Escaping
Page 29
The following day I awoke with a mental list of all my favourite things to do in Venice — but there would be no gondola trips or ferry rides to the outlying islands for us. Raimondo would be presenting us with a full day of culture in the form of churches and art galleries, which would involve walking everywhere to experience the true delights of Venice.
Luckily, there was dissension amongst the troops. The children wanted to experience more earthly delights, such as chocolate ripple gelato, or any other flavour they could find. Raimondo was promptly issued with a spare key to the apartment and sent on his way — alone. We would meet up later for lunch, but meanwhile the children and I needed to do some serious window-shopping and souvenir-buying. Endless T-shirts, key rings, rulers and tea towels were mused over for all their friends back in the village. Mimi was fascinated by the exclusive boutiques selling outrageous scarves and shoes, a beautiful crocodile-skin bag kept calling out to me, and Harry just wanted to look for action figures. By lunchtime, there was little left on my credit card. Our half-day of liberty was over. Raimondo had insisted we did something together and that meant an activity of a cultural nature. Our choice: an art gallery or a church.
We left Venice the next day feeling very gloomy; our time there had been too short. Of course, the best holidays are those that leave you wanting more, but I knew that within forty-eight hours Raimondo would be stepping onto a plane and leaving us behind. Nobody was particularly happy as we travelled on the ferry back to Piazzale Roma.
Backpacks slung over our shoulders, we headed for the car. Raimondo snorted with derision at the amount of extra luggage, in the shape of shopping bags, that we had managed to accumulate in one half-day. The children and I laughed, saying that he might be trained in culture but we were SSS — Skilled Speedy Shoppers. We hoped that the shops in Vienna would be as much fun, although it worried me when Raimondo started talking about how the streets of Vienna were imbued with art, music and history. An hour or two in an art gallery was not going to wave a magic wand over my mood.
‘Harry, if we’re lucky we might see where Arnold Schwarzenegger lived when he was young!’ Mimi explained to her brother. That brought us all back down to earth.
The scenery driving up through Italy into Austria was without a doubt the most breathtaking I had ever seen. The hills were certainly alive with the sound of music; where was Julie Andrews when you needed her? It was chocolate-box material everywhere you looked. The soaring snow-tipped mountains, the cloudless blue sky, the green woods, the wooden chalets with hearts on their shutters; nothing was out of order. But all this splendour did little to lift my spirits. It was obvious that the next forty-eight hours were going to be unbearable for all of us.
It was an easy drive to Vienna once I remembered that the road signs would indicate ‘Wien’ and not ‘Vienna’.‘Willkommen in Wien’ — ‘Welcome to Vienna’ — said the sign on the outskirts of the city. After we’d passed it three times, I was feeling less welcome. We tried valiantly to locate our hotel, which had been expressly chosen by the information office for the straightforwardness of its location. I was becoming highly agitated, and as a result we got into the wrong lane, skirting the centre of Vienna and ending up on a long strip of artificial island in the middle of the Danube. By this stage I was hysterical and wanted nothing to do with Vienna ever again.
It was so very green, with just too many parks. There might have been a lot of culture and a rich heritage on those streets, but everything was just too well planned, too clean and tidy. There were no Fiat Bambino cars clogging the roads, no ear-splitting horns, no arms gesticulating wildly out of car windows, no leers from drivers undressing you with their eyes, no Vespas weaving in and out of the traffic like demented mosquitoes, no cars parked higgledy-piggledy up on the pavement. In fact, there weren’t many cars full stop. Without doubt, we were no longer in Italy. We all sighed. Yes, bell’Italia.
I didn’t need any sessions on a couch with a Sigmund Freud devotee to find the root of my problem. Raimondo was leaving us and we were all cross. He asked to pull over when he spied a parking spot that happened to be in front of a typical Viennese coffee house. He needed the loo, and maybe a coffee and some apple strudel would cheer us all up. I crossed my fingers that the waitress would be able to point us in the direction of our hotel.
An hour later, we waddled back to the car. Already there were too many things not to like about Vienna:
1. It changed its name from Vienna to Wien without telling me.
2. All the road signs were in German. I never learnt at school that Kein Zutritt meant ‘No Entrance’ and that Notausgang did not mean ‘Exit’ but ‘Emergency Exit’.
3. The Blue Danube/Donau didn’t look very blue to me.
4. Wien/Vienna looked conservative and very boring.
5. The Ringstrasse Boulevard was majestic and over seventy-five metres wide, but terrifying when you were in the wrong lane, trying to turn left.
