Escaping

by Henrietta Taylor

  1. I had no business experience whatsoever.

  2. I had no knowledge about renovating houses, not even any basic handyman skills.

  3. I had no knowledge about the tax implications — either French or Australian.

  Initially he had been concerned to learn of my ventures on the stock market, but had been delighted by my success. Then his initial apprehension had returned after visiting us in Provence and seeing the three properties I was in the process of buying. As far as he could see, my proposed venture into the rental market was doomed to failure.

  ‘Hen, I love you dearly as my daughter, but the facts speak for themselves. You are totally inexperienced at running a small business. I have always maintained that travel for children is an excellent idea, but as for buying three properties without any long-term plan . . . And you must admit you’ve never shown any inclination to work hard at anything in particular. I’m concerned that this is pure folly — just plain recklessness. You stand to lose the lot. Are you prepared for that?’

  As I listened meekly I decided I could beat him at his own game, just as Norman had taught me: agree with the opposing argument and then go ahead and do whatever you think is best.

  ‘Jack, you’re right, as always. The negative list is long, and I can’t change most of the things on it. I’ll ask Ray if he’ll come with us for some of the time and that will give us another adult in the house. I will buy books on renovation and handyman jobs. I will find out about the French taxation system and ask lots of questions. If it doesn’t work out, I will sell one or all of the properties immediately and come home with my tail between my legs. And if I take a financial bath, I will go to work as a checkout operator at a supermarket if necessary to put food on the table. But at least I will have given it a go. Jack, you get no second chances when you’re dead. Can’t you see that I am finally acting as an adult?’

  I didn’t feel particularly adult, throwing myself around his kitchen as I presented my case, but the moment I saw a glimmer of weakness I pushed forward. I had to win at all costs; it was part of my nature. My own children refused to play Snap with me any more, as I would slap their little hands too hard while trying to win the cards. And eventually Jack admitted defeat.

  He wasn’t the only person who couldn’t follow my logic. Most of my friends, even if they could understand wanting to toss in my life and start again, were mystified as to how I was going to cope with a new business venture while isolated from friends and family. They shook their heads in disbelief. Maybe the grief and heavy drinking had finally taken their toll? But I knew I was doing the right thing; I had never felt more sober.

  By October 2000, the title deeds for two of the three properties were in my hands; the third set of deeds would follow in December. Reality began to dawn and I started to worry about meeting mortgage and utility payments, finding tradesmen to make the cottages habitable for clients, starting an advertising campaign for the following season, and on top of that taking care of the more basic things like laundry and cleaning — all from the other side of the world. Our return to France in January couldn’t come soon enough.

  Latin Ray and I had managed to patch up our differences now that we were back on home turf. But to be honest, I was so wrapped up in the preparations for our departure that I wasn’t paying him a lot of attention. I simply took it for granted that when we left he would join us, so the game of Happy Families could start all over again. The thought of waking up next to him each day was sublime; it would be like a Sunday morning every day of the week. Our month together in Italy hadn’t been a stunning success, but I assumed that since we loved each other we should therefore live together. I was convinced it would be different if we were leading a normal life.

  It stuns me now that I could have blithely made such ridiculous assumptions. We had never lived together in Sydney and there was no reason for him to suddenly drop everything in his life to be with me in France.

  When I broached the subject one evening before dinner, I was stupefied when he brought me straight back down to earth.

  ‘What do you mean you’re not going to live with us in France? You said that you loved me and that the children and I were the top priority in your life!’ I thought this tactic would work best; go straight for the jugular while throwing some pans around the kitchen.

  ‘Hen, did you ever ask me what I wanted? Have we ever discussed what my plans are for the future? These are your dreams, not mine. I’ve told you repeatedly that I don’t particularly like the French — either their food or their culture.’

  At this point I came very close to hitting him with one of the pans.

  ‘I’ve organised to start a BA in Latin and Roman History by correspondence in 2001. I’ll come with you to France, but then in 2002 I’m going to enrol at Sydney University. I’ll visit you during holidays and I daresay you’ll come back to Sydney from time to time, but do not ask me to live with you in France forever.’

  Sometimes he could be a pompous oaf with his ‘daresays’.

  ‘Well, I daresay that you might rethink even coming with us next year. Look, bugger off. I don’t think there’s enough dinner for four people tonight. Go home.’

  I had tried to keep my voice calm, though even to me it sounded a little shrill. But my outburst had been pretty succinct. I saw my imaginary Sunday mornings with newspapers, pots of tea and delicious sex go gurgling straight down the drain. I smashed some more pots and pans around, wondering why I could never get him to do what I wanted. Deep down I still didn’t know whether I wanted him to live with us forever, but I wanted to be the one to decide!

  With great foreboding, we agreed that he would come with us to help set things up and then, if all went well, he would stay eleven months. In France you could stay up to ninety days on a tourist visa, but to remain any longer you needed a special visa that took forever to obtain from the Australian Embassy. I had a British passport, so I could stay in France as long as I wanted, but Latin Ray decided that he would leave France every couple of months and visit relatives in England for a week or two and thus start a new ninety-day period. This idea appealed to both of us. It would give us a little bit of freedom and flexibility.

