Love in a Warm Climate

by Helena Frith-Powell

  The French Art of Having Affairs

  After my near-death experience with the man in the cloth cap, I decide to collect the children for lunch in the car. The school bell rings and the assembled mothers walk in. I see the blonde pretty lady from earlier and hear another mother say hello to her and call her Audrey. As we file into the maternelle section, Sylvie calls out the name of the child whose mother has arrived. She spots me and calls out “Edouard.” Soon after he trots out looking fine. No scars, no tears and no ripped clothes, no accusing stares. Phew.

  “How was it, darling?” I ask as we walk out into the playground to collect the girls.

  “There’s an English boy there called Sky,” he says. “You know like the sky. The others are all French.”

  “Is he nice?”

  “Yes, he is. Better than Charles. He’s French and he thinks he’s Spiderman. And he’s not Spiderman, I am.”

  The girls join us. “Mummy, we have a new friend called Cloud,” says Emily, hugging me.

  “Oh, any relation to Sky?” I ask as a joke.

  “Yes, it’s her brother, he’s in the maternelle section. Cloud’s mummy is really thin and pretty and works in TV. You’ll meet her soon.”

  “Can’t wait,” I say, rolling my eyes. “How was your first day, darling?” I turn to Charlotte.

  “Good, it was hard to understand everything but Cloud helped us both translate, she sat between us, and the teacher is really nice, he’s a man called M. Chabour. I can even spell his name in French now; listen.”

  “So can I,” shrieks Emily and they both start spelling and yelling.

  “Calm down, first Charlotte then you Emily. It was Charlotte’s idea.”

  By the time we get home even Edward knows how to spell his name in French.

  This is my first day as a French mother. Well, not really a French mother, but a mother doing things the French way, which includes bringing your children home at midday for a proper lunch. I have prepared a healthy and nutritious lunch of chicken breasts, runner beans and mash. Predictably, they hardly eat any of it, preferring instead to finish off the pain au chocolat from breakfast, which of course I won’t let them do.

  “This is beauty food,” I say pointing at a runner bean, sounding like an Avon Lady on a hard sell. “This food will make you grow. Chocolate won’t.”

  No reaction.

  “Ok, here’s the deal. Ten runner beans each, five mouthfuls of mash and three of chicken. Then you can have a pain au chocolat.”

  “No,” says Charlotte. “Seven, three and one of chicken.”

  “Eight, four and two,” I insist, although it is against my policy to negotiate with terrorists.

  They look at each other and nod. “Deal,” says their leader, Charlotte.

  I wonder how many French mothers have to go through this kind of thing every day at midday. I get the feeling that it’s not very many. French children seem incredibly well behaved; they are always sitting in restaurants for meals that go on for longer than some marriages without so much as a twitch of dissatisfaction. Maybe it’s in the genes.

  Getting into the car after lunch I spot my would-be assassin. I decide to confront him and ask him in broken French what his problem is with us walking through the vineyards.

  “Oui, madame, mais vous comprenez…” he begins.

  “No, you see that’s just the problem, I don’t ‘comprenez’ in the slightest. Why can’t we just walk across the vineyard? It’s not doing any harm to anyone. We’re not walking on the vines or damaging anything, and it saves us 15 minutes each way, which when you add it all up is an hour a day I could be spending doing any number of more useful things than avoiding this vineyard.”

  I already hate old M. de Sard, the owner. I don’t actually know that M. de Sard is old, having never met him, but it seems to me only an old person could be so stubborn and irrational. My cleaning lady Agnès tells me that he lives between the family apartment near the Opéra in Paris, a vast château near Avignon and his more modest (but still huge) château next to mine. But, it seems, despite spending only about three days a year here, he has sent instructions that the children and I are on no account to be given permission to cross his land on our way to school. The only thing between our house and the village school is his land. Avoiding his land means a huge detour, which on a school-run morning we don’t have time for. And I didn’t move to the middle of nowhere in France to get in my car every minute where there is a school walking distance away.

