Farewell My French Love

by Nadine Williams

  After Jane’s proposal, I begin to surmise if it would work travelling with her. I find myself asking, ‘Why not return to France?’ It could be nice to retrace my steps with Olivier and show Jane all the wonderful sites we visited.

  Eventually, I phone Jane telling her I like her idea of travel and she flies to Adelaide to plan our holiday together. She is so full of enthusiasm that I don’t voice my doubts, but I do think: Oh Oli, I don’t know how I feel about returning to France without you. I think I am terrified of the unknown.

  Yet, I feel the fear and plan anyway for Barcelona, Provence and Paris together with Jane and another three weeks alone in Paris. Ideas begin to flow and I decide to attend Alliance Française, the French language and cultural learning centre in Paris, to consolidate my flimsy knowledge of French. And, then I do the online test and send off the fees. They organise host accommodation for me. Suddenly after a handful of emails, it’s cast in stone.

  So much depends on this holiday. When my dear mother died, my grief was intense for a short period, but life returned to normal in due course. But, as the new year dawns, I have not recovered fully from Olivier’s death and I continue fortnightly doctor’s visits. Although I can intellectualise that grief has been like a wet blanket temporarily smothering me emotionally, I have been unable to feel happy again. That exquisite joy, in late July, when my granddaughter Scarlett was born, flashed by in short-lived ecstasy, falling like a comet almost immediately. I still hate opening the door of our home alone. In fact, my life as a widow has been a shipwreck. So I have imagined that returning to Paris, the place where I fell in love with Olivier, may trigger the metamorphosis. Finding love again was a mid-life miracle. Now I hope the glorious city of Paris, which lifts the spirits simply by walking its streets, will spin its magic once more. Because I will need magical thinking to lift this shroud of sadness.

  In the weeks prior to our departure, I wean myself off anti-depressants. Twelve months is long enough to take medication. Paris will be my panacea.

  TWO

  BEAUTIFUL BARCELONA

  ‘You can settle for reality, or you can go off like a fool and dream another dream.’ Nora Ephron, Heartburn

  September 2013

  It is well after midnight in Singapore airport’s transit lounge and I’m as tense as a wound spring. My flight from Adelaide landed an hour ago and Jane was due to arrive from Sydney half an hour later, in plenty of time to board our flight to Barcelona at 1.10 am.

  I cast an anxious eye down the concourse and crane my neck for yet another nervous scan of passengers in the departure lounge. The first boarding call must be due any minute.

  We knew our rendezvous would be tight, but it seemed deliciously adventurous to each leave from a different Australian city and meet in a foreign country to fly to Spain. Yet time is slipping by quickly, which is why I’m standing rigid against my cabin bag. ‘Where are you, Janey?’ I tap into my mobile, then realise if hers is in flight mode, she won’t receive the message. What if she missed her flight in Sydney? I can’t possibly get on that plane alone.

  Close to the point of panic, I spy my friend ambling along the concourse as if she was on a sunny beach stroll. I gesture wildly and she picks up pace. The moment we hug each other, my angst dissipates.

  ‘Hello darling,’ she says chirpily. ‘Aren’t you so clever orchestrating this with such precision timing.’

  Soon, we are bound for Barcelona. Jane, in her seat next to me, is quietly reading and seems so calm I cannot admit to these new feelings—a nagging fear of the unknown. This is my first trip to France without Olivier in nine years. He organised everything and I followed him like a lamb. Jane is an ideal travelling companion because she travelled alone to India after a particularly nasty relationship breakup. She will give me strength and help me heal emotionally. I feel a flush of warm feelings for her and impulsively I pat her forearm. She smiles at me and returns to her reading.

  The moment of arrival feels like an adventure and our taxi driver provides a cheery start by speaking good English all the way to the Olivia Balmes Hotel. Sheer serendipity has brought me to Barcelona on this lovely sunny autumn day.

  Barcelona was unfinished business from our honeymoon. We planned to go to Barcelona following our usual stay with Oli’s mother in St Remy de Provence. The old lady spoke non-stop French and our stay was a trying time for me, but I knew she savoured every minute of her son’s visit. I ached for privacy and Barcelona beckoned like the Holy Grail. Finally, on the first weekend of May 2008, we headed to the French–Spanish border.

