Travelling with young children, I soon realise, is not the carefree, happy-go-lucky life I enjoyed as a student. Nor is Paris the lively summer capital of my memory. Beneath a low, grey sky the streets seem bleak and forlorn, and the solemn stone of the Sorbonne wears an icy shroud.
Our destination is the Midi, where winters are warmer and rents cheaper. Paris is only an interlude, a necessary pause in the journey to allow us to take the first formal steps toward becoming adopted citizens: registering our visas and opening a French bank account. At the préfecture de police the surly clerk looks suspiciously at our papers and insists on new photos, with separate ones for the children. We wait impatiently in the long, echoing corridor until he eventually returns on the dot of midday and hands over the stamped visas. He immediately slams down the shutters of his window and disappears for lunch. I wouldn’t have said merci even if I’d had the chance.
It’s a more congenial experience the next day. Monsieur BNP is only too delighted to welcome new clients, keeping up an endless patter about the benefits of living in the country while multiple documents pass to and fro across his desk. We want to link the French bank account to the Australian one and arrange for regular monthly transfers of funds; so long as we are relatively frugal, rent from the Australian house should cover our living expenses. I don’t notice until we leave, but while we have been signing interminable forms the children have amused themselves by removing the leaves from Monsieur’s pot plant in the corner of his office.
I need Paris to reaccustom myself to French ways and to refamiliarise myself with the words and phrases of everyday communication. There’s an additional imperative, to introduce John to the cafés and bars I used to frequent, the ones with stools at the counter where I could sit with my coffee or glass of wine and still only pay the comptoir price. The air is icy but the thrill of being here, of recognising boulangeries and bookshops, more than compensates for the winter chill and the inadequacy of our clothing. We do not yet know to wear hats, and jackets that can cope with a Sydney winter are no match for this penetrating cold. For the first time in their lives, the children need shoes, and we buy them sturdy little lace-up ankle boots in a soft caramel leather. Walking back along Boulevard Saint-Michel, we are stopped by a woman who points to Dylan, miserable and crying in his stroller. Il lui faut un bonnet, she commands (He needs a hat). Full of guilt and remorse, I turn into the next shop and choose him a bright red knitted balaclava. As if to reinforce my shame, his crying stops the minute I pull it over his head.
Dominique, a friend of my sister, has promised to help us find and buy a second-hand vehicle. With no idea how to buy a second-hand car in France and no technical terms in my vocabulary, I’m happy to entrust him with the task despite the long detour to Strasbourg. He meets us at the station with an invitation to his parents’ apartment for tea, un goûter. Rich, buttery aromas ooze from the door, and as we are led to the dining room I see an overwhelmingly generous table of Alsatian tarts, apple and plum, as well as a savoury quiche. It is a far cry from scones and Anzacs and a cream-filled sponge.
His parents are kind, attentive hosts but have only a few words of English, so it falls to me to sustain the conversation, explaining that we intend to live in France for a few years. No, we don’t know when we will return to Australia. No, we don’t have return air tickets. No, we don’t have jobs, and no, we don’t have definite plans except to head south. They listen politely and refrain from offering opinions, though privately they are probably thinking ‘rash, reckless and irresponsible’. The fact that Dylan is sniffling and whimpering and obviously unwell would only confirm their views. Our negligence in Paris has had its inevitable consequence, and he has a temperature and is most unhappy. They insist that he see a paediatrician and make an appointment for the next day.
Dr Levy-Silagy is very methodical and thorough and demands a complete medical history from the time of his birth, week by week and month by month. Her final diagnosis of a heavy cold and throat infection is far outweighed by her concern that, at 16 months, Dylan is not yet walking.
Do you give your children vitamins?, she asks, and there’s an implicit reprimand in her voice.
I realise she suspects a vitamin D deficiency and try to explain that Australia has fresh air and sunshine, that vitamin D beams naturally through the open windows, that the children have enjoyed sun kicks since they were two weeks old. Her frown signals disbelief as she writes out five prescriptions, three for the throat and two vitamin preparations, including capsules of vitamin D. I give Dylan the most important of the throat medicines and, because of her insistence, a week of vitamins as well. Miraculously, within a couple of days he is better. And a couple of weeks later he is walking. I hesitate to thank the vitamins.
But the whole point of this detour is to buy a car, and Dominique’s parents have another useful piece of information to pass on: their local garage man has a 1968 Citröen DS for sale. They have always owned Citröens, always bought them from this garage, and know Monsieur le Garagiste to be thoroughly reliable and honest. At approximately $900, it sounds perfect—and within our price range.
Roland Barthes described the DS—la déesse, the goddess—as an object from another universe, a gift from the heavens, ‘a new Nautilus’. As soon as I see it, even before a test drive, its breathtaking beauty wins me. Sleek, streamlined and elegant, it is all lean muscle, built for speed. It has the precision of a gymnast, able to turn a full circle on the smallest of country roads. Hydraulic suspension ensures the smoothest of rides. Its colour, the subtle pale green of sea foam or the most delicate celadon, is classic Citröen. It has real leather seats and, because its previous owner was a music teacher, a high-quality radio. C’est une voiture de luxe, says the garage man, fondly patting the bonnet, but we are already convinced. It seems an absolute bargain, though of course we have no idea the price will double when costs for registration, compulsory insurance and the carte grise—the registration certificate—are added.
On Sunday, one week after arriving in Paris, I feel that at last we are not simply marking time. The car represents respectability and permanence as well as the means to our end, a place of our own in the Midi. Optimism returns. Anywhere south will be warmer and more cheerful than Strasbourg. But in our infatuation with the DS and our eagerness to take possession, we neglect to ask the garage man if he could possibly help us by installing the children’s car seats that we’ve lugged all the way from Australia. Without an electric drill there’s no way of attaching them, so we jam soft bags around the children in the hope of keeping them comfortable while confined. Everything else can be accommodated in the spacious boot.
My spirits rise again when we reach Lyon, gateway to the Midi. After Lyon everything seems different, as if the city is home to kindly spirits who transform the grey industrial north, subdued and reserved, into a sunnier south, free-spirited and open-hearted. The road follows the valley of the Rhône, deep and narrow and what I have always imagined a valley to be. Clearly delineated by hills that rear steeply on either side, it embraces the wide, silvery river, a river so wide and so full of water that it serves as a double-lane highway for barges, an alternative road to parallel the autoroute and the Route Nationale. In all my trips up and down the N6, this valley, the opening to the Midi, never loses its power to thrill and exalt.
‘The first fact of life in Provence is the sun,’ wrote Waverley Root in his book The Food of France. The sky is clearer and bluer, the clouds untouchably high. Friendly plane trees line the highway and whisper welcome to an edible landscape of vineyards and orchards of espaliered pears and apricots. It’s as though the worst part of the journey is over and we’re now on the homeward stretch. The landscape and roads are familiar, and the distant profile of the Pont du Gard brings back the same sense of awe and wonder I experienced the first time I saw it, three years ago, on a warm spring afternoon. As I watch cars drive nonchalantly across its elegant arches it seems an affront to its venerable age that this ancient Roman aqueduct should become simply part of the road network, a means of crossing the river. It is heartening to see that beauty and elegance can be allied to utilitarian ends, but a monument that has lasted so long and still stands gracious and serene deserves perhaps to be spared the need to be useful.
At last, two days after leaving Strasbourg, we reach our destination, Montpellier, and claim our reward: the Gîtes de France guide for this region, the Hérault. Within its pages is the address of a place I’ll soon call home.