by Mary Moody
Outrageous. I felt honour-bound to confess our misdeeds to Claude when he returned. He was not at all amused, and the aftermath caused quite a ripple for the entire summer. Being the holder of the key, I felt responsible for the episode and we had a whipround and bought Claude several bottles of good quaffing red. But nothing that could match his now totally unavailable Mouton Rothschild.
Whoops.
13
When David’s mother Mary turned ninety we flew to her home city of Wellington in New Zealand to join her celebrations. She’s an amazing woman – a combination of intelligence and strength of character, mingled with a certain fragility. She threw her own party in the quaint but rather stuffy clubhouse of the golf club where she still plays at least two rounds of nine holes a week. Despite long-term eye problems, Mary has a current driver’s licence, is an avid fan of live theatre, movies and concerts, walks vigorously around the bay in the wildest and windiest of weather and swims at the nearby harbour beach many months of the year. Until last year she travelled overseas regularly, even tackling walking tours in Italy and Greece well into her eighties. She is formidable.
At her birthday lunch she took to the microphone and gave a stirring speech, stating emphatically that growing old ‘isn’t for sissies’. Although she has an older brother and one younger sister, Mary has lost her husband, a sister and many of her friends and neighbours to old age. While she hasn’t stopped living life to the full, she is nevertheless saddened by the sense of loss that accompanies living to such a great age. She has a lively circle of much younger friends, many in their seventies but many my age and younger, with whom she socialises on a regular basis. It doesn’t bother them that Mary is twenty, thirty or even forty years their senior; her mind is still that of a young woman. At her birthday party she surprised us all by producing a limited edition book which she had written on a recently acquired computer, beautifully bound and presented. Part memoir laced with imaginative fiction, it’s a series of short stories, essays and anecdotes drawn from her life, presented as a timeless gift to her children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren (of whom there are eleven).
Looking at my stalwart mother-in-law, I’m prepared to admit that I have neither the genes nor the lifestyle to reach the age of ninety. And I seriously question that I want to. David is eleven years my senior and we regularly discuss the pros and cons of the ageing process. For someone as usually positive as me, I take a negative view. For someone as usually negative as David, he takes a positive view. David is working on himself to remain as youthful and healthy as possible. He watches his diet, has shed more than 20 kilos in the last five years and goes to the gym almost daily to keep up his cardiovascular health and flexibility. He has late-onset diabetes, which he controls admirably with diet and exercise, and his blood pressure and cholesterol are fantastically low. At sixty he was delighted to receive his Seniors Card and regularly quotes from the small print on the back: ‘The holder of this card is a valued member of our community. Please extend every courtesy and assistance.’ In 2004 he turned sixty-five and pronounced with some pride that if he wasn’t still working he would be eligible for the pension. I winced ever so slightly at the prospect of living with a pensioner, ashamed at my own attitudes which may appear ageist but in fact are based on fear.
My father committed suicide at sixty-two. I resolutely believe it was because he was terrified at the prospect of growing old. His lifetime of heavy drinking and smoking had taken its toll on his physical appearance and health. He suffered from undiagnosed depression, and after the dissolution of his marriage to my mother, sparked by the latest in a twenty-five-year string of infidelities, he was in a frame of mind where he saw no future for himself. Like most of his actions in life, his decision about his death was purely selfish. At the time, I was not distraught at the loss. He had been such a difficult person to deal with in life that his death seemed to me, then twenty-two and pregnant with my first child, a blessed relief.
Now, in my mid-fifties, for the first time I feel compassion for my father’s plight. I am saddened that he was incapable of sharing his fears about ageing with his family and that he saw his future purely as his own to deal with. Not as part of a family unit. Although he had niggling health problems, it wouldn’t have taken that much of a lifestyle adjustment to haul himself up and live for another twenty years or more. He chose not to.
That said, I fear I have similar thought patterns to those of my father when it comes to ageing and death. It alarms David when I mention my penchant for ‘living hard and dying young’. I take a rather fatalistic attitude to the whole thing. I’m not saying I’m right – and the medical profession would clearly argue against me – but I somehow feel that taking the cautious approach may ironically not pay off in the end. How disappointing it would be to live a life of rigid self-denial, constantly worrying about healthy lifestyle, diet and exercise regimes, only to be struck down by some unexpected disease in mid-life. It certainly has happened to various friends of ours, while others we know who lead dissipated lifestyles soldier on well into their eighties. I hear the words ‘moderation in all things’ ringing in my ears, but my natural inclination is to be excessive. To push the boundaries. I’m not advocating a life of total self-indulgence, but I cannot tolerate the prospect of total self-denial.
It’s all relative. When I mention my fears about ageing to my mother-in-law she has every right, but doesn’t, to laugh out loud at me. As do the women in their sixties and seventies I regularly meet at talks and book events. From their perspective I’m still young and shouldn’t waste my time dwelling on old age – just as teenagers never for a moment contemplate the prospect of turning thirty-five. But fifty is the threshold. It’s the point at which we first start to focus on ageing and mortality, to look back and reflect on our life and to ponder the prospect of the future.
