‘What time will you both be joining us for dinner this evening, Madame?’ she asks.
‘Could we make it 8 pm?’
‘Yes, of course. Would you like me to show you the front rooms and the terrace?’ And she leads me into a heavily timber-panelled dining room.
‘This is our beautiful dining room and our chef, Frédéric Brisset, is a one-star Michelin chef and has worked very hard for the restaurant to be awarded.’
I almost salivate at the unexpected delight of dining in a Michelin restaurant as we walk past its round tables already dressed for dinner. On the terrace we overlook a large parkland bordered by forests.
‘The château is military in style,’ explains the receptionist. ‘The two circular towers were built in the thirteenth century, but the frontage was rebuilt in the Renaissance style in the sixteenth century.’
When Jane returns it’s a relief to see she is not on crutches or plastered up, but wears an ankle strap.
‘Nothing is broken, but they would only give me Panadol,’ she tells me.
‘So the pain is gone?’
‘Of course not.’
She looks me up and down. ‘Red is definitely your colour, darling.’
‘Thank you. Can you help do up my necklace? It’s garnet and Olivier bought it for me in Prague, when we launched my memoir there in 2009.’
I’m putting on garnet earrings when she says, ‘I’m not going to join you tonight. Really, I can’t. I feel terribly fatigued and I think I’m still in shock.’ I almost drop my earring in fury.
‘What I need is to have an early night; put myself to bed to rest my ankle.’
‘What are you going to eat? It’s almost eight o’clock!’
‘I’ll order myself some soup up here in the room.’
Not a word escapes from my mouth. I glare at her. She simply doesn’t want to eat! I simply open the door and leave. But I’m seething as I traipse down the stairs. I sit at a dining room table facing two very old Gobelins tapestries hanging either side of the sixteenth-century fireplace.
‘Monsieur is not joining you this evening?’ asks the maître d’hôtel, a wiry older French man.
‘No.’
So here I sit in my flowing red-patterned dress and glug down a glass of champagne to try and wash away my rage. When I rummage in my bag for a tissue, out pops a piece of paper I had printed from the internet about Château de Pray: ‘Chatelain, très classique, pour une cuisine qui flirte joliment avec notre époque … en un mot, c’est très bon!’
Château fare is very classic for one cuisine that flirts nicely with our times … in one word, it’s very good!
My face hardens as I focus on flirte joliment and it is a good thing that a good-looking young French waiter asks if I wish to order a glass of the house wine.
‘Bien sûr!’
Promptly he returns with a somewhat frozen smile: ‘Un verre de Touraine rouge pour Madame.’
Each course arrives from behind the antique screen that separates the diners from the waiters’ large old sideboard stacked with plates, wines, glasses and cutlery.
To begin with, I study the presentation of each dish, its taste and texture and match the menu’s description with le repas (the meal) before me. I quite enjoy my own company for the first few hours, but at about 10 pm, I become agitated at the loneliness of the experience.
Earlier, in the bedroom, I had slipped the small diary of my honeymoon in the Loire into my bag. I take it out. I haven’t read it since I wrote it in 2008. On Wednesday, 21 May 2008, it reads:
We have found an idyllic spot in the countryside a few hundred metres off the D81 to Amboise, about seven kilometres away. The single car width track leads alongside a mature forest of oaks, but on the other side of the road are rows of young trees. So we take a little bridge over a deep channel. It leads into a young arboretum, with most of the trees only half grown. We walk among them identifying ten different species including a Gledisia, my favourite species, walnut trees, so prolific in France, two rows of plane trees (In the margin, Oli has written its proper name ‘Marronier inedible chestnuts’) and many variegated species.
‘I think it’s an abandoned nursery,’ Oli says. ‘But they are planted.’
‘I think it is somebody’s passion to continue the forest on the other side of the road,’ I reply.
We find a clearing close to the car and I place my raincoat with its silk-look lining on the dry grass, and set up our lunch table. Epicurie from the boucherie in St George sur Cher is unwrapped …
My diary entry isn’t finished because I remember Oli had diverted my attention to far more amorous pursuits as I wrote in our honeymoon suite that night. They were delightful love-making days.