  Oli sensed my gaiety, sitting together in our Mégane hire car, because he turned and winked at me.

  ‘I am blooming with happiness,’ I replied.

  We were almost into Spain when he entered the Aire du Village Catalan, one of the aires dotted along France’s autoroutes, to buy a roadmap to Barcelona. I remember vividly, how, as I took a note out of his wallet, he said, ‘Attend chérie,’ and when I looked up, he gently lifted my chin towards him and kissed me lightly on the lips.

  ‘Love you!’ I whispered and, exhilarated, almost skipped off into the store.

  What I have noticed as a thread running through my life is that whenever I feel blissfully happy, something catastrophic happens—usually an accident. And so it was on our honeymoon. I rushed out of the shop and fell down the cement steps, crumbling to the ground onto my left knee. Oli came running from the car uttering many a ‘mon dieu’ and the odd fierce ‘merde’. Helping me carefully to my feet, he declared that I must go to hospital in Perpignan.

  ‘No, I want to go on to Spain,’ I wailed.

  My poor bridegroom had to help me hobble back to the car, and I was filled with this dreadful feeling of déjà vu.

  I have had so many road accidents and serious falls over the years that I was declared ‘accident prone’ by The Advertiser. I was taken off the road and merrily caught taxis to interviews. At home, I have fallen down a flight of mezzanine stairs, tumbled down stone steps and tripped up stepped railway sleepers to sustain a blackened face each time. So, there I was yet again, cursing that my knee, if broken, would ruin our honeymoon.

  Oli headed straight for Costa Brava and the closest Spanish seaside town of L’Escala. Close by we found a quaint private hotel, the Hostal Empúries, an old double-storey Spanish villa, with a wide terrace overlooking an idyllic beach, Platja de les Muscleres. The brilliant blue sea lapped at the crescent-shaped shoreline, where children played noisily. Their parents lazed on the fine golden sand and the beach was strewn with beautifully brown, scantily clad young bodies.

  But when I stepped inside the gracious old villa, I groaned. It had no lift, only a sweep of carpeted stairs. Oh the agony of hopping up the steps clinging to the balustrade right to the top landing, where, mercifully, we had a fabulous front room overlooking the beach. It was all so lovely, and quite unexpectedly, we stayed there for three days.

  L’Escala was only 100 kilometres from Barcelona. But we sat on the terrace sipping Spanish wine and eating plump olives and we shared apéritifs in the shabby chic enclosed verandah with a smart French couple. They were pharmacists from the village of Maillane, near St Remy, who checked out my swollen knee. And when they declared it was not broken, they doled out medicaments galore—countless naturopathic pills and potions—as only the French know how. And when we took a slow stroll along the clifftop, we came across an amazing archaeological treasury—the extensive ruins of the ancient Roman port of Empúries, dating from the Greek civilisation of 575 BC. It didn’t matter that I was like a thornbird, inflicting such pain on myself hobbling those ancient cobbled streets, because it was so exhilarating and we spent hours in the museum examining artefacts from an ancient civilisation.

  By the third night, when Olivier and I discovered the quaint medieval village of Sant Martí d’Empúries facing a Romanesque church topped with four bells in the parapet, Barcelona was forgotten. There, at the Restaurant L’Esculapi, we lounged back in smart black wicker
chairs, dined on Spanish-style fish soup and colourful paella and declared that Spanish food was as good as French cuisine. I was flush with happiness and in the ways of an adoring new wife, those loving feelings, snuffed out temporarily by the unfortunate fall, welled up once more. I leant over to him and we embarked on one of the more beautiful lingering kisses known to mankind.

  ‘We can do that,’ I said when he finally pulled away and looked around him. ‘You are French and we are honeymooners.’

  I’m still reliving the delightful memory as the porter turns the key of our hotel room in Barcelona.

  Well, darling Oli, here I am in Barcelona at last, but without you.

  I want to throw myself onto the bed and wallow in memories, but the Spanish porter is enjoying his own important moment.

  ‘C’est tout neuf Mesdames,’ he says, addressing us in French. It’s all new ladies.

  ‘We are thrilled with it,’ says Jane. ‘It smells so new, doesn’t it darling?’

