by Mary Moody
I start feeling rather sad at the dwindling numbers, especially as I have a feeling that once I leave I shall probably never return. Life is like that. I always intend to come back but I rarely do. I know perfectly well that once I fall into my old routine of work and family and other commitments, it will be very difficult to find the time, not to mention the money, to take another holiday in this part of the world that I have grown to love so dearly. As the days get shorter I feel a certain gloom descending that makes me feel homesick for Australia and my family, yet I am reluctant to leave my present home and my new-found ‘family’.
28
MY MOTHER DIED SUDDENLY four years ago. It was unusual for a woman of my generation in Australia to have her mother living under the same roof for more than two decades. Certainly it was difficult at times, and we had our fair share of serious arguments—usually about trivial issues—which could take days or even weeks to sort out.
Looking at the old farmhouses in the Lot where extended families of three or more generations all lived together in one small room—cooking, eating and sleeping, making love, giving birth and dying within four walls—reminds me strongly of how it was in our family. The expectations we now have about our quality of life and our relationships are much higher than they once were. In previous generations people ‘put up’ with a lot more—less than perfect marriages were common but did not automatically end in divorce. Several generations lived under the one roof if financial circumstances were stretched, and even if there were complaints and bitching, the situation was tolerated. People made an effort to get along with members of their own family, even if they found them seriously wanting. Now, of course, we expect life to be perfect, in materialistic terms, and in our personal relationships. Marriages are tossed over at the first sign of a crack, and rarely, if ever, do more than two generations co-exist. This shift has even extended into non-Anglo Australian communities which traditionally included live-in grandparents. We simply won’t tolerate the inconvenience of sharing a bathroom or having to cook dinner for large numbers of people. We are too busy and probably too self-absorbed to be bothered.
Having Mum as a permanent part of our family was a gift. Her humour and intelligence filtered down the generations and added greatly to the richness of the children’s lives. Mum had many passions—classical music, literature, history and politics—and she supervised all the children in their music lessons and nightly practice. They were too much in awe of her to refuse. She drummed Shakespeare into their heads, along with grammar and perfect pronunciation, Latin and poetry—all the things I didn’t have the time or inclination or energy to introduce into their formative minds. She loved to cook and potter in the garden, she adored the animals and even liked to chop wood for the open fires before she became too frail to do so. Best of all, she was my companion during David’s lengthy periods away from home, and helped provide some structure and discipline in those areas of childrearing where I was totally lax.
In the last few years of her life Mum became very dependent on us all, both physically and emotionally. She was one of those strong-minded individuals who had no time for dying, although she knocked herself around daily with excessive drinking and smoking, which contributed to her final demise. Towards the end she had some terrible falls in the evenings after drinking, and we installed railings and other safety measures to help her remain mobile. She adored spending time with the children’s teenage friends and loved it when people came for dinner, especially if there was some lively debate. She swore loudly and frequently abused people if she disagreed with their opinions. She never lost her passion for controversial political standpoints, and often shouted out ‘Up the Revolution’ as she lurched off to bed at the end of an evening.
When Mum died, we were all taken completely by surprise, even though she had been frail for some time. Her death was heralded only by a sharp pain down one side, which she decided not to mention to anyone for at least twenty-four hours. It was typical of her to minimise any aches and pains for fear of being treated like an old crock. She was tough and could put up with terrible agony—like the gout she frequently suffered in her feet—with little or no complaint. But on this occasion the pain became too intense for her to ignore. She joked about it to her youngest grandson Ethan, ‘I think I’m dying, but don’t tell your mother.’
