by Mary Moody
Making friends has never been a problem for me, but with hindsight I realise that I would have been wiser to include more non-English-speaking French people in my social circle. I hadn’t studied French at school, so it was natural for me to gravitate towards English speakers, but it was also rather lazy. I feel very timid about speaking bad French when, in fact, speaking lots of bad French and struggling to understand and to be understood would have forced me to grasp the language with confidence. I have discovered that when I have to buy a train ticket or transact some business at the post office I can muddle along in French quite well. Gradually my ear has adjusted so that I can follow French conversations if they are not spoken too rapidly. But once I’m socialising in the company of bilingual friends I become self-conscious and tongue-tied, and resist speaking French for fear of making a total fool of myself. This has seriously limited my ability to get to know the locals better.
There are many native English speakers living permanently in France who simply don’t bother learning the language, beyond basic words and phrases which enable them to get by in restaurants and at the market. This effectively disconnects them from the local community, because they can’t interact socially. Dinner parties become purely English-speaking affairs, and they cling to each other rather than trying to assimilate. This is not the way I want to experience France. It’s frustrating not being able to crack a joke, or to join some of the lively debates on politics which are a feature of conversation at any French dinner table.
After my first six-month stay in France, living in a room behind a shop in a medieval village, my return visits have been shorter, usually six to eight weeks at most. Every time I get to the point of beginning to feel I am making some progress in communicating, I pack up and return to Australia, where most of my newly acquired language skills are quickly forgotten. Work, family and farm take priority. I am also not very disciplined when it comes to studying. I get fits of enthusiasm then it all falls by the wayside. I realise that unless I experience ‘full French immersion’ by living with a totally non-English-speaking family for three months at least then I will never become ‘almost French’.
I have also discovered that life in small communities has its social ups and downs, especially among the expat community, and my village is no exception. Among the small number of hamlets which surround it are a wide variety of people from vastly different backgrounds, and there have been rivalries and jealousies, mental illness, nervous breakdowns, alcoholic collapses, horrific car accidents, deaths from cancer and heart attacks, stand-up fights, affairs, marriage break-ups and plenty of acrimony. The population is ageing – both the French and the expats – and this has brought problems too; health and financial problems mainly. I was oblivious to all of this during my first visits to France, but it has become increasingly obvious, and keeping clear of it has proven extremely difficult. As a part-time resident I drift in and out and that makes it tricky to keep up with the local politics. If there has been a falling out – and these seem to happen quite a lot – I’m usually unaware and, quite frankly, I don’t really want to get involved. I just wish they’d all get over it and get along together.
Since I first bought my house nearly eight years ago, two more cottages in the village have been bought by Australians aspiring to live there part of each year. They are just around the corner from me. I know and like them – they are friends of my old mate Jock – yet curiously we have rarely been ‘in residence’ at the same time. There have been plenty of Kangaroo Valley jokes of course, and the locals now call the main street Rue de Billabong because it backs onto a bubbling stream. However the Australian influx is nothing compared with the English invasion. New houses – not very attractive new houses – are being built on the outskirts of the village, and they appear to be predominantly for Britons looking to make their home in the region. Because of its distance from the Channel, the Lot was relatively free from tourism and immigration for many years. Slowly and steadily, however, the population has been changing, and this has to some extent changed the character of the villages.
Those English who do speak French fluently have a pretty fair idea of the local reaction because there are mumblings in the bar and an undercurrent, among the older population, about les Anglaises. On the surface the local businesspeople appear delighted with the relatively affluent new population because without that cash flow their shops and restaurants would undoubtedly have difficulty surviving.
Like all migrant populations, the newcomers tend to cluster together for companionship. In one local restaurant there is a large gathering every Wednesday night, with a floating population of between eight and fifteen English-speaking locals. It can get quite wild and woolly in there as they talk and laugh loudly while eating pizza and gulping the local cheap red wine. They often finish with round after round of Irish coffee or strong liqueurs like Armagnac or Grand Marnier. Individually, they are all very lovable people, but en masse they can be quite daunting. I have joined them quite a few times but don’t feel totally comfortable in their midst. I can’t quite put my finger on it.
The locals I have come to know remain as delightful as ever. My neighbour Madame Thomas always stops for a chat on her way to the boulangerie, and Christian and Christianne, who run the corner bar and the small cafe at the lake, always welcome me with open arms. I feel totally comfortable when I am living in my little house, but I’m aware that no matter how hard I might try, I will always be a foreigner. I remain étrange– strange – to the people here. I’m a married woman who comes to her house but doesn’t bring her husband. I’m an author who has written a book about a local restaurant and also made a documentary on the same subject (which few of them have seen). Yet I don’t drive a flashy car or live in a chateau, which I think is also viewed with some curiosity. Ton Ton Raymond (Uncle Raymond), one of the characters in my documentary about Madame Murat’s restaurant, expressed dismay that I was living in such a modest cottage, slap bang on the main road, in the middle of my rather down-at-heel village. I fear he pictured me in some charming grande maison in an idyllic pastoral setting. Ton Ton didn’t understand that, for me, even the most modest cottage in France was a grand extravagance that I could only maintain by working very, very hard. I have such a different attitude to these things than my husband. He’s much more inclined to work towards squirrelling resources away for a rainy day, but I need to live my life and enjoy the fruits of my labours. France is an extravagance that I can barely justify but I will continue to try to make it work so that I can keep dipping my toe into my other life, even if only for a few weeks at a time.
