Our House is Definitely Not in Paris

by Susan Cutsforth

  Our hours outside extend longer and longer, for within our first fortnight the temperature more than doubles. We linger ever later in the twilight. Finally, after a whole fortnight since our reunion with Pied de la Croix, we manage a late evening promenade. It is just a short circuit, past Monsieur Chanteur’s property and along the petite lane behind our maison. We discover that our stone wall is indeed crumbling and has tumbled down in several places. Urgent stone repair work is needed. Another list, for another day. For now, through a gap in the brambles and oaks, we see our la grange, piscine and chaise lounges. Even the chairs seem to be languidly reclining next to the pool in the fading soft embers of day’s end. It is like a glimpse into someone else’s life. It is like a photo from a magazine, when you draw in your breath and sigh in wonder. And I do.

  The Jewel in the Crown

  Sunday starts at six for me. Although it is not a working vacances day, I still leave the door wide open to wake with the sun gently tip-toeing in. I’m full of excitement, for it’s one of the most prized vide-grenier days of the clear-out-the attic season — Blanat. It will be our fourth summer visit to Blanat. It was at the market, in our very first year in our little house, that we found some of our first furniture, four wonderful wooden and wicker chairs to go around our long farmhouse table. As always, I have my large straw basket and change purse ready. I avidly count up the euro I have set aside during the week.

  I start my day off, one of luxury, with a succulent pêche blanche — the white peach juice drips with the taste and smell of a French summer. Dominique has even taken the time to check my vide-grenier list, for it is well known by now that my lists don’t just exist for the rénovation to be done. These are the lists I carefully construct of what treasure I am in search of.

  It is indeed a significant Sunday. Blanat always fills our hearts with hope. When I arrive at each vide-grenier, I always want to rush and rummage, sift and search. Even though everyone else must surely be consumed by the same feverish desire, they meander slowly, appraising reverentially. The unusual sound of raised voices floats above the morning worship of second-hand goods. It is very possibly a très cher dispute. It subsides quickly, but it is sufficient to make people pause and look inquisitively towards the stall. It has stopped. People resume their quiet contemplation and victorious selections. The murmur of voices is now only overlaid by the over-excited barking of a chien. It too is hastily hushed. Sunday morning vide-greniers are a serious business for the many others like us.

  I pause to take photos of a pale green Dauphine, surrounded by a cluster of men examining its engine. A middle-aged man stops to share my admiration. He tells me that it is a sixty-year-old Renault. Monsieur Herbert Herve tips his Panama and wishes me a ‘Bonne journée.’ I am indeed having the very best of days.

  The couple from Paris, who I remember from previous years, are set up outside their beautiful summer maison. To my delight, they remember me. I’m especially touched as theirs is a stall people flock to. As we leave, they call out, ‘L’année prochaine,’ ‘See you next year.’ It is these moments that I look forward to each year when we pick up the stitches in the fabric of our other life.

  Many happy hours later, we return with our basket positively brimming. The jewel in the crown has indeed proved to be so, for we have even found a petite bedside table to complete our spare chambre. As always, when I lay out and recount our finds, it never fails to remind me of The Twelve Days of Christmas. We have late morning espresso and croissant with figue confiture on our petite porch, and I count up the treasure. Une, our little cupboard; deux, six hand-painted watercolours; trois, a water jug; and six sharp knives. Beware, I think, as no doubt our friends will tell me when they visit; for they always take delight in examining the chef’s knives in our cuisine — the scene of my accident on arrival. They always carefully point out that chefs in Michelin restaurants are sure to have them pointed the other way, sharp side up. That way disaster lies for me, I think, since time is always of the essence, I would be sure to grab the sharp end in my haste.

