The Long Hot Summer (22 page)

The tour group is to travel from the Lot to Paris for the last three days. We are to spend a whole day on the train from Gourdon to Gare d'Austerlitz and the following day go by bus to visit Monet's garden at Giverny. The rest of the time will be spent wandering around soaking up the sights and sounds of Paris. This time I am leaving from Paris to fly directly home, so I have to pack up the house and close it down for the winter before leaving. It's a bit of a logistical nightmare and I ask Jan to help out by taking the group for their last day of touring and picnicking in the countryside while I get organised to leave. Heaven knows when I will be back. The fridge has to be cleaned out, the electricity and water turned off, the shutters closed, and I also have to sort out my personal luggage – what I will leave behind and what I will carry home. It's a full day's work.

On my last day at the house, I wake early and lie on the bed for a few moments. I am filled with that certain sadness that always comes when I have to pack up and go home. But at the same time I am excited about getting back to Australia. Seeing the family, doing the book tour and hopefully sorting out my fractured life with David once and for all. While I'm still in that dozy half-awake state the phone rings and it's David. He doesn't sound like himself at all.

‘What's wrong?' I ask. ‘What's happened'

He speaks slowly but plainly. He says he's calling me now because he can't face saying what he needs to say in person. He says he is frightened his resolve may weaken if he tries to say what he wants to say face to face.

‘It's over,' he says. ‘I can't go on any more. Our marriage is finished. It's ended. I have talked it over at length with the children. They all agree it's the only solution. I'm sorry to do
this to you over the phone, but I thought you should know before you left France.'

I am stunned. I can't think of a word to say.

I should have seen it coming. It's the logical conclusion to what has happened between us over the past two years. But I never really expected it would come to this. I am engulfed by a wave of sadness and I feel too numb to even cry.

I get up and start going through the motions of what needs to be done today. David is worried at my response – or lack of response – and promises to call back later. But I don't know what I will say to him. Friends are phoning to say goodbye and I tell several of them what has happened. I guess they were half expecting something like this, and they seem less shocked by the news than I am.

One friend asks a curious question: ‘Do you think there could be another woman in David's life?'

My response is swift and in the negative. ‘I would know if he'd met someone else. Anyway, he's been at the farm most of the time working on a script with five other people. It's just not the sort of thing David does.'

‘Well,' my friend goes on to say, ‘statistically, men don't leave their wives unless they have another relationship to go to. Some do, but not very often. Women, on the other hand, leave their husbands all the time, not just because they are about to embark on a new relationship. They leave for all sorts of reasons.'

I think about what's been said but don't give it much credence.

As promised, David calls during the afternoon and we talk haltingly. We both feel terribly sad and we both cry. He tells me he's sorry it has ended this way. I tell him I understand. I accept
full responsibility. He insists that it's just as much his fault as it is mine. He's let me down. I tell him that I believe his decision is brave. I admit that over the last two years I have often thought I should end our marriage but simply haven't had the courage to do so. I've been too afraid of his reaction and the repercussions within the family. I thank him for being strong enough to seize the day.

We talk about the children. He tells me they also feel very sad but believe it's for the best. They are fed up with the whole situation.

Just as he is about to hang up, I ask him one final question.

‘Is there someone else?'

He pauses, then says, ‘No. No, there isn't anyone else. I hope someday there will be another person in my life. I certainly don't want to live alone. But at the moment there is no one else.'

I believe him.

My last day at the house passes in a blur. I somehow pack my bags and clean out the house, giving away the last of my food and doing my best to put the house in order. Jan has offered to strip my bed and wash the sheets after I leave, because the train to Paris is departing early and I won't have a chance to do this one final chore.

That evening there is a slap-up dinner for the group to bid farewell to Jan and Philippe, the bus driver Claude and the beautiful Lot Valley. I shower, dress and apply my make-up. I feel somehow disembodied. It hits home that I will never be the same woman again. From this moment onwards my life is to undergo a radical change. I have defined myself for more than thirty years as a woman in a lifelong partnership with a man. Now I will be a single woman. I will live alone. I may end up living alone for the rest of my life. I have pushed my relationship with David to the brink and now it has fallen over the edge. There can be no turning back.

I join the happy group for dinner and it lifts my spirits. Jan
and Philippe know what has transpired during the day and keep glancing at me with some concern. But I am doing what I have done all my life. My wide smile is there for all to see. Nobody would guess that my life has just fallen into a heap.

The train trip to Paris with the group is always fun. We take a picnic lunch that includes bottles of wine and buttery ham baguettes made by Christiane from my village, sitting back in comfort to admire the changing scenery as we speed north. The French rail system is clean, fast and efficient. Most members of the group are tired from all the walking, eating, drinking and sightseeing. At one point I look down the carriage and every one of them is sound asleep.

By mid-afternoon we are in Paris and settling into our hotel. Several in the group have never been to Paris before and it's fun to introduce them to the delights and perils of the Metro. There's nothing more thrilling than catching the Metro to the Champs Elysées and emerging from the depths of the underground railway system onto that glorious tree-lined boulevard with the Arc de Triomphe standing majestically at one end. There are gasps of joy and we set off to explore in small groups, meeting later for a meal.

I manage to escape for a couple of hours on my own. September in Paris is a beautiful month and I walk down my favourite streets and boulevards alone. I don't just walk, I stride. The sun feels warm on my skin and I catch a glimpse of myself in a shop window as I pass.

I am free. I am a free woman at last. Independent financially and emotionally. Able to make all my own decisions. I think about all the options open to me. I might just come and live in Paris for a year. It's my favourite city in the world and I would
love to be here through all the seasons. Do an intensive French course. Write another book. Take a new lover. I can do whatever I want.

I am overpowered by a sense of elation. I feel exhilarated by this new perception of myself. For the past few years I have been changing. Undergoing a metamorphosis. And now, like a moth emerging from a chrysalis, I am about to fly. My wings may be a little wet, but I am on my way.

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.