In France, many of my friends are over seventy because the tranquil rural paradise of the southwest attracts lots of retirees. My friends Jock the retired journalist, Claude the English ex-photographer, and Margaret Barwick the garden designer and author are just some of those in our circle who are twenty years or more older than me. But they don’t behave as though they are twenty years older, with their high spirits and a full-on approach to life that belies their years.
Jock’s method of dealing with ageing is to ignore it completely. It’s not a bad philosophy in many ways. Denial is a great form of self-protection and it means that Jock simply dismisses the signs and signals that tell him it might be time to slow down, and he continues to behave like a man half his age. Most of us find it hard to keep up with Jock’s predilection for socialising. It’s not uncommon for him to throw his enthusiasm into a restaurant lunch that lasts from noon until well after four in the afternoon, then rest for an hour or so before going down to the bar or the Plan d’Eau to have a glass of Perrier for the purposes of rehydration before an evening of more eating and drinking and general merriment. He bowls up to all the weekly fresh produce markets in the local villages, loves to fossick for old bits of china and glasses at the antique and flea markets that are the highlight of the summer, and throws at least one four-course dinner party a week. He’s an exhausting person to be around.
Apart from his wheeze, the legacy of a lifetime of asthma, he seems in robust health most of the time. In more recent years he has, however, developed the alarming habit of dismissing any indications of ill health – such as a cold that may have turned into bronchitis or, worse, pneumonia – by always saying, when asked by concerned friends, that he’s feeling a lot better than he did the day before. This is usually just hours before he admits that he is actually feeling quite distressed and unable to breathe, which means that he must be rushed to the doctor or hospital for emergency assistance. In other words, he waits in the hope of a miracle recovery until he is virtually on death’s door before acknowledging that he could be quite ill.
While this positive and hearty attitude is preferable to being a neurotic hypochondr
iac, it can be quite unnerving for those asked to assist in a crisis. Claude recounts with some horror driving Jock to Prayssac to see the long-suffering local doctor – then immediately, at speed, driving to the hospital in Cahors with Jock literally gasping for each breath in the passenger seat. Claude was convinced he would be dead on arrival and was therefore amazed when he returned the following day to visit Jock only to find him sitting up brightly in his bed tucking into the substantial regulation hospital lunch that includes a small bottle of red wine.
Mentally, Jock is as sharp as ever and his wit and comic timing remain unchanged, making him one of the most sought-after dinner party companions in the region. He has, however, become a bit vague about details and sometimes forgets if an invitation has been issued, especially if the request has been made in the middle of a lunch or dinner when the wine is flowing. A lot of us fall into the same trap. The social scene is so casual that engagements are not written down and therefore are often not remembered. It’s not that uncommon for Jock not to show up and the host or hostess to call and ask, ‘Where are you, Jock? We are about to sit down.’ And for him to reply, ‘I wasn’t invited.’ Then quickly pick up his car keys and head for the door.
Jock’s performance with cars and driving in recent years has also been somewhat alarming. A year ago he totalled his trusty Peugeot driving home after a long lunch when his foot slipped from the brake onto the accelerator while he was parking outside his ancient stone cottage in the late afternoon. His version of events was that ‘the house reared up in front of the car’, and the result caused much mirth among his circle of friends, although for Jock it meant forking out for a new (second-hand) Peugeot, as he was not covered by comprehensive insurance.
This year’s incident involved my house and the car of our mutual friend, Anthony. It was the first night of the Frayssinet village fête – a four-day extravaganza of music, food and family fun. The first evening event was moules frites (meal of mussels and chips) in the salle de fête (community hall) behind the mairie (town hall) opposite my little village house. I was in Australia at the time and so have to retell this tale second-hand from those who were witnesses.
A table of more than twenty had been organised by Miles and Anne, who live just up the road from the mairie in a substantial old farmhouse, Le Clos, set back from the road in a large rambling garden. The plan was for people to leave their cars in the mairie car park and walk up to Le Clos for an aperitif or two prior to the meal. Jock arrived on time and left his car outside the mairie. Anthony arrived quite a bit later and, finding the car park full, decided to tuck his Land Rover safely into the narrow space between my house and the derelict house next door. I often park my own car in this handy spot when in residence.
At eight o’clock the group walked down towards the salle de fête and noticed Jock’s car parked at an awkward angle outside my house. More than awkward – indeed, it was sticking precariously out into the road. On closer inspection it was discovered that the car had escaped from its original parking spot and careered across the narrow but always busy road, where it had crashed into Anthony’s smart vehicle, removing the bumper bar and numberplate, before bouncing unceremoniously into the corner of my house (only a fraction away from my newly planted deep purple clematis). The back of Jock’s car was quite badly smashed about and both lights were wrecked – another huge garage bill to add to the ongoing expense of the summer. His new car was an automatic and the general consensus was that Jock had not managed to put it into ‘park’ or had forgotten to pull on the handbrake. He insists that there must have been some outside intervention – perhaps he had parked in the wrong place and some irate local had let off the handbrake to teach him a lesson.