So he didn’t. Eventually, however, he realised things were far from all right and he contacted me by phone. I immediately returned home. He also called our family doctor who tried valiantly to get an ambulance to take Mum to the local hospital. It was a Friday night and it was raining. There had been a couple of minor car accidents, and all the ambulances were in use. In the end I carried Mum to my car myself, climbing over a pile of bark mulch for the garden that had been delivered outside the front gate earlier in the day, her small, thin body cradled in my arms as I stumbled in the rain and the dark. The casualty department of the local hospital was a chaotic nightmare. I insisted on Mum being given a bed to lie on, but it was a good four hours before a doctor was able to examine her. Four hours of agony she suffered, while I lay virtually on top of her, stroking her head and trying to keep her calm. Eventually she was given some pain relief and a diagnosis of kidney stones, but as the painkillers started to work she began looking gravely ill, and the diagnosis changed. There was a suspicion of something more sinister, and the medical staff decided she should fly to a larger hospital at the base of the mountains.
Mum’s reaction to the suggestion of being lugged into a helicopter was typical. The air was blue with bad language, so they then decided that a standard ambulance would be more appropriate for her needs. The plan was to do a series of x-rays the following morning. I’ll never really understand why I decided against riding with her in the ambulance, but being exhausted, I opted to go home and get some sleep. I never saw Mum alive again. She died shortly after getting to the second hospital, and when the call came through I was totally numb with disbelief.
We spontaneously organised a do-it-yourself home funeral with the casket on the kitchen table in true Irish tradition. The children and their friends, many of them artistic, decorated her plain plywood coffin with paintings from her life: her portrait on the lid; her favourite yellow roses; waratahs from the local bushland; the handprints of her only great-grandson Eamonn, then nearly three years old. We felt she had left in such a hurry, without saying goodbye. We were allowed to bring her body home for one last night, when we put the finishing touches to the work of art. The chickens were wrenched from their perches near midnight, and their feet dipped in coloured paint to decorate the sides of the coffin. Likewise the dog and the cats. Pages from her last reporter’s notebook, which she maintained religiously on her bedside table to write down grammatical mistakes made by ABC broadcasters, were pasted between the paintings. The crossword puzzle she had completed on the morning that she died. A short list of teenagers who owed her money.
The next day friends and family gathered in the backyard. Everyone was handed a glass of champagne, and we all spoke in turn about what she had meant in our lives. The garden was filled with people, many of them young barefooted teenagers with dreadlocks and body piercings and tattoos. And dozens of women in my age group who regarded Muriel as their wise local elder. There were very few old people in her circle of friends.
Later at the cemetery when the coffin was lowered, balancing carefully on the colourfully painted lid was her final half-full glass of whisky and a half-empty packet of cigarettes. When we erected her headstone, a handsome sandstone Celtic cross, the stonemason had carved her favourite phrase ‘Up the Revolution’.
Here in France I cannot help but compare the rather oddball send-off we organised for my mother with the traditionally formal funerals I see from time to time in the villages. There’s always a sombre vehicle moving from church to graveyard with the villagers marching behind in quiet formation. The church bells are an important part of the service, and they seem to ring incessantly before the procession of
villagers appears down the main street. One day in Villefranche, as I am drinking tea in the café, the bells begin in earnest, and I have a bird’s eye view of the entire proceedings, without appearing to be eavesdropping. Instead of a hearse, the coffin is carried in a sort of dark blue delivery van with tinted windows and the mourners march four abreast behind it. On this occasion the coffin doesn’t actually leave the van, which sits in waiting outside the church for more than half an hour. Only half the mourners go inside the church—the rest remain on the steps, as if keeping a vigil beside the coffin. Eventually the bells start up again and the mourners from inside lead the whole contingent back down the main street towards the cemetery. There is no talking or weeping or embracing, indeed no interchange between the mourners at all. The subdued, gloomy atmosphere is in total contrast to the boisterous celebration of my mother’s longish life which prevailed despite our acute sense of loss. I know which I prefer!
