Opting to be without our own vehicle for a month would prove to be an interesting exercise. There was a little supermarket barely a five-minute walk from our new chocolate-box chalet in our tiny village of Argentière. It sold a large selection of basic items, but none of the little luxuries needed for a gastronomic Christmas feast. However, the speciality shops and medium-sized supermarkets in Chamonix would be more than adequate for our needs. It would be an adventure for us to travel the nine kilometres down to Chamonix, using the little train that chugged up and down the hill all day or the elephantine coaches that wound their way back and forth along the precarious roads, stopping at all the ski fields and hamlets between the two villages. Unfortunately, over the Christmas holiday they would be crammed to bursting point with skiers travelling to the various ski fields. I wasn’t sure how I would cope with bags of shopping jammed in with skis, poles and plastic sleds, but our choices were limited.
The day after we arrived, we travelled twenty-three kilometres in the little train down to Servoz, to visit the Bayles. Monsieur and Madame Bayle had decided to tackle their retirement years by selling their apartment in Chamonix and building the house of their dreams in nearby Servoz. Yet again they were ready to extend their generous hospitality to us. I was looking forward to seeing their new home and Madame Bayle was eager to meet my children and niece. So much had happened in everyone’s lives. We would need more than just one day to catch up on the latest.
During the time I lived with the Bayles back in 1979, I had an experience that I never forgot: my first white Christmas.
On 22 December, the bûche de Noël was prepared: sponge cake cooked and then rolled into a log-like shape to be decorated with a chocolate butter that made cholesterol levels soar.
Christmas Eve had started off with last-minute wrapping of gifts or, in the worst-case scenario, rushing out to buy urgent forgotten items. Catherine, Marie and I helped with the food and table preparations, which gave me an indication of what was in store for later in the evening.
At nine o’clock, we all sat down at the kitchen table with its red and white checked tablecloth and ate a small bowl of home-made vegetable soup and a vegetable gratin — a delicious concoction of mixed vegetables in a white sauce flavoured with just a hint of nutmeg, with a crispy cheese topping — followed by a generous platter of regional cheeses. But this was just an appetiser. When were we going to eat all the food we had been cooking? The hours of frenzied activity in the kitchen had resulted in a massive six-course meal, but I was completely mystified as to when this would commence.
One by one, the Bayles excused themselves, only to reappear in their best clothes. I too went off to dress, in a black lace top with massive shoulder pads, an Italian taffeta balloon skirt, lacy stockings and ridiculously high sparkly shoes — the height of fashion in 1979. Huge amounts of glitter were pasted around my eyes and through my hair, which was teased and sprayed into enormous proportions — a legacy of my ongoing affair with all things Italian.
Drinks began a little before midnight, but we stopped almost as soon as we started. There was much consternation about whether there would be enough time to get to church for midnight mass due to the sudden snowstorm. Monsieur and Madame Bayle struggled off to attend, trudging through the thick, fresh snow and the bitterly cold wind. Hiding our unfinished drinks behind our backs, the Bayle sisters and I argued that the final preparations excused us from religious instruction that night. The table had to be set, more drinks laid out, and the chapon, a huge castrated rooster, basted continuously as it cooked in the oven.
By 1.30 am on Christmas Day, we were sitting at the table unwrapping extravagant gifts that had been placed in large piles beside the fireplace. At last I understood why I had been asked to provide a shoe earlier in the evening. The French use shoes to indicate the owners of the presents.
We were all groaning from the consumption of huge quantities of food before we’d even reached the main course. I was even more amazed when the festivities continued with still more food at the late lunch on Christmas Day.
This year Madame Bayle was too unwell to contemplate large-scale entertaining during the festive season. I decided it would be better to pay the Bayles a short visit with my excitable, noisy children for a late lunch on Christmas Day. I was insistent that we could enjoy each other’s company without the pandemonium that accompanies large and extravagant meals; a ham baguette sounded perfect. Simplicity and reason would rule the day for a change.
