3

Alistair and the Giant Misunderstandings

All relationships have their wobbles. There’s the honeymoon period, then things start to get real. Alistair and I are nothing if not efficient — not only did we dispense with the dating period, but we also dispensed totally with the honeymoon period, so we hit two biggish road bumps within the first two weeks.

La wobble numéro 1

So how did a man with three citizenships — none of them French — end up in a remote village in deepest France?

Alistair’s explanation goes something like this.

‘Well, I’ve always dreamed of living in a mill by a river, and I was on a motorbiking holiday around Europe, and I spotted this ad for a moulin, at a ridiculously affordable price. So I came to look — no one was living in it, and I camped in the moulin garden’ (yes, really) ‘to see how I liked the feel of the place, and I fell in love with it. Just the magic of it all … the constant rush of the river, the wild beauty of the garden, the old stonework of the moulin. Oh, and it didn’t hurt that there was a racetrack down the road.’

Here speaks both a poet and a petrolhead.

Alistair is besotted with the rustic life, and I like that about him. I like that someone who’ll work himself into ecstasies over satellite internet speed or the pixel density on the latest iPhone will equally pause to appreciate a new bud, or a red squirrel darting across the lawn. However, he’s also an unapologetic speed freak, so in this tranquil corner of the land he can have his gâteau and eat it. Because nearby, we are ‘blessed’ with almost four kilometres of motor-racing circuit.

Motorbike racing and rally-car driving have been a big part of Alistair’s life, and burning up fuel and rubber is his idea of a splendid day out. He’s also a supporter of the Green Party, has set up solar panels in the window to charge our phones, is investigating harnessing the river current to power our electricity, and generally strives to leave the petite-est of carbon footprints. So yes, like all of us, he’s a mass of contradictions.

I’m introduced to the racetrack even before I meet the neighbours (and it’s a toss-up which is the biggest fail).

Having arrived in France late on Monday night, by Wednesday my ‘human being to walking dead’ ratio has only marginally improved. So I’m not quite prepared for Alistair’s plan for the following day.

He has signed up to race his KTM motorbike at an amateur motorcycling track day, and he’d like me to tag along. I had been hoping for a gentler introduction to my new life. You know, things involving picnic blankets, buckets of ice and playfully splashing one another in the river like they do in the movies.

Still, what harm can it do? It’s only one day, and I can probably loll around drinking cold beer and reading my book while Alistair and the bike spend some quality time together. Ah, but no. Apparently I’m needed to interpret at the ‘safety briefings’, something that fills me with apprehension. I don’t speak motorbike, not even in English. So my French certainly isn’t up to it. I’d envisaged easing myself into the language slowly and gently by, for instance, ordering apéritifs or chatting to small children.

On the other hand, immersing myself in an alien world of motorbikes is out-of-my-comfort-zone stuff — and that’s got to be good, right? You wanted adventure, I tell myself. And this, my friend, is what adventure looks like.

In the book I was reading on the plane, A Short Ride in the Jungle by the intrepid Antonia Bolingbroke-Kent, she rides her old, tiny motorcycle along the Ho Chi Minh trail through Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. Every day brings frustration and often fear, but she acknowledges that it is to be ‘a journey of small victories’. So while my soon-to-be-faced challenge is nothing compared to this feisty young woman’s, it will be a good phrase to remember throughout this French adventure. Indeed, it’s a fairly apt summing up of life itself.

The next day, Alistair busies himself downstairs in the workshop-garage and emerges wearing a rather natty orange- and-white leather jumpsuit. I wear my best ‘Wheee, this is exciting!’ expression because I want to get into the spirit of the thing. He chatters animatedly, even suggesting I interview some of the other competitors ‘for your blog’. It’s endearing really, how much faith he has in me. I don’t have a blog and I certainly don’t have the balls to rock up to total strangers to quiz them in a language I barely speak on a subject I know nothing about.

I would point this out but I can see it’s futile. Because (and this is an Alistair I am to become familiar with) he is now wholly focused on the mission at hand. His mind is elsewhere — organising, planning — and he is in constant motion, muttering to himself, pacing around finding leather gloves, a helmet to fit me and checking over the bike.

In this state of mind, and in his eagerness to get to the track, Alistair forgets I have never been on a bike before. Bemused by the lack of anything to hold onto, I ask ‘Erm, what do I hold onto?’ Alistair looks blank. ‘Well me, of course.’ Why of course.

The other indication that Alistair has forgotten I am a novice is that there are no concessions, speed-wise. We scream along the lanes and, while I can’t see on the dial how fast he’s going, let’s just say I’m expecting an oxygen mask to drop down any minute. I am clinging onto him for dear life, but my hands don’t meet around his waist and my grip feels extremely precarious. At one point, we accelerate so suddenly and so hard that I jolt backwards, and my hands almost come free. It’s an alarming thought, that it’s only my fingertips coming between living-breathing me, and a more roadkill version of myself.

