My Grape Escape (16 page)

I had no patience for all this waiting around to see if other people could help us. We should be able to figure this out on our own. I scraped harder and the plaster crumbled down, making a huge hole between the big old wooden baseboard and the wall above.

“Don’t forget that we don’t even own the whole place yet.” I tightened in resentment at this fact. “You’d better make a phone call to the surveyor while you’re at it.”

“He’s scheduled to come in two days,” Franck reminded me.

“You could call and confirm.” When was Franck going to start to expect the worst rather than naïvely hope for the best? We’d never get the house done if we kept doing things his way.

“I think he needs to be harassed,” I said. “You need to be more on top of things like that.”

My tendency to blame others when things weren’t going well had never made me proud. It was brought to my notice for the first time in grade three, the year I had Mrs. Lusk for my teacher. She had feathered black hair and wore A-line skirts with nude nylons and wedge sandals. I idolized her. She loved art projects and was very excited to teach us all how to make our very own macramé plant hanger. We were paired up in teams and took turns holding the strings tight while the other person wove them together like Mrs. Lusk had showed us. Lisa, my partner, wove her hanger with deft fingers. Mrs. Lusk made the entire class stop their weaving and have a look at the marvel Lisa had produced.

My cheeks burned. I was going to do better. My weaving would be so brilliant that Mrs. Lusk was going to stop the entire class and exclaim about my plant hanger too. She would announce that I was far more talented than Lisa.

When it finally came my turn to weave, my fingers didn’t seem to work properly. The strands kept slipping away from me as sweat started to bead on my forehead. In the end, my plant hanger was a distinctly lumpy, ugly affair.

“It’s nice,” lied Lisa. I shot her a look of pure hatred.

Mrs. Lusk came by just as I was fretfully trying to untie and retie the three end pieces together. She placed a gentle hand on my shoulder. “I think maybe you didn’t knot your strands tight enough, Laura.”

This wasn’t happening the way it was supposed to happen. She was supposed to notice how wonderful I was, not how hopeless. I couldn’t stand her thinking badly of me.

“Lisa didn’t hold the strands properly,” I said. I felt both relieved and ashamed as soon as the words came out of my mouth.

Mrs. Lusk kneeled down so that her feathered hair brushed my arm. “Laura, it is a very bad habit to blame other people for our own difficulties.”

My innards curled up in mortification. Since that day I had been painfully aware of this nasty tendency to blame others when I was doing or feeling badly. I resisted most of the time, but the worse I felt, the stronger my urge to blame someone for it… like now.

“I can’t believe you haven’t called
Le Maître
about that mistake in the plan again,” I snapped at Franck. “Besides, why did we use him as a notary in the first place? You knew he was an incompetent drunk.”

Franck stood over me, picking off the gluey bits of plaster that were stuck to the end of his scraper. “The one time we tried to find a different notary he cheated us out of a house, or have you forgotten that already?” His voice was as icy as the road outside our window.

“You give up too easily.” I threw down the scraper, rage boiling up inside me. “You’re just not persistent enough.”

In Canada, or even in England, I would have been on the phone harassing the
cadastre
until he did something but I knew that in France things didn’t work like that. This was, of course, because the French did not operate on the premise that the client was always right. In fact, a French person would have no compunction about hanging up on a client – repeatedly, if necessary. Franck had told me time and time again that what was needed to get things done in France was summarized in one word - seduction. The trick was getting people to like you enough that they wanted to help you. Franck was a million times better at this than I was, but feeling useless just stoked my anger.

“You give up too easily,” I muttered again.

“You blame people too easily,” Franck said, his eyes kindling.

He was right and I knew it, but my fury had nowhere else to go. I threw my scraper down on the wood floor. “Screw this. I’m going for a walk.”

Franck glanced past me to the window. “It’s snowing.”

“I’m not blind.”

I pulled on my boots and jacket and stormed out the door. A blast of air that must have blown right off the Siberian plains hit my face. I almost stopped but my pride wouldn’t let me. I shuffled up the icy road as quickly as I could until I reached the far wall of the church across the street. I pressed my body as far as it would go into the nook where the wall of the vestry met the wall of the nave. The cold of the stone seeped quickly into my flushed skin. Why hadn’t I stopped long enough to put on gloves, a scarf and my wool hat? I stamped my feet and tried to shove tighter in the corner.
Merde
it was cold.

