Our House is Not in Paris. Susan Cutsforth
was ticking; time in Paris was precious and I knew Stuart would be waiting impatiently. Finally, voilà, it was my turn. Then, to my utter dismay — and due to my inability to read the prominently displayed sign — it was cash only. Naturally I only had my credit card on me and Stuart had all the cash. I was determined not to abandon the first French clothes that I was ever about to buy. Absolutely not.
So I had to pile my precious clothes on the counter, hoping my ploy would work and that they didn’t assume I was abandoning them. I flew down the stairs, frantically searched for Stuart, gasped my request for cash, flew upstairs again … and queued again. Fortunately I still love my hard-won first French clothes.
However, who was it on our very first day in Paris at Porte de Clignancourt, the enormous antique market, that bought a vintage leather motorbike jacket? It certainly wasn’t me.
Rennes and the Rented Car
Like couples the world over, we tend to argue the most on car trips. This is never a pleasant experience, but it’s particularly unpleasant when it occurs in a foreign country. We had organised to pick up our hire car from Rennes, a few hours from Paris on the TGV. Originally, Stuart had planned to collect a hire car in Paris and start our trip from there. This was one of the few occasions I decided to override his decision. I could picture it clearly: Our first drive in France would be in one of the most chaotic, challenging cities in the world. Stuart was already very fond of saying merde whenever possible. It didn’t take much stretch of the imagination to predict the excessive use of merde and the escalating arguments from the moment the car was in first gear.
After our five days of luxury in the Melia Colbert Boutique Hotel, a style to which we were definitely not accustomed, we set off on the Métro with several changes before catching the train to Rennes. By then we had already accumulated a lot of extra luggage. Sometimes we behave like novice travellers. We arrived in Paris with suitcases already packed to the brim. What were we thinking? That we wouldn’t shop once on our six-week trip?
We of course arrived in Rennes in time for the two-hour déjeuner break. Laden with luggage, we ensconced ourselves in a café near the station for a few hours. By early afternoon, as we crammed ourselves on a bus headed for the industrial outskirts to collect our Citroën, the sun was beating down ferociously. There were many instances of Excusez-moi, merci beaucoup as we gripped our assorted pieces of luggage and swayed in the aisles while afternoon commuters attempted to get past us.
Finally, the car rental company. This was just one of many occasions on which I was both naïve and the source of considerable amusement. We were shown the red safety cones that we were to display on the side of the road in case of a breakdown, emergency or accident. I grasped that; it certainly made sense. Then there were the bright yellow safety jackets. I foolishly — and a better grasp of French may have been a considerable advantage — assumed that we were to wear them in the car at all times so we could be identified as tourists. I was surprised that Stuart didn’t try to convince me that, indeed, it was just the passenger who was to wear it at all times.
Finally, after the extensive instructions about our Citroën, we attached our friend Dave Toogood’s borrowed Sat Nav to the dashboard and we were on our way to our rented house in Rignac in the Lot. We looked forward to our apéritif in the jardin once we arrived in a couple of hours. It would in fact be five hours before we arrived.
We had got lost. We got lost at the very first roundabout. We continued to get lost; very lost. The miles ticked away, the hours ticked away, the tempers rose in equal proportion. This is where we were different; very different. Stuart is always determined to do everything with complete independence. He rarely asks for help. This includes all our many renovations, when I had to help lift and haul and hold any number of items such as huge slabs of concrete. Me? I always ask for help whenever I possibly can and for whatever I need. Invariably my technique works.
By this point, as the sun was sinking in the sky, I was adamant that his way was not working. We needed help and we needed it soon. There were no service stations, no villages; we were in the middle of nowhere. There were cars, however. And so we pulled over to the side of the road. Once again, my improvising and dramatic skills came to the fore. I grabbed the large road map, stood behind the car, pointed at the map, raised my free hand in the air and gesticulated wildly to indicate that we were lost and needed help. The eighth car pulled over. The driver had two squabbling young children in the back seat but conveyed that, if we followed him, he would indicate the road that we should have been on. I gathered that we were quite close to Rignac after all. How I grasped all this, I’m not quite sure, because once again I certainly didn’t have the French to convey our predicament and the driver did not speak English.
Nevertheless, it worked. We followed him a short distance along the main road, turned off and stopped at a church where he pointed us in the right direction. He turned around and headed back to the main road to continue his journey. Once again I was astonished by the kindness of strangers, for I had assumed that he was going the same way as us. Non, he had gone out of his way to help us.
And so we arrived in Rignac.
The Loire Valley and the Chef
After our fortnight in Rignac, before we headed for the Pyrenees to stay with Sylvie Bernard, we had organised to stay with Martine Dubois at her home in the Loire Valley. The four of us met when we were all travelling in India. As our trip was unfolding at home and all the months of planning were taking place, one of the first things we did was buy a road atlas of France. On the cover was a stunning château. Strangely, the inside of the cover did not give the name of it. Nevertheless, Stuart was determined that seeing it was going to be a highlight of our holiday. In yet another strange quirk of fate, I stumbled across a book in my school library published in the fifties. Voilà, within its pages, was a photo of Château de Chenonceau. When we emailed Martine to organise our stay, we found out that it is literally on her doorstep.
On our first morning, we indeed visited it: our first château in France and where I learned one of my first French words. I only ever seem to be able to grasp a word when I need it in a context. Fortunately, champagne is a universal word.
It was a splendid summer’s day so we set off suitably attired. As we were wandering through the beautiful jardin, I realised that my hat had blown off and disappeared. I asked Martine the word for ‘hat’ so I could go back to search for it. I repeated the word over and over to myself as I raced through the crowds in search of my chapeau. And voilà, there it was, lying under the rosebushes. After admiring the artworks and splendour of Château de Chenonceau, Martine took us to meet her daughter Melanie at her workplace, an interior design shop. Then we were off for a treat. Melanie had a friend, Philippe DeBritt, who ran the restaurant L’Escargot, and we retired thankfully under the shade of a striped outside awning to order déjeuner and an, as always, welcome apéritif. The canard and cherry sauce was divine; duck had never tasted this delicious before. Then the moment I always wait for. The pièce de résistance: dessert. Or, in my case on this special occasion, I was served all three as I simply couldn’t choose between them. Our holiday photos do seem to show me on quite a few occasions posing with a gâteau or two.
We then spent a languid afternoon in Martine’s jardin as we had been invited that evening to Philippe’s home for dinner. This was a true honour, being invited not only to a French home but the maison of a chef, no less. Late in the afternoon, Martine and I sauntered off to the produce markets and the pâtisserie to buy a gift to take for dinner. On the way, Martine had another surprise for me. All my friends know how much I love second-hand treasure and vintage clothes, and she was delighted that she could take me to a second-hand shop that had just opened. It was a measure of her friendship to take me there. As I walked in I was immediately captivated by a beautiful handmade fifties frock in light blue tulle. After years of collecting vintage frocks, I have the ability to know how clothes can work with the right shoes on the right occasion. I tried it on and fell in love with it. I waltzed around in it and showed it to Martine. Her response was to laugh and laugh and exclaim, ‘Oh, Susannah.’ Not deterred at all by her mirth, I scooped it up