by Mary Moody
I also quickly realise that I am now socialising more than I have for decades, and that back in my ‘real’ life, friendships and entertaining have been abandoned for other priorities, such as my increasingly busy career and ever-expanding family. I have dozens of friends at home who I see only once or twice a year—perhaps communicating more by phone or email—but rarely sitting around a table and sharing a meal. Suddenly I am surrounded by a small but solid group of interesting individuals with whom I seem to have formed an instant bond. We are in constant communication, planning meals together or outings to all the summer activities in the surrounding villages and towns. So instead of being alone, sewing and reading and gazing at my navel, I am in the thick of an intense social whirl. And I am determined to make more time for friendships when I return home.
13
AFTER SEVERAL WEEKS OF camping at Jock’s I am no closer to finding a place of my own to live. There is a promise of a house for three months from September, but that’s two-and-a-half months away. There are dozens of houses around that are used for only four or six weeks a year; they are mainly owned by English families or people from Paris who holiday during the height of the season and then leave the house deserted for the rest of the year. Jock thinks that one particular couple might be happy for their summer house to be occupied rather than empty, and might even allow me to stay rent free in return for tending the garden and mowing the extensive lawns, however it’s not yet available and I really need to find alternative accommodation in the meantime. Rentals are at their peak because it’s the ‘high’ season and most available places have been tarted up for family holidays and are either too large or too expensive for me. Jock meanwhile keeps saying that I can stay as long as I like.
‘I’m in no hurry to throw her out,’ he tells friends who enquire about my house-hunting prospects.
I appreciate how comfortable it must be for Jock having a warm body around—and a built-in drinking and eating mate—but I feel anxious to find my own space where I can begin my experiment in living alone. After all, that is the main purpose of my escape. Jock has run out of ideas and there are few new leads. Lying in bed at night I even start feeling a little desperate. If I cannot become more proactive I’ll still be in Jock’s Trap in six weeks or eight weeks or even six months’ time. It will be fun but I’ll not be experiencing what I set out to achieve.
When I finally find some cheap alternative accommodation, it’s more by good luck than by good management. Lunching at the restaurant across the road one Sunday, I ask one of the fluent French speakers at our table to make some enquiries with the restaurant owners, Jean and Lisette, who I’ve been told own property and have business interests all around the district. To my delight I learn they have a small studio apartment suitable for a single person on the ground level behind their shop in Villefranche-du-Périgord, a fourteenth-century fortified town just across the border into the Dordogne. Lisette has offered to drive me the following day, for an inspection. The best news, from my point of view, is that the rent is only 1200 ff per month—about $75 a week, or $11 a night—including electricity. It is furnished and equipped with kitchen appliances, Lisette says, but I will need to provide my own linen.
I have been to the small town of Villefranche several times with Jock and love its open square, covered market and narrow main street of unpretentious shops. Unlike a lot of the ancient fortified or bastide towns it manages to sustain a couple of good hotel bars, a restaurant and pizzeria without being overtly touristy. There are also a couple of first-rate boulangeries and charcuteries. The street Lisette takes me to is Rue Saint George, parallel to the main street on the low side, and equally as narrow although sealed with asphalt, not cobbled. The buildings, many very old and graceful with shuttered windows and stone towers, back onto this street, which is consequently faced with a myriad of small windows and access doors or garages that once would have been barns. My room is on the ground floor of a handsome three-storey, narrow building and it has two tall timber-shuttered windows—very old, very French. The main door is always unlocked, and the door to the ‘studio’ as it is euphemistically called, is just inside to the left. It was obviously quite a grand house which has been divided up into small flats or gites for renting to tourists in the summer. The floors of the studio are polished timber, and the walls are sponged in a soft yellow that is not unlike my bedroom at home. I find the atmosphere instantly charming, but it’s the fine detail that really captures my imagination. The kitchen, which is about 1.5 metres square, is tucked under a curved staircase with barely enough headroom for anyone of average height to stand upright in front of the stove. When I start cooking, if I stand on my toes, my head will bang into the underneath of the stairs. The bed is a double, quite clean and comfortable, and hidden behind a garish folding screen that provides some privacy from the street.
But it’s the salle de bain, or bathroom, that really seals the deal. It’s a cupboard—literally a WC in the purest sense of the term—a freestanding, prefabricated vinyl-covered wardrobe unit, circa 1970s, with doors that open to reveal a handbasin and shelves on one side and a hanging wardrobe for clothes on the other. It’s the sort of bathroom arrangement you might find in steerage on a cheap cruise liner. The entire front of the cupboard swings 180 degrees around to reveal a tiny dark shower recess with a toilet to one side; you could sit on the loo and shower at the same time if you really wanted to. While my initial reaction is one of horror at the hideousness of the unit, I am also quite amused at the notion of living with such an eccentric amenity. I agree to move in the following Saturday.