  By now it was easy to downsize yet again and throw out even more possessions. The barest of essentials were packed into boxes to be shipped to France: a box of photographs, some books — mainly computer self-help books — and some crockery, along with the obligatory box of treasured toys. No furniture, no artefacts from our former life. I wanted to start completely afresh.

  Finally, with everything packed up and new tenants found for the house, we set off to make France our home.

  We arrived in Paris in early January 2001, just in time for the bitterly cold winds that were ravaging the whole of northern France. But nothing could dampen our spirits as we travelled the long way round, through Brittany and on to the châteaux of the Loire and then eventually into Provence.

  At this stage, I had little idea if we were staying just the year or for an extended period. Everything depended on how well the children adapted to their new school and how we all settled into our new house — and above all, on the success of the new business.

  Things didn’t start off well. Questions and doubts about whether my relationship with Ray would survive paled into insignificance beside the more pressing issues of accommodation, heating and schooling.

  Unfortunately, the solidly built house that I had bought in spring was looking like the scene of the morning after a big party. The garden was unkempt and very bleak. The last of the autumn leaves were blowing across the lawn, which now appeared to have a large percentage of gravel as opposed to the lush green turf I had admired back in April. The olive trees were bare and the lone cherry tree that had impressed me so much with its magnificent crop of fat black cherries gave the impression of being more dead than alive.

  Inside, the house was soulless and nearly bare, with the worst wallpaper and floor tiles ever to be laid in Provence. The rule in Fr
ance is that on the day of sale you must leave a working light bulb in every room, and the previous owners had left that and virtually nothing else. Naked globes hung on short strings from the ceilings like deflated balloons. The few lights that still had fittings were even worse; I wished passionately that the truly hideous brass and wooden concoctions had been unscrewed and spirited away. Sadly they had been left out of the kindness of the owners’ hearts, in order to illuminate the few remaining sticks of furniture in all their glory. In the heat of my buying frenzy, I had agreed to purchase some furnishings that in normal circumstances I wouldn’t have touched with a ten-foot pole; they were tawdry and without charm or comfort. Latin Ray had to drag in four white wooden chairs from the garden and place them around our smoky fireplace. Worst of all was an immense black double-door fridge (with ice maker); the monstrous black beast had been relegated to the hallway, which was the only place that could accommodate it. The previous owners had informed me that a half a wild boar would fit easily into the oversized freezer compartment! I had my doubts about whether I’d be shoving any worm-infested wild pig carcass into my fridge in the near future.

  The upside of having Place de la Fontaine already running as a rental property was the joyous abundance of clean white sheets at my disposal to make up our beds. Place de la Fontaine had already had a couple of weeks’ worth of clients inherited from Lizzie before I closed it for the winter. Back in Sydney I had discovered the joy of buying sheets and towels from a catalogue and having everything delivered to Sylvie while she dealt with the house-cleaning and the greeting of clients. But there were no thick blankets or eiderdowns, which were just what we needed to combat the bitter winter cold. There was a very limited supply of firewood (but no kindling) lying in a pathetic little heap in the garden, but as I seriously doubted whether the chimney had been swept within twelve months, we couldn’t use the fireplace without risk. The electric heaters in the rooms gave off a funny smell and little heat, so we were forced to huddle together in the kitchen around the only working heater, with the electric oven on maximum. I was the only one who spoke French, and therefore had to deal with technicians from France Telecom to install phone lines and the Electricity Board to increase our demand for electricity, as we kept blowing the main board in an effort to maintain some sort of heating in the house. The mercury was plummeting lower and lower, and so was my emotional state.

  The lack of beds meant that the children had to sleep together on one fold-out bed, a ‘click clack’, as the French so aptly call them, after the noises they make the moment you get into them. Dressing up to go to bed in socks, pyjamas, jumpers, gloves and woollen hats can be fun once, but we had already experienced a long winter like this in Saignon. Night after night of it can leave you feeling sad and somewhat hopeless, a bit like the first time Ray and I had furtive sexual congress in a coat and scarf. It was vaguely amusing, but I didn’t want to play Men in Raincoats every night. I started to wonder whether Ray and I would ever have one idyllic morning in bed together.

  The children had christened Ray with a new French-sounding name, Raymond (not pronouncing the ‘d’, which would have made it ‘Raymonde’, the female version). But the new name did little to help him assimilate the French culture. Without a doubt, it was he who found it hardest to adapt to our new life. He hated the French, he hated their language, he hated their food, full of garlic and oil, and to him everything was strange and overpriced. But most of all, it seemed, he hated me.

  Back in the eighties he had been one of the men wearing the big suits in the big end of the city, clutching his Master of Business Administration as he climbed single-mindedly up the ladder of success. But all his business acumen hadn’t prepared him for a 180-degree about-face in life. He had gone from carefree bachelor with doting girlfriend to a role as full-time husband to a woman who screamed like a harpy most of the time, and almost-father to two little children struggling to come to terms with the latest developments in family dynamics — not to mention life in a foreign country. So much for True Love!

