My only sadness is knowing that, as the years pass, so too will some of the older inhabitants of Cuzance. Though my encounters with them are brief, the fleeting moments and short exchanges, bring a layer of richness through the sense of times past that their eyes have seen – the impact of the war, the rapid changes in the world and daily life of the village – and yet an air of timelessness pervades their unhurried pace.
The days and seasons seem to ebb and flow around them; Monsieur and Madame’s Chanteur’s daily meals under their walnut tree, Madame Dal’s daily promenades with her beloved chien, Monsieur Arnal’s customary seat outside his hotel, watching our petite village go by; Jean-Claude’s strolls with Henriette, tugging at her lead, impatient to explore her new world.
The very land and buildings seem to hold history within their hands, offered as a gift if you peer inside the old carved stone doorways, beyond the pots of scarlet geraniums and aromatic lavender. It is a strange paradox, a summer in Cuzance. The days slip through your fingers like a rapidly unravelling ball of wool, yet time also stands still.
There is an almost tangible thread woven through the village, that connects the past and stretches to the future.
Off to market, past our petite maison.
73
A Night in Paris
There was a ferocious thunderstorm, complete with icy bullets of hail on our last morning. It was a portent of the swiftly changing season. It would also transpire to be an omen for our last day in France.
A night in Paris was not quite like our morning in Paris. Far from it. It was not planned, it was not on the itinerary. A night in Paris probably most exemplifies the differences between us; Stuart’s casual nonchalant approach to life and mine – often the diametric opposite.
We packed up the house and put it under wraps for another year, with literally just seconds to spare before Jean-Claude, Françoise and of course Henriette picked us up. First step of the always long and arduous return journey, Brive-la-Gaillarde station for the four-hour trip to Paris. Just prior to our departure, Monsieur and Madame Chanteur came to farewell us with a gift of prunier from their tree, for our journey. I had no inkling that it was the last time we would ever see them together.
After parking, in one of those split-second accidental timings, just as I reached for my suitcase, Jean-Claude closed the boot. It connected directly with my nose as I was bending down. There was no hint, bad enough as it was, that there was infinitely more stress, calamity and drama about to unfold.
Our timing was quite fine as it was. A mere three hours to get a taxi from Gare d’Austerlitz to Charles de Gaulle airport, with the mandatory two hours – minimum – check-in time for our flight. This is Stuart’s relaxed travel style, not mine. I already knew that the tight timeline did not allow for any unanticipated events. I was anxious already. What in fact happened was beyond prediction in any scenario of unforeseen circumstances. It was the sort of event that you cannot possibly make up, let alone imagine.
French trains travel fast, very fast – about 198 miles per hour. SNCF is renowned for its swift, efficient service. If a train is running two minutes late, it is a cause for considerable consternation. I was sitting next to the window, unusual in itself for Stuart usually has the window seat. I was bidding France farewell, watching the rich green countryside, villages and farms flash past.
Out of nowhere, a heavy shower of enormous rocks flew up against the entire width of the window in a deafening roar. The thunder of the impact echoed around the carriage.
Large, star-shaped imprints were left in the thick glass. I grabbed Stuart’s hands, and in utter silence, looked at him in fear and incredulity. It is astonishing what the mind can process in a matter of a few, sharply delineated seconds. I was convinced the train was going to roll. I thought that the end was near. Much later, when chatting to others in our three-hour state of entrapment, I discovered it was precisely what others thought too. I believed our train crash was going to be a leading item on the evening news.
The train jolted to a shuddering, clanging halt. Each and every passenger gasped aloud. We all looked at each other in shock and disbelief. There was then an eerie calm and quietness. Despite the alarming circumstances, there was no sense of panic at all. The first of many SNCF announcements followed shortly. A delightful sixteen-year-old French school boy, Leo, travelling with his younger sister, Claudette, was sitting near us and became our self-appointed interpreter. First, ‘The train will be delayed.’ Next, ‘The train will be delayed indefinitely.’ And then, infinitely more alarming, ‘The train has been sabotaged.’ The very use of the word ‘sabotaged’ sent a chill of horror through the carriage. All I could think was that it was a very grave word to use – the implications were endless.