My room faces south, and gets the full force of both the midday and afternoon sun. When I open the door on the day of the move, I am almost overwhelmed by the acrid stench of tomcat piss, a smell I have become accustomed to over a lifetime of cat ownership. Obviously Jean and Lisette have been leaving the windows and shutters open in an attempt to air the room before I move in, and the local tomcats have simply taken the opportunity to claim the territory in turn. I throw open the windows and shutters to let in some fresh air before bringing my modest possessions inside. Jock has loaned me some sheets, a sharp knife, an extra pillow and a radio which he assures me will get the French classical music channel and possibly even the BBC World Service. I cannot start putting anything away because everything in the room is covered in a layer of grime—I guess nobody has lived here for months, if not years. Rooms like this, understandably, are not in big demand.
In the late afternoon while I am washing pots and pans I hear a cat fight and rush to the window to catch a glimpse of a ginger and white tomcat with the largest pair of balls I have ever seen. Perhaps his half-starved body accentuates their size, but they appear to be glued to his rear end like two enormous ping pong balls. He turns and scowls at me before stalking off. I have moved into his patch and he is not amused. Normally I am a sucker for stray cats, and will feed any vaguely hungry-looking cat that saunters into my orbit. But these village toms are not to be encouraged with tasty snacks, rather kept at bay, unless I am to be overrun. In fact, two cats pay me a nocturnal visit on my first night—I shout at them and they make a hasty exit, hopefully without having sprayed their trademarks all over the room before waking me. It’s not ideal sleeping without fresh air and it’s been my lifetime habit to leave the bedroom windows open in the summer, even when I’m not at home. At night the idea of sleeping with the windows closed is claustrophobic, so I rig up a temporary barrier behind the half-closed shutters using a clothes drying rack. It somehow ruins the ambience of the only ‘French feature’ of what Jock calls ‘Mary’s Hovel’.
When I was seventeen and planning to move into my first share house I had the most exciting time with my flatmate Kate, buying all the necessary household bits and pieces. We scrounged essential items including linen, towels and even beds and cupboards from our respective parents’ homes, but had a lot of fun lay-bying pretty coffee cups, wineglasses and tablecloths. If we had realised that our live-in boyfr
iends were hellbent on turning our share house into a nonstop party venue with beer and marijuana soirées, we wouldn’t have gone to such a lot of trouble. The cups were quickly broken and the idea of domestic bliss completely shattered. Getting set up in my French hovel is similar, except that I will be totally in control of the situation this time and don’t anticipate any all-night rave parties.
My new friend Margaret Barwick lends me a soft, pretty Laura Ashley bed quilt in yellow, blue and white, so I can ditch the resident clean but stained lime green chenille coverlet. Margaret also fills the back of my car with an assortment of decorative and practical items including a Provençal-style yellow and blue tablecloth, some long-stemmed wine glasses, white dinner plates, a lamp, a rug and, best of all, some pretty candle holders and a handful of yellow candles. I’m almost set.
Most domestic stoves in France run on bottled gas, and the bottle in the hovel’s stove is empty. I need to take it to a garage and swap it for a full one, then somehow connect it to the cook-top. I also need to clean and plug in the fridge, which is filthy, and wipe down every surface before putting things away. This is a sort of nesting, which I always enjoy: making a place like home, giving it a personal stamp, getting it clean, making it pretty. Some people take no pleasure in cleaning away the grunge left behind by previous inhabitants, but I find it strangely satisfying. Making up the bed is the best part. The sheets Jock loaned me are brand new, and with the bedcover and large white pillow cases, I now have a welcoming place to crawl into at night. The room is so small I can’t find anywhere to store the old bedding, now folded into plastic garbage bags. I settle on the boot of my car, where they can remain for the next two months without getting in the way.
There are really very few bedrooms I have inhabited on a permanent basis. Two during my childhood and growing up years, a couple of rented houses with friends in my late teens, and then the two bedrooms I have shared with David over the past thirty years. The first of these was in a small sandstone terrace in the city, the second is the light and airy bedroom of our home in Leura, which has two walls of windows looking out to the garden; this has been my bedroom for the past twenty-three years. The difference with the Villefranche bedroom is that it will be my entire living space for at least two months: a bed, a table, three upright chairs, a shoebox-size kitchen and a loo inside a cupboard that I christen the Tardis. I have no television and Jock’s radio barely gets even a fuzzy local reception.
But it’s mine, totally mine. My own small space to come and go as I please, to sleep and eat and read and have some thinking time. I love it. When I lie on the bed I am literally one-and-a-half steps from the toilet and two steps from the fridge. In Australia there are strict rules about distances between bathrooms and kitchens, but here no such restrictions seem to apply. I delay the first attempt at using the Tardis, dreading the claustrophobic feeling of swinging the revolving door behind me—it’s been designed so that you have to close the door or the toilet lid can’t be opened. Eventually I can wait no longer, and climb inside the contraption. The toilet is so low that I am practically crouched in a squatting position, and the shower faucet is almost immediately overhead. But it works fine and I can see no ongoing problem as long as I avoid using the loo immediately after showering, when it will have been well doused in water. I place a lamp on the roof of the unit, which has a translucent ceiling, so that I can actually see what I am doing once inside. It helps.