  Back to counting treasure. Another vintage tea-towel; quatre, four petite sweet spoons for mousse au chocolat; cinq, four linen serviettes. Our petite maison will soon be truly bursting at the seams after a full summer of vide-grenier outings. Since it is Sunday we are able to have a long afternoon of walnut tree time before our working week vacances resumes again. Through the trees I glimpse the tri-colour flags fluttering in the breeze, on the village war memorial. It is Bastille Day, and tonight all over France there will be fireworks in commemoration. Over our simple lunch of fromage, pain and jambon, I practise my pronunciation for directions. Our petite maison is on the road that is a tourist trail for one of the most visited places in France, Rocamadour. It is an important pilgrimage site where, reputedly, many miracles occurred. The fireworks will be a splendid affair there, and I anticipate having to give directions any time soon.

  As I do each year, I reflect on the lives lost in war. I make a point each time I return to Cuzance to pause at the war memorial in our village and pay tribute to the names etched in stone. La Paroisse De Cuzance 1914–1918: Alfred Delvert, Lucien Entragues, Marcel Jarzac, Germain Rey, Emile Sourzat. There are many others.

  I look at the many older inhabitants of the village and wonder anew at what possible role they may have played in the wars. I think about the impact on each and every one of them. I think about how the autoroute to Paris, not so far away, echoed with the thunder of German boots. And I remember again with a thrill that last summer we were told that, oui, our la grange had hidden members of the Résistance. Both admiration and sadness, in equal measure, wash over me.

  Ah, fromage

  Monsieur Jambon

  The Days March On

  As the temperature rises steadily day by day, the clicking sounds of cicadas whir into life. Fat French bumblebees lazily circle the lavande. Birds no longer sing in the intensity of the day’s heat. The grass dries and browns and crackles underfoot. The leaves on the orchard trees furl up in yellow protest.

  After weeks of being immersed in a rénovation life, we over-compensate for our rural setting by dressing as if we are in Paris when we venture out for déjeuner and dîner. After all, our petite maison wardrobe contains sufficient smart clothes for several summers’ worth of Parisian soirées. However, I know we are definitely not in Paris when I read the signs along the country roads on our outings. Légumes and llamas. I know légumes is vegetables, but llamas? I later check the dictionary and it proves to be one and the same. What an odd combination, I think.

  It is unusual for a day to go by without someone dropping in. Our beaucoup travail still seems to be a constant source of curiosity. We think we are actually alone for a whole day until early evening at the apéritif hour, when Monsieur Chanteur visits yet again, a habit he seems to be getting into. A conversation with him is always an intensive French lesson for Stuart. I can still only follow a fraction of the rapide flow in French. He conveys the extraordinary coincidence that his wife went to the same lycée as Françoise in Lyon. How astonishing, that many decades later they now live in the same petite village in France. The conversation then moves on to an explanation of the long pealing of the church bells at seven each evening. He tells us that there is a minute’s pause before it tolls again for its final clamorous ringing of the day. We have always assumed that it is imperatively crying out to the village and the farmers toiling in the fields that it is time to down tools for dîner. Non, non, he laughs. It is telling everyone, both Catholic and Protestant, to stop and pray. He adds, quixotically, that it is the angels being released. Even when I contribute a simple word, Stuart still has to translate for me.

  Monsieur Chanteur indicates that if I stay a whole year, I will be able to speak fluent French. I assure him that I will never be in Cuzance for the long, harsh winter. I keep my thoughts to myself, despite this seeming confidence in my linguistic prowess, given sufficient time, that I doubt I will ever achieve any degree of fluency. Af
ter all, when I lived in Istanbul for eighteen months I didn’t progress beyond a handful of words. Naturally, Stuart was able to conduct entire conversations in Turkish. I well remember groups of Turkish students, from our days at the English House Language School, clustered round him, all in animated conversation.

  Nevertheless, one of my greatest triumphs was having my wedding dress made by a Turkish dressmaker, with barely a word exchanged between us except my profuse, ‘Teşekkür ederim.’ Oh yes, learning how to say ‘thank you’ in a foreign language can take you a long way. Even several decades ago, my theatrical skills took me far. And indeed, my wedding dress was the fairytale, ballerina-style one of my dreams. Well, to tell you the truth it may have been a fraction tight, for our fondness in those long-ago Turkish days was for boxes of baklava, dripping in sweet syrup. Now my head has been turned, not to mention my lustful eyes, to viennoiserie — and, of course, pâtisseries and boulangeries.

