There was, however, someone in this family I hadn’t heard about. Françoise was at the chalet when we returned from Geneva that evening. She had come from Perpignan, where she ran a farm with her brother. She was short and stocky with two deep lines arching across her forehead that gave her an expression of bemusement and disapproval. The rest of her face was battered, healthy and warm. She had messy hair, vaguely blond, like the tufts of grass by the roadside that reappeared at the end of a sunny day.
Mme Durebex kissed her, then turned to me, saying brightly, You’d never guess we were cousins, would you? We don’t look anything alike.
But I could see that they might have: the same deep-set eyes, almost black, like singed bark. The face around them formed by exterior things: wind and sun, in the case of Françoise; interior things, like cosmetics, in the case of Mme Durebex.
They were the same age but had not much more than blood in common: Françoise had no money, no vanity, no husband or child. It was, as she told me in her rough accent, Laurent she had come to see.
– No one else, just Laurent.
Françoise was given a small room upstairs, opposite the salon. After mine, it could have been called the worst room in the chalet. It was narrow, the walls covered in ugly dark paper. But like a treasure in a cave, an antique wash-basin painted finely with pink roses glowed at the foot of the bed in there. Claudine and Hugues were in the room adjacent, which was large, with peach-coloured carpets and an ensuite bathroom. The pecking order was shifted at dinner because of my vegetarianism: while the rest of us ate smoked salmon, Françoise was given a cold meat salad made from leftovers.
– It’s good to see you eat so much, mon petit poisson, she clucked over Laurent.
– This salmon is too thick, Laurent grumbled, one eye on his father, who had remarked on how badly it was cut.
– Shona can ski, she can do the black runs, said Mme Durebex, changing her husband’s plate. She can go out with you when Renaud is taking classes, Laurent.
Laurent rolled his bread into little balls, unsure whether this was a good thing or not. Renaud was a ski instructor employed by the Durebex to ski with Laurent.
– I want to do the black runs too, piped Hugues, who had only been skiing twice before.
– Finish your salad, Hugues, said Claudine.
– I hope I remember how to ski, I said, finding a finer slice of salmon for Laurent.
– Don’t you think this wine I got out is good? said Mme Durebex to her husband.
– Quelle horreur! It’s terrible. And you should serve it chilled.
Françoise raised her eyebrows at me. I returned her look with relief. We were collaborators in enemy territory.
Françoise took Laurent down to the study to watch television and I cleaned up with Mme Durebex and Claudine. Claudine was efficient in the kitchen. She twisted her long hair back and cleared briskly, while Mme Durebex fussed with less results. Claudine and I used the tu form with one another, and I called her by her first name. In the company of her and Mme Durebex my role switched from one of the girls to subordinate jeune fille and back again, sometimes in the space of one sentence, and I found this more demanding than a dinner party conversation with French intellectuals.
I wrapped the cheeses and began to put them in the fridge. Mme Durebex rushed over.
– No! Never put the cheese in the fridge. The Monsieur hates that.
I dragged the broom around them. Three were not needed and I was in the way, but I knew I had to be there. It was the fourth day and obvious to everyone that Nadenne wasn’t going to turn up. Still, each mealtime he was cursed. It was mandatory, like the saying of grace.
Each morning Mme Durebex would go out skiing with the boys. Françoise didn’t ski and spent her days walking on the mountain. Sometimes Claudine went out with her, sometimes M. Durebex. I stayed inside, reading, writing, cleaning the kitchen, cooking, secretly hoping someone would break a leg on the ski slopes so I could go out on their ticket. Mme Durebex had given me an outfit from the room of ski gear. As abundantly stocked as the kitchen, this room was a testament to her meanness in wanting me to buy my own gear before we left Paris.
I didn’t dare go beyond the kitchen or my room, expecting M. Durebex to suddenly materialise and berate me, though in reality he hardly addressed a word to me and when he did it was always in the vous form.
A tall Senegalese called Honorée came and cleaned for two hours every day. Honorée worked in a red pork-pie hat, and high heels that showed off her fine ankles to full advantage. In spite of Honorée the kitchen needed constant attention, as people were in and out of it all day, and it was me that Mme Durebex yelled at if she found it in disarray.
I was ready to teach English in the late afternoon when the boys got back. They had hardly any work from school, so I taught them other things. Laurent had wanted to know what ouch meant. I also taught them yuk, bewdy mate, and the jewel in the crown: supercalafragilisticexpialadotious. Ever since Laurent had seen Mary Poppins, he’d badgered me for this word.
They wanted me to teach them all the expletives. I said I didn’t know any. Each day they became more persistent, more insolent, using the French ones on me to force an exchange. Each day I lost a little bit more of my control over them.
