22
We’re floating in an in-between world. Happy to be reunited, sensing it can’t last. We’re too fiery, each of us. There are so many complex feelings — and whenever we’ve tried to explain and share them, we’ve simply pressed on each other’s bruises. More triggers than a John Wayne movie (or a Quentin Tarantino film: take your generational pick).
Yet there’s a tenderness here that was absent before. Over the past year we’ve slowly become mired in our own fears, our own pressures. Our own twisted versions of ‘This has to work or we are lost.’ Now, having actually lost one another for a while, we are overwhelmed with relief at being together again.
As the September rain pours and the river swells, as the sunbathing rock and the Jesus rock disappear beneath the fast-flowing, angry, milk-coffee-coloured current, Alistair and I begin to surface. Bobbing around, reaching out, swimming away from our respective islands. Bearing our white flags, not scrutinising each other for red ones.
Perhaps because all expectations have been suspended, we’re free to breathe, to be ourselves. It’s an idyllic interlude — one that feels like a honeymoon, like the start of something.
When the rains clear we head off on the e-bikes in the late afternoons — me undeterred by falling off and hurting myself badly. It’s on these occasions I know that beneath Alistair’s often brusque exterior, there is a kind and caring soul. When I fail to see the curve in the road, hit the kerb suddenly and go hurtling off onto hard concrete, he leaps off his bike and rushes over. My leg is throbbing (for weeks afterwards I sport a bruise like a heat map of Aotearoa on my right thigh), the skin is scraped off and blood is pouring from my palms (typical — it’s the only time ever that I have not worn bike gloves), and I feel like crying. But I smile bravely. ‘What an idiot!’ I laugh. ‘Shh,’ he says gently, fussing over me, offering to go and get the car, then holding me tight like he wants to shield me from all further harm. It’s this Alistair I try to hold in my mind, when doubts swirl.
One unseasonably warm evening, down by the narrow penstock where the mill wheel used to churn the water, Alistair wades into the lively current in his shorts. I swelter, even in a sleeveless cotton dress, watching him with envy.
‘Come in!’ he urges. ‘Nah’ I say, but immediately contradicting myself, I lift the dress over my head, and sidle in, naked. The water is as warm as a swimming pool, and there’s a smooth flat rock which nature, ever the gracious hostess, has pulled up just for me. The current eddies past and around us, bubbling here, sending up droplets there, spritzing us gently. I can’t help but laugh — nothing is funny, but this carefree moment somehow demands it. For a few minutes I am not Maria with the financial worries, the homesickness, the inability to form a lasting romantic relationship, the longing for something I can’t name. I am part of the river. An uncomplicated creature on a rock, basking in the elements.
As the sun warms my face, I’m reminded of La Symphonie Pastorale, a novel by André Gide, which I studied for French A Level. Aged seventeen, I was a little swot — or rather a gourmande, with an insatiable hunger for everything French. I inhaled every word and line of the compulsory texts placed in front of us. I’d never been to France but I was infatuated already and even the grim, doom-laden tales we were forced to analyse didn’t put me off. Madame Bovary, Phèdre, Thérèse Desqueyroux, La Symphonie Pastorale. All so tragic, all so poignant to me. I blame Flaubert and Racine for making me see a certain poetry in relationship drama. I’d perhaps have been better off listening to the more prosaic dating stories of my peers, or being taught budgeting and woodwork (not available at a convent high school). Heartbreak may still have found me, but at least I’d have had a financial cushion and a decent coffee table.
But back to Gide’s novel, in which a married pastor adopts blind teenage orphan Gertrude. Of course she’s beautiful, de rigueur for tragic nineteenth-century French heroines, and the pastor’s handsome son has the hots for her. As does — uh-oh — the pastor. One day Gertrude regains her sight, sees the son, falls head over heels then promptly wanders out into the snow and dies. I seem to recall she sought out her own death, torn apart by the now bitter rivalry between father and son, of which she is the cause. What has all this to do with me on a rock in the river? Just that there is one passage that’s always stayed with me, where sightless Gertrude, feeling the sun on her face, believes the air is singing. She confuses the birdsong and the sun’s warmth as one and the same thing. ‘Il lui paraissait tout naturel que l’air chaud se mît à chanter, de même que l’eau se met à bouillir près du feu.’ To her it was quite natural that the balmy air should start to produce this beautiful sound, just as water placed over a flame begins to bubble.