A-ha! I remember what happened in the nursery! Dare I admit that I had forgotten that romantic interlude, but now I’m full of warm memories as I close my eyes trying to conjure up how we snuggled side-by-side on the raincoat, until he whispered that it was time for his ‘first course’. Which wasn’t the unwrapped camembert!
Can the maître d’hôtel read my delicious thoughts because he now presents a tray-mobile with French cheeses of many shapes and varieties. I count twenty-four types of fromage.
If only Olivier was here to share this experience. He has taught me much about cheese and we would visit dairy farm gates throughout France. ‘A cheese course is essential to enjoy the full French dinner,’ Olivier had said at that first dinner he cooked for me ten years ago.
Well, darling Oli, this is a cheese course and I think in Jane’s absence, I will choose four different varieties.
As the waiter rattles off the varieties in French, I realise how little I know about cheeses other than Olivier’s favourites, and so I ask, ‘Which is the mildest?’
‘Montrachet, Madame,’ and he cuts off a sliver from a white cheese stack.
‘Definitely d’Affinois please, it was my husband’s favourite.’
A discernible ‘mmmm’ slips from my mouth as the soft cheese oozes onto my plate.
‘Something from Cantal please.’
I remember the cheese cellar there where shelves were packed with maturing cheese, and the unique Roquefort, where the fromagerie only had mock cheeses on display in the cellar. And then I ask for the waiter’s choice of chèvre (goat milk cheese).
‘Selles-sur-Cher est parfait, Madame. De la Loire du Sud.’ Selles-sur-Cher is perfect, Madame. From the Loire South. He points to a log of cheese dusted with ash.
‘D’accord. C’est tout, merci.’ Okay, that’s all, thank you.
Upstairs once more by 10.45 pm, I’m surprised Jane is awake, although tucked into her bed.
‘I thought you would be asleep. How is the ankle?’
‘Much better thank you, darling. How was your meal?’
‘It was more like a king’s banquet and it was incredible food. It’s a one-star Michelin restaurant.’
As I undress for bed, Jane suddenly bursts out into peals of laughter.
‘Anna has sent me an email and says if you had taken her on the trip to France, she would have eaten with you every night.’
‘Just remember that tomorrow night, because you won’t be getting a refund for the food component of this package.’
‘I had a very tasty vegetable soup brought to the room. I felt quite a privileged invalid eating it in bed.’
‘That would have been the most expensive soup in France. Did it fill you up?’
‘It was exactly what I needed,’ she says. ‘I eat when I experience hunger; you are just so attracted to taste that you don’t really allow yourself to feel hungry. You should only eat when you feel hungry.’
I’m lulled by my two glasses of Loire wine and so weary that I’m not engaging with her, but she continues.
‘It has taken me years to learn to eat in response to hunger and not for a myriad of other things. I think this is a positive thing, and I think it’s something you should learn as well.’
But I know my enjoyment of t
onight’s banquet has been a gift from Olivier. Because he introduced to me that very French world of pleasure in food, wine and cheese. He would often say, ‘Nahdeen, remember the French live to eat, but the English only eat to live. That is a very big difference between the French and the English.’
TEN
CHENONCEAU
‘Grandeur and gallantry never appeared with more lustre in France than in the last years of the reign of Henri II. This prince was amorous and handsome and his passion for Diane de Poitiers, Duchess of Valentinois, lasted more than 20 years.’
Madame de La Fayette, The Princess of Cleves
The Breakfast room at the hotel is such a surprise as we step through a pair of French doors into one of the age-old caverns of the Loire. Thoroughly modernised, it’s separate from the château, but once inside there is no mistaking the buttercup yellow painted earth walls, delightfully imperfect. Sitting there in our astonishing environment, Jane says something extraordinary.
‘I learnt a valuable lesson last night.’
I flash her a quizzical look.
