Our House is Definitely Not in Paris Read online

  Each time we shop — as well as buying some jambon sliced straight from the bone at the delicatessen counter — we choose a variety of fromage, some which are old favourites, some which become new ones. The names alone conjure up images of faraway mountaintops and cheese-making valleys, like St Nectaire.

  The women at the counter are straight out of a French film, in their crisp, starched blanc coats and caps that cover their hair. I have learnt to ask for a tranche of campagne — thick, coarse, rustique pâté. I practise my numbers and simple sentences as I wait in the line. Sometimes I murmur them aloud as I patiently wait my turn. Sometimes, French people in the queue turn to glance at me, whether with indulgence or bemusement is hard to tell. Choosing rosé is a special delight. We have changed recently from the palest possible pink to darker, richer tones. At night, the gold from the sun glints on our glasses and light dances through the pink hues. A rénovation life always looks better through rosé-tinted glasses.

  Whenever I tear myself away from le jardin to prepare a simple déjeuner, I pause and breathe in the charm that our petite maison holds for me. Some of my absolute favourite things cost a song. Our heavy glass bowl that we use for salade, our handmade pottery bowl that holds an abundance of summer fruit, the domed glass lid of the wooden fromage board that looks like a cupola in an ancient church, the eclectic array of pretty vide-grenier glasses. We have blended our IKEA cuisine with patterned pieces from the past and it all merges in a pleasing marriage of old and new.

  During our French summer, we eat all our meals outside. The bird chorus plays softly as background musique. Déjeuner and dîner are a welcome break. They punctuate the sheer relentless rénovation. After twenty years of rénovation in now two countries, even Stuart’s usual unflagging energy is starting to wane. The crazy paving project has proved to be far more time-consuming and daunting than we could have possibly expected. It is, however, the way of all rénovation projects, for everything always takes far, far longer than you could ever anticipate at the outset. It is our fervent hope that, after five years in Pied de la Croix, next year will be the last big push — la salle de bain. A new bathroom will be the final transformation of our much-loved petite maison.

  Cuzance is a microcosm of life. Sometimes it’s fun, sometimes it’s not. Sometimes it is simply overwhelming and exhausting. Nevertheless, our country life has a comforting cadence all of its own. When at times the sheer beaucoup travail is overpowering in its relentless intensity, I ask myself, ‘Would I rather have embarked on this French adventure or not?’ and there is one consistent thread running through my thoughts. The answer is always a resounding, ‘Yes.’

  Cuzance Days Unfold

  The sun rises and spreads an ever-widening band of light across the vast country sky. I start my morning by peeping through the windows at the unfolding day. Outside la grange we have a line of trees that create a border from the huge expanse of grass beyond. We are willing the trees to grow vigorously and shield us from the neighbours and the Maire’s office. One of the trees is a huge spreading prunus tree, covered with plums by the end of July. How do you tell when prunier are ripe in the country? When the blackbirds start voraciously pecking and eating them. They leave a scattered, squashed, plum-coloured carpet underneath. When we drive through le Lot, my favourite tree is blooming in gracious, grand gardens. The cream magnolia flowers are like elegant candles decorating a gâteau.

  Drives in our département are always a song in my heart. Shorn sheep clink their bells as they graze on the stubble. Horses gather in clusters under shady elms, swishing their tails to ward off les mouches. Driving through petite hamlets in the heat of the day, brightly painted shutters — vermilion, chestnut-brown, eggshell white and donkey-grey — are all tightly closed to preserve the coolness inside the thick stone limestone walls of the maisons. Climbing roses are at the height of their summer beauty, beach-umbrella striped gladioli spring tall and straight to the sky, while sunflowers warm their uplifted faces.

  An early evening drive to Le Dordogne takes us deep into the very heart of rural France. Queen Anne’s Lace nods its finely crocheted face by the roadside, and farms we pass have meticulously stacked piles of bois, ready for the interminable winter and the long dark days when only the fire brings a semblance of summer warmth. Wild hollyhocks and foxgloves, strewn at random, have stepped straight from an artist’s paint box. Sheer limestone cliffs rise majestically from the thickly forested slopes and high, high, a château is perched precariously, seeming to balance by its toes on the very cliff edge.