Funny that I should think of this now. Perhaps in this fleeting moment of simplicity and innocence, Gertrude’s touching naivety somehow resonates.
There is no need for me to remain here. The supposed premise of my return was that urgent hospital test. But that is behind me, and the clown course too is over. (I’ve kept the red nose; you never know when you might need one.) I am free to go. But I am not done with this place. And maybe, just maybe, there is a chance somehow for me and Alistair.
And I’ve remembered that I have to be here for at least another month, to attend my French immigration department ‘formation days’, where I get the official introduction to French life: values, healthcare, law, geography, history, accommodation, work, education … the whole chipolata. Once a week for a month, these sessions are a requirement of my visa. Yes, the visa I already have. The induction was meant to take place when I first got the blessed stamp in my passport, but it has taken a while. Strictly speaking, I could skip these sessions, especially if I never intend to come back. But having formed my own opinions and prejudices about this land and its people, I’m interested to hear what France has to say about France.
My friends are concerned. They know about my swift departure to the UK, and are now justifiably asking, ‘What is going on? We thought you had a big fight and it was over. Are you together or aren’t you?’ I have to reply, ‘When I have even the faintest inkling, you will be the first to know.’
Because to be perfectly frank, I am all over the place. I am booked in for those induction sessions. I have an appointment to renew the visa and set myself on a path to that Holy Grail — French citizenship. I have all my winter clothes at my brother’s house in London. Alistair and I have rekindled something, but I am not sure what. And now there is another complication.
While I was back in London — sleep-deprived, in shock, unmoored — I knew only one thing for certain: that I could never again put myself in the precarious position of relying on a man for security. My remote work had dwindled to a trickle, so I fired off job application letters north, south, east and west. For freelance jobs in London, for a full-time position in New Zealand, for work I could do remotely. I’d even wipe down café tables if it came to it. The job would decide my next move. I was casting CVs, not caution, to the wind.
When I tell Alistair that I’ve been on a job-hunting mission that includes the southern hemisphere, he asks (several times a day) ‘If you got the role in Auckland, would you take it?’ Sometimes it is said fearfully, other times sadly, and sometimes with a flicker of hostility (which I don’t take offence at; I know all too well that hostility is just pain in a different costume).
For an answer, I repeat the same placeholder sentence over and over: ‘Let’s cross that bridge when we come to it.’ This was my emotional equivalent of an ‘out-of-office’ email. What I really meant was, ‘Please don’t make me think about that right now. Let me just watch the heron. Or keep reading my book. Or watch the water rushing over the broken weir.’
I’ve never been good at mindfulness. But more than anything, in those moments, I wanted to live in the now.
A boyfriend once told me: ‘The thing with you is you are entirely driven by your emotions.’ It wasn’t a criticism; more of a description. He might as well have been saying, ‘You have a freckle on your shoulder’ or ‘You are left-handed.’
But I suspected that when it came to that bridge, Emotion and Pragmatism might be crossing it hand in hand. Because now I had to do what made sense. With no savings and no immediate income stream in sight, my financial insecurity was chipping away at an already unstable foundation. If I did get the New Zealand job, it would be a lifeline. I’d be copywriting for an agency with a strong social conscience, great values and refreshingly healthy ideas around remuneration; I would be near my daughters again, and I would be self-reliant. Safe.
As strongly drawn to one another as Alistair and I were — still are — we have hit serious problems. Because of our painful relationship histories, we trigger one another constantly. Because we can’t find a way to communicate well, we create new bruises for one another rather than soothing old ones. Because we had different expectations from the outset, there is a bedrock of resentment.