‘Well I think you were angry with me last night for not joining you for dinner, but today, you wouldn’t know anything had happened,’ she continues. ‘You have taught me that you can have an altercation and the next day you can get up and it’s forgotten. Life goes on as before.’
She hesitates waiting for a response, but I am thinking that two days have passed since the train ‘altercation’ and I certainly didn’t carry any angst over the lonely dinner beyond the dining room.
‘How great it is that we haven’t ended up in silence, not speaking at all, consumed with hurtful feelings for a long time,’ she continues.
‘What are you talking about?’ I ask, surprised by this deep conversation so early.
‘You have helped me overcome my hurt feelings.’
‘I would call it sulking.’
‘No, they are hurt feelings.’
‘How they manifest is sulking, depriving the other party of your conversation and attention and affection,’ I say. ‘I don’t see that you’ve done that.’
‘You learnt those lessons because you can shrug off fights and hurt feelings, but unfortunately I didn’t learn that at home,’ she explains.
‘Then how did you get over your hurt feelings with me, over, say, when I tripped over the suitcase?’ I ask.
‘I did feel like running away. And for a moment, I thought I would leave and have a holiday on my own. I had to make the decision that our friendship was more important than holding on to my hurt feelings,’ she replies. ‘It would have been very damaging to our friendship.’
‘Doesn’t that also apply to family?’ I ask. ‘My mother taught me never to let the sun go down on your wrath—and she practised it. I never saw my mother sulk. Scream, yes, but sulk, no. And that’s how we were brought up.’
I share one of Mum’s flaws, though: ‘In my home, my mother had a terrible temper from time to time and it was quite frightening,’ I confide. ‘And, unfortunately, it was a negative behaviour I inherited regardless of whether it was the result of genetics or environment.’
I wait a second so she can mull over this family fault before continuing. ‘My transcendental meditation practice has helped me “temper” it over the years. I rarely lose my temper now.’
‘I have seen the odd episode over the years,’ she says, with a smirky smile.
‘But whether we sulk or scream, these things can steamroll unless you start each day anew. She had a great saying: “You can’t start painting bright colours in your day if there are black splotches over the canvas.” It was a very powerful metaphor for forgiveness, for putting things behind you and moving forward. It’s a valuable relationship skill.’
‘Unfortunately, I didn’t learn that at home. It’s caused me a lot of unhappiness in my life,’ says a pensive Jane. ‘It’s so emotionally damaging because deep down we love the people in our family, but we’re unable to resolve conflict.’
‘Mum would say that it all boils down to forgiveness. Of course, we also learnt to forgive her behaviour because we loved her. Mum had a beautiful nature.’
I think upon how Mum cared for her older sister, my auntie Sylvia, who was dying of cancer, and also her mother, Anna, in our family home. And it occurred to me that perhaps my mother’s role modelling during those sad times helped me step so effortlessly into a full-time caring role for Olivier. I took him home from hospital on 18 March and cared for him in a hospital bed placed in the family room. He moved around the living and alfresco areas on his walking frame. Our last gardening job together was to pot the geraniums he had struck.
I don’t feel sad as I reminisce; I feel immensely proud of how my love manifested and allowed him dignity in his dying days.
As we approach the car, I notice Jane isn’t limping. ‘Your ankle seems much better.’
‘Yes, thank you. I took a Panadol just then at breakfast.’
Today, as Charlotte drives along the D81 route to the Château Chenonceau, I tell her about Olivier’s death.
‘It’s strange; I feel he is right here with us in this car, travelling along, whistling his French war tunes as he did when travelling in France,’ I say.
‘I used to work on a farm in the south of France in my holidays,’ responds Charlotte. ‘I worked for a widow whose husband died eight months beforehand. I really felt the husband’s presence in the house. But she never said anything about it. She saw his death as a part of life which brought new beginnings.’
‘Well, our trip to the Loire Valley is certainly a new beginning in France for me, isn’t it, Jane?’ I say.
