by Mary Moody
David and I finally have an evening alone in the cottage in the woods, snuggled up by the open fire eating a simple meal that doesn’t require endurance to digest. David is greatly taken with Jacques le Roux, who hasn’t shown any signs of departing since he first landed on my doorstep. Jock has said he will take Jacques at a pinch, but I am concerned about his survival in St Caprais where so many cats are either run over or targeted by hunters. I can’t just close up the house and abandon Jacques to his fate. We could take him back to Australia, of course, but would a French country cat ever feel at home in the Blue Mountains? The quarantine period is four months, and then there are our own cats to consider. It’s a real problem.
The following morning Liz calls with frustrating news. The owners have phoned their son in Paris and he has changed his mind about the property being sold. He will inherit the two small houses one day and keeps vacillating about whether or not he really wants them. Apparently this is the third time the houses have been on the market and then withdrawn when a firm offer has been made. Pierre and Liz are furious, not just because of our obvious disappointment, but because of the waste of their time and money. Apparently this is not unusual in France. The owners want to test the market, to see how much someone is prepared to pay for their property. Then they withdraw it when a keen buyer appears. We feel angry and totally desperate because we now have only eight days before our flight back to Australia.
Liz produces a new list of properties, although a majority are further from the villages for which I have indicated a preference. We set off early the following day to look at what’s on offer. The first one is at Martignac, on the other side of the Lot River, past a wild gypsy encampment that is littered with debris. It’s a small village without shops but with a lovely church. The house is structurally sound but in a sadly rundown condition. The views from the windows are rather uninspiring, but it’s cheap and has lots of potential if a good deal of money is spent. The second property is huge and beautiful but we don’t have keys to get in. It’s at Duravel, which is a township but half an hour from St Caprais and that is a real concern for me, because all of my connections are in the vicinity of Jock’s village. Will I feel like a long drive home after dinner with friends? Probably not, although again this property is within our limited budget and has great potential for restoration. The other main downside is that it’s smack bang beside an ugly car repair yard, which is probably why it has been on the market for several years. We move on.
The third house is in Frayssinet-le-Gélat which is right in the centre of the action as far as all my friendships and contacts are concerned. Five minutes from St Caprais. Five minutes from Pomarède. It’s where Claude lives permanently and where Miles and Anne have their summer house. Perfect. The property in question is a typical two-storey village house, with the front doors and windows opening right onto the road. I had determined not to buy a property next to noisy traffic, but we are running out of options. The house is bathed in sunlight and looks very solid, but has a crumbling layer of crépi on the outside that will need to be chipped off. It has a courtyard garden at the back and also a barn that looks large enough for conversion to a studio, or perhaps a couple of extra bedrooms. Inside the house immediately speaks to us, although we dare not sound too enthusiastic lest we are in for yet another disappointment. The main room is huge, with a wonderful fireplace that has been fitted with a slow combustion stove that serves as both central heating and as an open fire. Some of the walls are warm, cream exposed stone while others are lined with plaster, and the floors are attractive polished timber. The house is owned by an English man who has been using it as a summer residence for many years, but he is now too frail to make the journey to France. It contains simple but comfortable furniture which is all part of the purchase price—a fridge and a washing machine, a vacuum cleaner and a well-equipped kitchen. Up a handsome flight of curved timber stairs to the second floor there are two large, fully-furnished bedrooms. Unlike so many of the houses we have seen, this one hasn’t been invaded by owls who have splattered the floors with their guano, the roof isn’t leaking water down the walls, and the windows are intact. You could move into this small village house tomorrow and be warm and dry and comfortable. I can tell by his body language that David is excited, and we go into a small huddle. Let’s do it.
Liz calls the owner in London who immediately accepts our offer. In haste the papers are drawn up, we send for funds from Australia, and we sign a preliminary but totally binding agreement with a notary at Cazals just two days before our departure. In some ways the house is a compromise, being so close to a main road, but it qualifies on every other level and we decide that we absolutely love it. We are given the keys and are able to show friends around, who congratulate us on our good fortune in finding a well-located house, in good condition, for such a ridiculously low price. We light the fire, open a bottle of good wine, and toast our future as part-time French villagers.
Next morning Alice calls to say the other house at Frayssinet, the first one I saw with the large garden, is now available. The owners have managed to extricate themselves from the contract with the other buyer. I don’t believe it. We have signed for the village house, and nothing further can be done. However David and I decide that things have actually worked out for the best, as they so often do in these situations. The village house is much less expensive, so we will have more money for new furniture and renovations. It requires a lot less work, is bathed all day in sunlight, and living in a village will offer many compensations. We can walk to the bar or for lunch at the Plan d’Eau. We can get to know our neighbours more readily, which will help improve our language skills. All in all, we have come out on top!
We realise that if we are to be coming back to France every year we will need a car. I phone Richard who lent us the Peugeot and ask about his plans for the vehicle after I leave.
‘Oh I’ll just sell it off as quickly as possible,’ he says, delighted that I haven’t managed to wreck it during my six months of erratic driving.
‘We’ll buy it, if it’s not too expensive,’ I say with glee, because I have really come to appreciate its reliability and low cost of maintenance. Danny offers to store the car in his barn while we are back in Australia. This means someone can come to meet us at the train station in our own vehicle every year when we return. It’s ideal.