  Viennoiserie is a new word I have just recently added to my limited lexicon. If a word relates to cuisine, it is one that I seem to more readily remember. I learn quickly how to distinguish between them and pâtisseries and boulangeries. These are the critical things to assimilate in my new French world. A pâtisserie is where pastries and cakes are sold, and the gleaming special-occasion gâteaux that I am so very fond of. Boulangeries are bakeries that specialise in baking and selling their one extensive array of pain. I resolve not to venture near a French seamstress any time soon. I can just imagine there would be more than a few ‘oh là là’s murmured.

  It is only through such visits that we also find out news about the outside world. Monsieur Chanteur tells us about a recent catastrophe that we had not heard a murmur about. Truly, it reinforces how locked away from the world we are in the country life we have created in Cuzance. There has been a terrible train accident on the line from Paris to Brive, just two days ago. Six are dead, forty are seriously injured. It is not clear yet whether it was an accident or sabotage. The grey shadows of last year are in the look of horror Stuart and I exchange. It is the line we travel on when we return to Paris each year to fly home. And last time our train was sabotaged, too. We were told then it is a far from rare occurrence. It’s a horrifying thought.

  There are other times when the visits are very much in the old-school category, a term Jean-Claude is fond of using when referring to Monsieur Chanteur. He does not seem to think it may include him. It is, however, often reflected in his attitude. They both express endless admiration for Stuart’s beaucoup travail and the fact that he can turn his hand to anything. While this may in fact be true, my considerable efforts are often glossed over. There have been times when I have been perched high up on a windowsill, precariously painting, and Jean-Claude has not taken note at all despite the fact that I have chatted with him from my high-up perch. On more than one occasion it has even been suggested that I should be in la cuisine, conjuring up gâteaux. Ah yes, we are in the country indeed, where even now roles remain quite traditional. Mon Dieu! I fume silently on these occasions. In an inverse echo of Marie Antoinette across the centuries, I mutinously paraphrase, ‘Let them eat pain.’ There is no time in a rénovation life for sleight of hand culinary delights.

  Stuart’s days are consumed yet again by the intricacies and challenges of crazy paving. There is still a yawning chasm waiting to be fini round la piscine. The plan we have formed in previous years, so that rénovation does not devour our every waking hour, is to work Monday to Friday. There is, after all, another life to be lived in France. For now, though, it is up with the birds at dawn to beat the ever-escalating heat.

  On Monday, I make my plans for the week. I decree Mondays to be washing day, and in between billowing loads of linen I prune and spray les herbes. A strange trio of tasks. This week I will also paint, finish setting up the spare chambre in readiness for friends and family to stay, as well as water all the plants by hand, late at night. This can only be done after nine when the sun starts to sink as a red orb. Each evening, I lug cans of water across the land, and our trees and plants greedily gulp their life-giving water. To complete my role of life on the land, I even found a hand-made sixties printshift at a market to wear around the house. As I ferry water across the garden, I feel that I have skipped several generations and decades, as a woman utterly immersed in her country life.

  I watch anxiously as the water-line rapidly drops in our water tank. Such are the daily concerns of a rural life far from Paris. The winter and spring were exceedingly wet. I have noticed the lack of sunflowers in the markets as a result of all the rain. Now there will not be any pluie for a very long time.

  We continue to watch and learn in our other life. As we promenade through the village, we notice that wooden shutters are now only flung open very early in the morning or after sunset. It is the only way to both cool the maisons and rid them of les mouches.

  Relaxed and refreshed after our many walnut tree weekend hours, we tackle our working week head-on. Stuart puts on his rénovation clothes as soon as he gets up. This is a sure sign that he means business. Judging by the speed of the voitures whizzing past in their Monday morning madness, clearly Bastille Day fireworks and festivities extended until very late. Let the working week commence for all, I think.