We all waited – for an interminable three hours. What struck me most was the extraordinary calm and degree of patience of those around us; the young, elderly, women with babies and petite enfants. As the electricity had failed, the air conditioning did not work. The temperature rose steadily while we were told that negotiations were underway to resolve the situation. Stuart walked through to the next carriage to investigate. It was at precisely this point that the two adjoining carriages were disconnected. I jumped out of my seat to see where he was. We could see each other through the glass doors at the end of each carriage. Later, he told me that he thought the carriage he was in, was going to be shunted off and we would be separated for who knows how long and with no means of communicating.
Once again too, as with many major and critical times in our lives, our portable let us down. This seems to be a recurring dilemma for any hugely significant juncture in our lives. initially it did work for our first contact to our helpline in Cuzance. We had just enough charge left to place a panicked call to Françoise to explain our predicament.
Oui, oui, she immediately grasped our dilemma and arranged to call the airline. We felt confident that in her capable hands, all would be sorted. Portable charge rapidly ebbing, we soon called her again, highly anxious to know that it was all organised. Yes, she had contacted the airline; yes, all should be fine to transfer our tickets. All we needed to do was call the airline by 10 pm to confirm that we had to change our flight to the following day. Françoise could no longer communicate with us either for our phone was now dead.
Next, the source of the sabotage was identified. The hydraulics for the brakes were located in a section underneath the train. The brakes had failed. Steel rods had been placed on the tracks to stop the train and cause damage. It did not help matters for our future travel plans by train in France to be told by Leo, that this was apparently a frequent occurrence while travelling on SNCF. Whether he meant trains breaking down or actual sabotage, I did not enquire further.
Finally, a replacement train arrived. We were all moved off, carriage by carriage – eight in all – in a very orderly manner. Previously, while Stuart was trapped, the train driver had nevertheless been able to walk through each carriage, explaining to everyone what had happened and what would eventuate. I was struck too by how calm and contained and capable he seemed. I was also astonished that I stood out as the only foreigner in our carriage and that, despite his huge degree of responsibility and inordinate stress he must have been under, the train driver paused to explain the situation to me personally.
Yet again, it was like a scene from a movie; this time however, one I would not have chosen to be in. However, this time we were in it. We had to hand our luggage down and then gingerly descend the steep steps, supported at the bottom by an SNCF person on each side to help us jump down. Despite the arms that gripped me firmly, it was still quite a jolt landing on the tracks. I wondered how the many elderly passengers coped, for it was quite a long way down to the tracks. On the replacement train, there was another SNCF worker, who grabbed each of us by our arms to haul us up.
Finally, we sped in to Paris – there was only about forty minutes left of the journey.
It passed quickly as we were all given a
cardboard box with water and packets of food in it. We needed it by then, for it was almost midnight in Paris when at long last we pulled into Gare d’Austerlitz – an entirely different world to the bustling daytime hours when the station is full of travellers setting off across to the four corners of Europe.
Thirty of us then waited for another two, very long hours. At first, SNCF seemed to be very organised, taking everyone’s name and a note of our destinations. Our initial high hopes of the situation being sorted quickly, rapidly faded. Another hour elapsed and by this point, passengers returned to the counter, impatient for results. By now, the organisation at the outset, seemed to have disintegrated. There was much consulting of lists and scurrying back and forth to an office with a closed door. Some passengers simply gave up, and walked off in to the Paris night.
Then at last, we were given a taxi voucher and told we had been booked into an airport hotel, ‘All Seasons’. Another SNCF employee took us to the taxi rank and twelve hours after leaving our little house, we were on our way for a few hours’ sleep. Now I don’t have a good sense of direction at the best of times, but on the virtually empty roads of Paris, in the pre-dawn hours, even I knew the taxi driver was going round in circles, back and forth past the same myriad of airport hotels. The French to tell the taxi driver this was absolutely beyond either of us at this point in our convoluted and dramatic return home. The Ibis Hotel turned out in fact to be our destination; it was actually one and the same as ‘All Seasons’ though there was not a sign in sight to indicate this.
