over what form the sculpture for their village will take. They create the masterpieces and beg, steal and borrow bits and pieces to dress up their artworks; no purchases are allowed. It’s considered a serious role and participants are expected to treat their assignment with appropriate sincerity.

  Village squares are tidied, troughs of flowers are pruned, grass is coiffed – everything to make their tour de force stand out. In some towns, the main road is lined with tall spikes holding oil lanterns, ready to be lit when darkness falls. In the kitchens of town halls and salles des fêtes, enormous buckets of mussels are washed and readied to feed the visiting crowds.

  One village created Asterix’s town complete with houses and characters; another built an enormous windmill; there are animals, people, cars, aeroplanes. It seems that the sky’s the limit when it comes to straw art.

  Throughout the day a steady stream of cars will pass through normally tranquil towns. Some people are checking out the competition, others are there to sightsee during daylight hours, but they often return at night when residents train spotlights on their creations. En route visitors will collect a voting form, for this is a prestigious occasion and there is a lot of good-natured effort aimed at persuading sightseers to support this or that village’s attempts.

  As dusk falls, the illuminations are turned on. Lots of houses make good use of their Christmas tree lights, trailing them over fences and gate posts, rose bushes and arbours, adding a twinkling magic to the night. There are long convoys of slow cars going from village to village, enjoying the efforts that have been made. Spectators mark their voting forms and stop off for a beer, a glass of wine, to listen to music, dance, eat mussels and socialize with friends and neighbours.

  The sound of people enjoying themselves can be heard going on long into the night, joined by village dogs barking and howling, not used to such hullabaloo in these quiet little enclaves.

  The winning village of this illustrious contest will enjoy the kudos; the losers will grit their teeth and vow to try harder next year. The sculptures remain for several weeks, often becoming climbing frames for local kids until eventually they fall apart or are removed and recycled by farmers as animal bedding.

  It seemed incredible to me then, and still does, that I could get from London to Montreuil-sur-Mer or any one these villages in just three hours and live an utterly different and typically French lifestyle.

  CHAPTER 8

  Decision time

  IT WAS TWO years after we’d bought the French house that Mark’s younger sister Loraine was diagnosed with cancer. She was a vibrant, funny, beautiful woman, and when she died just a year later we were devastated. It hit Mark very hard. He had always been a protective big brother: if she ever had a problem she would tell Mark and he would do his best to sort it out. She and her husband Martin had spent many weekends with us in France and they’d fallen completely in love with it and had dreams to buy a house near us one day.

  One night about six months after her passing, Mark collected me from the train station after yet another long day in the office and we drove to our house in the suburbs and parked by our neat front garden, which was lined up with all the other neat front gardens. Mark switched the engine off and before I could get out of the car he turned to me and said, ‘We need to talk. I want to move to France. I want us to spend some time together.’

  Moving to the French house was something we’d talked about doing, but not until we were a lot older, perhaps in twenty years, but certainly not now. I worked at a merchant bank and, after eighteen years, I’d reached the level of Vice President of Operations. It sounds a lot better than it really was, as there were hundreds of VPs, but, to me, having started as a secretary and worked my way up, it meant a great deal. My role was demanding, the hours were long, I frequently worked weekends and I often needed to go to Switzerland for meetings, but I loved my job and the people I worked with. Not only that, my bosses had hinted that I would be put forward for a directorship programme. I was ecstatic. Though I was ambitious, I’d never imagined reaching the level of director. I stopped worrying about working long hours or being away from home and Mark was brilliant, supporting me wholeheartedly. He had trained as a financial advisor not long after I met him and he too had a challenging schedule. Sometimes we would only see each other for a few hours a week.

  By late 2007, financial pundits were predicting a recession was on its way and it seems they were right, as soon after the gloomy announcement Mark’s job had been made redundant. He took up work as a builder again – one of his many previous incarnations – and, though he didn’t mind it, he told me he wanted to be working on our house, not someone else’s. He wanted us to be spending more time together, not just meeting for a few hours a day. ‘Life is too short to spend it working all the hours under the sun,’ he said. There was a big part of me that knew he was right, but the thought of becoming a director in the bank was so tempting. We talked long into the night and I couldn’t bring myself to agree with Mark’s dream of changing our lives so drastically.