  Gilles, as the dreaded foreman is called, repeats his mantra.

  “You no go on land, c’est interdit.”

  “What does interdit mean?” I ask the girls.

  “Forbidden,” all three children answer at the same time. Obviously that’s one of the first words you learn at French school.

  “What should be interdit is trying to shoot people who are innocently walking across land that happens to be in their way,” I snap. I ask him in my basic French when his lord and master is due to come back.

  “Oh la la,” he says shrugging his shoulders. I am stunned. They actually SAY that? I thought that was just a cliché, some sort of joke perpetuated by the French Tourist Board. He’ll be donning a beret and picking up a snail to munch on any second.

  “Je n’en sais rien,” he says.

  I guess that means ‘I don’t know and I don’t care’.

  “Well, when he does come back, could you please ask him to call me or come and see me? I want to sort this out. Come along children,” I snap, wagging my finger in his general direction until I notice my nails are shamefully un-manicured. I put them away in case he decides to report me to the French style police.

  At the school gates, the children’s new friends are already gathered.

  “Mummy, this is Calypso,” says Charlotte dragging me running towards a thin and attractive woman with long dark hair. “Cloud’s mummy.”

  For some reason I am reminded of being a child, with my mother trying to set me up with other children – something I always hated.

  “How do you do?” says the woman, who is wearing a similar tie-dye outfit to the one I saw her daughter wearing earlier, only in yellow. I read somewhere that yellow is the most unflattering colour you can wear, but she seems to look good in it. Mind you, she is the kind of person who would look good wearing a bin-liner, or even a yellow tie-dyed dress.

  “I’m Calypso Hampton.”

  “Hello,” I say shaking her outstretched hand. “I’m Sophie.”

  “Good to meet you, Sophie. Don’t look so nervous,” she laughs. “It’s not compulsory to be friends with me. I hate the idea that just because you come from the same country as someone you have to be friends, don’t you?”

  I smile and agree and immediately want to be friends with her.

  “How are you finding things?” she asks.

  I can’t tell her the truth; it might put her off me for life. “I find the whole French language thing very difficult,” I say. “A few days ago in a café I asked for some butter and ended up with two beers.”

  She laughs. “I once told Cloud’s teacher that Cloud had lice in her horses,” she said. “The difference between chevaux and cheveux is totally imperceptible to me. I mean, for us hair is hair and a horse is a horse. Much more sensible. I think they do it just to confuse us foreigners. Do you know that in France your class is obvious not so much by your accent but your command of the language? For example if you use a liaison between two words ending in vowels, you’re considered posh.”

  I can’t even think of two French words ending in vowels, let alone a liaison – whatever that is. But I just nod and say “how interesting”. I don’t know how she sounds in French, but Calypso sounds very posh to me in English.

  “Must dash,” she says. “Let’s arrange a play-date soon, the kids all seem to be getting on well. The little English mafia.”

  I laugh and nod. “Yes, it’s lovely that they have made friends so quickly. I was a bit worried.”

>   “Oh don’t worry, it really is a lovely place to live, we’re all very friendly.” She waves and goes off.

  I think to myself that there’s probably not much point in my making friends, or even arguing about walking on M. de Sard’s land, when we won’t be here for much longer. Although at the very least I would like the children to do one term in a French school, which will mean they are miles ahead when they go back to England.

  England… Soon I will have to get used to the weather again, used to that relentless greyness, the drizzle, the children’s muddy feet. That’s one of the most incredible things about living here; there’s no mud. Mud has become a thing of the past; the wellies, which back home were out every day, haven’t even been unpacked.

  On the way back from school I call Sarah. As I dial her number, I wonder how she’ll react; she’s always got on well with Nick. She’ll probably tell me to do a couple of sun salutations, breathe deeply and hope he comes back.

  “Hi sweetpea, it’s me,” I say.

  “Hi my darling, how are you?”

  “Not good. Nick has another woman.”

  There is a crash.

  “Sarah?”

