The man, who, I suspect is in his early sixties, but untidy and looking somewhat neglected, jabbers incoherently in French. Rather than say I do not understand, I smile at him and state key magic words. ‘J’habite en Australie, mais mon époux était Français.’ I live in Australia, but my spouse was French. (The French love Australians, and I am presenting as the widow of a French man.)
‘Je ne parle pas bien français, et je dois aller à St Remy de Provence. Pouvez-vous m’indiquer la route?’ I don’t speak French well, and I must go to St Remy de Provence. Can you show me the route? And I think a mental message Have mercy; I’m doing my best to speak French!
Amidst the torrent of words from the saleswoman, I surmise that this kind older fellow has offered to lead me—in his car—to St Remy.
‘Merci monsieur. Vous êtes très gentil.’ Thank you sir, you are very nice.
I feel relieved as I follow him out to his utility and point to my car and then to his.
‘Oui, oui,’ he says excitedly.
My rudimentary French has saved the situation.
We whizz around countless roundabouts, past vineyards and a few delightful villages for fifteen minutes before we pass the sign for St Remy de Provence. Then I recognise the hairdressing salon where I would go each week. He has guided us into the heart of St Remy. Around the corner on Avenue Frédéric Mistral, he pulls over and comes to the window.
‘Thank you so much,’ I say, forgetting to speak in French.
Of the many entrances to the village, miraculously, we have stopped almost at Mamie’s—Oli’s mother’s—doorstep and it triggers a wellspring of warm feelings. Mamie’s upstairs unit is along the laneway on my right that runs into her deadend street—Rue Léon Ripert. I point it out as we pass the children’s shop on the corner before reaching Boulevard Marceau fifty metres further on. And I do believe Jane is impressed when I continue right into Place de la République and park our lovely car. I’m so proud to have returned to St Remy.
I lead Jane from Place de la Résistance with its mature plane trees to a particular bar which spreads across the corner of Boulevard Marceau. We take a table here on the terrace opposite the ancient Basilica of Saint Martin.
Oli’s mother lived less than five minutes walk away. Our daily ritual was to walk to the village to buy a French stick, the International Herald Tribune and indulge in café noir. We would sit right here in this café and read and write postcards. Today is the same, but with Jane. We order our cafés noirs and soon we are sipping mouthfuls of thick, black, beautiful coffee, piping hot.
A pathetic little bark draws our attention to the French couple sitting at the next table. Initially they appear to be proud new parents, with their flash new stroller. But then we notice a tiny Pomeranian puppy peeping out at us. It is tucked up like a baby and we have to turn away to hide our sniggers.
‘How right over the top!’ I whisper to Jane.
‘Ridiculous. Poor little thing,’ she adds.
‘A substitute baby.’
‘They are too old.’ But I smile at them and ask politely if I could take a photograph of their precious pooch.
‘Bien sûr,’ replies Monsieur.
‘The French and their dogs!’ I whisper in disgust to Jane.
‘You’re almost as bad with Oscar,’ she whispers back. ‘Your devotion to him is very French.’
‘I don’t take him into cafés.’
‘They do here. And I remember you would take Oscar shopping in a basket when he was a puppy.’
‘Oscar was such a tiny puppy and such a special gift from Olivier a few months before he died; I love that dog.’ Oscar followed another Maltese-Shih Tzu breed named Jackson, who was our beloved pet for most of our life together. It was dreadful that Jackson also died of prostate cancer into the bones a few months after Olivier’s own diagnosis with the same disease. I often wondered how that made him feel, but neither of us mentioned it to each other. They were such early days and Olivier thought he could beat the sentence. I was in denial, writing bravely about ‘the art of living fearlessly’ on my website.
I must remain mindful in the present or this lovely mood of reminiscence will slip into sadness.
‘So much of village and rural life happens from here,’ I relate. ‘The transhumance in St Remy, for instance, was a great rural event.’
Jane gives me a quizzical look, so I continue.
‘Our honeymoon was in springtime when the flocks of sheep, who spent winter on the warmer plains, are driven around the streets on their way up to the high green plateaux for summer.’
Oli had ensured I was right on the barricade here.
