Our House is Certainly Not in Paris Page 14
At the markets, I continue to pore over piles of old linen. Once again, there are exquisite hand embroidered pillowcases, each stitch in each seam a story of love and hope, for often such delicate pieces that have now found their way to the markets, were once part of a long-ago trousseau. I wander with my market basket, lingering to pick up and examine fascinating relics from the past: old paintings, battered tins, delicate china and pieces of ancient glass. There is simply too much to buy that holds the tantalising appeal of long ago days in France. Our petite maison is already full to the brim with treasure, even after such a short time. Now that would look lovely in the converted barn of the future, I find myself frequently thinking.
We end our outing by driving to Montcuq and have an espresso at an outside café with a sweeping view over the green hills and grey slate rooftops, before heading to the fresh produce markets. The nodding, dinner-plate size sunflowers add a burst of bright yellow to the lively scene. There are rows of lettuces, wilting in the warm sun.
An old woman scrutinises them; prodding, lifting, examining. The young stallholder grimaces at us and mumbles under her breath. Her impatient gestures transcend any language barriers, especially when she beckons her maman to serve the demanding elderly woman, with what will clearly be considerably more patience than she has on this sunny Saturday morning.
The afternoon is filled with delicious sunshine so we finally fling open all six doors of la grange. The light floods in and transforms the cavernous space. The threads of sunlight even penetrate the ancient, thick wooden rafters that arch high overhead like the inverted hull of an enormous old wooden fishing boat. The history and beauty of the barn seep through every stone. After not seeing it fully opened for a year, I fall in love with it all over again. I am enraptured and enchanted anew and consumed by the desire to transform it.
In a piece of accidental planning yet with serendipitous symmetry, we discover that the rear, far left door of what will be la cuisine one day , lines up exactly with the new lavender bed stretching neatly beyond in a pleasing straight row. As this is the first time we have ever opened this door, we feel tremendously pleased with the effect of our jardin design and the planting by Albert in our absence. Beyond, the graceful curves of the orchard trees, draw the eye.
The barn roof soars up by at least ten metres to the apex and la grange is about twenty metres long. There are enormous cream-coloured flagstones along one wall that one day can be carefully removed with a crowbar, to place in the grand entrance. I am always both pleased and quite amazed at how clear my vision is for the transformation from a cow barn to a magnificent maison. The euros to achieve this and the hard work and energy required are something I tend to conveniently gloss over...
The walls have all been painted white at some point in the one-hundred-and-seven year history of the barn. Though encrusted with dirt all these years later, and festooned with trailing swathes of cobwebs, just sweeping an old straw farm broom across the walls, removes the outer layer of grime. An initial quick clean leaves a prefect patina of white wash, every designer’s dream. We have tried before to replicate this effect by experimenting with sanding and white paint on wood. It is impossible to ever achieve; only time and history and the life of a farm seem to create this in a natural state. Perhaps paint marketing teams should set up their creative design teams in old French barns. Or maybe not. Stilettos and old cow manure are not a perfect match.
We discuss and plan and dream. We know it will be très cher. What we also know is that it will be the piece de résistance of all our rénovée years. From Canberra, to Sydney, to our village on the south coast of New South Wales, an old French barn was never on our life itinerary, and yet, it always seems to be so perfectly right that life has led us to this unexpected place. Cuzance seems to have always found us rather than the other way round. And now that it has, it fills our imagination, hearts and hopes. Just like our petite maison was not that long ago, for now, la grange remains an empty shell, full of old farm debris, walnut husks and French kittens. Yet it exudes a tangible sense of warmth and extends an invitation to be transformed into a magnifique maison.
Road test
44
A Wedding in the Village
In the most absurd juxtaposition possible, I abandon my Saturday afternoon outfit of weed spraying ensemble, complete with a blue and white check tea-towel tied over my mouth, to hastily throw on a frock and straw chapeau. I run through the village to our church. There is a wedding and Françoise is singing in the choir. As a mark of respect to our friendship, I have promised to go.