Mme Durebex often sent me down to the village to do the shopping. These expeditions were big splurges. I had hundreds of francs to spend on food. Everything was overpriced but I didn’t care. I bought wheels of the best camembert, deliciously putrid goat’s cheese, tropical fruits, and trays of tiny containers of crème fraîche. Figaro was always on the shopping list; I bought myself Libération to wrap around it. When I got back Mme Durebex stared so hard at the change I put down in front of her that I wondered if she noticed the beginning of my private rebellion – the purchase of a pain au chocolat – a rebellion against her stinginess with money and my own austere diet.
I began doing most of the cooking. Mme Durebex showed me how to start off a salad dressing by rubbing a clove of garlic against the end of a fork placed flat at the bottom of the bowl. She showed me how to make tart pastry in five minutes – let the butter soften during the afternoon, rub it into the flour with your fingertips until it’s fine as breadcrumbs, add a bit of water. She tasted everything at first, then in silent approval left me to my own devices. She said my tomato sauce reminded her of the south. In the kitchen we became friends.
But I didn’t say anything about the frozen beans. Frozen green beans were eaten all the time. These people treated food like a religion, and the inclusion of frozen beans on the menu made it all seem fake to me. To register my disappointment, I said I couldn’t cook them. So Mme Durebex took over in this department, going from the freezer to the stovetop while I remained at the chopping board.
I revelled in that kitchen – all the space, all those implements. I felt like a chef in a restaurant. The knives were sharp, there was always a pot just the right size, just the right thickness. I didn’t have to compromise with ingredients. If saffron should be used, I used saffron.
At night, watching television in the study, I talked to Françoise. Françoise wasn’t very fond of words. Talk is cheap, she would scoff. She didn’t say much, but everything she did say was said with vehemence: vehement affection for Laurent, vehement disapproval of most other things.
She told me a little about the Durebex. Victor had married Mireille when she was twenty-eight. They had lived in the fast lane from Paris to Mégèves to their villa in St Tropez, and the world beyond. M. Durebex’ age had begun to show only in the last few years, since the skiing accident. Françoise said she had never liked him. She said Mme Durebex had changed when she married him.
– What was she like before then? I asked. In Perpignan?
– Oh, me and Mireille got on then, when we were young. I mean very young, Shona, younger than you. She didn’t live in Perpignan, but she used to come and stay with us every holiday.
– Doesn’t she ever visit you now?
– Bof, she’s moved up in the world.
– Has she changed that much?
– Listen to her accent. More Parisian than a Parisian.
I wondered if mine would change again, talking to Françoise, being in Savoie. I wondered if, when I got back to Paris, I’d have a layer of Perpignanais/Savoyard on top of the Aussie and Parisian that was already there. Layers of accents, like a millefeuille cake, like sedimentary rock.
Françoise laughed and put a finger to the corner of her mouth. I felt jolted: was it a gesture that ran in the family, or an imitation of Mme Durebex?
– Sometimes though, when she gets angry, she lapses back into her provincial accent. And that only makes her more angry.
I knew the feeling. The other day, coming back up from the village, I’d dropped a bottle of olive oil on the road. Fuck! I cursed. Two Americans were coming up the path behind me.
– What’s that accent? Where’re you from?
– Yo! Crocodile Dundee! Chuck another shrimp on the barbie, mate!
– It’s prawn, actually, I smiled, trying to wipe the oil off my boot with a chunk of snow.
– And as for that vegetarianism, Françoise scoffed.
I said nothing. She patted my shoulder reassuringly.
– It’s different for you, Shona, but for a Perpignanaise c’est couper ses racines.
What about my roots in the land of beef and sheep; had I cut them too, with my selective eating? No, when I thought about home and food I had no such sense of dislocation. If I were in Sydney now, hungry, I would have headed straight for Bondi and fish and chips.
I told Françoise about Australia. I made it sound big and bright and free. I never knew I had thought of it like that. She asked me about myself. I told her bits and pieces and realised in the telling the presence of my family. And I wasn’t even talking about cousins – they were just one big boring blur next to all the people I had to contend with in my immediate family.
It irritated me, it embarrassed me. I expected more of myself – my ego demanded it shine alone. I sought anecdotes of me, the individual, but once unravelled, everything eventually snagged up again with my family.
– They’re very important, Françoise nodded.
Reluctantly, I admitted they were. I still couldn’t accept it.
– It’s good, Françoise said in a reassuring tone. Family is important to everyone. It’s strong.
She’s right, I thought. It is strong. It’s going to defeat me.