When I phoned from Australia the next morning, having heard the bad news on the grapevine, he simply reported, with his usual wry delivery, ‘It hasn’t been a good week. The septic backed up into the garden and the upstairs loo stopped flushing. The phone line doesn’t work and the computer’s fucked and won’t do emails. Then the cat died. Now this.’
Apparently that same evening, much later after the meal, our Scottish friend Sandie – who now lives near St Caprais permanently after retiring from her job as a window-dresser in a smart Edinburgh department store – reversed her car over a three-metre embankment and had to leave it there and get a lift home. It was retrieved by the local mechanic, Monsieur Molieres, with a truck and chain the following morning.
Sandie’s only comment on the whole affair was that it was a shame that Anthony, who is a keen paraglider, didn’t have his ‘flying contraption’ in the back of his car at the time of the accident. ‘Then Jock would be one of the few people in history to have succeeded in colliding with a car, a house and an aeroplane all at the same time,’ she quipped.
I believe, from reports, that a ‘survivors’ lunch was held at Le Clos the day after to celebrate the events of the night before.
The rest of the weekend fête was fairly low key and incident-free. They had peaked early.
14
After I meet the publisher’s deadline for finishing Last Tango in January 2003, life at home on the farm somehow slips back into an almost normal routine. David and I have stopped talking quite so obsessively about the affair and its aftermath – the book – and the fact that later this year we will have to deal with the publication and the possibility of a lot of negative publicity. We simply try to get on with our lives without dwelling too much on our problems. In any event, when I am home in Australia, France seems like a distant dream. A fantasy. And even though I know my recent trips have caused unholy havoc in my life, it still doesn’t seem very real. It’s another world, totally removed from my real life.
I am getting organised to return to France in May for a second walking tour and David is continuing to develop various film projects that are not without frustrations and setbacks. Over the years I have learned to be realistic about the ups and downs of the film industry. It sometimes takes a decade for a project to get through all the developmental stages, from early script to final draft, finding the right director and cast, then pulling together all the money for the actual production. So I tend to switch off from the day-to-day irritations David experiences in his work as a producer. There just seem to be endless obstacles to be negotiated and egos to be smoothed. I suppose it’s a natural part of a process that involves such creative collaboration, but I have developed a fairly cynical outlook and don’t allow myself to get excited about a film until it is actually in production. David takes my attitude as a lack of interest in his career, but my view is that I don’t allow myself to get caught up in the emotional rollercoaster of the business – I just enjoy the fruits when they finally ripen.
In February we decide to take a driving trip to Adelaide, where David has two new film partners and where he has also been invited as a guest of the local film festival. Driving is a great way for us to have some time out for ourselves, away from the pressures of computers and faxes and phones. We often have our most serious and constructive conversations in the car – also some of our worst fights, but at least we are cocooned from the world as we drive along admiring the diversity of the Australian countryside. During this trip, the drought is particularly apparent as we drive down through West Wyalong and then over the vast Hay Plains to Renmark, where we spend the night. We walk around this beautiful town on the Murray River and have a great meal in a local cafe, sharing a bottle of wine.
At times like this we are totally happy together and I wonder why our marriage has been floundering so badly. David is convinced that I am harbouring anger and bitterness from my perception that he let me down badly as a husband and father during the decades he was so focused on his career, almost to the exclusion of all else. I believe, however, that while those shortcomings certainly caused me pain and resentment at the time, I am well over them now, that our problems have more to do with the ‘here and now’ of our relationship and its continuation into the future.
I am still clingi
ng to the hope that I can keep up the juggling act. Have my cake and eat it too. The fact that I can sit here in a restaurant with David having a lovely time, laughing and drinking wine and going back to the motel to make love, all the while knowing that I have recently embarked on a second affair in France, is utterly confusing to me. How can I do it and feel okay about myself? Have I finally uncovered a fundamental flaw in my character that has been dormant all these years? Am I turning into my father – the man of whom I have always been so critical, a serial philanderer who did what he wanted to pleasure himself without apparent thought or concern for the feelings of others?
I don’t sleep very well any more and it’s not surprising. I usually get off to sleep okay but wake in the middle of the night and spend an hour or so contemplating life. Not just my own messed up situation but life in general. My children and grandchildren. The world, poverty, pollution. Refugees and the fact that human kindness is on the decline. The fact that we now seem to care more for our bank balances than our neighbours. I have turned into a mid-life midnight worrier, and it shows on my face every morning.
Perhaps it is normal that at this stage of our lives we start to worry more about broader issues. When our children are no longer our responsibility we widen our concerns. Look at the big picture. I know that a lot of my friends report the same night-time restlessness. Or could it just be that as we age we seem to need less sleep?
One night during the dark hours before dawn I contemplate the nature of love. I recall so vividly my first love as a teenager. How utterly overwhelming the sensation, how completely I drowned in it and allowed myself to be swept along. I recall too the love I felt for David in our early years together. Not quite as intense as first love but certainly deep and satisfying. I felt protected and secure and this was reinforced by the birth of our first two children.