Alistair: ‘I thought we were going into this adventure shoulder to shoulder, the two of us taking on this new life together, facing all the obstacles side by side.’
Me: ‘Hold on a minute … You were coming here anyway!! In fact you’d already been here for long periods of time, with Sarah. You’d already planned for this to be your permanent home when you retired; you hated New Zealand and couldn’t wait to get away. So this never depended on me.’
A therapist might be shaking his or her head at this, thinking ‘Oh, but all of this can be worked through. If you are both willing, you can learn to listen to each other.’ It’s not that we haven’t considered this. We have been trying, as I mentioned, to frame things in healthier language. And Alistair has — touchingly — been absorbed of late in a book on ‘relationship attachment styles’ in an attempt to diagnose the problem. That man loves a manual. But somehow it all feels a little futile in the face of an ever-expanding ‘Reasons for Going Back’ dossier. To which I can add a new realisation: that this isn’t just about me and Alistair. What about when your tumultuous love life and precarious circumstances start to hurt those you love most?
People are worrying about me. Good friends and family are no longer laughing at my ‘hilarious escapades’ such as hauling great ladders to climb into water mills. I’d always clung ferociously to the belief that ‘You just have to live your life’. As long as you were doing no harm, I figured, you could do what you liked. But now I am doing harm. My volatile situation is causing concern to people who have stood by me loyally and nonjudgmentally, some of them for decades. I don’t care what society at large thinks. But these people, that’s different. I don’t want to be their 4 a.m. worry. Of course it wouldn’t matter if I could tell them, with conviction, ‘No, I’ve got this. It’s rocky right now but honestly, trust me; it’s going to be fine.’ But I can’t tell them that. I can’t tell them that because I don’t believe it myself.
I have a plan B, one that won’t entail me going back to New Zealand. And that is to get a well-paying freelance gig and rent a place of my own. Somewhere nearby, so Alistair and I will be close to one another. We can start afresh. We can date, and the moulin will return to being a moulin instead of a pressure cooker.
This is the only way it will work. I have convinced myself of that. Unluckily, unusually, and actually really shittily, there are no freelance gigs on the horizon.
Yet one morning, an email pings in my inbox. ‘Thank you for your recent application. You are on our shortlist and we’d love to chat with you over Zoom.’ It’s for the Auckland role.
When Alistair asks what I plan to do, I tell him, ‘Erm, well, I’m going to go ahead with the interview. I don’t see that I have any alternative. I can’t earn enough here to be independent.’ ‘Well, that’s it then isn’t it,’ he says sadly. ‘I’ve lost you.’
Not 100 per cent certain what our current status actually is, I sense ‘lost’ is not the right word. Plus I only have an interview, not the job itself. But I’m not about to start editing Alistair’s sentences. It’s really not the right moment for pedantry. So I say nothing. Alistair says nothing. The pause is so long, it’s theatrical. For one long minute we’re characters in a Harold Pinter play. Then Alistair, who has been staring out the window, suddenly turns to me. ‘Let’s go for a bike ride.’
It seems sensible. We can’t remain standing here indefinitely, frozen and not speaking. And there’s nothing like a bike ride to dispel the blues. We set off with no final destination in particular, but instinctively head towards our favourite track, the grass-covered old railway line, where Alistair slows to a halt. ‘How about we go for pizza?’
The pizza place in question is some ten kilometres away, but I nod enthusiastically. On the edge of a sports field behind the mairie is a kiosk selling pizza and other delicious fast food, which you can eat al fresco at large barrels serving as tables. The larger-than-life owner has cheeks like rising dough, big meaty hands and wears a plastic headband to hold back the tide of thick grey hair. He also always seems bamboozled when we turn up and order food. The kiosk’s opening hours are a little hit and miss, and it’s as if he too is surprised to find himself at work behind the counter.
This evening, we arrive to find the place shuttered and deserted. Alistair looks at me apprehensively. He’s studied the Maria manual and knows my settings, and is only too aware of the startlingly brief delay between ‘peckish’ and ‘hangry’. However I simply laugh, hop back on the bike and — to Alistair’s utter astonishment — whack the throttle hard.