  The valley is like a place lost in time. A few scattered farms, walnut groves, furrowed fields and waving expanses of corn. Surrounded by the Dordogne flowing at its edges, it has a magical quality — one of purity; a remote rural idyll. The soft rich light of evening is like a Turner work of art, ethereal and golden, its splinters piercing the trees. The countryside shimmers like a utopian mirage.

  We reluctantly leave this remote paradise and drive along the banks of the river. At one moment, Le Dordogne is smooth and serene; the next moment, it picks up pace and tumbles and twists over thousands upon thousands of stones, smoothed flat by the aeons. The river carries a story all of its own and reflects the nuances of life. Where it started, where it is going. The hamlets, villages and towns it will pass on its rippling journey, and on its banks, all the lives it will glide past and all the stories they hold.

  The soft chimes of children reach us. At the end of their summer vacances, but just at the start of their life story, two young children float past in their kayak. Like the endless gliding river, childhood too seems to last forever as they drift away, their happy chatter floating on the still air like a distillation of innocence. It infuses your soul with the beauty and timelessness.

  You can conjure up a whole life story just from a fleeting glimpse. An elongated maison with multiple arched windows, framed by duck-egg-blue shutters, overlooks a pond with regal white swans and a low stone wall adorned with stone urns, spilling with scarlet fuchsia.

  As I so often do, I create a story. I think that this fairytale mansion belongs to a fascinating couple in their sixties, artistic and talented. Their home is a reflection of a life well-travelled; a Persian rug, rich with ruby colours, intricate pieces of exquisite Japanese porcelain, delicate Venetian glass, and a library that contains the world. We continue; the house is left behind, and I am left wondering about the home that in a fragment of time created an indelible impression. Such is the romanticism of the French rural landscape. Every drive, every promenade, every meandering market moment is a sensory snapshot, a postcard to be posted to your memory.

  Country life has no need of watches or clocks. Time is measured, not just by the regular-as-a-heartbeat church bells, but by the movement of the sun. You can trace the time of day by its orbit through the sky, until finally it dips down and goes to bed to close another Cuzance day. The sun holds time in its golden-cupped hands. As the rain disappears at last, and with it the menacing clouds, the high-wheeling kites are like black apostrophe marks, punctuating the endless blue sail-cloth of sky.

  The Cast of Cuzance

  Jean-Claude is wearing his customary classic old blue and white striped French T-shirt when he visits one morning. Henriette is on a lead for her promenade, and in his other hand he grasps a smooth-with-age walking stick. Like many other items in their grande maison it tells a thousand stories, for it belonged to Françoise’s grandmother, and was used to herd cows when she lived in the Massif Central département.

  As we chat at the derrière of la grange, I glimpse Marinette taking her morning stroll in the shady lane behind our land. Her thoughts must be fully focused on the forthcoming déjeuner on Sunday that the whole village and surrounds will turn out for. It will be held in her freshly mown walnut orchard, and its tranquillity will be transformed by groups of family and friends, gathered in festive spirits round long trestle tables. I look forward to all of it, as well as the local band that will troupe through the orchard, bringi
ng joy and harmony with it.

  I watch as Marinette’s blue straw chapeau disappears past our stone wall. It defines her as much as Jean-Claude’s customary pipe does him. The Cuzance vide-grenier déjeuner must be the highlight of her personal calendar. I can’t help thinking that she must be counting the rooms left in her life, as she no doubt enters the last one as the reigning matriarch of our village. She and the other older inhabitants, who have witnessed wars and seen centuries turn their pages, are the essence of rural French life in remote villages. I feel a pang as I wonder what the future holds when they no longer hold the stories of the past to share with the younger generations.