Maybe I could walk but where would I go? It was pitch dark and probably ten degrees below zero. I could sneak inside the church; it would be warmer in there. Not a lot, but it would be protected from the wind anyway.

I peeked around the wall. I could make out Franck’s silhouette as he watched out the living room window. Why didn’t he come out to find me? I had enough sense of self-preservation not to go and throw myself in a ditch and freeze to death, but the fact that he knew that was highly annoying. I couldn’t feel my fingers anymore.

We hadn’t fought like this in a very long time. During our two years in Oxford we hardly ever fought. Then again, we hardly saw each other either. Our lives just hadn’t intersected very much besides a few brief moments of overlap. Those were snatches when I wasn’t buried under a pile of law books or Franck wasn’t spending the week in Versailles taking photos of French film stars that would end up in the next issue of Paris Match.

Now I had pitchforked the two of us into this house mess that promised to be every bit as stressful as law school. Why did things always have to be so difficult and complicated? I had spent my adult years searching for the magic key that would make my life effortless, the way it seemed for so many other people, yet it continued to elude me.

This house project was supposed to bring Franck and me closer than ever before, but now I realized that it was just as likely to drive us even further apart.

My fingers were stiff and I couldn’t jam them any further in the fleece of my jacket pockets. I couldn’t unknot the tangle of my thoughts or resolve our multitude of renovation woes either, but I could go back inside so that Franck wouldn’t be worried. Hopefully, he was a
little
bit worried by now.

I emerged from my hiding spot into the howling wind and slid down the road toward the house. Shame burned a bright spot in each of my otherwise numb cheeks. I slunk up the stairs into the warmth of the veranda.

Before I could turn its worn knob, Franck opened the big wooden door from the other side, pulled me against his chest, and enveloped me in a crushing hug. The scent of plaster dust and apples was deeply ingrained in the scratchy wool of his sweater. He plucked off my hat and buried his face into my hair.

“I was just coming to get you,” he murmured.

“I’m sorry,” I mumbled. “I don’t know why I got mad like that…I didn’t mean to…I am just so…”

Franck squeezed me tighter against him. “I know. You’re still a mess.”

I nodded. “I’m sorry I worried you.”

“I wasn’t worried. I saw you go behind the church. I knew you’d come back when you got cold enough.”

I opened my mouth but then shut it again. I deserved that. “Why were you coming to get me then?”

“To tell you that I just got off the phone with the
cadastre
, who
did
call me back. He’s coming in a week.”

Here I was, knowing I needed to reconnect with Franck after two years of distance and yet sabotaging that very goal with my impatience and control-freak tendencies. I was sick of acting so unlovably. “I’m sorry I yell - ”

“Then Olivier called me.”

“
Alors
?”

“He invited us over for coffee right now. His friend Le Gégé has dropped by and he might be able to help us.”

That was the best piece of news I’d heard in a long time. I looked down at my icy boots.

“Does it worry you that we’re fighting so much?” I asked in a quiet voice.

Franck twisted a stray bit of hair that had slipped out of my ponytail around his wrist. “
Non.
It worries me when we never fight at all, like in Oxford.”

I looked up into his face and traced the curve of his quirked lips with my finger. Franck never failed to surprise me with his unique way of looking at the world. “You must be feeling very reassured these days then.”

Franck kissed the cold tip of my nose. “Very.”

Chapter 18

I was barely in the door of Olivier’s house when he thrust a glass of
kir
in my hand. His face bore a knowing, compassionate look that reminded me of a Gallic, barrel-chested Dalai Lama.

I gave Dominique
les bises
and tried to give Marcel one on his head of curls, but he ran away from me, shrieking with laughter. I spotted a slight, young looking but balding man bending through the low doorway that led from the kitchen area to the large living room of Olivier’s house. A cigarette dangled from his lips.

“The floor is poured too thick,” he said to no
-
one in particular.

Franck strode towards him and extended his hand. “Gégé.
Ça va
?”

Gégé’s eyes crinkled in a way that was both shy and friendly at the same time. He shook Franck’s hand. “Ah,
Le Fou
,” he mused. “Olivier has been telling me about this ruin you bought. Sounds like you’re as crazy as ever,
hein?
”

Franck and his village buddies all had nicknames growing up. Franck had been christened
Le Fou
or “The Crazy One”, no doubt due to his penchant for doing things like deciding late into a part
y
one night that he was going to drive down to Monaco in time to see the sun rise over the Mediterranean.