  I was adamant. ‘It’s too big a risk to go to France now. We’re too young and too poor. It’s a crazy idea.’

  When Mark told me that he would go without me, it was like being punched in the stomach. We slept in separate rooms that night and in the morning I went to work before Mark was up. I worked late and afterwards went out with my friends, staying in the pub until it closed. When I went home we had a huge row.

  ‘Team Janine,’ said Mark, as he accused me of being selfish for not even considering what he wanted us to do.

  ‘You’re mad,’ I told him. How could we afford even to think about giving up our jobs? We had twenty years to go until we reached retirement age. Although I had a house that I’d bought before I met Mark, there was a mortgage to pay off and we didn’t have savings. For an entire week we either avoided each other or argued.

  I couldn’t sleep and my mind was in a mess. I didn’t want to lose Mark and I knew that he could be very stubborn. I also knew that he had really supported me, never complaining when I worked late or away, taking care of things at home. I realized that losing his sister had had a deep impact, had made him feel vulnerable and reassess his life and our life together.

  In the end it boiled down to whether my job and earning more money was more important than the man I loved. And the honest truth was that actually I loved them both, and it wasn’t easy to choose. But at the back of my mind was the memory of my mum. She could have retired in her early fifties after she survived treatment for breast cancer but she kept pushing herself to keep going. ‘Just six more months so I can save for a new sofa for the front room,’ she’d promise, or, ‘Just a few more months so I can save for a carpet for the hall.’ Mum and Dad were very much ‘neither a borrower nor a lender be’ types: if you didn’t have the money you couldn’t have the goods, and credit cards were a no-no for them. For Mum, that meant that there was always something to keep her at work until she reached sixty. She wanted the house to be perfect. Mark built her an extension and a pond and the very last thing she wanted to save for was to buy her dream greenhouse. Less than a year after her retirement party at work, she was dead from cancer. She never got her greenhouse.

  Mum was very bitter about not having time to enjoy the things she had worked for and spend time with her family. In her final few days, as we sat quietly in the hospice that she never went home from, she took my hand and said, ‘You’re just like me. You have to be careful that you don’t end up just like me.’

  I knew what she meant, that I was driven like her. I felt a need to prove myself and work was my outlet. That was never more evident than when Mum died and I threw myself into my job. It took my mind off the terrible loss I felt. I worked with a great bunch of people; they were more than just work colleagues, they were my friends too, and w
e were a close-knit group. For a long time after my mum died, being in the office felt less stressful than being out of it, where I had time to think.

  As I mulled over the options I had, I knew what my mum would say, that sometimes you have to go with your heart, you have to give a different life a chance before it was too late. I made my choice. ‘Let’s do it, let’s go to France,’ I said, and Mark hugged me tight.

  We discussed what we would do to the French house, how we would make it our dream home, how I would grow tomatoes and cucumbers. We would shop at the market every week and do all the things we’d never had time for. Mark’s enthusiasm for what he wanted to do to the house was infectious. He was going to extend the narrow kitchen, turn the pigsty into a gym, and make the uninhabitable upper rooms into a huge bedroom with a dressing room and en-suite bathroom.

  Even though I had put my faith in this man, whom I loved, a part of me still felt as though I had gone along with his dream instead of my own. Working my way up the greasy pole of promotion to about-to-be-director had taken eighteen years of hard work. There was family to think of, and friends. Our children were independent by then but it would be a massive wrench not to have them come with us. There was my dad to consider too – since my mum had died I had seen him at least once every week.

  Our families were supportive – all except Dad. When I told him what we’d decided, he told me I was an idiot and tried to talk me out of it, and he almost succeeded. He had always taken his responsibilities seriously, and for him that was largely about earning the money to pay your bills, pay your mortgage, and not have to borrow. He never cared for praise; he would tap the table with his fingertips stressing, ‘You can’t put well done on the table.’ A stubborn little bit of me still wanted to be a director and earn lots of money, but I could hear Mum’s voice in my head. I felt sure that she would urge me to take a chance to live my life in a different way and to not waste my chances. Money is important and you need enough to live, of course, but did it really have to be more than enough, she would ask me if she were here.