You may remember the throttle. After several accidents, Alistair has repositioned this perilous device to a safer place on the handlebars (where I can’t trigger it by accident), but until today I have steadfastly refused to use it. Now I go blurring past him, yelling, ‘Let’s go to Philippe’s!’. Chez Philippe, a restaurant, is a 25-minute ride back to home, but the very thought of food is enough to jet-propel me through the evening air.
Some twenty minutes later we screech to a halt outside Philippe’s, where I promptly order a Kir and a large chicken burger with extra fries. ‘Who are you and what have you done with Maria?’ says Alistair admiringly.
We drink a few rosés too many, forget our hats and sunnies on the table, and teeter off into the setting sun, startling cows and batting away midges as we go. Back home, Alistair hits Spotify and cranks the music up loud. The sound blasts from two colossal speakers; Alistair is immensely proud of these wooden megaliths he built himself, fondly dubbing them ‘Stonehenge’. We dance like demons to James Brown, then slow-waltz to Dionne Warwick and Fleetwood Mac and there’s more cheese here than in all the pizza food trucks in all the world, but I don’t care. I nuzzle into Alistair, and he squeezes me tighter, and right now there are no job interviews, no sadness or goodbyes. Just me, him, and a 200-year-old moulin turned boombox for the night.
So when an adventure turns into un bordel(a mess), what is the best way forward? Toss a coin? Make an Excel spreadsheet? Draw up lists? Get therapy? Meditate? Mais non. The answer is: go on another adventure.
It’s Alistair’s idea.
‘I want us to explore more of France together. Whether you stay or go; I want to give this to you.’
I am definitely up for it. At least I am up for it in its initial guise — a camping trip. Low-key, pootling around in the Berlingo, eating beans on a campfire, snuggling up and looking at the stars.
Then the plan undergoes a radical makeover.
‘How about …’ begins Alistair, in an overly eager tone that puts me on alert.
‘Okay, I said camping,’ he continues. ‘But …’ His eyes are shining and his buoyant enthusiasm is verging on pantomime. I half expect him to slap his thigh and burst into song.
‘… how about we go on the bike!!’
And there it is. The staff in my alarm-bells department are high-fiving each other at being on the money. ‘The bike’ means the motorbike, aka The Beast (which is what aficionados fondly call the brutish KTM model). Yes, I have to some extent overcome my fears, but only when it comes to brief stints on the pillion and breezing along country lanes. A three- to four-day motorbike tour on fast, busy roads is a whole other kettle of poisson.
Before I can say anything, Alistair is off again.
‘So, we go on the bike. Obviously we’ll have to pack light but we can stay in hotels along the way. We’ll just set off and see what takes our fancy!’
The word ‘hotels’ has acted like a warm, soothing facecloth on my apprehensions.
‘Go on,’ I reply.
‘So I promise to not ride like a lunatic; you will be comfy because it’s the bigger bike and it will be an adventure! On the bike, you’ll see, it’s totally different. You get to really experience the countryside, smell the smells. You are immersed. It’s a whole different view. No bits of car window in your way. Just you and nature.’
And the tarmac. And a herd of crazy drivers. And the possibility of English tourists coming at us on the wrong side of the road (this happened to a UK friend of ours recently. Drove on the left, swerved to avoid an oncoming car, then smashed into a tree. Thankfully, both drivers are fine. ‘Ah, les anglais!’ said a French friend when we told him. ‘They always do this!’ he added, like it was a favourite British pastime.)
But Alistair’s boyish zeal is endearing, and I trust him to keep us safe. He does love speed, but he also knows what to look out for, how to avoid the nutters, mitigate the dangers. He did an advanced motorbike course with the cops and, say what you will about the police, you don’t hear of them falling off bikes very often.