Franck introduced me. Gégé stuck out his hand to shake but I had already leaned in to give him the
bises
. He blushed but didn’t seem displeased.

“We need to go back in the living room,” he collared Olivier who had tried to sit back down at the kitchen table. “I need to tell you everything you did wrong.” Olivier expelled a put-upon sigh, but he got up and followed us through the low stone doorway.

“Franck deserves his share of the blame too,” Olivier grumbled. “After all, he helped me pour the floor.”

“Don’t worry,” Gégé said. “I’ll shame him too.”

It didn’t seem prudent to mention that I had actually watched the pouring of the floor we now stood upon. That day was stamped in my memory. Olivier had enlisted Franck and Martial and a few other stalwart and muscular friends to pour a concrete slab in the huge upper floor of the barn so that he could transform it into a massive living area. It just so happened that the pour was scheduled for two days before I was due to go back to Canada. I remember watching as Franck shovelled the heavy concrete from a wheelbarrow and paused only occasionally to turn his head and cast me a secret smile. I stored each one up like a precious jewel. I was starting university in Montreal in the fall and I didn’t know when, or even if, I would ever see Franck again.

The consensus amongst Franck’s friends and family here in Burgundy was that it was a long shot. Franck was twenty-three, just finishing his mandatory military service, had no money, and had never been on an airplane in his life. I was eighteen and was slotted to begin my Bachelor of Arts at McGill. Our future lives ran in parallel rather than intersecting streams. By sheer force of will we bent our paths until they intersected.

Olivier had similarly twisted his destiny. When his friends poured this massive floor for him they had all wondered, Franck included, why a single man like Olivier would need all that extra space in his new house. The old man who had lived in this house before him had been an inveterate bachelor, or
vieux garçon
. When Mémé heard the news that Olivier had bought this house she wrung her dishtowel in her hands and declared that by buying the house Olivier was damning himself to the same fate.

Luckily Olivier hadn’t listened to whispers. Before the floor had fully cured, Olivier met his future wife Dominique, and their son Marcel was born just a year later. Sometimes I wondered if by pouring this floor Olivier hadn’t actually paved the way to a new life for himself.

I liked to believe that people could change the course of their lives. That’s sort of what I had been trying to do, albeit in a floundering way, when we had bought
La Maison des Deux
Clochers
. It hadn’t gone exactly as planned so far, but maybe Gégé could help us turn things around.

But not yet. At that moment he was pointing at the massive crack in the plaster of the wall that ran from the floor (now tiled over the concrete) to the huge oak beams about fifteen feet above our heads.

“You used too much concrete for the subfloor.” Gégé cast both Franck and Olivier a withering look. “Its weight is causing the walls to crack.”

Olivier narrowed his eyes at Franck who, judging from his twitching lips, appeared to be fighting back a smile. “How did we calculate the thickness Franck?” he asked. “I can’t remember.”

“We didn’t,” Franck said. “But I do remember that we tried to make you a nice, thick floor - better than having you fall through to the cellar below.”

Gégé snorted. “Little risk of that.
Par contre.
As for the walls caving in…”

“I don’t want my walls to fall in!” Olivier cried. “What can I do? There must be something. Stop torturing me, Gégé.” For all his Oracle-like ways, Olivier was very quick to alarm.

“I think he’s enjoying torturing you,” Franck observed. Gégé inclined his head, acknowledging this truth. He then took several thoughtful drags on his cigarette, milking Olivier’s panic for all it was worth.

“A steel beam,” he pronounced, at last.

Olivier groaned. “Where?”

“In the cellar to support the floor. It needs to run under its whole length. Then you’ll have to plaster up that crack. ”

“Can you do that?” Olivier said. My heart leapt. Given the state of our walls, if we were lucky enough to find a plasterer…”

“
Non,
not me,” Gégé said. “Plastering requires real skill, but I have a friend who might help.”

Olivier waved us back towards the kitchen. “There is a lot to discuss. We need another drink.”

Once we were seated around the kitchen table again, second
kir
in hand and the beam fully debated, Olivier said to Franck, “I’ve been telling Le Gégé about your little problem.”

“Doesn’t sound so little,” Gégé noted.

I thought briefly of playing down the bind we had gotten ourselves into, but then realized that if we were lucky enough to get Gégé in the door, he would be seeing it all for himself.

“To be honest, I wonder now if we were crazy to buy the house,” I admitted.