As coincidence would have it, I had literally bumped into a French friend, Pascale, and her husband, Patrice, in the streets of Chamonix on the day of our arrival. I had met them in Greece in 1979 while I was on a holiday from my dysfunctional Parisian family, and Pascale and I had maintained a friendship for sixteen years via sporadic letters, greeting cards and postcards. They and their three children and a family friend were spending Christmas ’95 in Chamonix, and they too had opted for a fuss-free celebration, with no urgent medical calls for Patrice in the middle of the night.
We unanimously decided to celebrate Christmas Eve together, as all the children were roughly the same age. Camille and Zoë were fifteen, Lucas was ten, Mimi was almost five and Rémi the baby brother was already three, one month older than Harry. We would do something easy and stress-free. They would come to eat at our chalet, where six boisterous children and four equally excited adults were all going to try and squeeze around the table.
Back in Australia, Christmas celebrations had traditionally meant a long lunch at home, dressed in casual but smart attire, followed by a lazy afternoon reading books. As the temperature rose during the day, the amount of clothing would decrease, and in the early evening we’d go for a swim at the beach, then lounge around in swimming costumes and flimsy sarongs, cold beers in hand, gearing up for the Boxing Day cricket match.
This year Christmas would be a strange experience for all of us: the weather could not be more different, Zoë would be away from her parents, and Norman would be missing for the first time.
I hadn’t hosted a dinner party for ten people since the early days of my marriage, and I wasn’t sure that I was up to the task. I decided to cook lots of simple dishes and pre-prepare as much as possible.
By 22 December it was really starting to feel like Christmas. Most of the food was ready, carols played constantly on the stereo, and the fire was roaring. Everything was so very Christmassy — except that the snow that had started falling on our arrival had since been replaced by a deluge of rain. I couldn’t even go down to the local shop; the storm was so torrential it was pointless venturing out. Bing Crosby crooned in my head on a continuous loop about dreaming of a White Christmas.
Two days later — Christmas Eve — we had run out of all our basic supplies. We had no fresh bread and no milk for our cereal. Had there been a car hire business in Argentière, I would have been banging on the door, signing up for anything on wheels and at any cost. I didn’t want to be Gene Kelly singing in the rain, but I had invited the hungry hordes for a midnight feast, and now there was no alternative but to brave the rain and go down by bus to Chamonix to buy the last-minute goodies. Perhaps a walk around the town would do us all some good.
We managed to run under the eaves of the shops and houses all along the village lane until we finally arrived at the bus stop, red-cheeked and thankful that I had invested in good-quality parkas and footwear. A quick head count told me that we were all present and ready to catch a bus. I wasn’t going to lose a child again. So when on earth was it coming? Being without a car was driving me mad.
The scene in Chamonix was enchanting, surpassing all our expectations: a plethora of sights and smells. The three children were wonder-struck at the Christmas lights dangling over the roads, the men selling chestnuts roasted in barrels over hot coals on every street corner and the shop windows groaning with decorations. Fat, old horses hauling brightly coloured sleighs waited patiently outside crowded cafés and restaurants, bells jangling on their harnesses. The hum
an tide flowed off the pavements and onto the streets, to compete with the cars and the dirty remains of the snowdrifts from the previous week. The sound of pealing church bells drowned out the Christmas carols and the incessant chatter of all nationalities that drifted out from the shopping arcades. We were giddy with the assault on our senses.
Of course, it was eagle-eyed Mimi who saw it first: ‘Mummy, Pocahontas is on here at the movies. Let’s go! Oh, please, Mummy, let’s go!’ The chiming voices of the two younger ones made my heart sink into a special little pit in my stomach. How many more times could we see this movie? Okay, I thought, let’s do it.
14 H séance: come on brain, take twelve away and that makes, bien sûr, 2 pm. I hate the French obsession with the twenty-four hour clock! Are we in the armed forces? I hoped Zoë would jump at the chance for a French movie experience, allowing me to do the last-minute shopping by myself in the crowded supermarket — but no, all my hopes were quickly dashed. Zoë had already seen the movie in Amsterdam a few days before and was certainly not going to miss an opportunity to go window-shopping by herself in this idyllic Alpine town. Zut! Crotte! Flûte! I certainly didn’t want to sit through it all again, but there was no way I could leave two children under five by themselves. Nothing to be done about it; settle back and relax, sing the songs and say the words. The two of them were almost word-perfect in places — I wondered if they would realise that it was in French.