‘I’m like Charlotte; I feel Olivier is with us on our trip, together, so I don’t think this is a new beginning, you are working through your grief still,’ replies Jane. Then she adds, ‘And that’s okay. Everything is as it should be.’
This is Jane at her empathetic best. No pressure that I still seem to be dwelling in the past. I did overhear her talking to Peter on the telephone last night and she said ‘there are three of us on this holiday in the Loire’. I initially thought she meant Charlotte, but in the light of her comment, I think she meant Olivier is with us. I guess he is. I talk about him a lot, but we are visiting the same places as in 2008 and he told me so many stories. Most of the time, I am simply relating his stories. I decide to sit quietly for a while.
As we approach the town of Chenonceau, Charlotte suddenly breaks the silence telling us that she is keen on the male tourist attendant at the entrance to the château.
‘We smile at each other whenever we meet, but there is no advance,’ she says softly. ‘He hasn’t asked me out. I have known him for a year now, but only as I bring tourists to Chenonceau. When he isn’t there, I miss him. I think I like him, but what should I do?’
She chatters on in a confidential manner sharing her innermost desires and Jane and I empathise.
‘He also has a degree and a postgraduate degree in tourism, even though he is only taking tickets at the door,’ she adds. ‘Jobs are very hard in France with unemployment at ten per cent. We must all start at the bottom.’
Naturally, we offer to observe the stalemate and devise a solution.
‘If he is there,’ Charlotte adds.
Sure enough as we approach the entrance these two young people smile at each other and exchange a few pleasantries in French. He is a pleasant-looking fellow without being dashingly handsome. Jean-Luc is of average height, marginally taller than Charlotte. The possibility of romance fills the air and Jane and I exchange glances.
Meanwhile, Chenonceau has inspired a new plan. I was so intrigued by a documentary on a French news channel about the florists at Chenonceau that I am going to photograph all the floral arrangements and produce a set of greeting cards.
The château sparkles with femininity because of the romantic nature of its architecture, and because its history is dominated by a handful of astonishing French women from the sixteenth to the nineteenth century.
‘We are here in a very special year, because Chenonceau is 500 years old,’ says Charlotte. ‘In 1513 Thomas Bohier bought an old moulin for his wife Katherine Briconnet, and while he was at war, she razed it and built this Renaissance castle on the mill’s fortified foundations.’
Half a millennium has seen some astonishing women’s stories unfold here. The ‘ladies’ château became the gift of a king on his coronation to his beloved mistress, a much older woman; it was coveted by the scheming queen, who, when widowed, evicted her arch rival turning it into a playground of questionable frivolity; and yet another widowed French queen turned it into a religious retreat doused in sadness. Then an actress, feminist and intellectual became its chatelaine for much of the eighteenth century, residing here for sixty-six years, and saving it from the revolutionary hordes.
The château had been neglected by royalty for 150 years when in 1733 Madame Louise Dupin, with the help of her husband who was chancellor to Louis XV, transformed the castle into the centre of fashionable eighteenth-century French society. Born in 1706, she was an acclaimed actress at La Comédie Française. She held balls in the sixty-metre long Grand Gallery with its black-and-white chequerboard floor and her brillant salon littéraire attracted Rousseau, Voltaire and Montesquieu among many writers and philosophers of the era. A beauty herself, she held strong feminist views speaking out for women’s rights to own and inherit property, yet invited beautiful women to her salon to attract famous men to Chenonceau. Most importantly, she was beloved by the peasants of the Loire as a benefactor.
When she was eighty-three, she took the advice of friends and quit Paris for Chenonceau a day after the storming of the Bastille on 14 July 1789. She succeeded in guarding her château from the revolutionary hordes with the support of the peasants and died there ten years later. She is buried on the left bank of the Cher in the park of Francueil.
When I visited with Oli on our honeymoon, the romantic castle encapsulated the enduring love of handsome King Henri II and his mistress, the Duchess of Valentinois, Diane de Poitiers. I, too, was in love and on the honey-laden road to ‘happy ever after’.
Farewell My French Love Page 17