at home in Montpellier

Montpellier is really starting to feel like home - too bad I only have another few days. This morning I rushed off early to try the Olympic swimming pool, because I was getting my hair coloured and cut at 10 a.m. and knew I wouldn't swim again after that and wreck it. (In a place like this, where it's breathless and steamy from dawn to dusk, it's impossible to exercise and I can feel the kilos of cheese settling in.) The pool is about 15 minutes walk from here in a strange section of town called Antigone - they've torn down whatever was there and replaced it with a pretentious, multi-block replica of ancient Greece, towering Acropolis-type buildings with pillars and fountains with naked discus-throwers included. Very odd, especially as it's hard to access unless you go through the shopping centre called Polygone, which doesn't open for business till 10.

Made it to the lovely big pool to find out that I'd forgotten a towel and in any case was due shortly at the hairdresser. So I swam briefly and patted myself with my clothes which dried instantly in the broiling sun as I walked to the Polygone. And there ... the wonderful Justin, who cut my hair a very long time ago, in ... June, was it? I think I told you about him then, a Brit who sold two successful businesses in London to move to a village in the south of France, because he wanted his 4 children raised in a safe place. Though he doesn't need the money, he keeps working "to stay on the radar in France," and is absolutely superb at his job. I emerged a new, well-sheared woman, my Farrah Fawcett curls gone, feeling, if not looking, ten years younger. If you want a good haircut in the south of France, he's the man for you.

On the way home I stopped in at the Gare again, and there he was in the Acceuil office, the young man who'd helped me through my trauma. At one point that night, he said that while I was waiting for the train to Marseilles, I could just sit in the office if I wanted, "si vous etes trop angoissée." If you're too anguished to leave, he said, just sit here. What a sweetheart!

He recognised me immediately. I told him I'd come to return his pen and to thank him. As young men are, he was self-deprecating and embarrassed, though his colleague, who was not the man working with him that night, teased and said, "Madame, why don't you take him back chez vous? He's very nice and does the dishes." Tempting, indeed. I told him what his kindness had meant to me and shook his hand. From the way they all reacted, I do not think this kind of scene happens often in the Acceuil office in the Montpellier train station.

And then, work. I went to Lynn's, where it's a bit cooler, to spend the afternoon working on the memoir. Fiddled and tore apart and found a new beginning that I hope works better. There is something, who knows what. Emerged at 6 to a wall of heat.

Tonight there's an event on the Place de l'Opera, a wine and food-tasting, you buy a ticket and get 3 dishes from a big choice and a glass of wine, and there'll be music. Two things are sure: it'll be hot, and it'll be good. Will you join me?

memoires

36 degrees in Montpellier today - the sun like a dangerous weapon, scorching, punishing, to be avoided at all costs. Today I went to enquire about the Olympic-size swimming pool not far from here. Julie's apartment is wonderfully spacious with big bright windows which unfortunately face south, so the shutters have to be kept tightly shut for most of the day. Luckily, Lynn's place has a small air conditioner, so I spent part of the day there. Quiet nights here, cool afternoons there.

I'm not going to do much, these last days. Once I'd thought of taking the train to Nimes or going back to see more photography in Arles, but now, no excursions by train, that's for sure. Just walking by the station, which I do regularly, makes my heart rise in my throat. I've gone back several times to try to thank the men who were so kind to me, but so far, only others have been there.

No, no more out-of-town travel until my last trip to Paris on Monday. Reading and writing, that's the agenda. Walking around, eating cheese, drinking rosé, emailing, reading North American newspapers on-line, working, blogging to you. Too hot to move, in any case.

I've read my 3 books, the P.D. James Innocent Blood which I thoroughly enjoyed though found her stern and sour about human nature, the Kate Atkinson Case Histories the same, strangely. The one I adored was Nick Hornby's Long Way Down. Can't recommend it more highly. His work is so easy to read and funny that you think it's a light summer read, but it's not, he gets right to the core over and over, twists your guts, hits you over the head with a piece of wisdom.

"There was a break-up coming, you could smell it," one of his characters says, "and no one was saying anything. We’d taken things as far as we could, and there was nowhere for us to go. That’s why everyone breaks up, I guess, bands, friends, marriages, whatever. Parties, weddings, anything."

And another muses, "Do people get sad on holiday sometimes? I can imagine they do, having all that time to think."

THAT certainly hit home.

Speaking of having time to think, here is a transcription from my little Clairefontaine notebook, written on the way from Montpellier to Bayonne last week:

Why am I here? What am I doing on a slow train meandering through the south-west of France, past clusters of red clay roofs dominated by one tall spire, past fields of dying brown sunflowers and innumerable vineyards? Why did I need to step outside of my life for five months?

