Escaping

by Henrietta Taylor

  The poisonous whisperings in the crowd were loud enough to reach my ears. I could hear them muttering that the mayor’s office would be open the next day at nine o’clock and a party of newly self-appointed village patrimony specialists would inspect the building application Andrew had submitted to see if everything corresponded. If it didn’t, the Juliet balcony would have to be pulled down and the window bricked back up.

  I blinked back hot tears of indignation. How could a window cause so much fuss? I had no experience and very little in my arsenal for going into combat if in fact the size of the window proved to be incorrect. This of course would be impossible, as Andrew was a professional and the window had been ordered in exactly the right size. But the voice of reason did nothing to calm my anxiety.

  The house directly opposite had gaping openings in its top floor, stitched up with chicken wire in a vain attempt to keep out the pigeons and other vermin. It was a ruin, and could only be called unsightly. Worse still, it adjoined the kitchen of a beautiful hotel, Auberge du Presbytère. Surely they couldn’t be happy with the situation? I wondered if pigeon pie ever graced their menu. The owner of the hotel, a round, gently spoken man, stepped in with some sage words of advice. As an inhabitant of Saignon for more than a decade, he had vast experience with the contrary attitude of some of the villagers, who simply had too much time on their hands.

  ‘Ah, Madame, do not react. Do not say a thing. Do not raise a little finger. This will all pass. This is a little bit of the wind left over from the storm last night. A storm in a teacup?’ Waves of giggles rolled across his belly as he chuckled at his own joke.

  And it did. The window in Place de la Fontaine was the correct size and approval had been sought and given at the mayor’s office. My ex-pat friends had been right about the hazards of living in a small community. If I was going to survive here, I needed more than fluent French; I needed a good coating of Teflon.

  By the time Andrew had finished the window at Place de la Fontaine and the ensuing brouhaha had died down, we were ready to attack Rose Cottage and get Cinderella ready for the ball. Andrew and I had long discussions about the potential of the house and ideas for renovations that would be speedy and economical: two words I had learnt to love.

  The proportions of Rose Cottage were all wrong. The kitchen needed a total renovation, and a wonderful room off the kitchen with a vaulted ceiling was in a very sad state of repair; then there was a zigzag staircase that took up too much room, leading upstairs to a small bathroom and two bedrooms, one of which was as vast as the other was minuscule. Andrew presented me with an estimate for the total cost, and to my ignorant eyes it seemed a small fortune. I still wasn’t sure how I was going to pay for it all. I had already gone over budget with Place de la Fontaine’s window and other unforeseen work, and I wondered whether I would be able to complete all that was required. Raymond continued to give me financial advice but refused to help me make any decisions. It seemed we were a team up to a certain point and then we went our separate ways.

  The Ahmeds were large and swarthy and all of them chain-smoked continuously, something which drove me, as a former heavy smoker, to the edge of despair. On the plus side, they were extremely religious, polite and well spoken. But their generally soft natures and quiet demeanours were forgotten when it came to the demolition work on the upstairs floor of Rose Cottage. The building site resounded with the sounds of the Ahmeds shouting at each other as the rubble was shovelled onto a makeshift slide that went directly into a filthy yellow truck waiting below. The three men worked with cigarettes constantly stuck between their massive fingers or behind their ears for the next pause. The bathroom was ripped out and the walls came tumbling down. Dust and filth filled up the house. The flue from the wood stove was removed and the hole plugged up. The kitchen was completely obliterated. The Ahmeds kept on demolishing until there were just two large empty spaces upstairs and downstairs, joined by the ugly staircase.

  The filth remained, but finally the noise from the jackhammer stopped. When the dust settled, Andrew was able to draw lines where the bathroom and bedroom walls would be constructed. My French vocabulary increased dramatically as I learnt technical words and phrases relating to building, plumbing and electricity. This had definitely not been covered in any of the classes I had taken.

