The holidays were finally coming to an end. I was sent to the high school with a list of things that needed my cheques or signature. Hours were spent in the queue at the local photography shop having passport photos taken so that they could be attached to every piece of identification that was deemed necessary by the school and other establishments. My bag was spewing forth an unstoppable river of documents for the children. Electricity accounts to prove that I existed and lived where I said I lived, photocopies of marriage, birth and death certificates, vaccination certificates, medical certificates to ensure that there was no reason why they should not attend sport or swimming classes. The list was endless, but finally the first day of high school began for Harry. It was also his birthday, and in his unconquerable way, instead of being upset by this fact he was positively joyous, because he would be seeing all of his friends.
It began as usual with the parents standing around in the playground. As Monsieur Gallegos, the principal of the school, called out each child’s name, they lined up behind their new teacher, who then took them off into the maze of corridors and stairs to the sound of loud applause from the parents. Our babies had started high school. Many mothers had to look the other way, dabbing their eyes as their darlings sauntered past them, smirking, to their awaiting future.
Our days were now revolving around homework, travelling to Anne’s house ten kilometres away in Rustrel, and rewriting large sections of my manuscript that needed reworking. I had gone back to the routine of waking early so that my writing could be done in peace and quiet. Alcohol was banned until all work on the manuscript was completed. Writing about your own life is a peculiar activity, as it forces you to look at things objectively and with the knowledge of hindsight. If I wanted to be honest with myself, the relationship with Raymond was dead in the water after he left us in France in 2001. He had come to live with us as a favour to an old friend and lover, nothing more. I had not read the signs. Or rather, I could have read the signs but I was determined to ignore them. There was already so much change in our lives. An enormous amount of good fortune had followed us since we had come to Provence for the first time in January 2000. Now I could see that I had been on an egocentric belly-button gazing trip, caught up in my world of me. Somehow I had lost sight of the fact that every house in the valley contained a family struggling with its own dramas, triumphs and failures.
A call came from the Sydney real estate office to ask me what was to be done with our personal items that remained in the family home before it went on the market. Rather than wisely saying ‘donate everything to charity’, I was overcome with a desire to see the house for one last time before it was sold. I would travel to Sydney yet again, a five-day trip just before Christmas.
Claire understood my need to say goodbye to a house that meant so much to me although, as family homes go, the children and I had lived in it for a very short time. It represented my first step of independence; the first decision that I had made as a widow with two little children. The location had been decided because of my happy childhood memories and the proximity to the private schools of which my husband would have thoroughly approved. Now it represented the only way that I could dig myself out of my temporary financial quagmire. Claire said that she would give me a compass for Christmas, so that I would find my way home and find my way in life. We both laughed at this, but deep down, it struck a chord. I had no idea what I was doing running back to Sydney. Everyone held their breath, hoping that Raymond would not be involved yet again.
The moment I walked through my father’s house crying out that I was home, I realised that I had made a monumental mistake. The colours were all wrong. I was in the wrong time zone. I was waking up in French time. I certainly was not home. The forthcoming sale of my house was completely under control and organised, right down to the colour and type of flowers ordered for the massive vases. There was one small, final thing to deal with: the storage boxes under the house had to be sorted and the contents given away or thrown into the bin. After callously stripping away our worldly goods over the years, there were scant possessions left to deal with. Sorting through photographs of the children, rocking horses and Mimi’s doll house would not take up a lot of time, but it would take an enormous amount of emotional energy. I couldn’t move some of the larger items by myself, so the only male who I said would never be needed again in my life came to my rescue. Raymond and I unearthed photos of Mimi and Harry, the children that he considered to be almost his own, not in name or in blood, but in love. Images of the children in various costumes and poses and at different ages lay scattered on the floorboards around us; we sat on the polished wooden steps with our arms around each other, unable to say anything. Saying goodbye was now long overdue. Trying to kiss the tears that were streaming down my face, Raymond asked if I would join him the following month in Rome for a study trip.
‘Raymond, don’t you get it? In opera, you know it is the end when the fat lady comes out and sings. Well, she has been singing for years. It is just that we have never heard her.’
CHAPTER NINETEEN
The Farewell Tour
Once the family house had been visited and the remaining personal items distributed across Sydney to friends and family, there was very little left to do. Dropping off the sewing machine to my friend Liz in Whale Beach, I could not help but take a drive around the area where Norman and I had spent so many happy times before he became tragically ill. There were places where we had been together in the 1980s before our marriage and then in the 1990s when the children were born. Everything looked exactly the same. The sparkling Pacific Ocean was enticing, the long sandy beaches ready for the summer Christmas invasion. I needed to see the house where we lived in the leafy suburb of Bilgola, high above Bilgola Beach in a small road with very little traffic. While I sat parked outside the house a man approached me: ‘Are you lost? Which street are you looking for, love?’
‘No. Everything is fine. Not lost at all. I know exactly where I live and now I know exactly what I am doing. I am going home to France to be with my children. Merry Christmas.’
