Farewell My French Love

by Nadine Williams

  ‘Cupid is the right image … piercing the heart and the victim becomes hopelessly in love; all sense goes out the window,’ adds Jane.

  ‘I don’t think we should say too much or Charlotte won’t act on how she feels about Jean-Luc.’

  I then ask her, ‘What does your mother think about him, or haven’t you told her?’

  ‘No, my mother doesn’t know. Hers is also a story of broken marriage, although she never said she loved my father,’ says Charlotte. ‘She would joke that she and my dad got married for purely practical reasons. If they were married, they would be able to get a loan for a house, if not then the bank would answer no.’

  ‘Plenty of people live together in Australia to be able to pay the mortgage on a house in both their names,’ adds Jane.

  ‘Anyway, the marriage lasted long enough for my brother and I to be born and raised, but Maman left Papa and now she lives in the United States. She met a woman here in France and they got married in the United States in a state where gay marriage is legal.’

  Jane and I look at each other. Here is another story of women who become lesbians in mid-life and marry.

  ‘My brother and I went to the wedding, but I must admit, I’m still coming to terms with the whole thing,’ she says. ‘I cling to the fact that Maman is happy with her partner.’

  She screws up her nose. ‘I still believe in love and I want to find a nice man who will love me and, I’m not frightened to say it, who wants to marry me and commit to a life together.’

  ‘Most young Australian women want exactly that, too,’ I say.

  When we arrive in the fairytale village of Chinon, Charlotte parks the car under the trees in the town square. These trees, with their thick mottled trunks, are everywhere in France and yet I recognise them and I let out a thrilling little cry.

  ‘I have been here with Olivier!’

  I didn’t realise we had gone to Chinon on our honeymoon because one town in the Loire Valley blended into another. I remember what we did rather than where we did it. Close by we were staying in Les Bourdes, a restored Relais, which was once a stagecoach inn, dated from 1495. Its owners had turned the only remaining circular tower (there had been four we were told) into quaint accommodation. I remember climbing the circular stairs where glazed blocks had created light and on each shelf the owner had put a wonderful collection of old French perfume bottles. Our delightful room had a fifteenth-century oak-beamed ceiling and the bathroom—in the round tower—had a ceiling so low I could touch it. They had recommended a restaurant in this central square in Chinon. And so we had driven along the route through the fertile flats of the River Vienne, edged by vineyards on one side and wheat fields on the other, to find the restaurant but I can’t remember its name.

  ‘It’s a Monday, so many restaurants won’t be open,’ says Charlotte. ‘But I want to take you to the top of the cliff to see the town.’

  As we head towards an archway out of the square, I recognise the restaurant Au Chapeau Rouge.

  ‘Oh look! There it is, the Red Hat!’ And I am still reminiscing when we reach the glass lift, which must have been installed after 2008. Once on the cliff top we look out over a picturesque storybook village—zinc-tiled pitched roofs dotted with chimneys, white limestone walling, colombage dwellings and the odd church spire.

  Then we walk down streets which capture the dramatic history of Chinon. Rue Jeanne d’Arc is pivotal, because it was in the Château de Chinon on 8 March 1429 that the Maid of Orléans beseeched Charles VII to allow her to lead his army to break the siege of Orléans and ‘bouter les Anglais hors de France’, boot the English out of France. She convinced the clergy that she had heard voices predicting victory.

  According to Véronique’s little booklet, Joan was nineteen years old when ‘the virgin warrior’ was burnt alive at Rouen, Normandy, on 30 May 1431. She was canonised in May 1920, but hundreds of years before that the French masses had made Jeanne d’Arc the symbol of France, as revered as Napoléon.

  Impasse Plantagenet, a walking thoroughfare, reminds me of the Plantagenet kings who ruled England for 300 years until 1485 and the two famous Henrys entwined in French history. It was here in the castle of Chinon that French heiress and Queen of France, Eleanor of Aquitaine, seduced the nineteen-year-old Prince Henry of England, ten years her junior. Such satiated lust drove her to have her marriage to the pious Louis VII annulled to be free to marry Henry. He became King Henry II Plantagenet in 1152 and with Eleanor as Queen of England, they produced a dynasty of kings, particularly the beloved Richard the Lionheart, and a few generations later, Henry V, the hero of William Shakespeare’s play.