6. I hated Apfelstrudel, and I couldn’t drink an Einspänner,a traditional Viennese coffee with lashings of Schlagobers — whipped cream. The effect on my stomach was not to be trusted. So forget the Doppelschlag — double helpings of whipped cream — for me. Basically, I decided I would not touch Viennese cooking with a barge pole.
It was obvious that the end of our time together was colouring my usual enjoyment of travel.
Our hotel, when we eventually found it, was clean and comfortable, and I was directed to a large underground parking station that solved the mystery of why there were so few cars parked on the streets: everything is neatly stowed underground. I had started to change my mind about the city a little by breakfast time, when we were greeted by a most substantial meal of muesli, eggs, meat, cheese, black bread and rolls. The children would be able to keep going until at least lunchtime, though they still moaned at the program Raymond had prepared for us.
‘Let’s go!’ he cried, a little too enthusiastically for my liking. ‘We have a lot to see before lunch.’
This time there was no escape. Our day would be jammed full of culture whether we liked it or not.
After a couple of hours at the art gallery we were off to the Hofburg Palace. We didn’t want to see where the Vienna Boys’ Choir sang Mass every Sunday. We were quite interested in seeing where the Spanish Riding School performed, as my sister is a mad equestrian and would have died for a souvenir hat or T-shirt. But this was not to be, as Raymond had decided it would be inexcusable to miss the Belvedere Palace. How often did we come to Vienna? Once too often, we chorused!
But our time was ticking away and suddenly there was none left. We had had just one full day in Vienna. Raymond’s flight was early the next morning. It was time to say goodbye.
We followed the signs to the Flughafen at Schwechat. All airports are dismally the same, devoid of any soul. Maybe they deliberately make them so clinical because people’s emotions are running so high. Standing at the departure gates, the children and I all looked glumly at the flashing boarding sign while blinking away the tears.
Raymond was so jovial. He couldn’t wait to swim in the Pacific Ocean, get thick yellow sand between his toes and drink cold Australian beer with the boys at the ‘table of knowledge’ at the Steyne Hotel in Manly.
First he turned to the children. ‘Kinder, look, I’ll see you very soon. And you’ll be busy at school. You won’t miss me a bit.’
‘Don’t count on that,’ mumbled Harry — partly because he knew that Raymond’s chore of emptying the garbage bins would now fall on his shoulders.
‘Tell me, what was the best thing we did here in Vienna?’
‘I didn’t get to see where Arnold Schwarzenegger lived,’ said Harry.
‘I didn’t get to buy that T-shirt that says “There are no kangaroos in Austria”,’ said Mimi.
I couldn’t say anything, because the tears were streaming down my face uncontrollably, my nose was blocked up and my waterproof mascara was running in black rivulets down my cheeks and collecting in unseemly pools round
my eyes. I couldn’t see what was directly in front of me, let alone contemplate driving the 1000 kilometres back to France.
‘Bloody hell, now what are we going to do with her?’ Mimi said to her brother.‘For Christ’s sake, Maman, don’t fall to pieces! Pick your bloody game up!’
I blew my nose and decided to take Mimi’s advice and pick my game up, while telling her not to swear (though I knew she’d got the habit from me).
Just before he went through the departure gates Raymond gave me my final instructions for getting back to Provence. ‘Head for Switzerland. Turn left at Geneva into France. It’s only early; make sure you keep the sun behind you. Don’t drive into the sun or you’ll end up in Hungary.’
Starting to look upset for the first time, he gave both of the children a hug. ‘Look, I love you all very much,’ he said. Then, drawing me to his chest, he whispered into my ear, ‘And as for you, Madame Taylor, je t’aime.’
He loved me! He finally said it! I was always saying that I loved him and finally he had said it in return. It didn’t matter that we couldn’t live together all the time, or even be on the same continent. He’d told me he loved me and he loved my children, and I knew he meant it.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Happy Ending
AFTER I SORTED OUT that Schweiz was Switzerland and Deutschland was Germany, Linz was in Austria and Budapest wasn’t in our direction, we headed off, knowing that Raymond was flying halfway around the world and it was still debatable as to who would be home first.
I knew the answer to that when we unexpectedly found ourselves in the streets of Munich. Somehow we had ended up in Germany!
Once I found the right direction, though, the trip back to France gave me ample time to contemplate our current life and our future.
I thought about how fate had stepped in and pushed us towards a destiny that I had never thought possible. After eleven months, we had established a stable life for ourselves halfway across the world. Rose Cottage was fully renovated and both properties had solid bookings for the following season, 2002, but more importantly, the children were happy in their new school, speaking French quite fluently and understanding most of what was said back to them. It was clear to me that they would both benefit for life if they completed their education in France. But it was too soon to make a decision of that magnitude; it could wait.