The church bell clangs ceremoniously, for me, signalling alarm. Have I misunderstood the time to attend? I clutch my chapeau as I hastily make my way to the Mairie where all are gathered. In the upstairs window, le Maire can be glimpsed. I had forgotten that this is part of the French marriage ceremony, that first the bride and groom have an official service with the mayor of the village. There had been no need at all for my haste. The proceedings take almost an hour. To think, I could have put in an another hour’s work in le jardin. finally, the formalities are completed and I follow the gathered wedding guests round the corner, to the church. I meet up with Dominique and we find a place to stand at the back of our tiny church. Colleagues of the bride and groom, who were not in the church, have been waiting patiently in a cluster outside for the ceremony to conclude.
They include members of the Brive-la-Gaillarde football team who the groom plays with. When the glowing couple finally emerge, they form an arch and toss a football to their just-married team member.
While inside, for what seems to us to be an interminable ritual, Dominique and I try repeatedly to catch Françoise’s eye, in the choir at the front, to no avail. The ceremony is so long that we sink onto two cold stone steps tucked at the back of the church. We watch with amusement as a young woman, who arrives very late, tries to slip in unobtrusively. It is impossible on the slippery-smooth stone floor of the ancient church. She teeters precariously on impossibly high heels and her thin legs bend like a young giraffe’s. Dominique and I whisper and giggle conspiratorially like school girls.
I try my best to be more reverent and my gaze lingers on the tribute in front of me. It is a memorial to the men of Cuzance who gave their lives in the first world war. Their names are inscribed in stone, and next to them, the name of the village where they were born. Most of them were from petite surrounding hamlets. Only one, Albert Barre, was born in Cuzance. It is a very long list for a village and surrounding commune as small as ours. Its presence adds a gravity to the proceedings and provides a solemn link to the past and the hopefulness and joy of the marriage taking place before us. It is always both strange and moving to be in the very country where a war was fought and not so far away at all from Cuzance. Whenever we travel on the autoroute to Brive, I think about the advancing march of German soldiers’ boots and the fear that would have echoed in the hearts of the villagers. The despair of the farming families seems to reverberate through the years. Not just the loss of lives, but the farms that then languished, unable to be passed on to the next generation.
To pass the time, I whisper to Dominique and share stories of my own wedding in Istanbul, a far cry from this country wedding in Cuzance. I tell her about the ferocious thunderstorm that everyone assured us would bring tremendous luck. In a soft voice, I convey how I was fortunate to even get to the ceremony at all, as the taxi driver nearly crashed on the narrow streets of Besikatas, that were awash with the torrential deluge.
In a low murmur, I describe the Nato battleships that were at anchor in the Bosphorous and featured in all our wedding photos. I tell her how I didn’t understand a word of the Turkish celebrant and that my main memory is crying out at the end, ‘The rings, the rings!’ Somehow, we had forgotten to exchange them. And yet, here we are now, with a petite maison in France. It would seem that the prophecy about thunderstorms and luck may well have indeed been true. In return, Dominique shares with me the astonishing fact that th
ey have been married for an extraordinary forty-five years.
At long last the ceremony is over. We are not however, prepared for the collection plate that is passed round. We don’t have a single euro between us, so we slip quietly out the door into the bright sunshine and the patient throng awaiting the bride and groom.
Jean-Claude makes his way through the groups of gathered neighbours and friends, to go up to the tower so that the bells ring in rejoicement. As we wait to meet up with Françoise and the church empties, Dominique and I, in the way of women throughout the world, chat about what everyone is wearing. A young woman in a too-tight, too-short skirt that is not flattering by any stretch of the imagination, emerges. Dominique murmurs a single word to me, ‘McDonalds’. And who said French women don’t get fat?