  Charlotte leads us to a small restaurant, Brasserie Le Gandoyau, which has tables set on a high terrace and overlooks some remaining castle walls.

  ‘It’s our last meal in the Loire and the special menu is only fourteen euros and fifty centimes for two courses,’ I say, hoping to drop a hint to Jane. ‘What if I order the special and you can taste my entrée. Okay?’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘Don’t order the ragout d’andouillettes—it’s tripe,’ I warn.

  ‘But it’s a special of the region,’ retorts Charlotte.

  ‘I cannot accommodate it even though Olivier tried everything to get me to taste it, but I could smell it and it reminded me of my childhood when we had to eat tripe disguised in a milky cheese sauce.’

  ‘Well, I’m having the veal,’ says Jane.

  Chou-fleur au gratin, our entrée, is creative crowns of cauliflower topped with a tasty melted cheese.

  ‘One for you, one for me,’ I say, carefully moving the second floret onto Jane’s spare plate.

  ‘These are really tasty local Loire dishes,’ says Charlotte.

  I tuck into coq au vin which must have simmered in wine for hours.

  Our last afternoon zips by with the obligatory visit to Chambord, the mad fantasy of King François I. But it lacks a heart or a history other than being François I’s bid to immortalise himself as ‘the prince of architecture’. The immense architectural creation has never been a permanent palace mainly because it was built on a swamp and the mosquitoes ensured no one stayed very long, although François would move his whole court here for weeks on end. Its fantasy roofline is unforgettable as we approach the entrance.

  Once inside, Jane and I stand side-by-side as Charlotte tells us that the château features 440 rooms, 282 fireplaces and eighty-four staircases.

  ‘There are four rectangular hallways with vaulted ceilings, which form a cross shape on each floor,’ she explains. At l’éscalier à double revolution—the spectacular double helix open staircase which is the centrepiece of the château—Charlotte sends us up each side and we have fun photographing each other through the gaps in the white circular walls without actually meeting on the stairs.

  How wonderful it is that Jane and I are actually having fun together even if it is in this edifice to folly.

  ‘Historians believe that it was Leonardo da Vinci’s genius which created the helices,’ says Charlotte.

  I look up to see the light pouring down the void like a lighthouse.

  ‘They are convinced that only he could have created something which ascends the three floors in the sixteenth century,’ she adds.

  Then we walk around the vast rooftop, where its countless towers and chimneys, gables and spires—all heavy with filigree and gargoyles—reflect the height of fancy Italian Renaissance architecture.

  ‘It was purely about glory,’ says Jane. ‘It had no lasting human function.’

  ‘But it’s still an amazing spectacle,’ I add.

  Charlotte takes the D952 from Vouvray to Tours through lush vineyard country and the question of friendship lights up our conversation.

  ‘Janey, do you realise that we only have one more full day together in France?’ I ask, turning around to face her. ‘Tomorrow!’

  Those dove-grey eyes lock onto mine. ‘I’m not going to think about it until I wake up in the morning.’ />
  ‘It may be tempting fate, but I think I can safely say our friendship has survived. Wouldn’t you say?’

  ‘I never thought our friendship was under threat; just that our differences made for a few rocky moments. But no more than any married couple holidaying together.’

  I am relieved. Jane’s friendship is like a precious pearl. Which is an apt metaphor because look how long it takes for a pearl to form in an oyster’s shell. And isn’t it interesting that such a precious thing grows from an irritant lodged therein! I must admit, there have been moments when she has irritated me and vice versa. I have a little chuckle to myself.

  Conversation fades as Charlotte pulls into the Tours railway station.

  ‘Bonne chance with Jean-Luc,’ I say as we unload our luggage.

  ‘J’espère!’ I hope.

  These three days have been so much more than sightseeing; we have bonded in a meaningful way with a young French woman. We both feel as elated by that experience as by the charming châteaux we visited.

  Once more settled in our classy carriage I drift off to sleep, mellow in the knowledge that Jane and I are once more as close as sisters.

