In September, Mimi would be entering her second year of high school and Harry would be in his last year of primary school. It barely seemed possible that these Australian children had made such a quantum leap in culture and language and nowadays straddled the two worlds with such ease. Mimi continued to read a huge variety of styles of literature, mostly in English, but like her friends at school she was coping with the large extracts from classic French novels that were on the required reading list. My admiration for both of my children was boundless as they overcame the difficulties of the French language that I had struggled with in my third year of university. Nothing fazed them as they rose to the challenge of learning long lists of irregular verbs and differences in tenses. The French education system is obsessed with language and it is drilled day after day; dictations are still very much part of the syllabus. It made our lackadaisical Australian attitude to the English language seem very much below par. During the short period of time that I taught languages in Sydney in the 1980s, the task was nearly impossible; none of the students had ever been taught English grammar so their knowledge of verbs and sentence construction was extremely poor and needed to be built up before they could make the first steps to understanding a foreign language.
Claire was also gratified by her offspring’s successes. The French education system often has entrance exams for universities and selected private schools and courses that are attempted after the completion of the baccalauréat. Her daughters had received their results from these highly competitive exams, which they had taken in June, at the end of the scholastic year. The results were a triumph for both girls. Géraldine, whose speciality was mathematics, was accepted into a strenuous course that would give her a wealth of choices in her future career. Her younger sister Lorélie had competed against thousands of young hopefuls to gain entrance into the prestigious naval officers’ school in Brest. The odds were stacked against her: the enormous size of the candidature was bad enough, but being a female seemed an insurmountable disability. Not only had she been accepted — she was also one of the strongest candidates.
It was an outstanding achievement — directly for both the girls and indirectly for Claire. She had weathered a bitter divorce that had left her with crippling financial constraints, and had had no family to help her for many years, until she had met Patrick with his fabulous handlebar moustache and heart of gold. She had managed to keep the girls on a straight path, reciting the family mantra that education and good manners were the only things that mattered. It certainly helped that Claire was gorgeous and intelligent and the girls had inherited her brains and her beauty. Needless to say, Géraldine and Lorélie had both been at the top of their class most of their lives. Magic surrounded Claire and her home, woven in a tight blanket over her family and all those who touched her life. However, Claire was like many French nowadays and kept religion at a safe distance. Their home was completely bereft of any religious icons, crosses or statues. She attested that within the home she maintained a strong belief in what is right and wrong and had no need for religious symbols.
It always startled me to see such a radical shift in viewpoint in a relatively short period of time. When I lived in France during the late 1970s, religion was an integral part of the social fabric: discreet crosses hung around necks, saint days were respected and traditions upheld, religious symbols were scattered throughout the home and social interaction was strongly entwined with Mass on Sunday and the other holy days sprinkled thickly through the French calendar. Almost thirty years later, there appears to be a marked change in the religious life of the French: they still keep the public holidays but don’t necessarily observe their religious significance.
The lack of clients towards the end of October allowed us to take advantage of the frequent flyer points that had accumulated once again, and we set off for yet another flying visit to Sydney to see family and friends. We all wondered secretly if this eternal travelling was giving anyone a great deal of pleasure. When would we ever be able to go to Morocco, Turkey or New York on the cheap package trips leaving from Marseille? In Sydney in October and November, the children’s old friends were in school and friendships were fast becoming forgotten. My old friends, too, were busy with their lives, and in retrospect even Raymond seemed bizarrely distracted and preoccupied. Part of the puzzle was not fitting together. Why does a woman choose not to see what is right under her nose?
Raymond was coming to France in early 2004 so we could have a family holiday, hopefully with nuptials included, in Venice during the February school holidays. As yet there had not really been any concrete proposal, but I had visited a lot of ‘weddings in Italy’ sites on the Internet, so I was more than prepared. Outstanding idea. Excellent. Perfect. The children would come with us and we could spend a week floating in a gondola in the freezing cold and driving rain and slop around ankle-deep in the flooded St Mark’s Square. It would be so romantic. It could not get better than that.
I would have stopped talking about our wonderful wedding-to-be if I had noticed his fingernails turning white as he gripped the armchair in total terror.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
The Bottom of Things
November in France is usually rainy, cold and miserable, and 2003 was no exception. The properties were closed for minor repairs. The school routine had been quickly picked up again through necessity, as the piles of homework grew daily.
Raymond had finally said just before we left Sydney that February was unsuitable for a winter wedding as it would coincide with another huge family gathering in New Zealand, and he felt that as we had waited so many years a couple of months more didn’t matter. Maybe we should wait for a more suitable time for everyone? I did not notice his shifty eyes and sweaty palms or his inability to look at me directly. Venice in midwinter was perhaps not the best choice. It wasn’t a bad one as far as I was concerned, but he did have his reasons and family is important. The impending nuptials were put on hold and I turned my attention to seeing if I could get my manuscript read by someone in publishing, printed and then sold in every major bookshop in the world.
