The Yellow Villa

by Amanda Hampson

  I feel completely overwhelmed. When I was young, it took me years to learn how to tidy my room. I could never figure out how and where to start. Putting one foot in front of another just doesn’t come naturally. I’m more a dancer than a plodder. Both my mother and Ben accept this failing in me, even if they find it hard to understand how something simple can be made difficult. When I start an art project, it’s more like picking at the edges, teasing it out, seeing what could be. Once it’s going somewhere, it’s like falling in love – exhausting and exhilarating and you can’t think of anything else. It’s disorganised and chaotic, and I’m fine with that.

  Eva began a project to get me started. We scoured out the downstairs bathroom and regrouted the wall tiles. It’s not that I’m uninspired by the bathrooms, all four of them are amazing as far as bathrooms go. Each one is spacious and decorated with patterned and plain tiles in bright yellow and royal blue. The baths and pedestal basins are either soft yellow or pale blue. They’ve been cared for and are in good condition. That first bathroom is finished but, now my mother’s gone, I can’t seem to make myself start the next one.

  I make excuses and procrastinate. Against my will, I find myself spending hours online looking at images of interiors of other people’s houses. I think about all the things that could be done without having any motivation to do them. I worry that I’m becoming a spectator, preferring to dream about things rather than take action. There’s no pleasure in being so lazy; it makes me feel guilty and miserable.

  Ben doesn’t say a thing about it. He’s not one of those people with secret expectations that can never be lived up to. Perhaps it would be better if he was and I’d feel under some pressure. Now I’m making it his fault. The idea to buy this house was so unlike him, I felt it was my duty to come to the party. I’m just not sure how committed I really am.

  At the time, we had been living apart for three months. Our separation wasn’t dramatic – there were no angry scenes, just sad ones. It wasn’t formalised or finalised, it was a kind of trial separation that didn’t make either of us feel any better. We had withdrawn from each other in different ways and in opposite directions. Things that needed to be said were too painful to discuss. Right from the start, Ben couldn’t seem to grasp the depth of my devastation. He never talked about his own feelings. That hasn’t changed. I have to accept that he doesn’t understand and will never understand. Perhaps my expectations weren’t reasonable. There’s no doubt he does his best. But it was that crack in our relationship that allowed Isaac to slip in between us.

  I was happy in my teaching job. I didn’t enjoy the admin or the growing obsession with assessments, but loved working with kids and their crazy imaginations and wild ideas. People lose that pure creativity later on, when ego and the need for recognition worm their way into the creative mind. I enjoyed teaching the kids how to express their ideas. I loved the noise and chaos of the art room. It was rewarding to see talented and hardworking students have their final-year work among the select few to be exhibited in a public gallery, the Art Gallery of New South Wales, no less.

  When I discovered that I could never be a mother, it mysteriously soured my work for me. I wish it could have been otherwise. It wasn’t conscious, it wasn’t fair, it just happened. Over the next few months my work became exhausting, stressful and eventually debilitating. I felt gloomy and irritable. The students’ high spirits grated on my nerves. Some days I couldn’t bear to go to work and would call in sick. I was being eaten away by grief and the pointlessness of my life.

  It was Eva who suggested I take a year off to try to get my mojo back, do something different. By that stage, I didn’t really have a choice. Desperate to escape the misery that was crushing my soul, I convinced myself that change was the answer. I would change everything and begin again. It was as if I needed to blow up my life to find out what could survive the blast. Ben hid his devastation when I suggested we have a trial separation. He was kind, understanding and helpful. I didn’t know what to make of that. He probably should have just stopped me. Talked me out of it. I wasn’t quite right in the head. But that’s not his way.

  I moved into a share house with strangers and found a part-time job in an art supplies warehouse in the city. I’ve always loved art supplies. The textures of watercolour parchment under my fingers, the oily smoothness of a graphite 10B, the boxes of neatly aligned watercolours and acrylics, their names familiar from my earliest memories: cadmium yellow, red ochre, ultra marine blue, titanium white. We sold the raw materials of infinite possibilities for expression.