Mum’s death also started me thinking again about the death of my father all those years ago. I realised that I could never have felt the same closeness with my father, and therefore did not feel anything like the same level of sadness at his death. In all honesty, I had been relieved that he was no longer around to cause my mother anguish, and while at times I longed to see him or talk with him again, I really believed the world was much better off without him. The men of my father’s generation had no expectations placed on them to perform as parents, except financially. They were not expected to help change nappies, bathe, feed or even play with small children, and emotional intimacy between fathers and daughters was certainly not encouraged. The fact that my father had not even lived up to his financial expectations by supporting the family on his income, and that he caused such havoc with his heavy drinking and womanising, greatly affected my view of him. On one level I was in awe of his achievements, in particular his stature as a well-respected journalist, but on another, emotional, level I was frightened of him. His death, no matter how tragically perceived by others, was for me quite liberating.
29
WHEN YOU GO ON HOLIDAY it’s not uncommon to fall in love. Often these holiday romances don’t stand the test of time, and if those involved are sensible, they will have a cooling-off period to re-establish a balance in their lives before making a major commitment.
The same can be said for buying real estate. I can’t begin to remember the number of times David and I have come home and announced to the rest of the family that we were definitely going to buy a property in the place where we had just been holidaying. In the first flush of our relationship we spent a lot of time visiting friends and holidaying in the Bathurst district, where we looked longingly at houses and farms and visited real estate agents. We did the same in northern NSW, the south coast, Mudgee, Cowra, southern Queensland, Norfolk Island and even on trips to visit members of David’s family back in New Zealand. It must be the mere fact of being so relaxed when in holiday mode, of seeing so much beauty and potential all around and wanting to be part of it. Somehow when you are feeling rested and at one with the world in a new beautiful location it seems like a great idea to capture a piece of it for yourself. To hang on to the euphoric feelings of happiness you have when on holiday.
That’s just what happens in France. For the first three or four months I experience the excitement of being in a truly foreign place, where people behave and speak very differently, and where everything appears exotic and fascinating. The antiquity of the houses and the gorgeous stonework; the cobbled streets and open markets; and the sheer weight of history oozing from every rustic back alley in every medieval township is totally enthralling.
After several months living in one place I started to get into the rhythm of life and learn the tricks of survival. How to find a parking place even in the most complex maze of narrow back streets. How to shop at the supermarket and deal with washing my clothes and getting my car repaired and communicating with the outside world. Then I came to realise, with a degree of disillusionment, that people in France are really just the same as people everywhere in the world. They have the same needs and desires and problems as people in Bathurst or Des Moines or Liverpool. They may behave a little strangely at times, but essentially they still do the shopping and take their children to school and cook the dinner and pay the mortgage. It’s not an anticlimax, it’s just coming back down to earth.
I can’t ever escape the fact, however, that rural French communities are steeped in an atmosphere that is impossible to replicate anywhere else in the world. It’s the history thing again, and the postcard-perfect beauty of the countryside and villages that constantly sets my heart soaring with joy. In all my time here I honestly haven’t been inside a single ugly house. I have looked at some wonderful restorations and listened to satisfying personal accounts of buying and doing up rustic old houses. In spite of mutterings about unreliable tradespeople—the same complaints you hear anywhere in the world—the general message getting through to me is that buying an old house in the southwest of France and restoring it is definitely a fabulous idea. Well, at least that is the interpretation I have chosen to adopt.
David and I have occasionally had dreamy conversations about owning a little cottage in France or Italy, but we never seriously entertained the idea as being in any way realistic. Now that I have been here for some months, and gained an insight into house prices and the feasibility of actually buying a house, I can see that it’s a dream that maybe—just maybe—is possible to achieve. On one of my regular Sunday calls I mention to David that I would like to look at some old houses, with a view perhaps to buying one. To my amazement he doesn’t faint at the idea at all. In fact, he sounds reasonably encouraging. The main criteria will be price, of course. It will have to be cheap and it will have to be livable. We can both work virtually anywhere in our professions. As long as we have a phone, a computer and an email connection, we can work in any house in any country in the world. David comes to France every year for the Cannes Film Festival. He could simply go directly from the festival to our house in the southwest for a month or so, and I could join him. I can write books and magazine articles from France. And take photographs for my gardening library. It all seems achievable. And very, very exciting.