They both sat mesmerised, enchanted, as though it were the first time they had ever seen Pocahontas and John Smith. While the familiar images flashed across the screen, I let my brain wander through the recipes for the dinner later that night. Normally, the French Christmas Eve meal starts with an entrée of seafood, oysters, prawns or other shellfish with an aïoli, a home-made garlicky mayonnaise. Seafood always features on special occasions in France. I would use a variation on the theme. We would open the meal with a platter of smoked salmon, lemon slices and dill arranged over iceberg lettuce leaves with a few really big prawns to go around them, and the obligatory bowl of home-made mayonnaise on the side.
When I stayed with them in 1979, the Bayles had served a seasonal dish called boudin blanc as a second course for their Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve feasts. Back then I had been enticed by the dish’s simplicity but had always been unsure of what was in the thick, pale sausages.
Over the telephone a few days ago, Madame Bayle had explained that boudin blanc was a type of pork sausage scented with thyme and bound together with flour, frothy beaten eggs and milk that was infused with carrots and onions. The white sausage was palatable, but not its cousin, the blood sausage, boudin noir, which consisted of blood and offal and lumps of white fat. Never ever would that pass my lips! Madame Bayle had told me which traiteur — a very upmarket style of delicatessen — to go to for the very best boudin in Chamonix. It was essential that the sausages be made on the premises and not bought in disgusting plastic packages from the supermarket. With Madame Bayle just a phone call away, I felt more than confident that the dish would be a success.
The dish looked very impressive and was always a taste sensation, but was actually simple to prepare, Madame Bayle had explained. The sausages needed to be poached for fifteen minutes then pan-fried with shallots, drizzled with a tiny dash of honey and served accompanied by a steaming sauce. For the sauce, which I’d already prepared, juicy, delicious golden apples — washed and peeled by Zoë — had been made into a thick stew; half of it had been laced liberally with calvados, a strong apple brandy from Normandy, and the other half had been left without for the children.
Next, the main course. How on earth was I going to cook the chapon with a multitude of baked vegetables so that everything was ready at the same time? I sat in the darkened cinema wondering if the baking dish I had would be big enough to take the enormous castrated rooster plus potatoes, parsnips and pears. The chalet was only equipped for simple dinners, so anything and everything that was oven-proof would have to be used.
The final two courses would be the easiest part of the dinner: a large bought ice-cream bûche de Noël, along with an extensive range of beautiful full-fat cheeses. ‘A meal is not a proper meal unless the cheese platter makes an appearance,’ Madame Bayle had told me time and time again.
It was all ready inside my head; I just had to pick up my orders from the speciality shops, buy the last-minute ingredients — litres of thick Normandy cream and plenty of smoked salmon — get everyone home and dry, and start the final preparations.
The children had their baths and dined on chicken nuggets with tomato sauce at their normal early dinner time and then, instead of getting into their pyjamas, they dressed in their best clothes and set out the drinks for the guests, who were coming about 9.30 pm (or to be more precise, 21.30). Mothers all round the world would be experiencing the same thing for the next twenty-four hours: overexcited, sleep-deprived children.
The hum of activity intensified to fever pitch with the arrival of our guests. Coats and gloves and wet shoes were strewn in an untidy heap downstairs next to the boiler, while the children chattered happily to each other despite the fact they had very few words in common. Christmas translates into all languages.
The meal was a huge success. As the evening wore on our guests ate and drank their way through all the courses, the pile of plates in the sink growing higher and the free space in the kitchen becoming non-existent. The younger children couldn’t last the distance and collapsed into bed of at eleven o’clock, already dreaming of opening presents the next morning.