  But as the work progressed, my daily visits to the building site showed me that things weren’t running as smoothly as I had initially thought. Andrew and I were soon at loggerheads. I felt that as the client I was entitled to change my mind and alter the plans just a little — in fact, quite a bit — and Andrew tried to explain that I had that right but it would affect the finishing date, not to mention the cost. He muttered under his breath that it should be bleedin’ obvious that the total estimate for the job would rise if I continued to upgrade the materials already chosen. Pity I didn’t hear him say that, as I continued to moan about how Rose Cottage was an insatiable money-guzzling monster.

  Late April is always a bad time for me. The anniversary of Norman’s death begins to loom. It is a period of intense and painful reflection that has to be passed as quickly and smoothly as possible for the children’s sake. In previous years I had taken to my bed and cried for twenty-four hours on 24 April, the anniversary of his death. The children and Raymond were no help to me. It was something I had to do by myself. I always came through it by the end of the day. I just needed a bit of solitude.

  On this of all days, Andrew called me over for an urgent meeting about Rose Cottage. I already knew what he would have to say. The drive from St Saturnin les Apt to Saignon takes about fifteen minutes, and during this time I tried to work out possible solutions to the problems he would raise.

  Tears kept welling up in my eyes and spilling down my cheeks. My nose was reddening and unsightly blotches started forming on my face. I needed to be tucked up in bed, not dealing with impossible riddles. I wanted my husband back. I wanted a father for my children. As I entered Saignon and drove towards the parking area next to the church, my mind raced ahead to Mimi’s wedding. How could she ever have a perfect wedding day? Who would give my fatherless child away? Life seemed so unjust.

  But that was before I saw Norman standing on the steps of the church, waving his arms. Greeting me!

  Yes. Yes. Yes. He was back! Ask and your prayers will be answered! In my hurry to get to him, I drove the car straight into the recently repaired flowerbed wall.

  The watery April sun had temporarily blinded me. There was Andrew with his mobile phone, holding it up high to get some sort of a signal; he had the right height, the right colouring, the right beard, but the wrong face. Norman was dead and not coming back, no matter how many times I begged anyone inside my head who might listen.

  Andrew came rushing over. ‘Hen, what on earth . . . ? Are you all right? Didn’t you see that wall?’

  ‘Andrew, how bad is the car? I’m sorry I look like a wreck. I have a bad cold.’ We both knew I was lying. Some things are best left unsaid. ‘Can I ask you a huge favour? Could you shave off your beard?’

  Andrew put his arm around my shoulders and we went off to deal with the latest disaster that had struck Rose Cottage. The walls of the new bathrooms were in the initial stages of construction, but somehow they seemed much smaller than the sketches we had drawn on the floor. Andrew reminded me gently that we had in fact discussed this. Not for the first time, I had been the ‘architect’ of my own problems. A compromise was found. The walls came down again and space was stolen from the corridor and bedrooms. Andrew was happy with the proportions of the bathrooms and bedrooms and I was happy with the outcome. One problem fell off the list.

  But with so much at stake, the renovations continued to be a strain on my emotions even after the anniversary of Norman’s death passed. Hysteria mounted as the days went by; we were rapidly approaching May and the arrival of the first paying guests. Soon I had given up trying to hide my blotchy, tear-stained face as I honked on my nose, tissue box at the ready. My visits
to Rose Cottage started upsetting the Ahmed team, and they found it difficult to make sense of whatever I was saying in broken French through tears, tissues and inadequate building terminology. I hated the rubble and the lack of plaster on the walls. The staircase took up so much of the beautiful space downstairs in the kitchen. The electrician was a moron and fought me at every opportunity. The plumber couldn’t do his job because the walls weren’t finished. I hated them all. Most of all I hated Andrew. Even worse, I couldn’t tell Lizzie of my woes, as he was her husband. One day I had a very adult moment and sat down in the chimney and cried.