I start looking through cracks in doors and shutters of derelict, abandoned houses, of which there seem to be hundreds, both in the countryside and within almost every village and township. The gloomy interiors with huge fireplaces, stone sinks and wide timber floorboards speak to me of unimaginable romantic possibilities. Next I start noticing ‘A Vendre’ signs that lure me to stop and walk around, peek inside if possible, and assess the ambience. Having been lucky enough to find cheap rental accommodation twice by networking, I decide that I should spread the word around that I am interested in buying something, and see what pops up. Nothing much happens.
First up, Danny shows me a tiny stone house at the back of a field behind his property that his farming neighbour is prepared to sell for a song—but it doesn’t have water or electricity connected, both of which can be an expensive proposition. He also knows of a similar cottage near St Caprais, which we walk to through woodland to find it packed with bales of straw. It is charming but derelict.
I half-heartedly look in the windows of local immobiliers (real estate agents) and see some wonderful-looking houses and chateaux that are way, way out of my class. Several weeks pass with no activity, then I plunge in and make an appointment to view the property books of a couple of English agents at nearby Les Arques. I have been told by friends that good cheap houses are now few and far between, but this is not what I see when I start leafing through the brochures. Dozens of old stone houses in need of love and attention smile out at me, and I make a short list of ten possibilities to inspect.
The reason so many houses lie empty for decades in this part of France is perplexing to an outsider. French inheritance laws are Napoleonic, and so complex that many houses and farm buildings are caught up in family disputes because no mutual a
greement can ever be reached. In French law children are favoured over the surviving spouse, which means effectively that many widows face eviction. Even parents, if they are still alive, are further up the line in the inheritance stakes than a wife. Before an inherited property can be sold, all parties must be in agreement and if there is a falling out between them the whole matter might just be relegated to the ‘too hard’ basket. Added to this is the exodus of the younger generations to more densely populated regions—Toulouse, Marseilles, Paris and even London. Often elderly family members will hold onto vacant farm buildings in the hope that their grandchildren may one day take an interest, and perhaps even return to the land of their ancestors. Sadly, it’s unlikely that this will ever happen, so the houses and barns, chateaux and grand residences remain empty and crumble down through decades of neglect. It’s heartbreaking to see them.
From the moment I start exploring inside these vacant farm cottages and village houses my imagination plays havoc with my good commonsense. I am trying to keep my feet planted firmly on the ground, but I can’t help being a little carried away in my quest to find the perfect house in the perfect setting. I am also feeling a sense of urgency as my time here is rapidly running out. If I don’t find a suitable house in the next few weeks it will be too late, I will be on the plane, on the way home, probably never to return.
The first house I view formally is near Frayssinet-le-Gélat, quite close to a busy road. Set high up on a sloping acre of meadow and walnut trees, it is the typical rural basic stone rectangle with tile roof. Structurally sound, only one of the three potential levels has ever been lived in. Most French farming families lived, ate and slept in one room with very little furniture; they sat around a wooden table on wooden chairs until bedtime, then retired to timber beds somewhere between a standard single and a double in size. In this particular house the one room has been divided into four cramped living spaces, a kitchen/dining room, two bedrooms and a basic bathroom, which is more than most old French farmhouses boast—none of the houses I subsequently visit has the benefit of a bathroom. I guess it was potties and buckets sloshed into holes dug in the fields; quick forays into the woods during warm weather and strained relationships in the winter. Beneath the main central floor is a large open ‘cave’ or cellar, though it has possibly also once been a barn for animals. This has a dirt floor but plenty of ceiling height and potential as a living level. There is also enough space in the ceiling for more rooms in the attic, possibly a couple of small bedrooms, plus a small barn which also has potential as an extra bedroom or guest accommodation.