I took one last look at our old home and said goodbye. It was full of happy memories, but as my mother used to say, home is always in your heart. You carry it wherever you go. I was ready to head back to France. Everyone was so busy with Christmas preparations that it was clear that my presence, although welcomed, was not particularly wanted. I kissed Kate and her family goodbye and brought forward my departure date, leaving without any hesitation.
Claire and the children had given me an ultimatum: I had to be back for Christmas. Once again I was exhausted from the massive dose of plane travel but nevertheless I was home. I stood in the howling wind on the Avignon station platform waiting for Claire, two days before Christmas, jet-lagged and drained. The cold had seeped into my bones; not even a hot bath, even if we had a bath at our home, would help. I had left Sydney sweltering under hot summer skies, but the romantic yearnings I had had for wintry scenery with Christmas lights sparkling as the snowflakes fell had been eradicated by a ten-minute wait without an adequate coat in the freezing cold.
Mimi and Harry had been on the telephone to me before I had left Sydney, in raptures over this year’s Christmas light extravaganza, which was even more spectacular than the previous year’s. Silhouettes, fairy lights and garlands festooned the main street, hanging precariously from the huge plane trees and monuments in Apt. Joyeuses Fêtes and other season greetings were written up in neon lights and strung across the streets, and cascading curtains of minuscule white lights bedecked the town hall; everything glittered and dazzled, flashed and throbbed. Christmas was in full force. Everyone looked skywards for the first signs of snow, but though the temperature continued to plummet below zero, the skies remained icy blue and bereft of anything that resembled a snow cloud.
I had discovered, to my horror, that the man with the thick accent whose name I had thought was Jungpo was not an electrician but the head of a large corporation which provide
d the lights that decorated the Eiffel Tower and just about every monument in France — and many other major international cities, for that matter. As a goodwill gesture, he decorated Apt with the latest and the best decorations every year. This year the company had outdone itself. Since our first meeting at Pierre and Kamila’s in Saignon, our paths had crossed occasionally; every time he was incredibly charming, but his accent was almost incomprehensible. Ever since I started to learn languages as a young woman, my Achilles heel has always been my difficulty understanding men in French or Italian — men have a tendency to mumble, articulating poorly. It was bad enough face to face but on the telephone it was sometimes impossible. Jean-Paul, or Jungpo as I thought of him, fell solidly into this category. Most of our conversations had been mere snippets concerning weather or health — both subjects that I could easily handle. Luckily, our social interaction did not extend to long conversations that ranged across sex, politics or religion.
I mulled over New Year’s resolutions for 2005 that were vaguely acceptable and achievable while trying to organise the Christmas festivities — which were on the way to being even worse than the previous year according to the children, who would not allow me to wallow in a jet-lag stupor. In less than forty-eight hours, I was expected to shop, decorate the house, invite the guests, put up the tree, cook the turkey, and shuck the oysters. For their part, they were prepared to check that the fire did not die out while they watched hours of television with their arms around the necks of Zorro and Rosie — after all, they were on holidays.
During this period I had long talks on the phone with my sister Kate, someone who understood what true love was all about. She had married her teenage sweetheart and true love was alive and flourishing in her home almost three decades later. ‘You just don’t get it, do you? Of course Raymond loves you. He adores you. He will always be there for you and the kids but he just doesn’t love you enough. You have to be able to compromise and give up some of the dreams. That’s how you make the glue that sticks you together. And by the way, you are just as bad as he is. You never wanted to live together in Sydney and now you are in France. If you wanted things to work you wouldn’t have stayed there. Hen, true love might be a place rather than a person for you. Have you ever thought that just maybe you are more in love with France than with Raymond?’
And so there it was. There was my resolution for 2005. Page turning, line ruling or whatever my sister wanted to call it. Move on to a new phase in my life. The children watched me like hawks to see if I was coping and were extremely surprised when I announced that Raymond would be coming to visit in mid-February after his course had finished in Rome.
It was a testing time. He was desperate to see the children. He too, had some farewells to make: a long goodbye to the Luberon, our animals and the café where he had spent far too many afternoons with Kit. Of course the hardest thing would be to say goodbye to the children. Mimi and Harry observed that for the first time, there was a certain amount of coolness or aloofness between us, which was from sheer self-preservation, as we tried to tell them that this would be our last holiday together as a family unit. My heart and soul had shut down completely to Raymond. On the Saturday morning of his departure, the four of us were in the café with Deidre having a final drink before a wander around the market and maybe a farewell lunch with Kit and Deirdre. Raymond stood in front of me holding out a massive bouquet of flowers that he and Harry had just bought from my favourite florist.
‘So Raymond, are you coming back for summer this year?’ Deirdre is very straight-shooting.
Raymond looked balefully at me, holding out the flowers.
‘No, Deirdre. This is Raymond’s last trip to visit us here. He will never come back.’ I needed to jump in and answer for Raymond in case he said something that I would regret.
‘Ha, never say never.’ Deirdre sniffed loudly as she watched Raymond hold out the bouquet towards me.
‘Happy Valentine’s Day, my darling.’ The children hang from his neck as he held out the bunch of yellow flowers. The children silently mimicked the words ‘my darling’, kissing the air passionately while running their arms up and down their own backs.