We arrive at the track, and I’m intent on giving Alistair some feedback. Notes, if you will, on his motorcycling performance and what I believe could be improved from a passenger point of view. But I can see it’s not the time. He is saying something about a ‘boîte’ and how we need to find one, and he’s marching towards a shed thing, then we’re at a desk signing our names and queuing for something else, and Alistair is talking, and it’s hot and there are trailers and bikes and noise everywhere. It’s what the French fondly term le bordel. I realise I am sounding whiny here, but it’s a big leap to go from tranquil riverside utopia to Bedlam Central in one morning.

In jeans and a too thick cotton top, I am sweating and uncomfortable. And that’s even before the translating duties. I’m uncomfortable in other ways too — this is so not my world. I have no idea what to say or do, or how to behave. I can’t even comment on the bikes other than to remark ‘such a lovely green’ or ‘that looks expensive’. As a representative of female-dom, I am doing a great job at reinforcing stereotypes.

A young official at the desk is decidedly coquettish with Alistair, and — kudos to her flirting skills — he seems to have snapped out of his reverie. She’s blonde, confident and totally at home in this environment. She does speak his language — both bike and English — and knows exactly where to find a boîte. I am so tired and dispirited I feel like just exchanging phone numbers for them and booking the first flight back to Auckland.

Ah, but no, Alistair turns and says something to me and indicates that I should follow as he strides boîte-wards. A boîte, it transpires, is a metal container or private space where you can park your bike and rest between races. Like a movie star’s trailer if a movie star’s trailer smelled of oil and had nothing in it but helmets, tools and bearded men.

The only highlight of the morning is a quick chat with a forty-something woman on a red Ducati, who is standing in the pit lane ready to race. I slink over to her and express my admiration for her bike, and for the very fact she is here in this mostly male world. ‘Tu as du courage,’ I say, then tell her I was scared even on the pillion. She laughs. ‘Oh God, it’s much scarier being on the back than actually piloting. I hate being on the back.’

I won’t bore you with the rest of the morning.

Suffice to say Alistair does not kill himself (no thanks to my translating) and I learn a list of very useful new words. Déhancher (literally, to ‘unhip’) is what you do when you slide your fesses (buttocks) to one side of the bike seat in order to better tackle a corner. Ideally if you can get your genou (knee) close to the tarmac as you tackle the bend, all the better. It’s what they do in the professional MotoGP races — those young guys have legs of rubber and nerves of steel. Some even get their elbow and shoulder onto the ground as they lean in. Now that’s impressive / bonkers.

Then there’s the point de corde (the apex), and honestly I’m still not even sure what this refers to, but it’s something to do with the perfect part of a corner to commence your turn. Erm, that’s it. The instructor speaks very, very fast and each time Alistair leans in for his translation, I have nothing. I am, however, becoming fluent in Gallic shrugs. Fortunately Alistair seems to understand much of the briefing anyway, thanks to his experience and some nifty little diagrams up on the whiteboard.

We return home for lunch and Alistair gives me the afternoon off. Which is a nice way of saying I am fired. He roars back to the track but not before telling me the following fun fact. Apparently his ex-partner Sarah was so relaxed riding pillion that she used to nod off to sleep. Well, that’s just great.

Feeling like a loser, I am left alone picturing the fabulous time Alistair will be having without me, free to talk engines and hip movements with Mademoiselle Blonde.

I need to do something, pronto, to lift my spirits and regain a sense of self. A-ha, I think. It’s a beautiful day, and while I daren’t attempt to drive yet, I can hop on the lovely green pushbike in the garage. Apparently the famous Sarah used to love a jaunt on the bicycle, and would pedal off happily to the garden centre of an afternoon. I’m going to do just that. A little independent trip, perhaps buy a few seedlings to plant, give Alistair a surprise. Exercise always makes me feel better.

The bike, like everything around here, is très charmante. She is a shimmering emerald green with a little wicker basket on the front. I change into shorts, hop onto the bicyclette and pedal away, imagining myself in a Stella Artois commercial. There’s a slight breeze, the route to the main road is tree-lined and shady and for the first few minutes I’m sailing along, thinking how pleasing it will be to return with a basket full of herbs and plants and possibly a jauntily placed baguette.

It’s funny how you don’t notice gradients till you get on a bike with no gears.

Out in the open sun, on a hill that won’t quit, it’s torture. I puff my way up one stretch of road, stand up on the pedals to try to make it up the next but simply can’t. There is no end in sight — the road is just all uphill from here. I dismount, wishing I’d brought water. I have to get there somehow, even if it means pushing this bastard contraption all the way. Thank God Alistair isn’t here to witness this new humiliation.