11
Second time lucky. I returned home from France to find that, this time, the TV show was definitely going ahead. We were each appointed our own personal producer as a minder, and a fashion stylist was commissioned – style was going to be a vital element of the show. Back at the farm I was getting organised – dashing around trying to get the garden in order – in preparation for being away from home five days a week. The producers found me a small apartment in Milsons Point, just under the Harbour Bridge.
There were constant calls on our time from the production office. My producer, Cathy, and the stylist, Talia, together with a cameraman and sound recordist, came up to the farm for a day to ‘look through my wardrobe’ and to shoot a quick ‘snapshot of my life’ that would be screened during our first week to air – to give the audience a bit of an idea about who I was, where I lived, my personality. The other cast members were put through the same experience.
The following week I was asked to fly to Sydney to have my eyebrows plucked by Nathan, who was described as ‘the eyebrow whisperer’. By now the process was beginning to feel a bit weird to me. Not only had a film crew been sticking a camera inside my disorganised walk-in wardrobe, with the stylist poring over my skirts, blouses and shoes, but now my eyebrows were about to be given a makeover. I have indistinct blonde eyebrows and lashes, and have never, ever attacked them with a pair of tweezers. I was
assured it was essential to achieve ‘the look’ that was required. Bemused, then seduced, I surrendered.
We were primped and preened. Our faces were exfoliated with a beauty treatment called ‘dermabrasion’; our hair was coloured, cut and styled; we were given underwear to pull in our tummies, and stockings, shoes and fantastic accessories. We were assigned not one but two make-up artists to transform us into daytime TV stars. It was totally unreal, but in some ways also a lot of fun. I was asked to ditch my glasses and use contact lenses, which I knew would be problematic. It also seemed a bit of a contradiction, as we were constantly encouraged to ‘be ourselves’ as much as possible and I had been wearing glasses for nearly twenty years.
For many women, I imagine the whole experience would be a dream come true. Having expensive new clothes to try on, being treated to a new hairstyle and professional make-up. Being pampered. These beauty sessions were aimed at making us feel special, but they also gave us a chance to get to know each other a little and to develop, rather desperately, like a group of speed-daters, some sort of chemistry that might later translate onto a TV screen for our prospective audience. Bonding, we were told, was essential.
We performed a full-day photo shoot in dozens of different outfits. One minute all in black, next all in white, then in bold primary colours. We shot promotional videos which would run as ads to promote the show and also in the opening credits for the program, dancing, twirling, laughing, uttering throwaway lines that would be then edited together to produce a glossy, pacy introduction.
We spent a week in Sydney rehearsing. Instead of throwing us cold to the audience on day one, it was wisely decided to warm us up by doing some live pilots, complete with interview guests and direct crosses to Pete Timms in the Woman’s Day office.
Once again my indifference to celebrity gossip reared its head. I had vaguely heard of Britney Spears but I had no idea who she was, or what she was supposed to be famous for. When Anna Nicole Smith died just before our first show went to air, I had to admit to my fellow cast members in a production meeting that I had never even heard of the woman. I had no idea. I figured I would just have to button up during these discussions or somehow bluff my way through.
We all had vastly different areas of interest, which should have been a plus. Libbi had broad areas of knowledge and experience, from music and show business to politics and women’s issues, and even sport (another blind spot for me). Lisa was also very up on current affairs, sport and politics, which was a particular passion. She sometimes stunned me with her detailed knowledge. Zoe was obviously very bright but she had made a conscious decision at some point in her life that news – real news – was upsetting and depressing. She avoided the evening TV news programs, and never looked at a newspaper apart from reading her stars and the celebrity gossip. As a result she didn’t know the names or faces of many local or international politicians and had no idea about the issues I believed were important to our audience.
Before our rehearsal period we were thrown into a publicity tour – Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane – to introduce us to the media. We were not briefed about how we should behave during these interviews, but were encouraged yet again to ‘be ourselves’. We were the show. Our individual personalities were the key to it all, our minders at Nine constantly reminded us.
The interview we did with Woman’s Day was a shocker. The magazine was a sponsor of the program, and proposed running a full-page feature article every week. We were taken to a restaurant overlooking the ocean at Bondi, subjected to more ‘glam’ photographs, and then invited to lunch with the magazine’s journalist. She was obviously keen for an ‘off the wall’ story and she got it. After two glasses of wine Lisa was in full flight, throwing around quick responses and funny one-liners. I suppose we were lulled into a false sense of security because the magazine was involved with the program. I assumed they would do a favourable ‘advertorial’. Not so. Instead, they chose to publish some embarrassing banter between Lisa and me. What might have seemed funny at the time didn’t appear quite so amusing in print. Our publicist was starting to look very nervous.