‘Since when has he called her “my darling”?’ Mimi whispered none too softly to her brother through the layers of her thick woollen scarf.
The image of the happy family was so strong, yet the emotions no longer fitted the picture. I prayed that the predicted snow would not arrive and impede Raymond’s departure time. Freedom was calling us both. Finally, I no longer needed to have a man in my life to determine my future or my happiness. Provence had given me the freedom to discover who I was and the things that were needed to make me stable and content: it was not a man — a husband or a lover. As the train pulled out of the station, for the first time, I was honestly delighted to see Raymond leave. There were no tears or sadness. A new future filled with freedom and independence was calling. Five days later, I saw Harry throwing the bouquet of yellow roses into the garbage bag. ‘Maman, I thought that it was time to chuck these out. It was thoughtful of Raymond but you would think that he would know after all these years that you hate yellow roses and yellow daisies. I guess that it is better to have nothing than something you really don’t like.’
Winter was bitterly cold. The landscape was barren and bleak but that was not at all how I felt. Life was good: my inner sea was calm. I was a single mother with no immediate support lines, but after ten years of widowhood, I had learnt to stand completely on my own. Independent. I made a plan to keep myself occupied for the next six months, and under no circumstances would I indicate to anyone that I was available for love and romance. I waited for spring and the warmth that accompanies the blossoms on the cherry trees, the intense colours and sounds of bees in the blossoms. I knew that with spring things change and hearts are restored and mended.
Winter meant spending some time with friends in Saignon. In a moment of weakness one morning over a cup of steaming black coffee and a buttery croissant from Christine’s bakery in Saignon, I mentioned to Kamila that I was feeling positive and optimistic but at the same time it was extremely difficult to get by without the constant stream of emails or calls from Raymond. I missed having someone there. My idea of standing alone had been extremely good in theory but it was proving to be quite demanding in practice. As usual, she clicked her tongue, telling me that spring was on its way: a time for love. No matter the time of day, Kamila is always ready to give some sort of firm philosophical argument for any situation; so convincing are her arguments that you are easily swayed to her way of thinking. Early March, however, in my view, was still too early for spring and for love.
Later that evening the telephone rang and a male’s voice in extremely odd English asked for me: ‘Hello, madame. I am presenting myself to you. You are knowing me. You are knowing me from the house of Pierre and Kamila. Kamila, she is telling me that you are so sad and lonely. I would like the occasion to make a little dinner with you and give you a good time.’
It is very difficult to keep a straight face and not laugh outright when English is abused in such a manner. I kept thinking how my French must have sounded in the early days when I was learning the rudiments of the language — and probably still does, as I continue to make ridiculous mistakes. This man hadn’t even told me his name yet. I had no intention of letting some stranger take me to dinner for a ‘good time’. I would kill Kamila next time I saw her. Vicious thoughts of murdering my Polish friend filled my head. But in broken English, the mystery man continued determinedly: ‘You are not liking a finger in your ring, non? Non, je veux dire no, what I mean is a ring on your finger. Or maybe my hat I throw on your ring?’ This was becoming more and more bizarre. I could not contain my mirth.
‘Stop. Just a minute. I think, well I hope, that you mean that you are not interested in marrying me but you are throwing your hat in the ring.’ It was starting to click who this was. Bloody hell, it was Jungpo! I got out my finger and itemised my response.
‘Look, monsieur, thank you for your call — and I must ring Kamila to thank her as well. Let me make this as clear as possible:
1. I do not want to join your harem of adoring females.
2. I am not interested in being your mistress.
3. I do not want your fingers anywhere near me.
4. No one is throwing their hat in the ring to be counted as a prospective lover because —
5. I do not sleep with Frenchmen. In fact, I do not want to sleep with anyone, or as you French say, take some afternoon delight. I say ‘no’ to learning the Provençal Pirouette with you. I am very flattered but non, merci — no thank you.
6. Talking about thank you, I have to end our conversation on a positive note and say that you are so wonderfully generous with the Christmas lights. I know that they bring so much pleasure to so many people.
I thought that was clear and concise. I had politely but firmly put him back in his box. There was no way I would have anything to do with this man — especially if he continued to speak in English.
‘Madame, yes, the lists, she are very good to clear the mind, n’est-ce pas? You are impressing with my English. I have been going many times to Ecosse, how you say it, ah oui Scotland, I have been learning it there very quickly. Tomorrow I am free for lunch. You come to the big gates. House with olive trees. Yes, madame, I am living in house opposite road to you. I am being your neighbour.’
And so began one of the most wonderful friendships. Over the following weeks, I discovered that I could decipher Jungpo’s French better than his English and that we had many interests in common. He was an avid reader, connoisseur of fine wine and had a beautiful house, fabulous pool and central heating. I, on the other hand, loved to write, drink and swim in other people’s pools and had inadequate heating in my home. Jungpo had never studied Latin and had no interest in the symbols of Polyphemus in the nymphaeum of Claudius, which made a refreshing change. Now all I had to do was retrain my brain to call him his correct name.
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