Why do I love this place so much? Why do I feel so good when I am here, so far from my family and all the people and places that have made up my life for the past fifty-four years? The pleasure I get in opening up the house, unlatching the shutters and letting the spring sunshine pour into the main room. Making up the bed with clean sheets and then cleaning the house from top to toe because it has been closed up now for seven months. I throw open the bedroom windows and shutters on the first floor and lean out over the road. I see familiar faces coming and going from Hortense’s corner store, the alimentation that provides the village with the convenience of all sorts of produce from fresh Roquefort cheese to Bordeaux red wine, available from breakfast time until sunset every day. I love the familiar stone tower of the old church, cracked as it is but with a new shingle roof, and the bells that chime on the hour and half-hour, twenty-four hours a day.
I see Madame Thomas shuffling down the road towards the boulangerie. She is now walking with the aid of a stick, so perhaps she has had a fall since I was here last year. Then again she must be quite an age now and the winters here are pretty gruelling, so it’s not surprising she suffers from aches and pains. She looks up and sees me at the window, smiles and waves enthusiastically. I feel so happy. So welcome. So much at home.
This year I plan to paint the inside of the house white, to brighten up all the corners that are dark and dingy. The new kitchen looks perfect, but I also need curtains to give me privacy from the main road and to seal off the house in winter, because I have a tenant coming after I leave at the end of summer and I don’t want her to have to endure the cold from the draughty gaps in the front windows and shutters. Curtains will certainly help.
There is no May walking tour this year because the dreadful Bali bombings and the SARS scare have made Australian tourists temporarily nervous. But we have lots of bookings for September and in the meantime I intend working on a novel. My first attempt at fiction writing and therefore rather daunting.
David is staying back at the farm until May, when he leaves for his annual pilgrimage to the Cannes Film Festival. This year in June our daughter Miriam will celebrate her thirtieth birthday, and as a special treat we have bought her a ticket to visit us in France. Her husband Rick has agreed to take three weeks off work to care for their four boisterous boys, two of whom are at school. Rick’s father, John Parsons, will come down from Queensland to Bathurst to help him. After a decade of being a full-time mother, this will be Miriam’s first real break from domesticity and she is filled with excitement but also has some qualms because she is anxious about missing the children.
Miriam has been to France twice before – once when we took all four of our children on an extended overseas trip that included two months in Provence, and once when David had a film in competition at Cannes and I was unable to be there to support him because, just days before the festival, my mother Muriel had a stroke. The ticket had been paid for so we sent Miriam instead, and as a fifteen-year-old swanning around the Côte d’Azur she had the time of her life. Now, fifteen years later, she is returning and I can’t wait to introduce her to the delights of this region and the joys of living in the village.
David, however, is ambivalent about coming to Frayssinet. It will be his first time back here since the affair and he is sensitive about it. He sees the house and the village as a representation of his pain and unhappiness. He believes that the house is my place, not his, and that I used it not only to escape from him and from our marriage but to launch myself into an affair. In some ways he’s correct, but I am constantly trying to encourage him to see things from a different perspective. To look ahead rather than always dwell in the past.
In my heart, however, I know that whatever I might be saying to David is totally compromised by the secrets I am keeping from him. On the one hand I am encouraging him to ‘get over it’ and ‘move on’, but I am also keenly aware that I have betrayed him yet again and that my words are filled with hypocrisy. All I can say is that when I talk to David about working to repair our marriage and about staying together I sincerely mean it. When I tell him I love him, I mean that too.
On the plane from Australia to Paris, I spend a lot of time wondering what will happen when I return to the village. I have maintained sporadic email contact with my new lover since last year but we have communicated only about inconsequential things, with no mention from either of us about our relationship. Is it over or will we pick up the threads again this year? How do I feel about it? Confused as ever. All I keep saying to myself, over and over, is that David must never find out.
Within hours of arriving in Frayssinet, I find myself down at Le Relais catching up with my gang of friends. Christian and Christiane greet me like a member of their family. The local barflies smile in recognition and kiss me on both cheeks, after first removing stubby cigarettes that seem permanently stuck in the corners of their mouths. Jock arrives, then Claude. It is a wonderful reunion. Locals wave a welcome greeting as they drive around the intersection. It’s a strange feeling, almost as though I haven’t been away at all. I am quickly filled in on all the latest news. The boucherie/charcuterie has closed down over the winter, which is a tragedy for the villagers. Didier, the butcher, also has a thriving shop in Cazals, but the man who has managed it for him over many years left suddenly and Didier could not find a replacement. Unable to keep two businesses going by himself, he reluctantly closed down the Frayssinet shop.
Didier was also facing the prospect of having to spend a lot of money to upgrade the Frayssinet shop to bring it up to European Union health standards, which have been imposed across France. Traditional boucheries engage in all sorts of practices that no longer conform to European norms. In the old days fresh meats and prepared foods, such as terrines and foie gras, were all displayed together in one glass cabinet. Now, separate display units with regulation cooling must be provided. The floors must all be standardised for cleanliness and even internal architectural details, such as the old oak beams that are an attractive feature in many old shops, must be covered over completely. One of the charms of the village butcher shop has always been the weekend rotisserie with rolls of chicken and turkey and pork that are placed outside mid-morning, filling the air with the rich aroma of spit-roasted meats. This is also being phased out, along with the giant paella pans that steam with the smell of rice and saffron and fresh prawns cooking.
Given that most of Didier’s customers were the elderly people of the village, there simply wasn’t enough cash flow from the business to spend on all the obligatory renovations. So the building was sold, to be converted into a gîte (holiday apartment), and now the locals must make do with a butcher’s van that sets up twice a week in the car park. Many of the older locals don’t have transport to get to the larger towns for markets or to the supermarket. So instead of buying fresh meat every morning for the tasty lunches she makes for herself and her husband, Madame Thomas must plan ahead and shop on Wednesday and Friday afternoons instead.
Hortense at the alimentation has been similarly affected, and the rumour is that she will close down completely within the next year or so. This will be a disaster for the village. Apparently the health inspectors have been and the list of requirements for her to satisfy their demands is as long as your arm. For decades she has been selling everything from cleaning products to cat food, from tobacco and wine to fresh fruit and vegetables and of course local cheeses and processed meats such as ham and salami. Hortense has a round table in the corner of her shop, and when her friends pop in to visit they all sit down and have coffee and cake and a good old chinwag. She’s now not allowed to drink coffee in the shop or entertain her friends, which makes life tough for her because she is open almost ten hours a day. So far she is ignoring the directive.
Hortense and her husband Jacques have three small dogs who also hang around the shop all day. They often sleep on the plastic chairs outside in the sun and they make a daily pilgrimage into my courtyard and stand at the back door, longingly hoping for the scraps left over from my last evening’s meal. I usually reward them. When the weather is cold, they huddle under the table inside the shop where Hortense and her friends sit chatting and laughing. This is now an absolute no-no. No animals are allowed anywhere near a shop that serves fresh produce. I recall when I first moved into the house and Hortense had an old cat that slept all day on the shop counter on the pile of newspapers she used for wrapping various purchases, pulling sheet after sheet from under the dozing moggie. The cat on the counter never worried me, but imagine the look of horror on the faces of the inspectors. Just as well the cat has since died!
Hortense will first dispense with her cold food cabinet because it no longer complies with the standards. So there will be no more cheese or ham or fresh milk or yoghurt. Then the racks of vegetables and fruits that she wheels out in the morning will have to go unless she is prepared to resurface the floor and line the timber-beamed ceiling. All that will be left is tinned food, wine and tobacco. Such a shame.