1. to begin a memoir about our year in France - my parents - the Beatles - love - 1964-65.

2. to get away from the house, see what it feels like without my shell

3. to get away from my kids and vice versa

4. to see my life at a distance - what works and what doesn't

5. to come home.

Ah, that's the key - to come home. In less than two weeks.

A few memories of the past week that I didn't have time in that expensive internet place to tell you about:

On Saturday, Michele and I went to the Cap Breton market. A small bar inside was packed with men talking and drinking a little glass of red while the women shopped; a sign advertised 6 oysters and a glass of wine for 5 Euros. As a treat, I bought us a slab of local foie gras, lecturing the vendor about the cruelty to ducks and geese and how I didn't approve and was only going to try it this one time. I meant it, too, but did feel that I should try the stuff. We ate it that evening with our aperitif. Hard to say anything but, "Mmmm." Like velvet, like cream, like ... nothing else. Sublime, but at too great a cost to my fellow creatures. I won't eat it again.

Maybe.

The large Spanish town we went to whose name I forgot was San Sebastian. An expansive sea-front, a lovely old town. We actually did not eat anything there, which was a first.

Michele went off one morning to buy honey, returning with a box filled with all different kinds, different colours from pale yellow to darkest umber: summer heather, acacia, "of the forest," "all flowers," heather later in the season. The honey competed with the apricot jam she made in a big copper pot while I was there. Should I spread my bread with thick chunks of luscious apricots or some "all flowers" honey? These are the dilemmas of a French sejour. I was especially grateful for this one, because it was really all French. In Gordes, we spoke a lot of English. Michele lived for awhile in Canada but has lost most of her English, so my whole time there was in French, with a real Frenchwoman cooking and teaching me how things are done. Inspiring.

Her very French grandsons Clement and Damien, at 6 and 4, amazed me as they ate dinner with the grown-ups, our last night a complicated Indian chicken dish with coconut milk and vegetables, mixed with a ratatouille-like dish, all eggplant and onions. My own children would have made vomit noises and sat eating bread; these kids just ate and ate. And then asked for cheese. "Je veux un peu de Reblochon," said Clement, scooping a bit of the extremely stinky mould-rinded cheese we adults were savouring. "Moi aussi, je veux du Reblochon," chimed 4-year old Damien, and they both spread it on their tartines and ate with gusto. People say France is changing, but maybe not that much.

On my last morning before taking the train, Michele took me around Bayonne and then insisted we had to have hot chocolate at Chez Cazanov, a tradition for her all her life. Hot chocolate, on a day that was 33 degrees at least? But we went, a lovely old-fashioned café with many mirrors, and out came a frothy mousse atop a cup of dark hot chocolate. The Spaniards value chocolate, Michele told me, and this is made in the Spanish way.

Oh. My. God. I wanted to sit there forever. Dark, grainy yet sweet, rich, thick ...

With that taste in my mouth, I got on the train for Montpellier, got off and left my handbag behind. I blame the chocolate.

a few more pix

La Vielle Major, cathedral of Marseilles, a souvenir of my misadventure

The fishing village of Pasaia, Spain, where we ate grilled fish

Believe it or not, my friend Michele, who uses no hair dye or makeup, is 72 years old. Shown here after a raid on the wine cellar she inherited from her father.

morning in Marseilles

It's 10.30 a.m. in Marseilles, and as could be expected, a hot, bright day. I have been to the Brasserie next door for a grand creme and a pain au chocolat, which was the only pastry they had left for breakfast this late. While I ate, the Beatles came on singing Penny Lane, and I remembered standing there a few months ago with my Liverpool hosts. The Beatles, like Wayson Choy, keep me company wherever I am.

I was so speedy, I took a sleeping pill last night, and woke late in this beautiful little room with its hot pink walls and shutters that could have been aged by Hollywood, so picturesque are they with their chipped, flaking paint. And there, sitting on the little desk, is my bag.

The hotel has a storage facility, so I'm going to leave my suitcase here for a bit and wander around Marseilles. Later this afternoon, I'll try once more to get to Julie's place in Montpellier. All of you have kept me company, too, during this adventure. How strange and marvellous that I've been able to blog my way through it. Onward, my friends. The trip is nearly over.

the "it could have been so much worse" day

There are those times when time stands still, and your heart stops. I had one of those moments today. I got off the train from Bayonne to Montpellier at 7.15 p.m., walked out of the station headed for Julie's apartment, towing my suitcase with my backpack on my back, and suddenly, in a blinding moment of nausea and panic, realised that I did not have my handbag. I did not have my handbag. I had left it on the train.

How much can flash into the brain in an instant. In my handbag: my wallet with money, credit cards and passport. The keys to Julie's place where I'm staying in Montpellier. My phone and address book.