  The next day, the chief Ahmed came running up to greet me. He was my own personal human Labrador, a cross between a swarthy Arab cowboy and Yogi Bear. He was grinning from ear to ear. ‘Madame, come and see. I’ve fixed the problem with the stairs.’

  I wasn’t sure that we’d had a problem with the stairs, but the moment I walked through the door I realised that we did now. The staircase had been totally removed and some scaffolding erected in its place. The Ahmeds had wanted to give me a scrap of happiness in my sea of misery. I was dumbfounded.

  Trying to remain calm, I said, ‘Tell me, Ahmed, how on earth do you think my clients are going to get to the first floor?’

  Naturally, they had thought of how my clients were going to get to the first floor.

  ‘A spiral staircase, of course.’

  Oh, great. A circular staircase. The budget had just blown right off the page.

  So a circular stone staircase was ordered in the local Provençal limestone, which would match the kitchen workbench and the surrounds for the sinks. I had to admit it would look spectacular. It was ridiculously expensive, but by this stage I couldn’t argue. After all, something was needed to replace the scaffolding.

  Delivery of the staircase and the kitchen workbench and sink area would take place early the following week. Even with this setback, we stood a chance of getting the workmen out and the clients in by the smallest of margins.

  Raymond urged me to look into a Plan B just in case Rose Cottage wasn’t completed in time. The American clients who would be renting Rose Cottage had specifically wanted a property with a kitchen and laundry, so they could be completely independent. A hotel wouldn’t suit them. So, if necessary, we would have to move out of our home in Chemin St Roch and into a small house in St Saturnin for a week. But by now I was so full of optimism that I was sure Rose Cottage would be ready.

  The following week, a small delivery truck squeezed down the alley leading to Rose Cottage to disgorge the beginnings of the circular staircase. Sitting on the edge of the fountain, I could see at a glance that there weren’t enough pieces to get to the upstairs floor.

  Perhaps two trips for the little truck? Perhaps not! Pieces one to five arrived, and pieces thirteen to fifteen, but not the essential middle section. The whole staircase was like a jigsaw puzzle; all the pieces had to be linked together, and then cement had to be poured down the central column to hold everything in place. No work could go ahead without pieces six to twelve, and no one knew when — or if — they would be delivered.

  The water in the fountain looked inviting, and almost deep enough to drown one of the Ahmeds in. I couldn’t believe they had accepted delivery of an incomplete staircase without knowing when the other pieces were due.

  Worse still, the kitchen benchtop had arrived in a single slab. How were the Ahmeds going to insert the sink without the correct tools to cut the stone? It was going to break in half. But first I was going to break them in half.

  Early in the demolition stage the Ahmeds and I had drawn up a pact: I would do my very best not to swear in front of them in deference to their deep religious beliefs, if they in turn did not smoke in front of me, and better still not on the building site either — though I’d known this was stretching it a little. Now, as I saw the three of them sitting on top of the pile of stone stairs, cigarettes stuck in their mouths and coffee cups in their hands, I took it that the pact was off. The words that poured forth were worthy of a fishwife at the Marseille Markets.

  Didier the plumber, who had been busy installing the hot water system upstairs, came down to see if he could help. He had very forthright ideas about everything and they usually came down to the fact that he was always right and women were always wrong. Although he was a plumber by trade, he felt that he could turn his hand to stonemasonry in a flash. Why could these men not see that it was best to cut the stone down the middle and work with a smaller section of stone rather than risk having the entire block ruined by a jagged break? I was sliding down a very long snake, almost back to square one.

  But I left them to it and went upstairs to see what horrors the electrician had in store for me. Little did I realise that his views on women made the plumber look enlightened! I had drawn on the walls where I wanted all the electrical outlets to be placed. Every single marking was still clearly on the wall but not one of the switches was in the correct place. It was too late to change them. My clients would have to get out of bed to cross the room if they wanted to sleep with the lights off. I started thinking seriously about a gun licence. When the electrician came to do the electrical trials in the house, everything blew — and so did I.