  I missed my students, but I had nothing left to offer them. I missed Ben but I had nothing to offer him either.

  Isaac bought his art supplies there. He was strikingly handsome, fine-featured with blue-green eyes and dark curls that made him look like an artist from an earlier century. He often stopped to chat with me about what he was working on and showed me images of his works in progress. He was talented and beautiful. In our conversations he revealed that he lived alone in a flat attached to his parents’ house in Bellevue Hill. They were benefactors of the arts and supported his artistic aspirations. He invited me to the opening of an exhibition of his work in a small gallery in Rose Bay. I stepped out of my world and into his, and went home with him that night.

  In the weeks that followed, I saw him more often than I really meant to. He was sweet and sensual and self-involved. He was like an intoxicant that distracted me from my torment. I was self-medicating by imagining myself to be in love with him. But I knew already that we could never flow together the way Ben and I had all these years. I knew we had no future together.

  In the end, I had to tell Ben. It was only fair. He came straight round to the house where I was living. We sat on the bed in my gloomy little bedroom. I had never seen him so upset, so furious and so absolutely convinced that this was not the way things were meant to be. He had thought he just needed to wait for me to come around. He was giving me space, he said. Now he realised that he’d let me drift too far and I’d drifted away.

  ‘Mia, I’m here for you and I always will be and I’ll do whatever it takes to fix what’s broken between us,’ he told me. He gave me a spreadsheet he’d been working on. It listed and cross-referenced everything he loved about me under the headings of Attributes, Qualities, Abilities and Random. He explained that it wasn’t finished, it was a work in progress, but there were already twenty-six items ranging from my habit of getting hiccups from too much wine to the heart-shaped freckle on my shoulder to my ability to knit and sew. The spreadsheet of love. It came to me at a time when I found myself completely unlovable. It wasn’t us who was broken, it was me.

  The next time I heard from him, he messaged me a link to the immobilier in Cordes-sur-Ciel and the image of the yellow villa still for sale. I had lost myself and now this is where I find myself.

  Today is bitterly cold, there’s not one warm spot anywhere in the house and I head straight back to bed. At lunchtime, Ben brings sandwiches and tea upstairs. ‘Aren’t you feeling well?’ he asks kindly, sitting down on the side of the bed.

  ‘I’m good. Just … you know, hibernating. Waiting for the thaw.’

  ‘Probably more comfortable here. The fire’s gone out in the kitchen,’ he says.

  ‘Oh, sorry. I must have left it on too low … I can relight it.’

  ‘We’re out tonight anyway, so don’t worry.’

  ‘I’ll get it going first thing, before you even open your eyes in the morning,’ I promise, feeling like the worst kind of self-indulgent waster.

  ‘Are you feeling down about Eva going? What were you saying to her about a child?’

  ‘Were you two talking about me? The one I keep dreaming about, I’ve told you.’

  He frowns. ‘Who is she? I don’t get it.’

  ‘I feel as though something happened to that little girl. I need to find out —’ I say, feeling suddenly breathless.

  His expression goes blank and he says carefully, ‘Mia, all
sorts of things have happened in this house in the last hundred and fifty years. We don’t need to find out about them. They have nothing to do with us.’

  ‘I don’t need to know everything. I only care about her. I have a sense of her here in the house …’

  Ben looks so worried I immediately regret even mentioning it. ‘It’s okay, I just mean I’m curious about her. I don’t mean she’s haunting the place. Forget it.’ I smile but he’s obviously not convinced by my quick turnaround.

  ‘Why don’t we renovate that room, if it bothers you?’

  ‘It doesn’t bother me, but maybe it’s a sign … maybe something could happen for us.’

  Ben gets up and goes to the window. He stands there staring out into the grey afternoon. ‘I knew that was where this was going. Nothing is going to happen, Mia. And if you think it is, you’re kidding yourself. Let it go.’

  I know he’s right but I can’t seem to shake this feeling. It’s impossible to describe: this child is not like a ghost or a spirit; there is more the sense that I am waiting for someone to come home.

