Au Revoir (12 page)

My first two or three evenings alone in Villefranche feel very strange indeed. The late afternoons and early part of the evenings seem to drag interminably. I try and think of things to fill the hours: walking around the village; sitting in the Hotel du Commerce having a couple of beers; planning and preparing a sumptuous dinner; writing postcards to friends and family; or reading whatever English-language book, magazine or newspaper I can lay my hands on. The daytimes are not a problem because I usually drive to St Caprais first thing to check my email on Jock's up-to-date computer, then get caught up in whatever he is planning for the day—generally a drive to a nearby village market followed by lunch somewhere cheap and interesting. My habit then is to wend my way back to Villefranche in the afternoon to have a two-hour siesta. It's the first time in my life that I have ever indulged in afternoon naps: it feels very decadent but delightful. I simply close the timber shutters leaving open the glass windows inside, which allows some airflow but makes the room quite cool and dark; shafts of sunlight force their way through the few cracks where the old shutters don't quite meet. I lie on top of the bed, generally stark naked because the days
are overwhelmingly hot, and quickly slip into a carefree but deep sleep. Having no phone and with nobody but Jock knowing my exact location, I am enveloped in a rare sensation of freedom. Nobody can touch me. My afternoon sleep can't be stolen by a phone call or the shrill sound of the fax machine; by a courier banging on the front door delivering yet more work, setting the dog to barking. I am untouchable.

Waking from a daytime sleep, however—especially after having some wine with lunch—is not all that pleasant. Often I have a dry mouth, thick head and a distinct feeling of disorientation. I guzzle down some bottled water, splash my face from the tap and open the shutters to let in the late afternoon sunshine. The hours between now and bedtime have to be filled and I'm finding that yet another new hurdle to leap. For decades my waking hours have been totally filled with nonstop and often frenetic activity. My days flash past too quickly as I race against the clock to accomplish all the set tasks, be they work- or gardening- or family-related. Now six or seven hours stretch ahead of me, and filling them is daunting. It's too late to go off driving around the countryside and too hot in July for walking until well after eight o'clock in the evening, unless it's through the woods in dappled shade. After a large midday meal my energy levels are quite low, and I look for more passive activities. I've never had time to kill and I should be enjoying it. But I don't. I feel flat and rather bored. And irritated with myself for not feeling like doing much at all. I keep thinking here I am in this marvellous place and all I am doing is eating, drinking and sleeping. It's part of an old expectation thing: I should be DOING something. ACHIEVING something. I must somehow let all these feelings go. I am not here to accomplish anything at all, other than just
to fall about and be myself, to relax and have some fun. But it's extremely difficult breaking habits of a lifetime.

A chilled beer at the Hotel du Commerce wakes me up properly at 8 pm, then I wander back to the room to make dinner. At home the family would have well and truly finished dinner by now, eating between the ABC news at 7 pm and the current affairs programs as part of a long addiction to the evening news. Here I don't even start peeling a potato until after 8.30, and often don't eat until 9.30 or 10 pm. While the dinner cooks I read the English newspapers, which are delivered to Villefranche a day after publication, and I drink a little chilled rosé. I read every line of the newspaper, except the sport. At home I am a skimmer, reading the lead paragraphs and getting through the entire paper in about twenty minutes. Here I can make the
Times
last for four hours, and be really well informed, if a little out of date.

With some feelings of guilt, I decide to start assembling the yellow and blue fabrics that I bought in Provence to make a cot quilt for the new baby due in eight weeks. I have also bought a book of designs, and cut out the cardboard templates from an old cereal packet. Originally I intended to sew the entire quilt by hand, but Margaret lends me her sewing machine to make the task much faster. The available light is excellent until quite late in the evening—indeed the sun doesn't set before 10 pm—so I can see well enough to work away on the quilt after dinner. I am trying to feel a connection with this unborn child, which is much more difficult to do when we are on opposite sides of the world. My small table is overcrowded with sewing equipment, local travel guides, novels and reference books, plus my computer, giving the impression that the room is the centre of
an incredible hive of activity. I cannot seem to escape this image of being fully occupied, no matter where I go.

On the old timber sideboard I've placed a framed photograph of my four little grandsons, one snapped over a year ago showing them tumbling together on a sofa, giggling and being a bit wild. Hamish is staring straight down the lens of the camera, and out of the frame his eyes feel as though they are boring right into me. Looking at the photograph is unbearable, and makes me feel quite weepy. Am I maudlin from too much wine? Am I eating and drinking to excess to compensate for being alone? What am I doing here, so far away from these little ones that I love so much? I turn the photo to the wall and go to bed though I'm not really feeling tired, either physically or mentally.