However, our ordeal was not quite over.
The taxi driver was clearly annoyed and frustrated by this turn of events. He helped us into the hotel with our luggage, eager to be paid and off into the early morning. As we checked in at the counter, it transpired that he did not accept SNCF taxi vouchers.
Apparently only blue taxis take them. His taxi was not blue...
We simply slumped in weary resignation against the reception counter. We had run out of energy to deal with another obstacle. The taxi driver’s infuriation was growing by the second. To our enormous relief, the night manager called SNCF and got a fax sent that he presented to the taxi driver. He was to then take it to SNCF to be paid. He walked off into the night without a backward glance – still furious. We booked a wake-up call for only a matter of hours away. We needed to get to the airport as early as possible to sort our flight out. Rumbling snores that heavily penetrated the paper-thin walls of our hotel room, were the concluding note to our protracted journey, still in France when we should have been in Abu Dhabi.
We may well have been in Paris for our last evening but in reality we were in a cultural wasteland, a sea of bland, identical airport hotels. There were no smoky, late night jazz bars, no enticing bistros, there was nothing, nothing at all. It was not quite the last night in Paris that dreams are made of.
74
Apéritifs at Three in the Morning
After the stressful, exhausting chain of events, and despite the improbably late hour, a drink was called for. While we are not mini-bar people, this was a mini-bar occasion.
The basic airport hotel room did not run to one. We returned to reception and in imploring tones, we asked the hotel night staff on the front desk, ‘Do you have a bar?’
‘Non,’ was the sombre response.
Were they serious? Absolutely everyone drinks absolutely everywhere in France.
And now it would seem, we were booked into the only hotel in France without a bar.
We were in a hotel airport wilderness. Not a bar in sight. Could this truly be Paris, the city of dreams?
‘Where can we get a drink then?’ we gasped out. It was now 3 am. At the Hotel Western across the road, we were told. We staggered out into the cold dark night, not a vestige of Paris in the air. We staggered into the hotel as four gendarme walk briskly out onto the desolate streets . The staff on the desk were the only other people around. We repeated our question, ‘Is your bar still open?’
‘Non,’ we were told.
Back to the empty cold streets, up to our room for the one petite bottle of wine we had left over from our disastrous train journey, out to the street again, collapse on a bench, to be approached by the only other person possibly awake in the whole of Paris, a derelict who tried to engage us in conversation. None of this could possibly be happening. We politely dispatched him; a shared apéritif; albeit warm, never tasted so good.
75
Bon Voyage – At Last
And so, to the airport. The queue for our flight already stretched in such a way that we knew it would be foolish to simply join it, and naively assume that the transfer organised by Françoise had all been smoothly put in place. There are some lessons you do learn in life that stand true the world over; not to trust the mechanisms of bureaucracy. How true this proved.
We did not join the check-in queue. Instead we prudently found an enquiry counter.
There was of course just one person on the counter where we needed to check if we were on the flight, due to leave shortly – very shortly. And of course too, the queue was long, very long. At the best of times, patience is not one of my virtues; this was not the best of times by a long shot. Time was flying – and it did not seem as if we would be. It was time to act.
I left Stuart in the queue, the one which was not moving at all. I was on a desperate quest for an information counter, and hopefully, help. I presented my urgent case and was able to use their phone, to ironically, call the airline at the airport where we were.
It seemed to be the only course of action. I needed to talk to someone directly – and now. Naturally, the airline representative I got through to was cast in a thoroughly bureaucratic mould. There was no hint of empathy, no vestige of sympathy for our plight. Non, non I was crisply informed, we had not called by 10 pm the previous night as we had been directed to do after Françoise explained our situation to the airline. No amount of explaining that we were trapped in a sabotaged train and that we had in fact called the office, to be met by a recorded message that simply told us officiously that the office was shut, elicited any hint of understanding. In the eyes of officialdom, we had failed to call and we would need to buy another ticket. No entreaty, no emotional pleading worked.