  When he goes back to work, I force myself out of bed and get dressed. I stand at the bedroom window, my hand pressed against the icy-cold pane. It’s the middle of the afternoon and already twilight. All day the sky has been heavy with thick yellowish cloud; now tiny flecks of white spinning and floating like summer blossom gust past the window. I feel quite excited at the idea that this might be snow and wonder if the idea of snow and the reality of it will be another gap, another disappointment.

  As I reach to pull the curtains closed, I notice a figure at the gate. In the dim light, it’s difficult to make out any detail but I’m certain it’s the woman with the brown hat again. She always seems to pause and look at the house in the same way, but with no intention of coming in. It’s like she’s checking on it, or on us.

  In our new world among strangers Le Bleu de Pastel, the Van den Berg’s B&B, has a comforting feel about it, like the home of old friends. We stayed there on our earlier trip and again when we first arrived. Now it’s closed for winter, so we don’t need to share the Van den Bergs with paying guests at the table d’hôtes. This will be our last get-together for a while, as from mid-December they always take a month off and go back to the Netherlands. Eva was right – we do need to make more friends.

  Thomas and Lana are both great cooks. The Harringtons have a complicated intellectual relationship with food. Susannah is always so eager to please, keeping everyone happy but not really enjoying herself. And anyway, you get the idea that nothing is ever quite up to Dominic’s standards. Lana and Thomas are more like us – they just enjoy food and there is a more relaxed sense of bonhomie at their table. Tonight they serve up a delicious rich cassoulet with baguette and a vin rouge from nearby Gaillac.

  ‘I must apologise, Ben,’ says Thomas, as we settle down to eat. ‘We were right out of herring. I know you will be disappointed, but we’ll make it up to you some other time. We can have three courses of only herring, herring soup, baked herring and, of course, herring soufflé – it’s the best.’

  ‘Book me in,’ says Ben with a grin. ‘We can return the favour with a barbecue of charred sausage and fatty chops.’

  ‘Okay, let’s call a truce on the cuisine wars,’ says Lana. ‘You’re putting me off my meal.’

  ‘On another topic, have you guys seen a woman who walks down our road almost every day? Older woman, wears a dark coat and brown hat?’ I ask.

  Lana considers this for a moment. ‘Oh yes, I think I know who you mean. That’s Madame Bellamy. She lives in one of the cottages further down from you.’

  ‘Did she know Madame Levant? Was she a friend?’

  ‘She used to work for her,’ says Lana. ‘You know Madame Levant was very old, somewhere in her nineties. I’m not sure what Madame Bellamy did exactly but I think she was like a housekeeper.’

  ‘When we arrived, ten years ago, you would see Madame Levant about the village,’ says Thomas. ‘She was quite distinctive.’

  ‘Oh yes, everyone knew her. Very elegant and stylish. In the last few years before she died, you didn’t see her at all. I suppose she was unwell,’ adds Lana.

  ‘Do you know anything else about her?’ I ask.

  ‘Not really, I’m sure she must have had close friends here in Cordes. I believe she was born in this village,’ says Lana. ‘Someone said she lived in Paris for years. But that’s all I know.’

  ‘Levant’s not the family name, though,’ says Thomas.

  ‘Ah, that’s right, Levant was her married name. I think the family name was Dupont.’

  ‘So she didn’t have a family, or children?’ I ask. ‘Or grandchildren?’

  Lana shrugs. ‘I don’t really know.’

  ‘Do you think there’s any significance with the house being painted such a strong shade of yellow?’ I ask. ‘The only others I’ve seen are more ochre.’

  ‘Do you mean because of Van Gogh’s house?’ asks Lana. ‘I’m not sure that would have been the family’s intention; I think that’s something only artists would know about.’

  ‘Or Dutch people,’ adds Thomas. ‘We make it our business to know everything other Dutch people do everywhere.’

  ‘There’s a “Yellow House” in Sydney. It was an artist’s collective back in the fifties and sixties,’ I tell them. ‘So what’s the origin of the name Le Bleu de Pastel? You have an affinity for the colour blue?’

  ‘You haven’t heard of le pastel? It’s a plant that makes a deep-blue pigment – at one time there was a huge industry around it here. They called it “blue-gold” – very valuable,’ says Lana.