  The porter beams and I slip him a tip. ‘Merci, Mesdames.’

  It’s a small room, made larger with the clever use of mirrors and a glazed room divider. We overlook a streetscape of Spanish apartments with Juliet balconies and filigreed plasterwork. ‘Barcelona is going to be beautiful,’ I state aloud.

  I have lain down on the starched, white doona when I remember that I promised upon arrival to telephone a former Adelaide business colleague, Mandy, who has lived in Barcelona for eight years.

  ‘Oh my god, you’re staying within walking distance of our apartment!’ she exclaims. ‘In all of Barcelona, you’re literally around the corner! Would you like to join us tonight for drinks at Bardot’s, our favourite tapas bar?’

  ‘We’d love to,’ I reply.

  Jane, who has curled up like a cat in the oyster-shaped chair, rouses herself. ‘Good. We have the whole day to explore the city. Come on,’ she says, splashing her face.

  Once outside, she takes my hand to cross the road to a little dress shop opposite the hotel. ‘Look at the name!’ she announces. ‘Adelaida!’ Jane is half in love with Adelaide. I have lived in Adelaide all my life, so my curiosity is aroused.

  ‘Do you know the history of the shop’s name? I come from Adelaide, South Australia.’ But, the young woman is a casual Sunday employee and says in faltering English that she does not know.

  Racks of summer dresses and shelves stacked with tops, bags and sandals lure me out of my melancholy. Like bowerbirds we regard countless colourful beaded bracelets, bangles and adventurous earrings displayed in a glass cabinet. Why not buy all my gifts for the women in my family on day one and then I can relax? I tell myself. They seem so cheap that I buy six for my daughters, daughter-in-law and my sister Anne.

  When Jane looks quizzically at me, I say ‘Retail therapy is as good for the brain as any anti-depressant.’

  Around the corner on Carrer de Provença we find a handbag boutique filled with luxury French labels and an older French woman attends to us. Tall, thin and weathered, she towers over me and, announcing her Frenchness, welcomes us with a ‘bonjour Mesdames’.

  ‘Bonjour, Madame,’ I respond, chuckling that she must think we are French tourists. Anyway, I wouldn’t have any idea how to say hello in Spanish. I’m slightly ashamed at my ignorance.

  There are many aspects of French society that I admire. And one is right before our eyes. French women seem to be able to age ‘disgracefully’ ignoring the ravages time inflicts on their ageing bodies. French men help enormously because they consider French women to be sexual beings beyond middle age. Madame’s skin is shrivelled from years of sun damage yet unashamedly exposed. Her skin is deep brown and her face and arms are badly freckled and wrinkled. She has a warm personality and tells us her name is Rosa.

  But Madame is hardly a fashionista! She wears a shapeless grey singlet and black cotton pants that hang on her wiry frame. No belt, no scarf, cropped brown hair and no jewellery. And no bra. I’m shocked at her dowdy appearance, yet she holds no pretensions like many French sales assistants. I feel a bit like Humpty Dumpty sharing space with skinny Jane and willowy Madame. Working in newspapers, I never saw the sun’s rays or I would burn red in fifteen minutes and peel thereafter.

  In accented English, Madame tells us all her bags are 40 per cent off, that she buys them in Paris and that her merchandise is a bargain compared with prices in Paris.

  ‘Is this your shop?’ I ask.

  ‘Oui.’

  We chatter about Jane’s working life and my retirement. ‘I don’t work all the time these days,’ she admits. ‘Sunday is very pleasant for me because it is more a day for tourists shopping. Voilà!’

  Soon, we are walking along swinging our respective purchases—the latest two-tone cream and coffee-coloured soft leather Long-champ handbag for me and a mustard Lamarthe shoulder bag for Jane.

  ‘Did you know that the French word for bag is le sac?’ I ask.

  ‘No!’ says Jane incredulously.

  ‘Yes, so we have just paid much money to Madame for two sacs. I like to think we have saved much more money than if we had to buy our handbags in Paris,’ I state, feeling smug. ‘They were reduced to the low hundreds not the thousands.’

  Jane rolls her eyes. ‘How long have I known you? Every single time you buy something you tell me how much money you have saved,’ she says. ‘I told my Sydney friend, Clive, before I left that you would buy a French handbag within the first week—and here you do it on the first day.’