‘It’s such an amazing spectacle to see three thousand sheep, whiter than our Australian merinos, a few rams and billy goats driven by dogs three times around the ring of boulevards.’
And I spin pictures of the village packed with people and how many village women dress in traditional Provincial costume.
‘Then, four old shepherds, wearing red check shirts, leather mountain pants, black well-worn waistcoats and peaked hats, holding large crooks appeared leading the flock around the circuit of St Remy. There was a young boy of eleven or so, too, walking alongside his grandpa at the head of the swiftly moving flock. Bells rang out; dogs barked; a thousand sheep bleated and occasionally a horned ram or one of the billy goats reared up on hind legs.’
‘It sounds very colourful,’ comments Jane.
I can’t help slipping back into that day, one of the most exciting events I ever attended in France.
Oli had arranged for us to join the village picnic, above the town up on the plateau—a green field dotted with mature junipers. There was an old almond orchard and a scattering of pines around the plateau where the sheep were grazing. Long refectory tables, covered in red-and-white check tablecloths, and benches were already set up under an arbour of tall pines. Dogs of myriad breeds scampered around us and a donkey was tethered to a gnarled almond tree. He hee-hawed and shook his long tail. As we took our seats a score of young men and women, each wearing pink check T-shirts, placed long baguettes and wine bottles along the tables. Oli read out the label ‘Cabernet Petrarque et Laure Vin de Pays des Alpilles 2007’ and popped the cork. The aroma of barbecued lamb chops hung heavily in the crisp air. So, off we went, hand-in-hand to inspect hundreds of chops assembled in racks placed over hot coals. Soon an entrée, encornet à l’aioli (squid with garlic mayonnaise), was placed before us together with big bowls of creamy potato salad.
The picnic began when a deeply wrinkled old fellow, wearing worn black leather shorts and holding his long crook in his left hand, gathered everyone up from their seating. His name was François Baculard, and as he took the microphone people cheered.
‘Merci, merci,’ he cried, and then began his speech.
‘I don’t know what he is saying because he is talking in old Provençal,’ whispered Oli. ‘But I can tell he is quoting provincial poetry, a fading culture.’
In his crackling voice, the old man began to sing ‘Oh Fandelune’ and then everyone started singing and clapping and someone along our bench said, ‘He’s eighty-six years old.’ When the MC took the microphone Oli translated: ‘When he dies, that will be the end of the language. So enjoy hearing it today.
‘He’s the last of the provincial shepherds,’ Oli added. ‘The young ones are from a different Provence. There’s a movement to save the language, but it isn’t spoken in the home; even in the shepherds’ homes the young ones may speak Provençal, but it’s a different one from his language.’
Oli introduced us up and down the refectory table as newlyweds from Australia, which brought cries of ‘Australie! Je t’aime.’ Then a swarthy middle-aged man grabbed a glass of wine and, standing to his feet, called out ‘Profiter de la vie, elle est belle.’ I had been writing notes when Oli grabbed my notebook and pencil and wrote ‘Enjoy life, it’s good.’ Then he winked at me and held up his red wine. I grabbed mine and we chinked our glasses and I said, ‘It sure i
s, darling.’
But I don’t share these memories with Jane. When we left Provence that year, I took with me lifelong memories of vines and pines and fields of red poppies in May and a string of pretty villages dotted along the country roadways lined with platen trees, plane trees, pastures and orchards—all against the majestic backdrop of Les Alpilles.
Instead I tell her about my memories of market day in St Remy. ‘There would be a hundred stalls selling absolutely everything, meandering through the streets to the other side of the village. It wasn’t only about buying foods; you could stop and simply sniff the air for a medley of delicious smells. The aroma of freshly baked baguettes, the whiff of cheeses and the scent of lavender in buckets at the flower stall.’ All the regional produce—small goods, charcuterie, olive oils, honey were to be sampled. And overriding it all was this wonderful aroma of provincial herbs which hung in bunches from many of the food stalls. ‘It was always a really sensual experience.’
‘We are one day late for the market day,’ says Jane ruefully.