I know of plenty of people in my age group or even older who are appalled at the idea of becoming grandparents. Nothing could be more instantly aging than accepting the existence of a grandchild, and in some instances these friends and acquaintances simply fail to tell their work colleagues that their families have expanded. It must be our generation's desire to remain forever young and sexually desirable—never to reach middle age and certainly never to become old. Being a grandparent is synonymous with being old, and is definitely off the agenda for many baby-booming women in particular. So many women of my generation didn't start having children until in their thirties—some even in their forties. They don't expect grandchildren until they are well into their sixties. And not one moment sooner! One rather gorgeous forty-eight-year-old
divorcee in my circle of acquaintances has threatened to abandon her adult children immediately if they dare to start producing offspring for at least another ten years; she gave birth to her children in her early twenties but the thought that they may repeat her behaviour pattern, and make her a grandmother ‘before her time', is anathema.

I became a grandmother at forty-three and by the time I turned fifty there were four little boys in the next generation. Not only did I have no problem accepting my new role as a grandmother, I embraced it wholeheartedly, taking great delight in boring my friends rigid with tales of my adorable grandsons, photos of their antics and news of their progress. One close friend, a fairly staunch Catholic with a large family of her own yet only two grandchildren, eventually became irritated by my constant gloating.

‘It's not a competition you know, Mary,' she bleated when I informed her with glee that a fifth grandchild would be born the following September.

I missed out on having grandparents, and I know that as a young child I sorely regretted this loss. My maternal grandmother was well into her forties when my mother was born, and she died not long after I was born; both my grandfathers died decades previously. My father's mother lived in Melbourne and I never once met her, although I was named after her and almost ten years old when she died. One of the consequences of my father's alcoholism was that he lost all contact with his family. My mother, however, painted wonderful word pictures of her own mother, whom she obviously adored for her gentleness and intelligence, her warmth and frailty. So I spent my childhood fantasising about having a ‘real' grandmother who I
imagined somehow seeing me as I played and even watching over me like an invisible guardian. I vividly recall walking down the side pathway of our block of flats and talking to my imaginary grandmother, telling her all about what I was doing and hoping that she would admire me. It was a harmless enough fantasy but tinged with sadness because in my heart of hearts I knew that neither of my grandmothers had known anything about me at all.

My own mother, through the unusual circumstances of her living under the same roof as my growing family, became much more of a grandmother than I think she ever really intended. I know that my children benefited enormously from having this close bond with my mother, and if you asked them now, as they are launching into parenthood themselves, they would all heartily agree. I am therefore determined to be as involved and as important in my grandchildren's worlds as my mother was in the lives of my children. I can't see myself living in the same house as them, although we have all had spells of living together in between their various comings and goings from rental houses to house buying. At one stage we even had four generations squeezed into the house together. Just like in the old French farming families where they somehow all managed to get along—though in a single, very confined living space.

I love the physical aspect of being a grandmother—the unconditional uninhibited hugging and smooching, the way small children clamber onto my hip when I'm cooking or climb into my bed in the middle of the night, even if it is with soggy pyjama pants. The hugging and touching that comes with being close to babies and small children is very powerful, and I really miss it when I am away from them. In the village streets on
market day I find myself looking longingly at small children in strollers and wanting to stroke their hair or tickle them, but I know that their parents would probably think me a little odd. I seize upon any opportunity to spend time with children—anyone's children or grandchildren—just to enjoy being around small people. When Jock's neighbours in St Caprais are visited by their daughter from England with two small children in tow, I can't wait to get my hands on them. The day they arrive I offer my babysitting services, hoping they will take advantage of being able to go out together for a meal without the little ones underfoot. They are delighted and organise a dinner out together at the rather upmarket restaurant at Les Arques, but sadly the children have been tucked into bed and are well and truly asleep by the time the adults depart. I keep popping in and checking on them, hoping one might wake and need some grandmotherly cuddles, but they remain soundly sleeping for the entire time I am in charge of them.

I have never wanted to be one of those scone-baking, knitting types of grandmas with my hair in a bun and fluffy slippers. Instead I fancy I am a grandmother who makes the children laugh and scandalises them a little—a saucy sort of irreverent grandmother who pokes fun at conservatism. Just like my mother, I guess!

My physical longing for the little boys and my homesickness is repeated several times over the next few nights, until I start to settle into my new daily routine. Amazingly, after only a week or ten days I begin to feel more at home and quite comfortable. My initial emotions must have been sparked by a feeling of strangeness and alienation, but in time I develop a sense of belonging. Is this normal human behaviour? Perhaps a strategy
for surviving in unaccustomed environments? Whatever, I am relieved that I am no longer tearful and depressed. I start to look forward to the evenings of lingering twilight, watching locals and tourists walk past my windows as I sip wine, read, sew and cook. I could easily get used to this.

V
ILLEFRANCHE-DU-PÉRIGORD
is classified as an historic bastide town, one of about three hundred similar towns and villages built in the region during the Middle Ages under the joint authority of wealthy landowners and ruling feudal powers. The English were a major presence on and off for centuries in southwest France and they also built bastide towns during periods when they controlled particular regions. The bastides, which were sometimes fortified, were laid out in a rectangular or square grid pattern based around a square with a timber-roofed market hall, often with arcades and archways where other shops were located. The rationale behind the construction of the bastides was to provide a place to trade that had some security; they provided a secure haven for families during a disorderly period when living isolated in the countryside was dangerous, and they also provided a focus for marketing and trading.