The four of us retreat across from the church for apéritifs, in the welcome shade of the huge pine tree on Jean-Claude’s and Françoise’s upper terrace. Hours after I had rapidly shed my work clothes for wedding attire, I make my way home to inspect Stuart’s progress cleaning up la grange. The evening ends as I am sitting at our dining table writing in my notebook and Dominique taps on the window as she and Gérard slowly wend their way home after their evening promenade. There is a tinge of apricot pinkness on the horizon as they wish us ‘Bonne nuit’. The wafting aroma from the pig farm firmly reminds us that we are in the country as we close the door on the night after another memorable Cuzance day. The only sound is the plaintive bray of a lonely donkey that drifts across the fields.
45
Summer Sunday Afternoons
The summer Sunday afternoon tranquillity is quite unlike any other day. Families throughout France gather and settle for long, leisurely lunches. The shops are shut, the roads are quiet. This Sunday starts for us with the vide grenier of all vide greniers – Gignac. Even for the French who never venture to one and to whom a vide grenier is passé, for weeks beforehand there is speculation about the rich treasure trove that is Gignac. The farmer’s huge field is already half-full when we arrive – and we are not late by any means; certainly not on a market Sunday. The stalls stretch endlessly, overflowing with possible delights, the rows of enormous walnut trees creating a natural delineation for the stallholders to have set up their tables in long rows. Though there are always dozens of people milling about – sifting, searching, scrutinizing – there is a solemn expectant hush hovering over the walnut grove. The pursuit of treasure is too serious a business to be disturbed by idle chat. While many others make their way to village churches on Sundays, for those here, the canopy of walnut leaves creates a cathedral and the reverence is reserved for the worship of all things old – and the possibility of nirvana in the form of a true antique that may be stumbled upon.
There is a definite strategy to Gignac. One quick pass, up and down each row, scanning eagerly for the esteemed finds of the day, those that leap out and clamour to be bought. A short break for a café and croissant, then fortified, off for a more leisurely stroll, to pause, to linger, to discuss and share and choose. The petite maison is already full to the brim – it is petite after all – and after only a few years, we have to exercise caution and care in our selections. There are only so many old straw baskets and glasses and pieces of ancient cutlery that you can possibly have, tempting as they all are. We have already learnt to be far more discerning, though there are items that linger long in the mind afterwards and fall into the category of regrets.
Today there is another market to head to, so we head off to Estival. We have not been to it in previous years and we don’t have high hopes at all, for, unlike Gignac’s repute, we have not heard a word about it. It proves to be utterly charming. There is a cluster of pretty houses in the shadow of the solidly built church. The stalls are set up in a radius that spreads out from the looming church and down the tiny village lanes.
Stuart is pleased to meet up with our roofer from last year, and even more pleased that he remembers his name straight away, ‘Bonjour Jean-Luc, ca va?’ Jean-Luc asks if we are working as hard as last year on our maison and jardin. Stuart assures him we are not.
The first stall we encounter is crammed with an abundance of old linen. Two old women, who I think are sisters, stand behind their array of old handmade wares. I think that they have spent a lifetime sewing and hemming and embroidering the faultless pieces, for they are as old as their linen. White-hair caught up in matching buns, stooped from sitting in matching armchairs late in to the evening next to a blazing winter fire, heads bent with fastidious precision over their sewing; each piece on their stall reflects the story of their life. As always, my imagination is fired by the romance of it all. I imagine they have lived their whole life in Estival, sharing each day together in a picture-perfect cottage, surrounded by fleurs, perhaps meant to marry but their loss recorded on the village war memorial that they pass each day when they step out to buy their daily pain.
Estival proves unexpectedly to be more fruitful than Gignac. Stuart spies the prize of the day. It is a 1950s Peugeot ceramic coffee grinder. As we leave, the narrow country road is choked with dîner time traffic, slowed to a standstill at times. The voitures creep along, forced frequently to edge cautiously to the side, to allow another one to pass, so narrow is the one road in and out of Estival. The edges drop away sharply, so there is quite a skill involved in the art of French country driving.
We drive through Martel on the way home to Pied de la Croix and notice the big banners strung across the main street advertising the international sheep shearing competition. We are sure there would be Australians taking part and make plans to watch it next year.