The manuscript completed, I assumed that it was only a question of time before some ecstatic publisher would come knocking at my door waving a massive cheque under my nose. Only a good dose of reality could burst the bubble and I steadfastly refused to listen to anything that resembled it. Not once had I stopped to think that less than two per cent of aspiring writers actually have manuscripts published. As usual, I had gone about it completely the wrong way, never bothering to find out the basics — how to present the manuscript, what type or what spacing to use, should it be bound or not bound — let alone heeding any suggestions from family friends who were published authors. Enveloped in a cloud of idyllic ignorance, I made a list of important things to do:
1. Review manuscript once again.
2. Write fabulous letter to publisher or agent.
3. Find out who was a fabulous publisher or agent.
4. Decide how many noughts I would accept as a contract.
5. Decide how many noughts I would accept for film rights.
Hours were spent on the Internet, double-checking any information on publishing, as well as gleaning any information I could from prefaces and acknowledgments of books in the desperate search for a name to whom I could direct my manuscript or letters. The task of sourcing names and addresses of publishers and agents from all parts of the English-speaking world was eventually achieved, then the long process of printing portions or sample chapters with an accompanying letter began, absorbing reams of paper and black ink. Hours were spent standing in queues at the village post office, paying vast sums of money for postage to faraway destinations; no country was going to avoid my deluge of appeals for publication. In descending priority, large thick creamy envelopes were posted to every major publishing house in the English-speaking world, then to medical publications, scientific journals, legal periodicals, newspapers, travel magazines, women’s magazines, new mother maga
zines and finally airline magazines, even though my manuscript did not fit their submission guidelines. I was convinced that they would see the value and quality of my manuscript and immediately change their editorial direction. Some were sent only my fabulous letter, written entirely for their benefit; one sheet of creamy deckle paper, designed to make them drop everything and beat a path to my door, waving wads of money in front of my face. Others were sent the fabulous letter with bonus extracts from my manuscript, mentioning my immediate availability to discuss fat cheques and film options. Ignorance was bliss, and on a cold winter’s afternoon, the idea of a fat cheque was so appealing and comforting.
On another front, I began the embarrassing undertaking of calling agents in London. They were, for the most part, polite, but clear that they were not in the market for yet another aspiring author, especially one from the Antipodes. Some were gracious and spent a few moments of their precious time directing me to another area — well away from them.
The children sat quietly munching their afternoon snack as we went through the pile of letters that began to arrive before Christmas. At first, they were convinced that if I said something would happen, it generally did. We waited patiently for the letter that would say that a publisher wanted to see the manuscript in its entirety or would like our address so that they could send a truckload of money to the house before Christmas. When Mimi and Harry started to avoid afternoon snacks, preferring to make a beeline to their rooms to begin their hours of homework, I questioned how realistic I was with my goal, despite the enthusiasm my friends and family had shown about what I believed to be the final draft of my precious manuscript.
During our daily telephone calls, Raymond stood fast in his conviction that it would be published sooner or later; the emphasis was on the sooner, so he said. However, this seemed to be the only area where there was any agreement between us. Our daily calls had become even more spasmodic and curt. The publication of my book was the only subject where we could voice our opinions without disputes. I trod carefully around other subjects, never asking any questions that would lead to answers I did not want to acknowledge. Emails were sent to the children, but nothing came to me. Our relationship appeared to have sprung a major leak, and yet I doggedly maintained that a wedding would fix everything. Claire never ventured to voice her opinion out loud, but she often swung her right arm limply in front of me, leaving me in no doubt that she thought it was time for amputation, not a wedding. I knew deep down that she was right, but I couldn’t bring myself to voice my fears.
After a very quiet and fairly glum Christmas, the three of us voted that it was our Worst Ever and we all took the vote never to repeat the experience of a small Christmas. Great food and loads of presents did not compensate for the lack of guests and noise that is necessary for a festive occasion. After Claire and Patrick’s family and friends had left their tiny house there was room for us at the table to celebrate New Year with them, but most of the holidays were spent lying in front of the television or reading books in front of the fire in quiet boredom. The children charged back to school the moment the holidays were over, desperate to be reunited with their friends. I promised them that we would do something fabulous during the next holidays.