As for Raymond and me, we would just have to see how it worked out. He believed that in the long run the hurdles would be small. We had agreed not to discuss the future and to let it take care of itself.
Love was a tricky thing. When I was young, marriage to a wonderful man was all I dreamt about. Now, I wasn’t quite so sure. Marriage had let me down — or rather, cancer had. Somewhere along the way I had learnt that there was no such a thing as a perfect relationship. Ray and I just had to try and accept our partnership for what it was.
One thing I was sure of: no one could ever replace Norman as the children’s father. The children and I needed to become a solid triangle rather than a lopsided square, missing one side and hobbling along through life. We had to learn to cope independently as a trio, since the reality was that Raymond might never become the fourth side of our square.
I looked at my two children dozing in the back seat of the big Italian Multipla, and laughed to myself as I remembered our first overseas trip together. The music from The Lion King playing over the car stereo had now been replaced by CDs of teenage pop divas and American rappers. Norman may have missed out on their childhood, but every now and again I would see an expression from his repertoire flicker across their faces. He was no longer in our lives, but his spirit was always with us.
I made a list of all the extraordinary things we’d achieved over the past two years:
1. Mimi and Harry both happy and thriving.
2. A small business teetering on the brink of success.
3. The most outstandingly white sheets in the Luberon.
4. Fantastic clients (frequent).
5. Hideous clients from hell (rare).
6. Constant amusement from the French with their foibles and obsessions — and maybe a move to Italy one day?
7. Alcoholic consumption under control (on most days).
8. An unusual relationship between Raymond and me across two continents.
9. Blissful happiness every day.
I’m sure that Norman couldn’t ask for more.
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank the team at HarperCollins, headed by Shona Martyn and Helen Littleton, who replied to the deluge of mail I sent to the international literary world in the vague hope that someone might be interested in my manuscript. Amruta Slee and Emma Kelso then spent many hours pushing it into shape. Many thanks.
To my number one reader and best friend, Sue Gamble, who knew my story yet kept asking for more chapters. Dinners were burnt or left in the freezer while she read every chapter from the computer screen. To Susan Wyndham, Sydney journalist, who was in the process of writing a book and gave me such encouragement to write my own. We had whiled away many an hour together at Sydney University, daydreaming about life, but it was she who pointed me in the right direction and urged me to fulfil my dream. Many thanks.
Closer to home, in Provence, without a doubt my biggest supporters have been Claire Larmenier and her family, without whose help and love, lavished upon me so undeservedly, I would never have passed the first chapter. Un grand merci. To my friend Lizzie, who sat in the car listening to my problems with various chapters as we drove back and forth on shopping expeditions to Avignon. To Brian and Joy Woolley, who started off as clients but have become my close friends. To all of my clients who have read portions of this book and who begged for more. Many thanks.
This book showed me that the most important thing in life is family. When your closest friends in the whole world happen to be family, you are truly blessed. Many thanks to my father Jack, my literary guide in life, and to my mother Sheilagh, who never leaves my thoughts. Huge thanks must also go to my children’s aunt and uncle — my sister-in-law and her husband — who continue to give their niece and nephew such an abundance of love that they are spoilt rotten in the best possible way. Also to my sister Kate, who never questioned my sanity and wisdom even though she held concrete proof that they were in severe doubt.
To the people of Saignon, who allowed me to become part of their very special and magical village, je vous remercie.
HENRIETTA TAYLOR
2005
About the Author
HENRIETTA TAYLOR grew up in Mosman, Sydney, and trained as a language teacher while travelling extensively around France and Italy. She now runs three rental cottages in Provence, in the south of France. Her spare time is spent failing miserably to train two black cats and two bilingual dogs. Her two bilingual children, Mimi and Harry, continue to give her handy hints about her shortcomings in motherhood.
Copyright
HarperPerennial
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers
First published in Australia in 2005 as Veuve Taylor
This edition published in 2016
by HarperCollinsPublishers Australia Pty Limited
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www.harpercollins.com.au
Copyright © Henrietta Taylor 2005
The right of Henrietta Taylor to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her under the Copyright Amendment (Moral Rights) Act 2000.
This work is copyright. Apart from any use as permitted under the Copyright Act 1968, no part may be reproduced, copied, scanned, stored in a retrieval system, recorded, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
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ISBN: 978 0 73228 145 8.
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National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication data:
Taylor, Henrietta.
Escaping.
1. Taylor, Henrietta. 2. Businesswomen – France –
Provence – Biography. 3. Australians – France – Provence –
Biography. 4. Tourism – France – Provence. I. Title.
338.76092