Today our basket is piled high. When we arrive home, we make a ceremony of laying out each find on the dining table. There is often a dilemma for me about what to keep in our petite maison, what to take home as gifts and what to put aside for our house at the sea. I am excited to have found exquisite French summer frocks for Emmi and Macy, the two little girls of our friends Healey and Souni, who live in Sydney, as well as linen galore for presents. I especially love unearthing old tea-towels and pillowcases, though today there was a funny moment when I reached to the back of a stall to examine a pile.
As I was deliberating over my choices, I caused much amusement when the stallholder grabbed the tea-towels back. He explained they were to later wrap his déjeuner in and were not for sale. Another special find is two tiny original watercolours of Corsica. They will be taken home to add a touch of this exotic landscape to our bedroom walls. As usual, we leave everything displayed to show Gérard and Dominique. Sunday afternoons we can definitely count on them to drop in for we have an unspoken competition about who finds the best bargains of the day. Invariably, I win!
We break our Sunday rule of taking the whole day off; there is just always too much to do. It is perhaps not quite true after all when Stuart told Jean-Luc that this year is more of a vacances. He gets stuck in to plastering the spare chambre. Next, he has to measure for new skirting boards as the old ones have simply crumbled to dust. We know only too well what old wood and little mounds of dust signify. We hope that it is not a sign of ominous activity in the open space under the floor where the floorboards too have rotted away. We pull a piece of old lino over the hole, cross our fingers and hope, as is our tendency, that the problem simply goes away.
My next task is to sand the front door where the varnish has peeled and faded with the extreme weather conditions that batter the little house, from the searing summer heat to the icy blasts of winter snow. My new sander works like a dream as it glides efficiently across the breadth of the door. As I climb the stepladder to sand the arch over the door, I discover stencilled in to the wood – 1989. Like the window frames, the door is quite a recent one, for this year, our petite maison is 130 years old. New varnish will help to ward off the icy tentacles of winter when it may well drop to minus eighteen again. The only thing that will ever lure us to a white French Noël is if we do one day renovate la grange and it is fully insulated and heated. P
ied de la Croix’s thick stone walls provide welcome coolness on hot summer days but winter in Cuzance is an altogether different matter. I have absolutely no desire to ever stay in a house where the freezing nights can only be kept at bay by stuffing huge wads of newspaper in to every crack and crevice. I have removed the tell-tale evidence and I don’t intend to ever replace the pieces of La Figaro. Let our petite maison slumber through the depths of winter; I intend to never cross its doorstep, slippery with ice. Christmas in the country can remain a romantic notion.
As the temperature soars steadily, the grass browns and becomes crisp and crunchy underfoot. At the same time, the weeds continue to flourish – the curse of country life in Cuzance. Swallows fill the evening sky and swoop in graceful curves. The hay is all cut for the season and tractors have mown the fields in both straight and rounded rows of pale gold. As the heat intensifies with the passing days, even the bird song chorus becomes more subdued.
46
A Cuzance Working Week
On Mondays, we dance to the dictates of our own demands. Our fourth week sees us fully resume our old renovation habits . Up early, pull on our work clothes, a hasty petite déjeuner , then it’s off to the spare chambre for me. It is not quite like last year when the very morning of Liz’s arrival, this was the project I started on, yet it is very similar, for Lydia and Erick are due to stay in just two days.
The tin of paint is like rich molten chocolate as I dip my brush in. It glides on to the thirsty skirting boards as smoothly as silk. Unlike most renovating projects, I’m finished ahead of my self-imposed schedule, so I move on to varnishing the front door to bring it back to life. Next, I manage to paint the front grill that overlays the door, in a glossy black shine. And then, the gravel arrives – all twenty-five tonnes of it. This is when a new word is about to permanently enter my vocabulary; one that will be indelibly stamped into my memory: castine. This is not a word in vocabulary lists in guide books for a vacances in France. I abandon my brush, grab my camera to record this momentous moment, and dash outside to watch the proceedings in a state of high anxiety.