Claire suggested that a change of scene was in order for the forthcoming February school holidays, in an effort to shake me from my disenchantment with fate and destiny. Bob and Marie Sharp, Australian friends of my parents, had lived in Florence for over thirty years. They, very wisely I thought, spent a great deal of the miserable Florentine winter enjoying the affections of grandchildren and a Sydney summer, so they offered me the use of their wonderful apartment, right on the Arno River in the heart of Florence. Claire and Raphaël would join us; Claire had found a small bed and breakfast near the Sharps’ apartment, on the opposite side of the Piazza Santa Croce. From Apt to Florence it would take seven hours in the car to travel 670 kilometres and cost ninety euros in diesel and tolls. With Claire at the wheel, we would get there in record time. She had spent a great deal of her young married life driving in the sand hills of Djibouti in eastern Africa, so I always caved in to her requests to be the driver. As it happened, that was a good thing when we spun out of control down the expressway, unexpected snow thick all around us and black ice on the road. We joined most of the cars on the expressway, which had skidded into the ditches along the side of the road before the Autoroute du Soleil was closed by the authorities. The car aquaplaned to the shoulder of the expressway, where we stayed for an eternity in our white cocoon until the snowplough rescued us. Above us was a large billboard: ‘Welcome to the Sunny south of France, where the sun always shines.’
So began the trip of a lifetime. Travel has always been such a part of my life that it is an experience in itself to be with someone like Claire, who (apart from her African travels as a young woman) had rarely been out of Provence, let alone France. For her, suitcases were about moving house yet again as the family’s circumstances were continually downgraded: rarely for the joys of a holiday. This holiday was to be savoured, devoured, grabbed with two hands and consumed with gusto. Claire was not a woman who politely nibbled at life; she had it by the throat and was attacking it without constraint. Research had been done on every facet of the history and culture of Florence; opening and closing times for every conceivable gallery and museum within a sixty-kilometre radius had been checked and then double-checked on the Internet, maps drawn, guide books consulted and basic Italian phrases from tapes learnt parrot fashion. Having spent a great deal of time in Florence as a young woman, I could guide everyone in and out of the back streets to avoid the hordes of tourists that stuck to the main tracks around the large tourist spots. I had never been so ready for a holiday.
All of the museums were visited. The dancing Botticelli ladies that had so delighted Harry when he first saw them four years ago were in the same place in the Uffizi Art Gallery and looked just as beautiful, but this time, with the wisdom of his eleven years, he suddenly found it bitterly sad that he was growing older but they would always remain the same. Shoes, bags and cheap belts were bought from the markets in Siena; every flavour of ice cream was tried and assessed on its merits; luxurious mink coats were admired in the exclusive shop windows of Fendi and Gucci; items with Ferrari insignia were drooled over by the boys while Claire and I admired the Alessi kitchenware, even though little was bought. Our visits to the local shops and markets ended with us staggering away with woven straw baskets filled to the brim with freshly made ravioli stuffed with fresh ricotta cheese and spinach, sticks of salami, large wedges of pale hard Parmesan or Pecorino cheeses, and the ubiquitous plastic containers of olives marinated in rosemary and garlic.
In the back streets of Florence, we went in search of restaurants only frequented by the locals and stumbled upon places that offered up thick garlicky soups filled with cabbage, beans and vegetables, grilled meats liberally sprinkled with herbs, and boiled meat dishes served with a vivid green herb sauce that was astutely side-stepped by the children, who screwed their faces up in mock horror. They preferred to savour instead the huge diversity of pasta dishes and thick tomato-based stews made by grandma out the back, who served up the requested dishes while still stirring the pot of bubbling polenta — a thick corn meal — which serves as an accompaniment to many Tuscan meals. If there were any room left, and there always was, the dessert list was attacked as if there were no tomorrow: apple tarts, ice creams, slices of sponge cakes oozing cream and chocolate topped with almonds and meringue, all made by grandma. Nothing would stop the three ravenous adolescents.
Claire and I pretended to be pillars of restraint but tumbled pathetically when it came to the local varieties of red wine and the hard sweet nut biscuits that went with the fortified digestives. A competition was started to find a loaf that personified the perfect consistency and shape of Italian bread, but we voted unanimously that the French won hands down in this lone area. And while we waited in queues, Claire drilled the children in Fren
ch irregular verbs, tenses and spelling, much to the great amusement of American tourists. The Italians might have fabulous architecture and outstanding art galleries, but nothing in the world will ever compare with the beauty of the French language, according to the children’s private tutor.
Travelling with Claire was like travelling with a frenzied whirlwind; she was so excited about the differences between French and Italian architecture, the language, and the nonstop vibrancy of the Italian way of life. Her enthusiasm fuelled us in moments of pathetic tiredness and overcame our dismay when we had to climb yet another tower or more endless flights of stairs leading to a spectacular view. And up we went: up the 463 steps of the Brunelleschi Duomo in Florence, along the 4.2 kilometres of walls around Lucca, up the tallest tower in San Gimignano — 54 metres high — which in the end did not even compete with the Torre del Mangia in Siena at 102 metres high and with 505 steps.
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