There was something about Lisa that was hard to fathom. She was such an intelligent, humorous and beautiful woman. Yet from the beginning she acted out some strange and unpredictable behaviour. She would vomit at the slightest provocation. The first time was in the boardroom when we were delivered coffee, tea and hot chocolate by Mia’s assistant, carried from the canteen in paper cups with lids. She sipped her drink, then let out a shriek and ran from the room, retching into her hand. By mistake, she had been given coffee instead of hot chocolate. It seemed she didn’t like coffee, or had some violent allergic reaction to it. This episode was the first of many similar puzzling dramas.
We were taken aside one by one and asked to ‘keep an eye on Lisa’. Libbi, in particular, was charged with the role of being Lisa’s minder, and I am quite convinced this caused tension between them.
Sometimes I’d feel like pinching myself, as a jolt back to reality. It was an extraordinary opportunity, falling into the world of live daytime television, but so much of what went on was bizarre and false. I sensed it was nothing more than an illusion.
12
‘The Secret reveals the most powerful law in the universe. The knowledge of this law has run like a golden thread through the lives and the teachings of all the prophets, seers, sages and saviours in the world’s history, and through the lives of all truly great men and women. All they have ever accomplished or attained has been done in full accordance with this most powerful law.’
—Rhonda Byrne, The Secret.
A week before our show was scheduled to go to air Mia Freedman handed me an unmarked DVD.
‘Do you know about The Secret?’ she asked.
‘What secret?’ I replied, trying not to look totally stupid.
‘I want you to watch this DVD. It’s amazing. It’s the reason we are doing this show. You’ll understand when you see it – Tara and I totally believe in it.’
I stuck the disc in my bag and caught the plane back to the farm for the weekend. I had family visiting, and lots of lunches and dinners to cook, and it was late on Sunday afternoon before I suddenly remembered the disc and pushed it into the DVD player.
After fifteen minutes I called out to David: ‘I think I’m in trouble here. Come and look at this. Mia and Tara think this is for real – they believe in it. I think I’m heading for big trouble.’
David sat with me for a few minutes and watched the film. We were in agreement that it was a load of new-age rubbish and totally implausible, but he advised me just to ignore it and get on with the job. He could see no point in making a fuss about something he perceived as being ‘silly and trivial’. I couldn’t help feeling that it was a bit more worrying.
The Secret began life as a self-help video and became an international success in March 2006 with a book, a CD, and a desk calendar. The creation of an Australian TV producer, Rhonda Byrne, it is based on a theory known as ‘the law of attraction’ or ‘like attracts like’. According to Byrne, each individual has the potential to become wealthy and successful – it’s just a matter of ‘asking the universe to provide’. The mantra is Ask. Believe. Receive. When Oprah Winfrey featured The Secret on her television show, she interviewed people who believed that it had changed their lives. They claimed they had gone from being poor and frustrated to becoming rich and successful simply by imagining they were rich and successful. The book includes the story of a man who was sick of getting bills that he couldn’t afford to pay, so he took his bank statement and whited out the total, then wrote in a new total and ‘visualised’ that he had a large sum of money in his account. He claimed that within a month cheques just started arriving into his account and his financial problems were solved.
Some people might simply laugh at such nonsense, but to me it seemed dangerous. Wacky theories such as these prey on the vulnerability of unhappy people, leading them to believe that they can easily live their
dreams. The only people getting rich, in my opinion, are the people writing, publishing and promoting such ideas. I was mortified to think that these intelligent, well-educated and sophisticated women who were my new colleagues could possibly fall for such obvious nonsense.
The following week Mia bounced into the production office and touched my arm.
‘Did you watch the DVD?’ she asked. ‘What did you think?’
‘I thought it was the greatest load of claptrap I’ve ever seen,’ I responded. ‘I don’t believe a word of it.’
Mia looked hurt and went very quiet. I felt awful for bursting her bubble, but I just couldn’t pretend to go along with the whole thing. Apparently Zoe had seen the film and was also convinced it was life-changing information. I wasn’t sure about Libbi and Lisa, but I knew that I couldn’t support the notion that The Secret was the reason behind our show getting the nod of approval from the network. I also sensed that the concept could be introduced as a topic of discussion on the program, and I wanted to distance myself from it from the word go.
Later that week I was in the production office, reading press clippings on the corkboard. Articles that had been published in advance of the show were displayed for us all to see. There was also a curious media release that talked about The Catch-Up as though it had been running for several months. It spoke of the show being a ‘huge ratings success’ for the Nine Network, and of the prospect of moving it from its daytime slot to prime time in the evening. I was totally nonplussed. Then I realised what was going on. Someone in the office had written the release in an attempt to send out positive messages to ‘the universe’ that the show was going to be a runaway success story. It was going to make us all rich and famous. We were living The Secret.
I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.