So it’s settled. I pack very light (which I am to regret) and a tad impractically: a pair of shorts; two tops; the big, baggy, black denim biker pants with lining; three pairs of socks; five pairs of earrings; a swimsuit; three pairs of undies; my Kindle; some shortbread; mascara and lipstick; a toothbrush; and a tiny little metallic guardian angel that my brother and Fiona gave me when I left London.
Panniers packed, moulin locked, helmets and gloves on, we set off. Bound for Périgord, as the French know it. Or what property-eyeing Brits fondly call the Dordogne.
Alistair didn’t over-sell it. A motorbike road trip is amazing. At first I clutch him hard around the waist, like it’s his life I am trying to save. Then gradually I relax, sometimes even letting go and just holding the side handles to steady myself.
I get to feel the rhythm, the patterns of Alistair’s acceleration, to anticipate the G-force. The first time he overtakes two trucks, he taps my leg to warn me and we roar into the atmosphere. I lean in and grab him tighter, a needy koala. But I soon understand Alistair’s strategy, observe that he never overtakes anywhere near a bend or a hill, that even on the straight he won’t pull out unless the road is clear a long way ahead. Plus on a bike that does 0 to 200 kilometres in 7.2 seconds (a bit like my hunger), you’re always going to leave the trucks standing.
I start to detect patterns. When there are sluggish cars up in front, Alistair edges up behind them, moving out slightly to indicate his intention to overtake at the next possible opportunity. The French, as it turns out, are very respectful of bikers; almost without exception they veer to the side to make room. The minute any oncoming cars have passed, the bike screams into action and for a few seconds we are almost airborne. Alistair once met a test-pilot for fighter planes who told him the next best thing to the exhilaration of flying was riding a motorbike. I can believe it.
The journey takes us through ever-prettier hamlets with weathered walls and mediaeval châteaux on the horizon. History unfurls alongside us — the bike clocking up centuries, not just kilometres, as we go.
We bump over the cobbles of the first village, thrumming along so slowly now that we can smell the sweet, oily fragrance of what may be beignets (doughnuts) or perhaps crêpes wafting from an open window. The low growl of the engine is the only sound, except for a sudden ‘wow’ from a teenage girl out for a morning walk with her copines.
Then we’re off again, out on the open road. The scenery whooshes past us, a crazy kaleidoscope of images: a piebald foal; grass so vividly lime-green it might have been drawn with marker; swathes of shrivelled sunflowers, their scrunched-up heads like a vast tray of golden popcorn; an unshaven chin of a field, all stubble and sharp stalks. At times we’re screaming along so fast, we’re a chainsaw tearing its way through botanical-patterned fabric.
In Thiviers, finally in the Dordogne, we stop for a tarte aux framboises — a delicious golden, crusty pastry base and creamy custard piled high with raspberries. We sit outside a tabac, on a pavement so narrow our chairs are almost on the road, and take in the view. The French strictness about mealtimes means that between breakfast and lunch, not many places serve food at all. It’s quite acceptable to order a cognac or a Ricard and water, but ask for a sandwich and they look at you quizzically. It’s perfectly okay, however, to visit the boulangerie and bring your sandwich or fruit tart back to the café to enjoy with your coffee or morning snifter.
Our next stop is Bergerac, which apparently has a lovely old quarter with picturesque squares. I say ‘apparently’ because our experience includes none of this. We stay at a ‘games-themed’ hotel a little outside of town — a huge modern complex with a swimming pool and whose unique selling point is a massive supply of board games and even an escape room, where you get a series of clues to help you find your way out. Looking back later, that is my main memory of Bergerac. That and the long walk into town on a stifling hot night, incredible for the time of year, in my thick biker pants and with hair spiralling in all directions — having swum in the pool and forgotten my straighteners. Alistair is delighted, he loves my curls and pats them constantly. I’m not a fan. My head feels messy enough on the inside, without this external chaos.
