moved out to Edith’s. Yet another friend, warning me of how expensive everything was in France, listed all of the things in her attic that she’d been going to give away but would save for us if we needed them. With all of that we figured we could get to work immediately. What we didn’t have we would gradually acquire.
We sold or gave away just about everything we weren’t going to take with us, which accentuated the feeling that we were embarking on a huge adventure, a new life. Joe observed all the activity and it made him nervous. Children don’t generally like change and he likes it less than most – I had to scheme to get rid of anything that had once belonged to him, for the minute he saw something he’d say, in his two-year-old English, ‘I love that, I just love it!’ and try to grab it.
Meantime, Edith and I talked regularly. She described the garden, the size of the apples on the gnarled old tree in the yard. The hydrangeas turned out to be purple, one of my favourite colours, the roses were pink, red and white. She and I planned the garden and talked endlessly about the house. I would report what she’d said to Michael, and then he and I would plan and scheme some more. He spent a lot of time with paper and pencil sketching out ideas for the house, all based on the photographs I had taken. We never talked about the financial aspect of it, which seemed daunting. Our attitude was: ‘It will all work out.’
We spent the month of September 1993 visiting our families and friends on the West Coast as a sort of farewell, then we embarked for France, landing at Charles de Gaulle/Roissy airport, where Edith met us. We piled into her turquoise VW van and she flew down the autoroute toward Louviers at 150 kilometers an hour, the equivalent of about 100 mph. I looked at Michael, who raised his eyebrows. It was great to be back in France!
Both Michael and I were so excited we could hardly sit still. Joe, a boy who doesn’t like to miss anything, had been awake for days, it seemed, as we took him to and fro to see family and friends. He hadn’t slept much during the twelve-hour plane trip either, but once the van started moving he conked out, draped over his father’s knees. I looked at his pale, chubby, toddler’s face. We knew he was upset at the move because he didn’t quite understand what was happening. We hoped it wouldn’t take him long to adjust.
Our first stop was Louviers and the house, for Michael’s first look. He removed the still-sleeping Joe from his knees and laid him tenderly on the back seat. Edith passed the house keys over to him and waited in the car with Joe while Michael and I went to look. The house was as beautiful as I had remembered, if a trifle gray and neglected. A large red and white vendu – sold – sign hung over the door, physical proof that the compromis de vente still held good. It gave me a sense of ownership, which helped override the panic I felt as I approached the front door. Michael opened it and we walked through. I held my breath as I wandered with him through the rooms. We didn’t talk. We were both too busy looking. I let out my breath as I looked at the curved staircase in the foyer – it was still as graceful as I recalled. Michael walked through the door into what I supposed had been the kitchen, a high-ceilinged room with a big window onto the back garden, an angled back wall and a beautiful fireplace – it was so filled with dusty antique furniture and piles of newspapers, buckets of stones and wood and other rubbish that it was hard to get a real sense of it. We poked our heads in the other rooms on the ground floor, all of which looked as if small bombs had exploded in them.
As we went Michael banged on walls, scraped surfaces, looked in nooks and crannies, wiggled doors, opened and closed windows, all things that it wouldn’t have occurred to me to do. At the best of times Michael is a man of few words. He was absolutely silent, intent on his inspection.
The crisp fall weather meant that the house was cold inside, and as I focused on the holes, the grit, the lath showing through the walls, it seemed worse than I had remembered. What had I been thinking of? What if Michael hated it? What if I had made a huge mistake? These were questions I was to become extremely familiar with over the next years, as I watched Michael struggle not only with the French vocabulary involved in building, but with unfamiliar materials, dimensions, customs and traditions.
I had truly forgotten what a mess the house was in. I’m not sure I ever really noticed. Even now, as I stumbled over chunks of stone, tiptoed around holes in the floor and realized that there wasn’t one single room that could really pass for habitable, I felt an excitement bubbling inside. It was a blank slate, ours to recreate.
And, today was today.
As we emerged from the last room, the one above the curious little ‘apartment’ that the owner kept, which was even shabbier than it had been the first time I had seen it, and made our way down the many sets of stairs, Michael’s blue eyes absolutely blazed with excitement. ‘I love it,’ he said.
I let out my breath. We walked hand in hand into the garden – it was overgrown and shabby, but the old apple and pear trees that graced it were unmistakably charming, and the church loomed over all.
While we stood there looking at the house with its boarded-up window on the ground floor, its lovely timbering and the bell tower, an elderly lady parked her bicycle by the front door and went off to do her shopping. A man slipped in the front gate and went to the corner of the yard to relieve himself in the drain. Pigeons cooed from under the eaves. We were caught up in the magic of owning such glorious real estate, of having a concrete project to work on. I was in a state of bliss to think that for the foreseeable future we would be in France, would come to understand its rituals and traditions, would no doubt make new friends and deepen the wonderful friendships we already had. And the thought of the food and the flavours that would be ours! I couldn’t wait for the adventure to begin.
We drove on to Le Vaudreuil, for we were to stay with Edith for our first few days, stopping at the village bakery to get fresh baguettes. As I walked into her house I was enveloped with the familiar aroma of lavender and fresh thyme that has always pervaded it, and I felt like I was home.
Entering Edith’s house for the first time after an absence always brings to mind Michael’s and my wedding in Le Vaudreuil. Bernard had given a short speech about the appropriateness of the wedding and how it continued the tradition of the Anglo-Saxon communion with France, so prevalent throughout the ages in Normandy. Then he recited the vows. Michael, whose French was just barely nascent, was dreamily attentive. When it was his turn to speak I had to nudge him, and he jumped right in with a resounding ‘Oui’. He says now that he was completely off in another world, and still isn’t sure what he agreed to!
We all adjourned to Edith and Bernard’s house for a lunch, which Michael and I had prepared the day before, of cream of watercress soup, cannelloni á la crème, salad and Camembert. Patricia and her husband Walter had brought the champagne, one of our friends supplied the flowers, another loaned me a silk petticoat, and Madame Dancerne, Edith and Bernard’s elderly neighbour from across the street, contributed her homemade cider and Calvados. Our wedding cake was a marjolaine, which I had made the morning before in Paris, and which was transported to the wedding on Patricia’s special silver marjolaine tray. It was a gorgeous misty day.
We hauled in our baggage and settled Joe to sleep on a couch in the living room, which doubles as Edith’s painting studio. Finished and half-finished portraits and still lifes in Edith’s characteristic vibrant colours where light creates the magic, as well as a collection of paintings by other artists, provide the decor, the pleasant scent of oil paints the ambience.
While Edith built a fire in the kitchen fireplace I made coffee, got butter and honey and cut the baguettes into lengths for tartines. Edith’s children were in school, Bernard was at work in his office across the street, the house was quiet. All was right with the world, I thought, as I dipped my butter-and-honey-slathered tartine into my bowl of stiff black coffee before eating it. We talked over our strategy for the next few days, then simply enjoyed this first taste