  I clean and prepare in a frenzy and a fury. We have invited six amis for apéritifs at six. This is not what we would do at home after a day’s intensive rénovation that started at six. However, friends are due to stay, and Dominique and Gérard are departing in the morning for their beach maison. It is the last chance for our Cuzance amis to all gather this summer. The grass is newly mown and we have set up a large table under the walnut tree. I can already see the film credits rolling in my ever-vivid imagination. Fat drops of rain splash down and then tumble just as I start to put out an eclectic collection of pretty glasses. My vision had better not be thwarted by the thunder gods. Luckily, the rain clears and I again feel happy that in a few short summers we have made French friends in our own village who we can invite for drinks in our now-cleared jardin.

  As it often seems to, talk turns to everyone’s favourite topic for the summer, not this time les mouches or the weather. Our amis still seem thrilled by the thought that I may write a thriller, the title of which they have handed to me on a plate. They are still utterly determined for me to write about a murder in Cuzance. By now, there are many lively debates as to who should be cast as the villain and who would be the victim. There is usually one clear contender for the main character. Later, when our eyes light upon someone else for whom there would be some cause indeed, I continue to let the plot simmer and brew. For now, I file the idea away on my imaginary bookshelf.

  French café — like a film set

  The essence of rural France

  Australian Amis

  Our first lot of friends from home are due to arrive. They are driving 1250 kilometres from Germany, where they have been staying with Renate’s parents in Nuremberg. It surprises us to realise that they will in fact be the first Australian amis to stay at Pied de la Croix, for all our other friends and family who have visited have been from England, Wales, France and Belgium.

  As I make final preparations for the spare chambre, I reflect how far we have come in the space of four short summers. Our first frenetic, feverish three weeks of rénovation, when our bed was an air mattress, to now, a guest room. I think about how we seem to have acquired a surfeit of outside garden furniture, a total of no less than three tables and sixteen chairs. I often wonder how it all possibly happened. Where did we ever find the time to shop and style and decorate in the midst of rénovation chaos, mayhem and madness? The day for my own Cuzance vide-grenier stall seems to be moving ever closer.

  I work away until the house gleams and shines. It’s hard to explain to anyone else, let alone ourselves, how the hours and days simply dissolve. Too many times, even a pleasurable outing to the markets in Martel, becomes a frantic rush against time rather than the leisurely pursuit it should be. There is often no time at all to linger and soak up the atmosphere. Race, race, race against the clock. At least this time Stuart is with me on the Intermarché trip to stock up for Glenn and Renate’s arrival, and I don’t have to endure alone the humiliation of our cash card not working again. It is the same cashier as when I forgot to even take the cash card with me a fortnight ago. She is nevertheless perfectly pleasant and the queue is perfectly patient. I am quite sure, though, that they are all thinking, ‘Zut alors. What are these foreigners like?’

  Race, race, race. Back to Martel to Bank Populaire. Euros in hand, we return to Intermarché, in yet another qualifying round for the Grand Prix. Race back to Pied de la Croix — there is still more paving to be done before Glenn and Renate pull in between our stone pillars. Then over a hasty déjeuner, the plombier drops in with his hefty bill. Merde, what a day this is turning out to be, and all before noon. No time to lament, it’s back to the crazy paving to put in a few more hours before their scheduled late afternoon arrival. Fortunately, the way the day is panning out, this will segue nicely into the apéritif hour.

  Stuart is making steady progress cementing the sides of la piscine, while Jean-Louis is creating a drainage channel using river pebbles. He shares a story with us about his amis who went to La Dordogne to collect stones from the banks. Apparently, if the gendarme appear on the scene during such an activity, it is quite plausible to say you are an artist collecting them for your work. Even more entertaining is the other excuse that has been constructed beforehand by his friends. It is also acceptable to inform the gendarme that you are a professeur and the stones are to be painted by the petite enfants in your class, ready for the lycée fête. Although we are running out of river pebbles, I am not sure these excuses would hold much sway for foreigners in a foreign land.

  The last day of this part of our working vacances sees me cleaning yet again. With our petite maison all in order, I return to la grange. We’re down from six to two pallets of crazy paving, and the dirt, cobwebs and debris are all piled in drifts. A collection of old farm brooms has been abandoned in la grange. When I sweep, the straw at one end of it is all curved and worn with age. The very shape of the broom tells a story all of its own. As with the walls of our petite maison, I wish it could whisper its story to me. I long to know who once used it and how long ago.