I tell her that I’m disappointed too. As I empty my coffee cup, I indulge in an intimate memory of that first year Olivier took me to France, when we danced at a street rock concert right here. The singers and a band performed on a stage mounted on the back of a huge truck outside the basilica. We had returned from dinner in a village in Les Alpilles to find a chanteuse, dressed in a slinky gown that looked more like a negligee, belting out French love songs. ‘Come and dance with me, chérie,’ Oli had said. And even though I was an appalling dancer, I let him whirl me to my feet and we danced cheek-to-cheek.
Nine years ago. I smile in memory.
Then I look across the road to the basilica, so beautifully renovated since that night.
‘Do you want to visit the old basilica with me?’ I ask Jane. It’s a risky ask because she has already agreed to attend Mass tomorrow.
‘Yes, I’ll come with you.’
The twelfth-century basilica is dark, but shafts of light filter through stained glass high in the apse. Behind us are magnificent hand-painted organ pipes and around us a chorus of candles flicker. We are alone here and we sit in the pew together and I pray. Then I arise to do something I have never done before. I find a side chapel where I buy a candle and light it for Olivier. He was so very much alive the last time I was in the church at his stepfather Valentine’s funeral. I’m the only survivor of the little family gathering at Mamie’s unit for all those years. Valentine, Mamie and now Olivier have all passed away. I have no connections here anymore.
Suddenly, I feel desperately sad. I had seen Valentine ‘laid out’ for days in Mamie’s double bed, a fact which pushed us onto the pull-out sofa in the lounge.
Seven years later, I wept as I kissed Olivier’s forehead for the last time as he lay beautifully prepared in the funeral parlour. I had wept all that day, the day before his funeral, while I had my nails and hair prepared. I simply could not stop. I know death shadows us, the living, but I will not succumb to my innermost feelings today with Jane here with me now. I won’t let my exhilaration at being here in St Remy slide into that deep pit of grief. I need to shift to thinking upon Olivier’s funny reports of Mamie’s funeral and the priest who officiated.
‘Maman would have been so pleased, chérie,’ he had related when we met afterwards in London in August 2010. ‘He was as black as coal and from Senegal and as tall as a basketballer and very good-looking. So young. No more than thirty.’
And he continued in a rare storytelling mode: ‘He read out what I had written about Maman in such a rich, accented voice as deep as a well. She would have loved to be sitting in the pews listening.’
I remembered saying, ‘Well, she was, wasn’t she? In spirit I mean.’
But nothing averts my melancholy. Jane suspects my mood is falling and she drops a coin in the box and lights another candle. ‘For Olivier,’ she says. It’s a lovely gesture and I hug her.
A few minutes later, around the corner, we reach Boulevard Victor Hugo, St Remy’s gourmet strip, where I stop her at the chocolate shop. In the window, we watch the same fountain of warm, shimmering milk chocolate spilling forth that always drew Oli and me to the store. ‘Come in here, the chocolate is amazing. The chocolatier, Joël Durand, lets you sample his Alphabet of Flavours.’
I sense her hesitation, so I babble on. ‘He is renowned and one year, we took the grandchildren to Joël’s chocolate factory and saw how they use herbs and lavender and strange tastes like black olives and cardamom in his chocolates.’
‘No, thank you,’ she simply says.
I’m gobsmacked. Her response is beyond my comprehension. Who can resist a chocolate shop? Regardless, I enter the shop alone and select nine chocolates of unique flavours including Szechuan pepper, aromas of violet, praline and Corsica Arbutus bitter honey. I pass over eight euros. ‘Do you want them gift-wrapped?’ asks the assistant. ‘No, I intend to eat each one.’ And I slip the dainty brown box into my handbag.
Outside I catch a glimpse of Jane way down the boulevard, but I can’t run to catch up because of my ankle. She is too far away to ask if she wants to visit the exquisite biscuit shop next door or the Maison d’Olives across the road.
Instead, her window shopping down Rue de la Commune means I catch up just before we reach Place Jules Pélissier, a marvellous gathering of restored Renaissance buildings including the old Town Hall.
‘I’m taking you to our favourite restaurant in St Remy for lunch,’ I state. And I turn right, past Nostradamus’s fountain until we reach Rue du Château and L’Olivade restaurant.