A couple of days before we leave for home our neighbour Hugues comes to dinner with several of our other French friends. He spies Jacques curled up by the open fire, and swears he is the spitting image of his own much-loved ginger tomcat. I explain my dilemma of finding a safe home for poor Jacques, who has become so dependent on the warmth and food provided at the little house in the woods. Hugues looks delighted. His elderly parents, who live at a nearby farm, recently lost their cat who was nearly twenty years old. Although still in mourning they would love a replacement, but definitely not a little kitten. It seems too good to be true. The following night I wrap Jacques in an old blanket, with his head poking out like a baby’s face from a shawl. We load the boot of the car with tins of cat food and Hugues leads us down various winding lanes to his parents’ farmhouse door. They have made up a basket for him by the fire, but while we sit and drink an aperitif, thanking them profusely for adopting our stray cat, Jacques finds his way to one of the bedrooms. By the time we leave he is curled up, purring and looking absolutely at home.
Our friends combine to throw a farewell dinner for us at Claude’s lovely house. No expense has been spared with the finest of foods and wines and everybody contributing to the table. David is presented with a floppy black Basque beret, which suits him to perfection, and a huge baguette to tuck under his arm. He couldn’t look more like a local. My gift has been painted by the Barwicks’ clever daughter Jan. It’s a wonderful landscape of the southwest, with every detail included. The geese and ducks and wild boars, the village houses and walnut trees and mushrooms in the woods. There in the middle on a picnic rug are David and I, he carving
the bread and me clutching a huge bottle of red wine. It’s a perfect memento. I am also ceremoniously presented with my own blue pinafore, now that I am to become a real French country housewife. Wearing it I look as comfortable as any of the hundreds of women I have seen watering their geraniums or sweeping the front step.
The following morning we pack up the house in the woods and are driven to the railway station by Jan and Philippe. It’s very, very hard to say goodbye.
31
IT’S ALWAYS THE SMELL of Australia that hits me when I have been away. This is the longest I have ever been away from my homeland and it’s more acute. The air seems thick with the smell of eucalyptus as I emerge from the airport, even in polluted Sydney.
As we have arrived late in the evening, David and I decide to stay overnight in town so that the little ones will be awake when we get back to our house in the mountains. Aaron drives down to pick us up quite early, and he greets me in his usual offhand manner. As if I’ve been on a two-week film shoot rather than away for nearly seven months in another country.
‘Gidday sheila,’ he says with a grin, knowing that I am not particularly fond of this term of endearment.
There’s something very different in my relationship with my sons. I know that they love me dearly—their wives and girlfriends often tell me so—but they are less inclined to show their feelings in any way. Aaron in particular. He doesn’t even ask me about France or about how I am feeling. Nothing has changed.
On the drive home I feel quite sick to the stomach with excitement at the prospect of seeing everyone again. The journey can’t be fast enough for me, I’m itching to get my hands on those little boys and to greet Ella Mary for the first time. There’s no-one at the gate but I can hear the children playing in the back garden. I sneak into the kitchen, where tea is being made, and there are screams of delight. And many, many tears. It’s overwhelming and quite wonderful.
I go outside and see the children, who have been well prepared for this moment. They all run to me, even little Theo who only had his second birthday while I was away. I was worried he may feel shy, and not really remember me clearly. Six months is a long time in the life of a two-year-old. But Miriam has kept my photo on the front of her fridge at the children’s eye level, and apparently I have been discussed often. He falls into my arms as though he is totally familiar and at ease with my presence. Then the baby is handed to me and I feel I have really come home at last.
Next I do what I enjoy doing most. I cook up a big lunch for everyone, set the table and we gather as a family again for the first time in so many months. It all feels so familiar and comfortable and warm that instead of feeling strange, I feel as though I have never really been away. And in some respects I haven’t. Not in my heart. It was just my body that was leaping around southwest France like a lunatic.
As I look around the table I see the faces of my children and their partners, laughing and talking and keeping the little ones in order. They all look so grown up and confident and sure of themselves, much more like my contemporaries than my offspring. It’s difficult to imagine them as the babies and toddlers and teenagers who kept me so frantically busy for nearly three decades. I wonder to myself why they have all launched into such serious relationships at comparatively early ages. Even Ethan, the youngest by five years, has been living with the same partner, Lynne, for more than three years and they are excitedly telling us all about their plans to visit France together the following year. Of course there will be a house and car, and Ethan would love to get stuck into some of the much-needed renovations, but they will have to save their own fares and spending money. David certainly looks pleased that we are both home again, and even the noise and chaos of the five little children doesn’t seem to faze him.
It dawns on me that no matter where I am in the world, I will be surrounded by people and laughter and food and wine at gatherings such as this. I may have run away with the idea of being alone. But that was never going to happen.
FOUR MONTHS AFTER I returned to Australia David Barwick lost his long battle with cancer. Our youngest son Ethan and his partner Lynne went to Frayssinet-le-Gélat in May to start restoring the village house, and promptly found themselves pregnant. In June the same year Miriam gave birth to Augustus James, her fourth son.