Looking out across the garden, we could see lights dancing in the windows of neighbouring chalets, just like the candles in our own windows. It looked like fairyland. With all the excitement, we were unaware that the noise from the constant rain had stopped. The wind had died down and the temperature had dived below zero, and at last the thing we’d all been hoping for happened: a thick, white, silent blanket of snow fell from the heavens. We would have our white Christmas after all!
Oh, thank you, Bing Crosby!
Oh, thank you, Guardian Angel!
In the quiet of the house, after our guests had left, I crept around with my memories of past Christmases, which had been overflowing with love and laughter. This year would not be the same, but I was determined the children wouldn’t suffer despite having an absent father and a spaced-out mother. Two steps forward, one step back.
But giving them a happy Christmas was taking a huge toll on me. I had barely been able to eat anything at dinner, as I’d been too busy playing the cook and waitress for everyone else. Food was making me nauseous — but then again, it might have been the cocktail of alcohol and antidepressants I was forcing down my throat every morning and night. It was the only way I could pretend everything was all right while I struggled with the pain of being alone. I was starting to learn how to grieve, but the healing process had barely begun.
By two o’clock in the morning, feeling sick and hyped up from the adrenaline of Christmas activity, I was still wide awake. I wished ardently that I could remember how to sleep properly. Taking a pill, I climbed in beside my babies, who immediately grabbed hold of me through their dreams.
A few hours later, I woke up to happy voices and ripping paper. It was a miracle that Santa had known which Pocahontas items were missing from their huge repertoire of Disney goods. The chalet looked like a bomb had gone off, and it seemed as if the kitchen had suffered the worst damage — that was, until I saw Zoë’s bedroom. My poor little niece didn’t realise that Auntie Hygiene made home visits even on Christmas Day! Chanting my slogan of ‘Hi to Hygiene and Bye to Bad Habits’, I showed her how to sort clothes into whites, darks and items to be hand-washed. Zoë was almost speechless with rage. Didn’t I know what day it was? What kind of crazy aunt had I turned into?
Before I met Norman my slovenliness was legendary. The only thing I knew how to clean was the oven — and that was just for therapeutic reasons. I was the ultimate slob; my sister used to call me The Party Gi
rl of No Tomorrow. Jack and Sheilagh had laughed at me many times, saying that I put a capital S on Slovenly, Slothful and Surly — and probably other things like Slut and Scoundrel as well, but I was their daughter, after all, and they didn’t dare think like that (often).
That was the auntie Zoë wanted. The very thought of washing woollens on Christmas Day was a peculiar concept, let alone tidying her room, where the mess was indescribable. She could see that I was weakening and tried the good old Lip Tremble her mother had perfected when she was young. This might have worked had I not trodden on a dirty plate hidden under the piles of whiffy clothes and broken it. So she was hauled off to the bathroom with armfuls of malodorous woollies to start her first lesson in washing.
Meanwhile, I went to clean upstairs. I had been over the kitchen and the floors in the middle of the night, but in the light of day I could see large areas that were looking very doubtful. My head was hurting from lack of sleep, my neck was twisted into knots of tension and my heart was breaking. My husband would never be with us again and it was killing me. I wanted to go to bed and hide under the covers for the rest of the day. My hands were trembling uncontrollably and I started to feel truly sick.
But there would be no rest for the weary; we were due at the Bayles’ for a late Christmas lunch. I sincerely hoped it was going to be a very small and quiet affair, as I had requested. By the time we arrived, I thought I was going pass out — but a glass of fortifying whisky was swiftly shoved into my hand, because I looked so pale, and the party began all over again. We had been promised ‘something very simple’; however, one glance around the room told me it was going to be anything but. There it all was: pâté de foie gras, oysters and yet more chapon. Not having grandchildren of their own, Monsieur and Madame Bayle couldn’t wait to spoil my children and niece with balloons, streamers and as many chocolates as they could eat — and needless to say, too many presents. They surpassed themselves as generous hosts, and didn’t even bat an eyelid when Zoë poured some lemonade into her glass of Châteauneuf du Pape 1974, declaring that it was just too rich in flavour for her liking.
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