We don’t go inside, but take a table on the terrace, which is contained behind a primitive fieldstone wall and where many old kitchen utensils and small farm implements are nailed on the restaurant walls. It is such a joy for me to be here that I don’t understand why tears begin to well up. Yet, I can’t help visualising him across from me instead of Jane, the way I would bring him to life in the car in those early days of grief. He is exhibiting the same intense manner in which he would survey the menu. And he is peering over his glasses and translating the ones he thought I would like. Oh dear! Now I can hear him asking the waitress for the ‘moutarde, s’il vous plaît’ because his steak arrived.
But it’s my steak that I am looking at to make sure it isn’t too red. And I guess sadness swallowed my joy. Jane notices my face contorting and puts down her cutlery, looks me straight in the eye and says, ‘Darling, if this is too much for you, we should just go.’
‘No, this is what I wanted to experience again—here in the courtyard. We would sit under that olive tree over there.’ I point behind her, but she doesn’t turn around.
Jane finishes her ratatouille, a colourful Provincial dish of tomatoes, eggplant, zucchini and aubergine scattered with roasted garlic cloves.
‘Now I really feel I’m in France,’ she says, mopping up the dregs of red sauce on the plate with crusty bread.
It occurs to me that Jane is a great person to accompany me on this first journey as a widow because she has a rare blend of straightforward attitude to keep me grounded in the present and yet she exhibits the right doses of compassion and practicality, too. She is resolute in moving me forward and that’s what I need, even while I relive past experiences.
By the time we ask the way back to Avignon at the Office de Tourisme, I know our trip to St Remy has been a resounding success. And when I recognise the return route on Avenue Albert Schweizer I turn to Jane and say ‘Home James?’ and I drive those eleven kilometres back into Avignon. Exhilarated I turn right onto that bridge, then left past the walls of the city, around the roundabout and over the next bridge to Villeneuve lès Avignon. Oh dear. Smugness is never good in a foreign country. I miss the turn-off and it is minutes later before I see a sign to Les Angles—a sister village to Villeneuve lès Avignon. Jane is incredibly well-behaved and says not a word about this dilemma.
Once again, we pull into the Les Angles supermarket and ask an older couple loa
ding up their car to point out the route back to Villeneuve lès Avignon.
‘We are looking for the bollards,’ I say.
‘I will lead you there,’ he says. French people are so helpful. When I see the bollards ahead, I beep the horn in a ‘thank you’ and wave goodbye.
Our time in Villeneuve lès Avignon au jour le jour (day by day) alternates between high drama and sheer delight. Attending the Mass, for instance, is a beautiful happening. We are sitting in old wooden pews in an ancient chapel under a thirteenth-century coffered ceiling, with a small congregation of Catholic worshippers, mainly women. A frail old man sits in front of us in his pyjamas and in the back row, behind many empty pews, sits a younger man in yellow overalls. I love listening to the priest preach in French, although I don’t understand what he’s saying.
My eyes are on the walls decorated with huge religious paintings—one of the Jewish priest Simeon receiving the baby Jesus in the Temple of Jerusalem, and of the angel Gabriel announcing the incarnation of Christ to the Virgin Mary. Jane leaves the pew and enters the left nave studying a photographic display of the history of the Chapelle des Pénitents Gris. It strikes me we are sharing in different ways: I’m interested in experiencing the spiritual journey now, she is intrigued with learning about the past.
When she returns to the pew, she whispers ‘It was built in the courtyard of the former palace of Cardinal de Deaux—one of thirteen palaces for the cardinals who lived here for 100 years.’
After the benediction, the priest welcomes us in perfect English and tell us that tomorrow a committee from the government’s Patrimoine committee will visit the chapel to assess if it will be restored from public money. He invites us to attend. ‘We need many people here for pressure,’ he says. I look around at the damp in the walls, the deteriorating paintings and the flaked plaster ceilings and hope this precious piece of French religious history is given a reprieve at its eleventh hour. The priest tells us that it is a fine example of Baroque architecture. ‘It is particularly famous for the extraordinary stereotomy of its vaults.’
Farewell My French Love Page 7