I cried out loud, "No!" and started to run. I ran back into the station to try to find the train which was going on to Marseilles; maybe it'd still be in the station. I realised I didn't know which platform we'd come in on and couldn't run with my suitcase, so ran into the magazine store, left the suitcase by the counter shouting, "Je retourne!" and ran out again with the woman shouting after me that I couldn't leave my bag there. I tore down the stairs and up the platform stairs.

No train. No train. No handbag. No money or identification. My mouth was so dry I couldn't swallow; I could hardly breathe and wanted to be sick. I went back, retrieved my suitcase with the woman still shouting at me, went to the Acceuil, the office that handles traveller's problems, and blurted out my problem: no money, no cards, no phone, no nothing. No friends in Montpellier, no one to call.

"The train is non-stop to Marseilles," he said. "Nothing we can do." He wrote some big numbers on a piece of paper, as if for a child. "This is the Lost and Found in Marseilles," he said. "Call when the train gets in and hope someone has turned it in."

I just stood there. I have no phone and no money, how can I call? What should I do, monsieur, I said again and again, what should I do, here I am alone and penniless. They flailed around, saying they would contact the controller on the train, but fifteen, twenty minutes later nothing had happened. Then a big honcho arrived, heard the story and put things into motion. They called the train again. Luckily I could remember the car and the seat number. Car number 15, seat number 54. I could remember the clothes the woman opposite me was wearing, and the child on her lap. Would she have noticed the bag? Would she steal the bag? Would someone else steal the bag?

Or maybe I didn't do this stupid thing, I thought suddenly, maybe I'd dropped it coming out of the station ... no, I remembered putting my handbag on the seat while I put on the backpack and got down the suitcase. I was thinking about the woman with the restless child, how sorry for her they had another two hours of travel. And I'd walked off the train.

Then the news came, at last: the controller had found my bag. Incredible, incredible relief. I didn't know if my wallet was still in it, mind you, but he'd found the bag.

They told me I had to get the last train to Marseilles to get it. I have no money, I said. So they printed me a ticket. I asked them to fill my water bottle, and they gave me a bottle of cold water and lent me a pen, as I had no pen. I understood from them that the train got into Marseilles at quarter to midnight, and the Lost and Found closed at midnight.

What if the train is late and the office closes? I asked. I'll be in Marseilles at midnight with nothing.

N'inquietez pas, madame, said the man.

Easy for him to say.

Now had to wait for the train. No money for food or drink. I wanted to go to the bathroom, found the one in the station, couldn't use it because it cost 50 cents. Walked up and down outside and saw that the McDonald's across the street had free wifi. So I went in, got my computer out of my backpack - thank the lord I had that with me - and emailed my friend Chris and my children. If I was found homeless and babbling, wandering the streets of Marseilles, they'd know how it happened.

The train pulled in and I got on. They had given me a first class ticket. Such kindness - I could not have appreciated more the quiet of first class, the nice big seats. And later, when I looked at the ticket, I realised that it got in at 10.45, not 11.45. I'd have lots of time to get to the Lost and Found. My only concern was whether my wallet would still be in the bag.

As we pulled out of Montpellier, there was the most glorious sunset, a wash of streaky pinks and blues, mesmerising. And I thought of the other times when my heart stopped, the worst when my dad called to tell me, "They've found something and it's not good." When I was in labour with Anna and the doctor thought something might have gone wrong. "Let's get this child born now!" she cried and I pushed with all the strength on the planet. When bad things happened to my kids, times around my divorce. Those are the times that matter, I knew. This was only stuff. This was not health, not love, not life and death, only carelessness and stuff.

Still, my friends, I was one happy woman when the Lost and Found office at the Marseilles train station was open and the man brought me my handbag. Everything inside - wallet, passport, cards, phone. "Vous avez de la chance," he said. Yes, yes, yes I do. Thank you. Merci.

Now, get this: I went to the Acceuil in the station to enquire about trains back to Montpellier the next day, because the schedules are so complicated, and after getting the information, I left to walk to the nearest hotel, clutching my handbag. And outside the station, I realised that I'd left my suitcase in the Acceuil. I was concentrating so hard on my handbag I'd forgotten my suitcase.

It's definitely time for me to go home.

The hotel outside the station was full. She directed me to another. This adventure is going to continue, I thought, but it didn't, the second hotel had one last room. I am there now. The room is hot and stuffy but clean and it has wifi. Chris had already written back with expressions of concern, and I've written to tell him where I am. It's twenty after midnight, I have eaten for supper the emergency almonds I always carry in my bag, I'm about to have a shower. My throat hurts, I think from screaming when I realised what had happened.

Vous avez de la chance, he said. You can say that again.