It’s fun to fill the fridge with good things to eat and drink, and it’s certainly not difficult shopping in this gorgeous village. The wines are superb and very cheap, as is the beer. However, meat at the smart charcuterie is quite expensive—I am shocked to discover that three lamb cutlets set me back more than 30 ff (nearly $8) but I make them last three meals, so it’s not too drastic. Cheeses are irresistible although it’s hard to make a decision when there are so many varieties unknown to me displayed in the glass cabinet; a camembert and a blue are a good combination. Fruit and vegetables are abundant at this time of year and they are strictly seasonal and generally locally grown, which means they taste real—no keeping produce in cold storage for weeks at a time or gassing or spraying with preservatives. During my first few weeks the strawberries are being harvested, and mounds of brilliant red heart-shaped fruits are on display everywhere, going cheap. They can be eaten as they come, steeped in sugar and red wine, or lightly stewed. Compared with those huge strawberries grown hydroponically in glasshouses, which are often half ripe and woody when sent to market, these are a total taste sensation.
My first two or three evenings alone in Villefranche feel very strange indeed. The late afternoons and early part of the evenings seem to drag interminably. I try and think of things to fill the hours: walking around the village; sitting in the Hotel du Commerce having a couple of beers; planning and preparing a sumptuous dinner; writing postcards to friends and family; or reading whatever English-language book, magazine or newspaper I can lay my hands on. The daytimes are not a problem because I usually drive to St Caprais first thing to check my email on Jock’s up-to-date computer, then get caught up in whatever he is planning for the day—generally a drive to a nearby village market followed by lunch somewhere cheap and interesting. My habit then is to wend my way back to Villefranche in the afternoon to have a two-hour siesta. It’s the first time in my life that I have ever indulged in afternoon naps: it feels very decadent but delightful. I simply close the timber shutters leaving open the glass windows inside, which allows some airflow but makes the room quite cool and dark; shafts of sunlight force their way through the few cracks where the old shutters don’t quite meet. I lie on top of the bed, generally stark naked because the days are overwhelmingly hot, and quickly slip into a carefree but deep sleep. Having no phone and with nobody but Jock knowing my exact location, I am enveloped in a rare sensation of freedom. Nobody can touch me. My afternoon sleep can’t be stolen by a phone call or the shrill sound of the fax machine; by a courier banging on the front door delivering yet more work, setting the dog to barking. I am untouchable.
Waking from a daytime sleep, however—especially after having some wine with lunch—is not all that pleasant. Often I have a dry mouth, thick head and a distinct feeling of disorientation. I guzzle down some bottled water, splash my face from the tap and open the shutters to let in the late afternoon sunshine. The hours between now and bedtime have to be filled and I’m finding that yet another new hurdle to leap. For decades my waking hours have been totally filled with nonstop and often frenetic activity. My days flash past too quickly as I race against the clock to accomplish all the set tasks, be they work- or gardening- or family-related. Now six or seven hours stretch ahead of me, and filling them is daunting. It’s too late to go off driving around the countryside and too hot in July for walking until well after eight o’clock in the evening, unless it’s through the woods in dappled shade. After a large midday meal my energy levels are quite low, and I look for more passive activities. I’ve never had time to kill and I should be enjoying it. But I don’t. I feel flat and rather bored. And irritated with myself for not feeling like doing much at all. I keep thinking here I am in this marvellous place and all I am doing is eating, drinking and sleeping. It’s part of an old expectation thing: I should be DOING something. ACHIEVING something. I must somehow let all these feelings go. I am not here to accomplish anything at all, other than just to fall about and be myself, to relax and have some fun. But it’s extremely difficult breaking habits of a lifetime.
A chilled beer at the Hotel du Commerce wakes me up properly at 8 pm, then I wander back to the room to make dinner. At home the family would have well and truly finished dinner by now, eating between the ABC news at 7 pm and the current affairs programs as part of a long addiction to the evening news. Here I don’t even start peeling a potato until after 8.30, and often don’t eat until 9.30 or 10 pm. While the dinner cooks I read the English newspapers, which are delivered to Villefranche a day after publication, and I drink a little chill
ed rosé. I read every line of the newspaper, except the sport. At home I am a skimmer, reading the lead paragraphs and getting through the entire paper in about twenty minutes. Here I can make the Times last for four hours, and be really well informed, if a little out of date.
With some feelings of guilt, I decide to start assembling the yellow and blue fabrics that I bought in Provence to make a cot quilt for the new baby due in eight weeks. I have also bought a book of designs, and cut out the cardboard templates from an old cereal packet. Originally I intended to sew the entire quilt by hand, but Margaret lends me her sewing machine to make the task much faster. The available light is excellent until quite late in the evening—indeed the sun doesn’t set before 10 pm—so I can see well enough to work away on the quilt after dinner. I am trying to feel a connection with this unborn child, which is much more difficult to do when we are on opposite sides of the world. My small table is overcrowded with sewing equipment, local travel guides, novels and reference books, plus my computer, giving the impression that the room is the centre of an incredible hive of activity. I cannot seem to escape this image of being fully occupied, no matter where I go.
