My sister Margaret and her husband Ken are in France on a painting holiday. One of the remarkable things I discovered when I met up with Margaret after a separation of nearly fifty years was that we had so many passions in common. France was just one of them. They are staying down on the coast, near Bordeaux, and I have organised to catch a train down and spend the day with them – not as much time as I would have liked, but better than not seeing them at all. Originally the plan was for them to come and stay for a while at Frayssinet, but their trip coincided with my tour group so they opted for a coastal village instead. They have friends sharing their rental house and they are staying in France for three weeks.
While organising the train trip to visit Margaret in Bordeaux, I realise that somehow I don’t have my return plane ticket to Australia in my folder of documents. It’s just three days before I am due to leave. In the confusion of that last terrible day packing up the house I must have left it behind. Normally I am quite organised about such things but I concede I must have been more shaken by David’s early morning phone call than I was prepared to admit even to myself. I now have to organise an alternative ticket and get myself to Bordeaux to see Margaret – plus maintain my involvement with the tour group, who want to explore the delights of Paris again after our visit to Monet’s glorious garden.
Getting a replacement international plane ticket at short notice isn’t easy. Emails fly back and forth from Australia to the Paris offices of the airline company and it looks as though I will only manage to get the plane by the skin of my teeth – a new ticket can only be issued on the morning of departure. I jump on the train to Bordeaux to see Margaret wondering if I will be going home at all or if I will be stranded in Paris. I have to be at the Brisbane Writers’ Festival almost immediately after I return, and there’s also the issue of cost. If I miss the plane because I have lost my ticket, it’s my own fault and I will have to pay for a replacement.
Being on the train soothes my nerves. I do love train travel in France. As we hurtle through the countryside, it’s like an impressionist painting, all a bit blurred around the edges. Hard to spot the detail at such speed but the overall effect is beautiful. However the sensation of elation I felt the previous day has vanished. Although I am excited about seeing Margaret and Ken again, I am not looking forward to telling them that my marriage has gone wrong, and hope they won’t ask too many questions. I am aware that instead of feeling strong and independent and free, as I did when striding around Paris yesterday, I am feeling rather lost and vulnerable. I tell myself this is normal in such a situation – the radical swings of emotion. It will obviously take a long time before I settle back into a pattern of feeling normal again.
Margaret and Ken are on the platform to meet me and I experience the same delight I felt last year when I saw her for the first time. But she appears to have lost weight and feels like a frail bird when I hug her. There is still a certain tentativeness about our relationship, as though we are gingerly feeling our way around each other. I imagine this is normal in such situations. Although we have shared genes and experiences with very similar childhoods in the same household, decades apart, we have not known each other as adults and there is a lot of ground to be made up. All I know is that I like her and Ken tremendously and I am thrilled to have a sister after fifty years of wondering where she was and what she was like.
We have such a happy day together, exploring a region of France I have not experienced and savouring a delicious lunch of regional specialities with their painting friends. Towards the end of our time together, I tell Margaret and Ken that I am sadly going home to a marriage breakdown. They look puzzled but ask no questions. They haven’t met David and have only really just got to know me a little through my visit to them in Canada the previous year. I want to build a new relationship slowly, to fill in all the gaps of our lengthy separation, and having a marriage breakdown so soon after re-establishing contact must surely make them wonder what has been going on. It feels so strange hearing the words coming out of my mouth. It had never occurred to me that part of the whole process of separating and having a divorce is having to tell people – having to acknowledge that a lengthy relationship is about to end. I feel like a failure.
On the three-hour train journey back to Paris I am at an all-time low. Tears trickle steadily down my cheeks and I can’t stem the flow. I’m sad that I only managed to see Margaret for such a few short hours and I am worried because she doesn’t appear very well to me. Having just found her, I can’t bear the thought that she may be ailing. I want us to be part of each other’s lives for a long time to come, to make up for all those wasted years. For the first time I feel a great sense of loss for my marriage. I had been looking forward to David meeting my sister, to him also sharing in the joy of our reunion. I recall how often we lay in bed talking at night over the years, and how the subject of my lost sister often came up in our conversations. I used to say that one day I would go and find her, and he always encouraged the idea. He, of all people, understood my pain and loss. Now he may never even get to meet my sister. It’s seems unbelievable. As we pull into the hectic city station at dusk, the leaden grey sky reflects my mood.
The last two days in Paris are a nightmare. In the midst of trying to wind up the tour, which has been so much fun, I am also trying to organise the replacement plane ticket. I choose an Irish pub for our farewell dinner, believing the tired travellers are a little fed up with French food. Too many feasts of duck and potatoes sautéed in goose fat. Bangers and mash and a pint or two of Guinness will make for a pleasant change. It’s a fiasco. The upstairs room where we are seated is smoke-filled and after an hour we haven’t even been served our first drink. I go down to the bar to try and speed things along and am rudely brushed aside by an arrogant young bartender. I lose my cool, something I seldom do, and to the amazement of my group I screech at the young man in rage. For a moment I completely lose control. The air turns blue and the male drinkers in the bar look astonished to see a well-dressed middle-aged woman in such a state of fury. I am shaken at my own behaviour and can only imagine that I must be a lot more strung out than I realised. But my tantrum does the trick, and the drinks and dinner quickly appear. I can barely swallow my food and leave most of the meal. As a parting gesture I fashion the remnants into a sculptured phallus on the plate and ask the waiter, who has been most apologetic for the appalling service, to ceremoniously present it to the barman as a parting gesture. It brings the house down.
The necessary paperwork hasn’t arrived the day before I leave and the airline won’t issue a new ticket. As a last resort I wait anxiously on their doorstep at nine the following morning and somehow they manage to cobble together a substitute ticket. I have to catch a taxi, which is a hellishly expensive way to get around Paris in the peak hour, and somehow I make it through check-in and customs and security – with only minutes to spare. I stagger to my seat feeling totally drained. My usual sensation of excitement at the prospect of going home has vanished. Instead I am overwhelmed by a feeling of dread.