  “Oh God, sorry Soph, I was in downward dog and I dropped the phone. What the fuck is going on?”

  “He’s gone; he’s got some woman called Cécile from Paris. They’ve been having an affair for about five months, I found out yesterday. I’m in shock.”

  “Bloody hell. What a bastard. Who is she? Have you told the children?”

  “She’s a client, apparently. And no, I haven’t said anything yet.”

  “How did you find out?”

  “I found one of her bras in his luggage.”

  “Shit, shit, shit. How indiscreet. What the hell are you going to do? Will you stay over there?”

  “No, I don’t think I can,” I say. “I mean what would I do? It’s not like I can find a job and we’re going to need money.”

  “What do you mean what can you do? Run the frigging vineyard, like you went out there to do.”

  “But I don’t know anything about wine,” I protest.

  “Neither did your husband, unless you count drinking it as previous experience. But that didn’t stop him. You were going to market it, weren’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, now you’ll just have to do the other bits too. How hard can it be? Millions of people all over the world grow vines and make wine out of them, even Australians.”

  Sarah’s last boyfriend was Australian and he chucked her and moved in with his male yoga instructor. She is still quite bitter.

  “Can’t you get your mysterious French château-owning neighbour to help?”

  “No, he’s hateful. He won’t even let us walk on his blessed land. Oh Sarah, I just don’t think I’ve got the energy. Where the hell do I begin? I don’t know the first thing about it. I wouldn’t even know when to pick the damn things. In fact I wouldn’t even know how to pick them.”

  “Don’t be silly,” says Sarah. “If you can find out how to make a bomb on the Internet, then I’m sure there is some information about running a vineyard. Soph, you can’t just give up and come back. What the hell would you do here?”

  “Find a job I guess, and somewhere to live.”

  “If you think being a single parent in a lovely house in France is tough, then try it in South London. Not that I know anything about being a single parent, but I see them Soph, and they look stressed. You don’t need to come home. Nick the faithless bastard will have to support you all to some extent, so take advantage of that and get the vineyard up and running.”

  “Oh Sarah, I just can’t face anything, I feel so alone. But enough about me – how are you?”

  “Oh for God’s sake, Soph, stop being so thoughtful. I’m fine of course – more than fine actually. I’ll tell you when I see you.”

  “When will that be do you think? Not that I am desperate. Well actually, to be honest, I am.”

  “I’m looking on the Internet for a ticket right now, Montpellier isn’t it?”

  I nod.

  “Hello? You still there?”

  “Sorry, yes, I forgot I had to speak, I was nodding.” The tears have started again.

  “Soph darling, I can’t imagine what you’re going through, but you need to be strong. Are you eating?”

  “Hell no, I can’t face a thing. Mind you I could do with losing some weight; it’s probably my fat thighs that drove him into Cécile’s lissome arms.”

  “Loathsome more like,” says Sarah. “But losing weight and getting yourself in shape is a good thing to do at a time like this, it makes you stronger, you feel empowered. I’ll email you my fifteen-minute toning yoga workout now and run you through it when I get there. It’s great for your abs, bum and all flabby bits. You’ll be in shape within a month. And there’s that book I gave you about finding your inner French woman.”

  “Thanks, but right now I just feel like curling up and dying to be honest, with or without matching underwear.”

  “Oh my darling, I’m so sorry.”

  “It’s not your fault.”

  “I know, sweetpea. You’ll have to tell the children, you know,” she adds gravely.

  “What do I say?”

  “You tell them that Daddy has decided to go and live in England.”

  “I can’t, they’ll feel totally rejected and abandoned. Can’t I just tell them that he’s gone there for work?”

  “I don’t know. You really need to talk to him about that. Call him. I’ll let you know what time my flight gets there. I probably won’t be able to leave until tomorrow. I’ll have to square it with Cruella de Ville first. I’ll rent a car, so don’t worry about collecting me. What do you want from Blighty?”

  I try to think of something I am missing, apart from self-waxing legs. “No, just some girlie time,” I say. “Thanks Sarah.”