  Just like every other aspect of our rénovation life, even the act of sweeping the work site is not an easy one. The old broom I have chosen is heavy and unwieldy. To lift and drag it requires some considerable degree of effort. It is not long at all before I am consumed by choking clouds of dust. I can’t resist lifting the broom up to the rafters to brush it across the blanc painted beams. As old flakes of paint rain down, the patina is a perfect shade of cream against the wood. I am sweeping next to the still fully preserved old manger that is supported by thin, crooked pieces of old bois. Like everything else that we possibly can, they will be preserved as a homage to the past, and the cows that rubbed against them long ago while feeding until the strips of wood were as smooth as ribbons of silk.

  The paint flakes scatter over me like handfuls of confetti as they drift to the ground. I make it my own celebration as I once again lose myself in a fantasy of the future. The very place I am sweeping is our imagined la cuisine. There are even niches in the thick limestone walls, all ready for treasured objects to be displayed. At ground level, there is a larger one where I have already creatively placed the bottles of vin.

  Meanwhile, Stuart is still waiting for his très cher delivery of sand and gravel to continue the paving. It is now at a standstill until it arrives. He takes the opportunity to hang pictures in the spare chambre and then gets the ladder out to continue to train the trailing strands of grapevine over la grange. Although the barn remains a vast empty space that houses all our rénovation tools and materials, it still manages to exude a palpable sense of atmosphere and strong feeling of warmth. It is, in fact, exactly the warmth that flows from the thick stone walls of Pied de la Croix. It was the strong beating heart that I felt four years ago when I first peeled back the wallpaper and made the exciting discovery of old wooden beams. I felt then the spirit of Monsieur and Madame de la Croix, and now it ripples across me in waves from la grange. It too now exerts a strong pull on my heartstrings.

  The full heat of summer has returned after the rain and overcast days. By 10am each day it is almost time to down tools. I have moved on to carting heavy wheelbarrow loads of limestone for my planned rose bed. Heavy pieces, artfully covered with velvet moss, are carefully placed aside to edge it. The towering wooden la grange doors are fully open for the
first time this summer in anticipation of the, by now, very late delivery. The sweeping entrance is perfectly lined up with la piscine and leading to the orchard. I gasp aloud. The view — and vision of the future — takes my breath away.

  The clock strikes twelve. The delivery has not arrived as promised, despite Stuart carrying out the entire transaction in French. A number of vehement exclamations of, ‘Merde,’ mingle with the tolling for the déjeuner hour. On the dot, Stuart calls the company. Since it is precisely twelve, naturally their portable has been turned off.

  A call — or two — is made again after the sacred lunch hour. ‘Non, non, demain.’ Despite the extortionate delivery cost, paid in advance, tomorrow will have to do. Rénovation is hard at the best of times, in any language or country, let alone a foreign one. One thing is clear though: artisans the world over speak the same language. ‘Tomorrow’ is a refrain throughout the world when it comes to tradesmen and deliveries. Unfortunately for Stuart, he is still not quite proficient enough yet to swear sufficiently in French to convey the extent of his wrath. I am quite sure it is a skill he is soon going to cultivate.

  Having friends to stay means another welcome enforced petite vacances. They arrive bearing German gifts: Schnapps, German jambon, and home-made pomme confiture. As we relax and catch up over champagne, there is a clatter of activity from outside le mairie. Preparations are in full swing for Cuzance to be showcased. When Jean-Claude drops in, he tells us that more thunderstorms are predicted. By now, I am sure le Maire is in a state of high anxiety for the Cuzance celebrations. I cross my fingers, for we have planned Glenn and Renate’s visit to share our village fête.

  For now, though, we enjoy the company of our friends. We eat a late dîner next to la piscine and I learn a surprising fact about the swooping swallows from Glenn. I already knew that they are supposed to bring good luck to a home and that the ancient nests we have in la grange must be protected and preserved. I had always thought they dip into the pool for much-needed water, yet I discover that they also gather water on their beaks to create mud with which to build their nests.