  Meanwhile, both children were floundering in their classes, and when they came home their eyes brimmed with tears of hatred, partly for the French, but mainly for me. The situation was so unfair on them. Had I thought things through with a clearer head, I would have realised that it would be better for them to start the French school year with everyone else in September. As it was now, they were half a year behind the rest, and on top of everything they still spoke very little French.

  Our whole life was a major catastrophe. I wanted my Latin Lover to pack up and go home. I felt I had made a horrible mistake in coming to France and didn’t need him to witness my downfall first-hand. My eyes were constantly red from secret crying over the fact that we hadn’t even made it through our first month and already I was looking at a way to chuck it all in and go home hanging my head in shame.

  A family meeting was called and we sat around our smoky fire on our hard garden chairs wearing our woolly coats, gloves, scarves and hats pulled down over our ears in a vague attempt to keep warm. We listed all our problems and their possible solutions.

  The meeting soon turned ugly. Latin Ray, the business expert, announced that my biggest problem was time management. Thank you, my darling, for your excellent appraisal of my skills! Obviously if I’d put you in charge you would have coped brilliantly with two sobbing children who hate French verbs — let alone the unrelenting chores, and clothes and sheets that will never dry with the insufficient heating in this hideous, uncomfortable house.

  Lashing out in my own defence, I tried to find fault with his own domestic skills: ‘What would you know about housekeeping? You have a shower twice a day and not once do you ever pull the shower curtain across when you’ve finished so that it will dry! And while we’re at it, when you stack a dishwasher, you start at the back!’ Admittedly, not being able to wash dishes wasn’t his worst fault, but I was so upset that the most insignificant things came tumbling out.

  I chose not to hear him mumble: ‘It’s the children who do it like that! They’re only trying to help you. If you spent a little more time with them, you could teach them how to be perfect like yourself.’

  Marital warfare had begun, and we hadn’t even had the honeymoon! Why couldn’t he just bugger off and go to England for a while — if not forever? For now, he and the children left me in my demented state with my head in the oven, scrubbing frantically. Latin Ray took himself up to the freezing attic where he did all his university reading. When I finally paused to draw breath I was surprised to see that there was no one else in the kitchen.

  Nothing was turning out the way I had envisaged. No sign of ladders. This time it was a long slippery snake sending us back down to the beginning.

  When I came to my senses again, I started making sweeping executive decisions. Our domestic problems needed to be remedied as quickly as possible. I would find a teacher who lived in the district to give the children extra tuition in conversation and grammar. After employing Sylvie the year before as a language tutor, I realised that the children really needed someone who was trained in teaching, not just someone who could play with them in French. I needed to find a retired schoolteacher or a university student who had the time and the skills to coach my children. This would give me a lot less stress on the home front and a tiny bit more time to devote to other problems.

  A few other sources of discontent were gradually eliminated. We’d hired a car when we returned to France, but the lease would be coming to an end shortly and buying one seemed like a good idea. Kamila suggested the newly released Fiat Multipla, a very wide six-seater that could convert into a large space like a truck when you removed all the seats. It was a car that people either loved or hated. For me it was love at first sight — though I would soon come to regret my choice. What I really needed was a small work car that could squeeze through the narrow village streets, not an elegant Italian people mover, suited only for transporting crowds in comfort for long distances.

&nbs
p; At the same time, our house was slowly becoming a home. Beds, eiderdowns, pillows and blankets were bought and delivered. Some large squishy sofas were on order, but would take a few weeks to arrive. A new television with a VCR meant that we could at least watch the one and only video I’d been able to buy in English, The Deep Blue Sea, and a chimney sweep was found to come and do his messy job, so we could at last use the fireplace.

  As well as seeking out the bare essentials, I couldn’t resist the occasional bit of shopping for fun. A favourite destination was the beautiful town of Isle-sur-la-Sorgue, an internationally renowned antiques haunt where you could spend a small fortune on items of rare beauty. My budget meant that I was normally restricted to looking, but I gleaned plenty of great ideas from the numerous beautiful shops that lined the banks of the Sorgue River. Occasionally I would treat myself to a linen tablecloth or some fabulous antique serviettes, and in one of my more frenetic spending moments I bought the most wonderful wrought-iron bed, bookcase and six chairs from one of the trash-and-treasure shops near the town. And in the courtyard of one shop I found something I couldn’t resist: two massive cast-iron roosters, seventy kilos apiece and both over a metre tall. Rusty and Richard were eased gently into the back of our new car; they would stand guard at the entrance to our driveway. I had fallen in love!

  The following morning I was in excruciating pain, and unable to get out of bed. It was clear that Rusty and Richard had done some sort of major damage to my back. The doctor prescribed massive amounts of anti-inflammatory tablets and painkillers, and under no circumstances was I to take any alcohol. He ordered complete bed rest for one week, otherwise he was sending me down to Apt hospital. Anything but that!

  Raymond was coaxed reluctantly from his Latin books to be chief cook, washer, shopper and walker-to-school. (The children didn’t really need to be walked to school, but Raymond found that this was a special time when he could have the children all to himself.)