A motorbike whizzes past and a rider turns to look at me. I scowl back. Not very French of me; round here the accepted form of communication, even with strangers, is a wave and a hearty ‘Bonjour!’

The bike turns and, to my alarm, slows down next to me. Dear God, I do not want to be rescued.

‘Hi,’ says Alistair, looking amused. ‘You okay there?’ It’s a rhetorical question. ‘It’s a bit hot in the day to be cycling,’ he says kindly. ‘Look, why don’t you go back home and we can go together in the car?’

My pride is somewhere back on the road, probably with its legs in the air in a ditch, so I nod eagerly. This sounds like a magnificently sane plan.

Turns out Alistair skidded and flew off his bike within minutes of arriving at the track. He’s fine but his leg is very bruised and sore, so he decided to call it a day.

Later on, with the heat mounting, we go for a dip in the river. I’m about to sidle up to Alistair to plant a kiss on his stubble, when he says, ‘That blonde chick at the desk asked if you were my wife. She was trying to gauge whether I’m available or not.’ He is only teasing me, but he’s also clearly just a little bit chuffed that someone so young and attractive should pay him attention. I feel a sudden sense of panic.

Now, if at this point you are thinking Jeez, she’s over-sensitive, you are absolutely right. I mentioned this earlier. I am too sensitive for my own good, and the current situation has stripped me of any resilience whatsoever. I have taken a huge risk here, with Alistair. I have staked everything, every ounce of security I had, to trot across hemispheres to be at his side. But I know very little about him. I know that he prefers rosé to red, that he’s fond of machinery and fixing things, and that he has a degree in computer science. I know he can’t stand ABBA, that he loves mushrooms and can do a spot-on Belfast accent. However, I don’t really know whether he’s the kind of guy to bolster his 60-something ego by accepting phone numbers from pushy young women.

‘Hey,’ he says softly, when he sees that I am not laughing. ‘It’s okay … I told her we were married! I just thought it was funny, that’s all.’

Silence. All I seem to be able to do is stare at the water.

‘Look, I asked you here because it’s you I want to spend my life with,’ he goes on. ‘This is going to work. She wasn’t really interested in me and even if she was, it’s you that I want.’

He turns me towards him. ‘Did you get that? It’s you I’m interested in. Nobody else. It’s going to be hard, of course it is. We are just getting to know one another. But we are going to make this work. Do you hear me?’

Yes I do.

I am feeling slightly foolish that I made such a big deal of it. I’m not sure what to say. So instead I flick water at him, and then we start to splash each other. Just like they do in the movies.

La wobble numéro 2

I’m not understanding a thing. Yes, language barriers are to be expected — especially since I’ve only been here a couple of weeks. But Alistair is speaking English.

‘Antoine rang and there’s a meeting with the mayor on Jacqueline’s lawn, and I need to find out about the bread dough, because last year I did the trestle tables …’

‘Uh?’ I look up from the tranche of baguette which I’ve been busy slathering in jam like a brickie with his trowel. ‘It’s nine a.m. on a Saturday and you’re telling me there’s some kind of committee meeting happening? And why do we — and by that, I mean I — have to go?’

Alistair says more words that make no sense, so I shrug and clatter up the windy wooden staircase to put on some clothes. I’m guessing turning up in your undies is a no-no for committee meetings, no matter how weekend, rustic or French they are.

The heat slides over us like melted butter as we make our way along the river bank to our neighbour Jacqueline’s house. The river is clear and conversational, spilling vivaciously over the rocks. A white crane, light as origami, skims the water. At least I think it’s a crane. I’m not good on nature. But since flora and fauna are my new neighbours, I’d better get to know them. I make a mental note to find out what a crane looks like, and what he calls himself in French.

In A Year in Provence, Peter Mayle writes, ‘Neighbours, we have found, take on an importance in the country that they don’t begin to have in cities.’ Acutely aware of this, and since this is my first encounter with the ‘voisins’, I’m bringing my best Maria forward. She’s ready — wide smile, nicely conjugated irregular verbs, eager and poised. Pale blue linen dress — crumpled to convey just the right level of insouciance — heels left at home in favour of easy-breezy white canvas flats, to show I’m as au fait with impromptu meetings on lawns as the next person.

Jacqueline lives next door but one, and her lawn slopes nonchalantly down to the water. It’s shaded by willows, and the scene when we arrive is all very Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte, except it’s Saturday and instead of the bustles and parasols in Seurat’s painting there are fifteen or so people in sandals and shorts sitting on randomly positioned dining chairs.