We spy an attractive restaurant right by the river, with a huge terrace and only one table occupied. But when we tell the maître d’ we’d like to eat, she somewhat haughtily asks if we’ve booked. We haven’t, but gesture to the empty terrace. ‘Ah but no, I regret you cannot if you have not reserved,’ she replies, her cool tone and overly sweet smile suggesting victory rather than regret. On leaving we notice the restaurant’s three Michelin stars, and I speculate that one of them might reside up the maître d’s rear.
The snub turns out to be a blessing: as we wander around in search of a more welcoming place to eat, we spot an unassuming Portuguese bistro squeezed in beside an ugly, windowless masonic church facing a small square. There are three small metal tables outside, teetering on the edge of a cobbled car park. A Portuguese woman with a large girth and a wide smile gestures to one of the tables. She carries her own Mediterranean micro-climate, exuding warmth and bonhomie, in sharp contrast to the Arctic chill of the previous establishment. We sit al fresco, drinking rosé and eating bacalao (cod) croquettes followed by pork chops and more cod with potatoes, our table lit up alternately by a tiny flickering candle and the rear lights of vehicles reversing perilously close to our chairs.
As we sit in the sultry storm-gathering night, Alistair points out the Périgord-style roofs all around the square: steep-pitched with a tiny outward flick at the bottom. These particular examples are like a mouth of wonky teeth, all crooked and at different heights.
To outsiders, we must appear like one of those blessed couples that the years have drawn ever closer. A small curly-haired woman in too-big pants, and a silver-goateed bear of a man laughing, chatting and holding hands across the table. Time may be running out for us, but we are steadfastly committed to this moment, to this version of us. Like method actors unable — or even afraid — to step out of character.
The following day we check out of the games hotel, and point the bike eastwards in the direction of the Château de Castelnaud, some 60 kilometres away.
Alistair has long wanted to visit this castle, and at first it’s hard to see why. Arriving at the rather desolate car park we lock the panniers to protect our valuables (actually I have none, unless you count the shortbread, my notebooks and a favourite pair of earrings) then follow the signs up to the château. And now I get it. First we come upon Castelnaud-la-Chapelle: the most sublimes of villages, it is pure Beauty and the Beast territory. Narrow, windy streets; biscuit-coloured stone houses, some half-timbered; those unmistakable roofs; ancient stone arches … I half expect to see Belle and Gaston, and villagers throwing open their wooden shutters with a merry chorus of ‘Bonjour, bonjour!!’
The castle is incredible; it has stood watch for some eight centuries high above the Dordogne river — brooding, tense and ever ready for attack. It changed hands seven times between the French and the English during the Hundred Years’ War. That was property acquisition in the late Middle Ages, so actually let’s not be mean about estate agents. The English invasion continues apace, of course, with some 7000 Brits now living in the Dordogne.
When I think of that castle later, I recall never-ending flights of stone steps, the medieval armour and savage weaponry on display — the terrible lances, terrifying crossbows and other paraphernalia of violence all at peace now in their glass cabinets. I remember the spectacular view from the ramparts, looking down on the river — the canoes slow-moving specks far below — and Beynac Castle perched high on a distant cliff. But what I recall most is a rather peculiar occurrence.
We have just made our way to the first part of the fortress tour, a throne room with mannequins wearing rough woollen tunics and itchy-looking tights. I turn to joke to Alistair about the ‘man bag’ slung from the belt of one young plastic prince, but he is not there. Not worried by the fact that he’s continued without me, I proceed to the next chamber. In a darkened room, a few tourists are hunched over an illuminated miniature model of the castle and surroundings. No sign of Alistair. I enter the next room, and the next, and I am hurrying now. How did he manage to evaporate entirely?