  But somehow the work was finally completed. The missing pieces for the staircase eventually arrived and were installed without a problem and the benchtop was cut in two and then carefully joined together around the sink. Now it was time for the clean-up to begin in earnest. All hands were needed on deck.

  First, it was my job to whitewash the entire house. By the end of it my hair and arms were splattered with white paint and every muscle ached. At least the walls and ceilings were now clean, but the floors defied all description: dust, filth, sawdust, dog poop, coffee stains, cigarette butts and footprints were so ingrained that it was impossible to imagine what would shift them. Raymond was enlisted as chief floor-scrubber, since I was still in shock from the whitewashing. He was on his hands and knees for hours scrubbing the porous clay tiles. That night, when his bleeding knees stained our white sheets, I realised it was time to change strategies.

  We hired a large circular electrical brush that acted as a water vacuum at the same time. This would make life better! In two days, the floors were washed and scrubbed and brought slowly back to their original beauty. Linseed oil was brushed on and was soaked up like a sponge. The Ahmeds brought all the furniture along from the garage of our house in a truck and began carting everything upstairs, while Raymond wielded an electric drill, installing curtain rods and shelves — not always straight. The money had dried up completely, so the colourful Provençal wall tiles would have to wait for another year, but my dreams for Rose Cottage had finally taken shape.

  Life became calmer as the arrival of our first clients drew near. Place de la Fontaine had already opened by this stage, and my delighted clients adored the house as much as I had.

  The biggest decision now was what colour to paint the new shutters on the outside of Rose Cottage. The lovely removable blue shutters that the Dufrains had had for years had appealed to me, but the house really needed new ones as a security measure. (In order to get house insurance in Provence you have to state that you have either bars on the windows or good-quality permanent shutters.) Everyone in Saignon came past to look at the paint samples and to give their opinion. Should I paint them the traditional blue, or maybe do something a little different and try the Basque Red? Provençal Blue won out, as the majority felt that it was more in keeping with the village. There was no way I was going to rock the boat. I preferred the red, but I needed acceptance first. The Basque Red could wait for a couple of years.

  The finishing touches were completed barely twenty-four hours ahead of schedule. At last the big moment arrived. The doors of Rose Cottage were flung open for business.

  It was the same feeling as childbirth. Our labour had been long and arduous. I alone had made all the decisions, and in the end, I alone would have to wear the financial woes if my venture was
not successful. But going from room to room, surveying our achievement, I felt a greater sense of elation and pride than I had ever had in my life. It was true that without Andrew, Raymond and the Ahmeds this would never have happened, but it was my dream and my drive that had made it happen. Norman would not have believed his eyes.

  Just as well I had a few moments of glory, as there was further drama ahead. I had accepted a request for a long-term rental at Place de la Fontaine that would begin almost the same week as the opening of Rose Cottage. The house was to be let out for an eight-week period to an American couple with two very surly teenage daughters. At least this alleviated the need to greet guests every week — but as I found out at the end of their stay, it also gave them the chance to treat the house like a pigsty.

  By ten o’clock, the official departure time, they still weren’t ready to leave; their possessions were strewn about downstairs while the mother ran up to the post office to post more parcels back to the States. This family put a capital U in ‘Ugly Americans’. The house was indescribable: no garbage had been taken out for days, the fridge was brimming with food and the sheets were still rumpled and warm — they’d even slept in!

  In my ignorance I hadn’t thought through the problems of a long rental. Place de la Fontaine was normally cleaned weekly, but I was learning fast that when guests stayed for several weeks, only superficial cleaning was done and little else. Double the usual cleaning time would be required to bring the property up to standard, and this didn’t include applying whitewash to the occasional wall to cover scuff marks.

  Luckily, these guests were the exception to the rule — I have never run across clients of that calibre since. Talk about a baptism by fire! But at least I’d learnt a valuable lesson: I’d never let any guests take advantage of me that way again.