  When we assemble our collection of tools and open the far left door of la grange for the very first time since our return, it is like a glimpse into the future. Discussions and plans seem to have changed from ‘maybe’ to ‘when’ for the conversion of the barn. We will see. What I do know is that when I step out of the door in the space that lends itself to a cuisine, the area once used to milk cows, and onto the still-to-be fini paving, I imagine having petit déjeuner and apéritifs here in the solitude of a Cuzance country life. The new lavender hedge sways in a soft purple haze and draws the eye. Beyond, the laden orchard beckons. It is an enticing dream, the sort that fuels a rénovation life. For now, I shelve my dreams and set to work.

  Crazy Paving and Interfering Neighbours

  There is no longer just a snake in the grass. There is a snake in paradise. Stuart is very astute where people are concerned. I am not. While I feel sympathy for what I consider to be a lonely old man, Stuart has always surmised that there must be a reason Monsieur Chanteur’s family doesn’t visit him. After all, Stuart has maintained, we don’t know that much about him.

  Our convivial way of life is at times both a blessing and a curse. Yes, the road has brought us friends, for our petite maison is right on the road. That initial curse of thundering trucks diverted from the autoroute to Paris did turn out to be a blessing. It meant that passing villagers, out promenading or even driving by, stopped to welcome us to our new French life. However, it also means that we’re constantly visible and accessible. It does not seem to matter that for us, once a year, it is a rénovation life as well. In the eyes of everyone, we are therefore deemed to always be available. Even if it is late at night.

  It’s ironic. There are times I long for privacy. I long for an early night. I plan to do so, but it never seems to eventuate. Dominique and Gérard drop in, after what is for us another very late dîner. And then, Monsieur Chanteur joins us on our petite porch after his evening promenade. Or rather, he joins Gérard in a protracted, highly emotive discussion. Stuart is not included at all. It is all very peculiar, as it seems to be about our proposed television antenna. Very oddly, he has not even greeted us with the customary polite, ‘Bonne soirée.’ Non.

  It would appear that the possible placement of the antenna on the roof will affect his old-school sensibilities. Apparently it will be in the same category as our ugly plastique water tank. Oh yes, even we acknowledge the ugliness of the tank, squatting like a malevolent toad. The situation has shades of what Jean-Claude has previously told us about Monsieur Chanteur and his disdain for our collection of outbuildings. I vividly remember thinking at the time, well, what do you expect in a country life?

  I am very tired. I become highly agitated. I indicate politely that despi
te the late hour, we are not fin in le jardin. I still need to lug my many heavy cans of water across the land to my needy plants in the now-wavering light. It is a polite exit cue. It is not taken. Dominique becomes highly disconcerted by this unusual turn of events, but matters seem to have been taken out of her hands too. I indicate that we need to be up at six to work. Jean-Louis will be arriving to help Stuart with the concreting. Gérard expresses shock, horror and amazement that we plan to get up so early to work. I think mutinously that no-one seems to quite grasp that it is not all piscine days and glacée. Non. We are here on a working vacances, and it comes but once a year.

  Mon Dieu, I think once again. Life is not an endless round of apéritifs and amuse-bouche. How do they think the house got painted, furnished, a cuisine installed and all the work in le jardin done in a mere matter of several summers? Monsieur Chanteur simply continues to sit, and opens fire at Gérard — apparently about the strange ways of foreigners. From the little I can make out of the conversation, taking place in our home no less, he also appears to be quizzing Gérard about why our paving isn’t straight. Why isn’t it square? I think, seriously, it’s crazy paving! This is a rustique, rural jardin; the Palace of Versailles it is not.

  My ire is further fuelled when at long last they leave; Monsieur Chanteur does not return my still polite, if rather strained, ‘Bonne soirée.’ He still does not reply, despite the fact that I repeat the evening farewell trois times. So it would indeed seem that a heated debate has taken place about the proposed, apparently inappropriate placement of our antenna, all without any inclusion of us in the discussion. I go to bed feeling flustered by the unexpected turn of events. Stuart has told me before that chanteur means ‘singer’. It is not a melodious harmony in my heart right now. Our peaceful village life is not all it would at first seem to be. Poison and pine trees do spring to mind.