Everywhere people are lingering; there’s a lot to see. In a scullery a giant stuffed boar is slung from the ceiling, and what looks like a bathtub sits improbably in one corner. In another room are more deadly spiked weapons; in the next a video plays, a sombre-voiced narrator relaying the fortress’s dark history. I give these things no more than a passing glance. More staircases, winding round and down, then snaking back up again. I emerge into the open air onto the ramparts again and lean over the thick stone to scan the courtyard far below. Scurrying back along the rampart, I’m chased by a sense of foreboding. Down the steps, through an arch. The end of the tour. Alistair has vanished. And here’s the peculiar thing. Like a four-year-old lost in a mall, I feel a lump in my throat and the tears hot behind my eyes. Ridiculous woman, I half-laugh to myself but no, there it is, I am crying. Alistair isn’t there, and this sense of loss is way out of proportion. It’s beyond all reason. It simply makes no sense. My phone battery is dead but I know where the bike is, I know he is here somewhere, we will meet up in a moment. And the setting — with its centuries of bloodshed, battle and true heartache — makes this mini-drama all the more absurd.
In some desolate dungeon of my mind, a thought, a realisation is locked away. It can’t reach me, but it has sent messengers. A racing heart, a hollow sensation, the tears still streaming. Some part of me knows something that I, the present me, only half-senses.
I retrace my steps, take one last look down into the courtyard and, finally, there he is. I yell, my voice thin and feathery across the distance, but he glances up and we both laugh. I run down to meet him, he rushes towards me. And this is the strangest part of all. Alistair wraps me in the biggest hug and whispers, ‘You know it’s stupid, but I had separation anxiety. I felt like crying. Ridiculous, eh?’ ‘Utterly pathetic,’ I reply and quickly wipe away a tear.
Things I’ve learned about biking.
When it’s unbearably hot, you take off your T-shirt, soak it in cold water in the nearest loos / fountain / river, and pop it back on to wear under your biker gear. We do this in public toilets at the castle. It is heaven, and walking to the bike in a sodden T-shirt amid hordes of well-turned-out tourists feels beautifully improper.
You must put on your wet-weather gear at the very first hint of rain. I don’t — and spend 40 minutes on the way home with the cold rivulets trickling down my back, shivering and convinced I am developing hypothermia.
When you see another biker passing you, hold two fingers out to the side — in a peace sign yet down low, at hip height. It’s a biker brethren thing, and I love it. Passengers can also get in on the act. Pillions are people too.
What can I tell you about the next few days? That they are an interlude, an illusion … a momentary escape where nothing real or meaningful takes place? Or that they are the closest that Alistair and I have ever felt, the most clearly we have understood each other?
I can tell you how he laughs when I buy a hemp hat to hide my curls, and kisses the top of my head when I remove it momentarily. How we drink just-sweet-enough homemade lemonade at the Château des Milandes, home for 30 years to the legendary dancer and political heroine, Joséphine Baker, a black civil-rights activist and mother to twelve adopted children.
I can describe the heavy, brooding night that we eat on the upstairs balcony of a restaurant tucked down an alleyway in Sarlat, Alistair insisting we remain al fresco despite hard drops of rain that I know have every intention of growing up to be a deluge. Of him mocking me as I retreat, the electric storm lighting up a suit of armour hanging above the restaurant entrance, and the downpour filling every wine glass with water within seconds. Of the delicious, butter-soft trout (which, had we stayed on the balcony, would have posthumously swum away on a river of rainwater).
I can tell you about the dog we encounter in the little bar opposite our hotel, an adorable teddy bear of a thing with giant paws and a great floppy fringe which almost takes Alistair’s hand off when he tries to pat it through the wooden gate that separates it from the clientele. We learn that the dog — property and wingman of the bar owner — has exactly twenty friends (all human) and he chooses them carefully. ‘How long does it take for him to befriend you?’ I ask, wanting desperately to be part of this inner circle. ‘Bah, c’est lui qui décide,’ replies the large, bearded, Hagrid-esque owner. ‘It’s up to him. You may never make it.’
Above all, I can tell you of the bonding power of being on that bike. Maybe it’s the enforced hugging, the knife-edge sense of never feeling more alive or so close to death, the gratitude to Alistair for keeping us safe, the sense of us being two explorers propelled through time and space. Together.
We arrive home, bike-sore, wet and thoroughly content.
Two days later I open my email to find I’ve landed the job in New Zealand.