  TWELVE

  LAST DAYS IN MONTMARTRE

  ‘What an immense impression Paris made upon me. It is the most extraordinary place in the world!’ Charles Dickens

  It happens in an instant as I get out of the taxi in Montmartre. My camera strap catches in the handlebars of a bicycle parked in a rack outside our hotel and I’m yanked backwards, lose my balance and fall onto the road, spread-eagled near the taxi’s rear tyre.

  A moan escapes from my mouth. Pain is shooting down my back, across my shoulders and down my left side. I think I have twisted my left ankle. It is throbbing mercilessly.

  I know to stay still. So I lie here on my back and move my fingers and toes. I could weep with relief. They move.

  Jane is almost hyperventilating beside me. ‘Oh my god, oh my god!’ she gasps.

  The taxi driver unwinds my camera from the bicycle, picks up my bag and hands them to Jane. He rattles off something in French in a concerned manner.

  ‘I think I’m okay,’ I whisper.

  He squats on the roadside next to me. ‘Avez-vous besoin d’aide?’ Do you need my assistance?

  I nod my head.

  He thrusts his right shoulder forward and pats it. I wrap my left arm around his strong neck and, placing his left hand under my other armpit, he hauls me up. Relieved, I feel my legs take my weight. He holds me straight for a minute then he lets go. I ache from head to foot, but I’m sure nothing is broken. Remembering my shattered ankle of sixteen years ago, this could have been catastrophic. I say a little prayer of gratitude.

  ‘Merci,’ I say.

  ‘De rien…’ It is nothing.

  As he leaves he warns us, ‘C’est un quartier, how you say, rough.’

  Four young women on the corner leave no doubt about that. Two are dawdling, another leans against the wall, and yet another one hovers over an open car window. I recognise that they are prostitutes.

  Jane helps me into the hotel’s small sitting room overlooking Boulevard Barbes in the eighteenth arrondissement where I sink into a pile of cushions on the settee.

  ‘I will go and organise everything,’ says Jane.

  It must be around 7 pm and from the corner of my eye (because I don’t move my head) I glimpse a passing parade of men and boys and women and girls wearing fancy African hairstyles or hijabs. Boulevard Barbes, at the foot of Montmartre, is quite another Paris from Boulevard Haussmann. We have landed ourselves in Pigalle, the red-light area of Paris. This is also the other side of travelling independently—booking accommodation without knowing the nature of certain less pristine pockets of the city. Oh well, I did promise to show Jane the other side of Paris!

  After breakfast at the hotel, we follow the concierge’s instructions and cross the boulevard to Rue Doudeauville, catching the local Montmartrobus from Rue Custine past the majestic white basilica to Place du Tertre. This is the somewhat contrived artists’ hub of Montmartre, a colourful tourist magnet.

  I’m not keen to walk anywhere after yesterday’s fall, so, for once, I’m pleased that Jane wants to explore Montmartre by herself. I want to stop still as a post.

  ‘It’s 10.40 am,’ she says, looking at her watch. ‘I’ll meet you at the hotel after your afternoon with Muriel.’

  ‘Perfect. I’ll stay here and write up my diary.’

  She waits while I settle myself into a terrace table under the blue awnings of Au Clairon des Chasseurs Bar-Brasserie on the corner of the square.

  ‘Are you going to sit for a while and have a coffee with me?’

  ‘No, we will have champagne with our last dinner in Paris together tonight.’

  ‘I’d love that. But let’s choose somewhere local; I don’t want to leave the quartier.’

  ‘Me either,’ she says.

  We kiss like Parisiennes and as soon as she leaves, I order ‘Un café crème et un croissant s’il vous plaît.’

  Time passes pleasantly as I face the busy Place du Tertre. And I watch with a journalist’s curious eye the flood of people passing by, straggling along, browsing, sometimes stopping at the artists’ canvas stalls, which enclose a number of terrace cafés. There are a dozen different artists, all with easels, trying to attract passers-by to stop for a portrait or to buy an artwork.