  I spend most of the afternoon on my bed, alternating between sleeping and fretting. I am exhausted from the events of last night but can’t seem to switch off. I look at my clock every ten minutes, worried I will fall asleep and miss the school pick-up. At 4.15 I get up and go to collect the kids.

  On our way back from school, I reflect that it is now almost twenty-four hours since I found Cécile’s bra in my husband’s luggage and so far I have done nothing at all in terms of making decisions, breaking the news to anyone except Sarah or even considering what to do with Frank and Lampard. Maybe they could transfer to old M. de Sard’s land? As long as they don’t walk through the vineyards, that is.

  But never mind the peacocks, I think; I am doing a great impression of an ostrich – except that my thighs are much fatter.

  I wonder how Nick’s feeling. Nick has that very male ability to move on extremely quickly. Just about the only time I ever saw him upset for more than an hour was when Chelsea lost the Champions League on goal difference to Manchester United. That was always what I thought was one of the great things about him: his optimism and joie de vivre, as they call it down my way.

  He’s one of those people who always sees the silver lining as opposed to the cloud. I imagine he would have taken being dumped in France quite well. Onwards and upwards, he would have said, leaping out of bed to face the day. Whereas there is just no way I can even imagine moving on at all. I feel like a truck stuck in the mud (except there is no mud here): my wheels are spinning but I’m not getting anywhere.

  I watch the children on the way home, playing tigers, crouching and pouncing and growling at each other. It’s the kind of thing I used to play, but I was always alone. My parents divorced when I was a toddler, and although my mother remarried more often than most people change their cars, she never had any more children. I always wanted to give my own kids the happy carefree childhood I didn’t have. And until the bra-in-the-bag incident, it never occurred to me that I would do anything else.

  When she gets here, Sarah will tell me that this is a good opportunity to find another man, or even rekindle an
old acquaintance, like Johnny Fray. But where will I begin? And who knows what murky secrets lurk in the depths of unknown men? A friend of mine ended up unwittingly dating a man who had murdered his wife. She only started to realise when she went to his cottage in the Wiltshire countryside, which was a total mess – in stark contrast to him, who was always well turned out.

  “I’ve been away a long time,” he told her by way of explanation. Then he offered to show her his “special” place in the woods. Alarm bells started ringing and she rushed off, citing a somehow-forgotten appointment at the hairdresser’s at 9pm on a Friday evening.

  When she got home she Googled him, and sure enough, he had been away for a long time: twelve years to be precise, for chopping up his missus in little bits and burying her in the woods. In a really “special” place.

  I am thirty-six, so any man I meet is around that scary mid-life kind of age where strange things start to happen, even if they are not wife-murderers. Nick, for example, last year, started to listen to hard rock.

  “It makes me feel alive,” he would say when I asked him about it.

  It makes me feel like throwing the stereo out of the window, but he insisted it was good for your neural pathways, those things that keep your brain active and young – apparently the more you have, the less likely you are to get Alzheimer’s. In the interests of my neural pathways, I put up with it, but I still hated it.

  So there’s one upside to Nick going off with another woman, I conclude as my three tigers run into the house: I will never have to listen to Led Zeppelin again.

  They run past a robust-looking woman with a disapproving look on her face and a strange shade of red hair that I have noticed is extremely popular round these parts, waiting for me at my door.

  “Madame Reed,” she says, pronouncing the Reed with a rolling r and endless e’s, so it sounds like weeeeeed, before launching into a diatribe in colloquial French. I think it has something to do with the fact that I didn’t buy the right cleaning products, but with my cleaning lady Agnès I am never too sure. The only surety is that she will grumble and sweat and huff and puff a lot.

  “Bonjour Agnès,” I smile. “Il fait beau, n’est-ce pas?” I am trying a tactic that involves always being positive and happy when I see her, as an experiment to see if I can shake her dogged pessimism. And that includes being Miss Jolly even just after my husband has left me for another woman.