  Thomas consults his phone and reports: ‘The English name is woad, Isatis tinctoria, to be precise. If that means anything to you.’

  ‘That’s right,’ says Lana. ‘In France, it only grows between Albi, Toulouse and Carcassonne. It made this whole area incredibly wealthy in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries but then, as we know, all good things come to an end. Indigo from India was much cheaper and so the trade “dyed” out. That pale-blue scarf I sometimes wear – I wore it to your place last week – was hand-dyed with le pastel. If you’re interested, I can introduce you to someone who works with the dyes.’

  Thomas turns to Ben. ‘Mate. I need to ask you. I deposited Ether into my cold wallet and I don’t know why, but it took a while to come through.’

  Ben’s more than happy to switch to one of his favourite subjects. ‘Different exchanges have different confirmation times. It should take the miners around thirty confirmations to process because it goes through the ECDSA on the blockchain to keep the ledger. But, you know the higher the gas limit, the quicker the transactions, right?’

  Lana turns to me and says in French, ‘Ignore them. We have our own secret language.’ She speaks excellent French and right now she’s the only person I can have a real conversation with outside my day-to-day transactions. It’s become a bit of a sticking point with Ben, but I adore speaking French, and love the chance to stretch myself with an in-depth discussion. So, while the men wrestle with the intricacies of cryptocurrency, Lana and I talk about colour and natural dyes using vegetables and leaves. Her passion is ancient history and she knows all about mordants and old methods of dyeing wool and fabric. She suggests that, when they return from holidays, we go foraging in the woods and do some experimenting. For the first time in a long while I feel that tingle of interest that I can’t quite put a name to. Both our conversations make me realise how much more we have in common with Lana and Thomas, who are closer in age to us. We inhabit the same world, whereas the Harringtons seem to live in an earlier time – and on a different planet.

  ‘So, how are you getting on with Monsieur Harrington?’ asks Thomas, reading my thoughts.

  ‘He’s a funny one,’ says Ben affectionately. ‘He’s not a bad bloke.’

  Lana looks at me. I’m not going to lie to agree with Ben. ‘I don’t find him funny. He’s unbelievably rude.’

  ‘Oh
brother, the chair again. Look, that was a one-off incident,’ protests Ben.

  ‘He’s got this “special” chair, right? I thought it was just a chair for sitting on, like other chairs. I sat on it for about five seconds and he yelled at me to get off it.’

  ‘What? Oh no, that’s terrible …’ Lana looks at Thomas as though he might have an explanation.

  Thomas shrugs philosophically. ‘He’s his own man, as they say. He has a strange sense of humour, normal rules don’t apply —’

  ‘That’s how I see him too,’ says Ben. ‘He’s just a bit different. He’s a really clever guy.’

  ‘You’re making him sound interesting and eccentric,’ says Lana. ‘He’s not!’

  I agree with her. ‘He might be clever but I think men would have a completely different impression of him. He has absolutely zero interest in anything I have to say. Old-school misogynist.’

  ‘Wow, that’s harsh.’ Ben seems surprised I feel so strongly.

  ‘I agree one hundred per cent! He ignores me and he didn’t like seeing us at your house last week. He was quite annoyed,’ says Lana. ‘He wants you all to himself.’

  ‘Well, let’s not fully attack him.’ Ben hates talking about people behind their backs.

  ‘No, let’s not,’ says Thomas. ‘I will say one last thing on this subject. I am curious to know his secret.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ asks Lana.

  ‘Well, you know, many people come to France to reinvent themselves. They start a new story where no one knows their history. I’m sure of two things. Number one, that the “Harringtons” have an interesting history and, number two, that their name is not really Harrington.’

  ‘You’ve never told me this!’ says Lana. ‘How do you know?’

  ‘That’s because I’m not a gossip but a man of great discretion. I happen to know that they don’t have mail delivered, they collect it from La Poste and I have noticed that it’s not addressed to Harrington. I couldn’t quite read the name … but, it’s short, I would say four or five letters at the most.’