  It really is a wonderful hive of creative humanity here and I reflect on its past, l’ésprit de Montmartre forged by the many fledgling artists in these narrow, cobbled streets in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. From humble beginnings many went on to become famous—the world-renowned French impressionists Claude Monet and Auguste Renoir were among the group of emerging artists whose 1874 exhibition in a studio here drew that ‘impressionists’ jibe by a hostile critic, Jules Leroy. Others that gravitated to Montmartre’s artists’ community include the irreverent caricaturist André Gill, and those quirky Spaniards Salvador Dalí and Pablo Picasso. Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec became one of the leading poster-artists of the era with his striking, colourful imagery of Montmartre as a slightly seedy quartier of can-can dancers, prostitutes, cabaret artists and circus characters.

  They all gathered at artists’ studios at 12–14 Rue Cortot, just around the corner—now the Musée de Montmartre—but I am not moving from here even after I find the address on the map. So I order a salmon sandwich and coffee and sit here for hours, content to observe. By the time I request ‘l’addition s’il vous plaît’, the restaurant is packed. I check out the account of twenty-two euros to discover I have paid twelve euros for two coffees. ‘Outrageous!’ I mumble to myself.

  When I arrive back at the hotel, Muriel is waiting for me in the foyer. ‘I have only just arrived,’ she says after we kiss.

  A tall, slim lady in her middle years, Muriel is the leader of the eight Lyceum Clubs of France. I met her in Australia and I’m flattered that she’s arranged to come here from the town of Troyes to spend the afternoon with me.

  ‘I’m visiting my daughter and the grandchildren in Paris, so I’m going to come much earlier to meet with you,’ she had said on the telephone. But here in Paris, she says she is at a loss to suggest what to do in this neighbourhood without a car.

  ‘I took the local bus this morning,’ I suggest. ‘It’s such a contrast to the little blue chug-chug tourist train at the top. I would love to do it again, Muriel; it’s like a little trip through village life—all the way up to La Butte.’

  ‘Excellent idea.’

  Soon we are sitting together on an enjoyable rumble through the narrow streets of the village of Montmartre watching locals getting on and off. An older woman on the bus calls out to be dropped off somewhere other than the routine stop and the driver obliges. Muriel and I watch her struggle off with a big basket of clean, ironed laundry.

  ‘That was nice of the driver, wasn’t it?’ I comment.

  ‘You’re showing me a side of life in Pa
ris that I’ve never seen,’ responds Muriel.

  ‘You and me both.’

  I do believe this slice of real Paris has shocked her. Then it dawns on me. What a striking contrast. I’m spending the afternoon with one of France’s top community leaders and we are on a local bus in one of the roughest pockets of Paris. I wonder what she really thinks.

  Onward the bus crawls around small, pretty squares like Joël Le Tac shaded by trees three storeys high before turning into ancient Rue Saint-Vincent. The cobbled street was once a Roman via and it meanders through vieux (old) Montmartre, along curved Place Jean-Baptiste-Clément, where high old ivy-clad stone walls hold up double-storey dwellings. Elsewhere front doors border the pavement. The area escaped Baron Haussmann’s bulldozers and remains a quiet village. At a pivotal corner where Rue Saint-Vincent crosses Rue des Saules is a landmark I recognise—Au Lapin Agile, the quaint, pink, somewhat rickety house at 22 Rue des Saules, which becomes Paris’s strangest nightclub each evening. Meaning The Agile Rabbit, it’s a suitable sister to raunchy Moulin Rouge.

  All of it, the pretty squares, the cobbled streets, the old working cottages, the other timber mill, Moulin de la Gallette, the sprawling vineyards and Au Lapin Agile, is on the untrendy northern slopes of Montmartre.

  When we get off the bus, Muriel suggests we visit one of the greatest of Paris’s churches, the white-stone basilica of Sacré-Coeur, sitting majestically on the highest hill in Paris. However, it was Oli’s favourite viewpoint, so I suggest we take the funicular to the bottom of the butte.

  ‘Good idea. Those triple-level stairs of Montmartre may be quaint, but they can be treacherous,’ says Muriel.

  We stroll along as if pulled by an invisible magnet to the busiest intersection of the village where the four main rues—des Trois Frères, Yvonne Le Tac, Chappe and Tardieu—intersect. Muriel chooses Le Progrès café/bistrot on Rue des Trois Frères with its unique old panelled facade.