The person I take to be the mayor — solely by virtue of his impressive moustache and the fact he’s bent over some kind of ledger — is at a small card table. The rest of the gathering are simply chatting quietly, and some consider me with vague curiosity. I have no idea who or where Jacqueline is. I sit by a grey-haired lady and try to look relaxed, as if attending an al fresco council meeting in a different language on a topic I don’t understand is my usual and preferred way of spending a weekend morning.

I smile wanly at my chair neighbour. ‘Je suis Maria— je suis la, um, l’amie d’Alistair.’

A flicker of a frown. In strongly Scouse-accented French she replies, ‘Oh, where are you staying?’

Clearly the ‘amie’ bit didn’t quite convey the seriousness of our relationship.

‘Avec Alistair, dans le moulin!’

She nods but there it is again. And this time the frown comes with a soupçon of an eyebrow raise. She’s not the warmest of individuals to begin with, and this hint of disapproval boosts her chill factor by several degrees.

Over the next ten minutes, I have this same conversation with several people. Then it dawns on me. I don’t think Alistair has told anyone that I exist. I start to feel unsettled. After all, if a girl is going to skip hemispheres, leave her lovely low-cost rental near the beach, her full-time job, her family, her whippet, her entire life … is it too much to ask that the man she’s doing it for expresses some excitement to his friends and neighbours? That he offers a little fanfare?

I feel stung. Especially since Alistair used to come here with the aforementioned Sarah, who they all loved. She didn’t even speak French but they all embraced her nonetheless. I need to get a grip. This latest bout of insecurity won’t do at all.

And then the pinot arrives. Sounds harmless enough, does it not? It isn’t. Pinot, you see, isn’t your friendly pinot noir or pinot gris. This is a local brew of champagne and brandy that is both a delight and the enemy of reason.

So when Alistair gestures to me to join him — he’s standing in a straggly semicircle of men — I’m filled with indignation. Hurt at not being introduced widely with ‘This is the love of my life and she has come to live with me’, I ignore him and carry on talking to a lovely English chap next to me who, alarmingly since he’s lived here about ten years, speaks no French. I completely shun everyone else at the meeting, mainly because I suddenly feel my stay in France will be very brief.

Later at home, Alistair is clearly displeased with my antisocial behaviour and still simmering resentment. However, we deftly avoid the topic while he fills me in about the meeting. After a three-year hiatus because of Covid, the village fête is to be held in a few weeks’ time. It’s an all-hands-on-deck affair as there is a lot of organisation to do. Now the earlier remarks about dough make sense. The hamlet has a communal bread oven which — back in the day — people could schlepp along to with their gooey lumps of wannabe baguette or loaf. It’s no longer used except at festival time and, after heating up the oven for three days, the local baker will make bread for several hundred people — both to sell and for the grand communal lunch. Alistair is meant to be helping, but he’s not sure in what capacity.

After he’s explained all this, we address the events of the morning. Alistair cannot fathom my behaviour. He worries that this is how it is going to be; that he will have to tread on eggshells; he says he can’t have someone around who gives in to emotion like that. And then he mentions the D word.

I can’t believe that old chestnut, the accusation of ‘drama’, has arisen so early in our relationship. He had so beautifully sidestepped it during that earlier conversation on racetrack day. He had been sensitive to my sensitivity. But now here it is, and from bitter experience there’s usually a swift journey from D to B. Break-up.

Feeling rattled and wanting to make some sense of it all, I head to the river. As I slip into the cool water, I am soothed and forced to dwell in the moment. Wading back to the bank, however, my feet slip and slide on the mossy stones underfoot — as if to remind me I’m on shaky emotional ground. Shivering slightly, I sit on a rock — not yet ready to go inside.

Later, when we have both calmed down, we talk. And I realise something fairly pivotal. Forget French subjunctives and learning the names for the many types of baguette (seriously, the boulangerie is a minefield). We need to start with the basics, i.e., how to understand each other.

Alistair explains he hadn’t told people about me because he was worried I’d change my mind at the last minute. He didn’t want to compound the sadness of my no-show with feeling utterly foolish in front of the entire village. Which as I have mentioned isn’t that many, even including the animals. But still.

Also he was deeply apprehensive. The ‘wonderful Sarah’ you see — fit, vivacious, super-active and, like Alistair, full of joie de vivre — died of cancer about a year before I met him. She was in her late fifties. He loved her, and the French locals loved her and despite the passing of time and the fact it was perfectly okay for Alistair to meet someone new … it worried him. Would they judge him for moving on?

And this really lovely piece of vulnerability and honesty from the man I am just getting to know teaches me two important things: (a) the universe does not revolve around me; (b) never ever accept a glass of pinot before 10 a.m.