“I’m sure Franck made you do it.” Gégé tapped the side of his head with his cigarette. “He’s always been crazy. Can’t believe you married him. Perhaps you’re a little crazy too?”

Franck seemed pleased rather than offended by this observation and went on to recount in horrific detail our rotting, humid walls, the turquoise bathroom fixtures, and our mysterious lack of hot water. He paused for a moment after this edifying description, during which time my heart seemed to stop. Only a masochist would sign up for such a project.

“Want in?” Franck asked, as though he were offering Gégé a rare treat.

Gégé stubbed out his cigarette and lit another one. The church bell rang the seven o’clock
angelus
which lasted a good five minutes. I began to wonder if Gégé had heard Franck’s question. Finally, his shoulders twitched infinitesimally.

“
Pourquoi pas
?” he said.

“What?” I asked, not sure I trusted my ears. “You want in?”

“Is it a hopeless cause?” Gégé asked.

Franck and I exchanged a glance. “Yes,” we admitted.

Gégé smiled. “In that case, I’m in.”

The next day was
Le Réveillon
, or New Year’s Eve. Gégé hadn’t given us any idea when he would appear but we both clung to the hope he would materialize on our doorstep sooner rather than later. We waited all day for the sound of his footsteps on our massive stone staircase, but they never came.

Franck and I didn’t have the budget or the heart to go out and celebrate, so instead we made a foray into Nuits-Saint-Georges and sprung for a rabbit-eared antenna for the ancient black and white TV that we had unearthed from the depths of the buffet. Franck uncorked a bottle of 1985
Corton-Charlemagne
that his uncle Georges had given him for his twentieth Birthday. We sipped it out of Duralex kitchen glasses while we watched the dancers of the Crazy Horse revue direct from Paris on our dusty sofa bed. The stunning dancers looked grainy – our reception was far from perfect – but we could make out their perky bare breasts and their glinting sequins and the audience, chicly dressed and swilling
Dom Pérignon
. We could not have stumbled upon anything farther removed from our current and decidedly unglossy reality.

Even so, there was something satisfying about spending New Year’s Eve together in a disintegrating house. Previously, celebrating New Year’s had always felt forced to me. We usually ended up at one party or another but I always felt pressured to have a marvellous time when in fact, all I really wanted to do was go home and curl up on the couch with a good book. Trying to orchestrate joy, like I did most on New Year’s, always backfired. Joy seemed to prefer sneaking up and pouncing on me where it was least expected.

It had been that way on our New Year’s the year Franck and I lived in Paris. I was studying Medieval French at the Sorbonne for my third year of university and Franck was working as a journalist at a magazine called
Expo News
. We had made epic plans for New Year’s Eve – meeting up with friends of mine from Canada in Edinburgh to celebrate Hogmanay, the raucous Scottish celebration of New Year’s that involves copious amounts of beer and scotch.

Two days before our departure, Franck developed a dental abscess and I came down with a bronchial infection. Instead of careening around the Royal Mile we stayed in our postage stamp sized apartment in the
rue des Fossés Saint Bernard
just behind Notre Dame. That night, cuddled on our hand-me-down mattress we watched our grainy black and white television that was about the size of a Kleenex box and captured channels with a radio dial. Franck, who had undergone half a root canal the day before and had to withstand the second half in two days’ time, propped the TV on his stomach. I made us each a bowl of
Blédina
– a vegetable puree that all French babies adore
–
and that was about the only thing Franck could get down. And we ate our baby food while we watched some obscure movie about a girl who goes back in time to the Middle Ages. We were both unconscious by the time one year ceded to the next.

The next day we woke early, medicated ourselves heavily, wound long scarves around our necks, and wandered through the empty streets of our
quartier
, holding hands. I had never seen the streets of Paris so quiet or the cafés so deserted. We stole into a modest café on the Boulevard Saint Germain with a long zinc counter. On top was a metal rack of hard-boiled eggs for sale. We bought one each, and ordered strong black espressos to wash them down.

Franck leaned over the zinc and kissed my lips, still salty from my egg.

“I think this is the best New Year’s I’ve ever had,” he said. I kissed him again in agreement.

Why then did I make a habit of trying to wrestle the universe into submission, forcing it to deliver joy and happiness on demand? It was silly, I realized as I sipped my
Corton
and watched the Crazy Horse girls strut. Joy always snuck up on us when it was least expected.