In tears of frustration and exhaustion, I ended the call. I returned to find Stuart had mercifully advanced to the head of the queue. In his calm, competent manner, he had sorted it. We were on the flight. Elated, with minutes to spare, we booked our luggage in and stumbled onto the plane.
This was not how we were meant to leave France, but leaving we were. finally we arrived home within the last few hours of Stuart’s birthday. Oddly enough, months later, Stuart seems to have glossed over the high level of drama we experienced, for he downloads the distinctive SNCF train announcement tune as his ringtone... Strangely, for both of us, whenever his mobile rings, the SNCF tune makes us both smile. (These chapters, courtesy of SNCF.)
76
Life at Home, Again
When we return home it always takes a while to adjust to the cadence and pace of our other life and work again. Yet eventually we pick up the rhythm of our life at home and immerse ourselves in all that is wonderful in our seaside village and satisfying in our working lives. In the two reflected halves of our lives, renovating continues at home, which I have to confess, by now I am quite weary of. Truth be told, my renovating days are really long over and yet we always buy homes, both here and in our petite corner of France, that seem to need a tremendous amount of work. I often wonder when it will end. Right now, the end is certainly not in sight.
Meanwhile too, there are still things in Cuzance to manage from afar. Fortunately no longer quite as challenging as buying a car by email or indeed installing a pool by email. But, there is the matter of managing the maçon not to mention coordinating Jean-Louis’ work in removing the tiles on our dilapidated outbuilding . This has to be done to tie in with the maçon as he will the repair the roof after Jean-Louis has removed t
he tiles. Of course I cannot communicate with either of them directly as I lack the French to do so and they do not speak English. Jean-Claude’s inordinate kindness leads him to again to be my intermediary. Since I have decided to hand over virtually all renovating responsibilities at home to Stuart, I enter once again into a flurry of emails with Jean-Claude to ensure all is in hand.
This time it is critical that as much is in place before Jean-Claude and Françoise close up Le Vieux Priory, which they do every year on November fifteenth.
Hello, I had put off answering you because I hoped to have something positive to tell you; but alas...
I met Jean-Louis in Martel on Saturday and he confessed he had not yet mailed you... I think he’s a bit afraid of computers but he assured me the roof would be attended to since he had already arranged it viva voce with Stuey!
Apparently, your maçon came to fetch the keys to la petite maison but although I was there, I did not perceive his ringing. Fortunately someone had witnessed his attempt and told me he would be back this evening (if again we can’t make contact, I’ll phone him).
I also have to tell you that the Hotel Arnal is going out of business since Chantal is retiring and fired her son earlier in the year and anyway their equipment is superannuated; they would like to set up a coffee-bar cum small shop for bread and other items. However, there is little hope, since they are still living on the premises...
The weather is freezing, with fog, but it will be sunny when we leave on Thursday for Lyon, which is a good thing, since I little appreciated the trip under snow three years ago!
Love to the three of you in warmer climes, JCC.
As I read this, I felt great jubilation that the Hotel Arnal is changing hands, for it has long been another cherished dream that a keen young chef from Paris may one day take over. Once again, as with so many elements of my life, I indulge in fanciful daydreams, that the hotel literally right on our doorstep, will become a gastronomical destination of note. Ah, I see it now; the enviable menu du jour, the hungry young chef, eager to impress and woo new clients. Failing this, a coffee-bar or small shop for pain is almost as enticing, for our daily source of bread is one of our big dilemmas. Oh, if only life was always so easy that it was reduced to the simple concern as to the procuring of our daily pain. This thought too is very appealing. A matter of a minute’s stroll to a coffee shop where the locals linger convivially. The tempting thought too of fresh pastries a stone’s throw away is highly alluring. It will be with enormous excitement that I wait for Jean-Claude’s return to Cuzance the following March to keep me informed about such potentially promising developments.
Our House is Certainly Not in Paris Page 22