  ‘Golly, that French woman looked a dag,’ I say, changing the subject.

  ‘What do you mean?’ retorts Jane. ‘She was the ultimate chic!’

  ‘I would dress better than that to pick up the paper off the driveway in the morning,’ I elaborate. ‘Her outfit was so boring. You wait until you see the shop assistants in Paris. They look like they’ve just stepped off the catwalk.’

  ‘I don’t think you understood her style at all,’ Jane states indignantly. ‘She wasn’t wearing rags; she was wearing a grey silk top that was totally minimalist and stylish.’

  ‘Are you having me on? She looked dreadful. She exposed her arms; so wrinkled, such unattractive flesh to reveal!’

  ‘Nadine, your style is so bold and rococo that you couldn’t see her pared-back European chic. She wouldn’t have been working in an exclusive, upmarket handbag shop in Barcelona if she was wearing rubbish.’

  ‘She owns the shop. I’m surprised she wasn’t wearing slippers.’

  That should have been the end of it but Jane goes on.

  ‘This is a good example of how differently we view the world,’ she continues. ‘I don’t think you understand minimalism at all—less is sometimes more, a difficult concept for you to grasp I think—actually, probably impossible!’

  I’m miffed. I don’t like her tone, but I pass it off as jetlag. It has left her irritable, I muse.

  This is day one and we are supposed to be on a peaceful stroll in a Barcelona street.

  Jane harps on, ‘You always have said that you never wrote about fashion as a journalist, so you should never comment. I’m telling you, she dressed very well.’

  What has shocked me is that I cannot remember that Jane and I have ever bickered like this. ‘Well, I certainly know when an older woman dresses like a teenager.’

  ‘Let’s not argue on our first day,’ she says.

  There are small sighs of wind in the trees which freshen up the afternoon. It has become noticeably hotter, like the clear heat at home. I am exhilarated at manifesting all that organisation of travelling overseas alone—without him—and arriving in Barcelona. Before Olivier’s diagnosis and my subsequent caring role, I didn’t consider myself a good organiser. But organising the trip was only the next step to discovering a whole new side of myself. I have been an incredible captain as I steered the ship of our marriage through terrible, treacherous waters. Calmly and in control, caring completely for him, I kept everything afloat and contained my fears and growing despair. Quickly, before m
y reflections trigger sadness, I switch back to the present and grab hold of a new feeling—pride—and I feel as if I am walking on clouds as we seek out the landmark fancy buildings we had noticed from the taxi.

  ‘They resemble elaborately iced wedding cakes, don’t they?’ I say to Jane.

  ‘That’s all Gaudí’s architecture!’ Jane replies. ‘Paris will need to be exceptional to better Barcelona.’

  ‘It is. But Barcelona is beautiful too.’

  We reach the intersection with the main boulevard, Passeig de Gràcia, and there before us is La Pedrera, a mountainous, higgledy-piggledy building with lavish curved walls and filigreed wrought iron railings defining each balcony. We stand and gape in awe at its fancy facade, which doesn’t have one straight line. Casa Mila, better known as La Pedrera or ‘The Stone Quarry’, is an architectural masterpiece of Catalonia’s most famous architect, Antoni Gaudí. It is made of blocks of local Garraf stone and those strange swirled ice-cream style chimneys are like his signature. He built it as a private house, the last of many landmark buildings he designed in the early twentieth century.

  We are drawn into the subterranean coffee shop of La Pedrera, where we sit in the window seat and order tortilla potato dishes. Then we explore upstairs to find an exotic plaster ceiling swept into wavelike formations.

  Dizzy with the delight of this strange architecture, we take photographs of a pair of pretty buildings across the passeig—Casa Batlló and Casa Amatller. Gaudí never explained the frilly facade of Casa Batlló. However, one popular theory from José Soler’s book Barcelona Then and Now is that the enigmatic building circa 1906 is meant to represent carnival celebrations.

  ‘The scaly roof is supposed to be the hat of a harlequin and the balconies represent Venetian carnival masks,’ I relate. ‘And see all those sparkly bits? The multi-coloured fragments of ceramics and glass on the facade are meant to be the confetti thrown by partygoers.’