Reflections of Sunflowers (15 page)

The earliest and most precious windows are at the far end, in the rounded cloister, and were removed during the war for safekeeping. We just sit and gaze in wonder. The themes for these windows are thought to have been chosen by one Guillaume de Bourges, Archbishop until 1209 and later canonised. Formerly a Cistercian monk, he was said to favour meditation and reflection and this part of the cathedral is where the earliest worship was held. The designs are so clear; no need for binoculars, or craning necks. These are the illustrated catechisms of their time and were intended to be studied from close up. Themes from the old and
new testaments are juxtaposed. There are depictions of the parables of Jesus; the Prodigal Son, looking somewhat apprehensive at leaving home, and the Good Samaritan, and also the stories of the Apocalypse and the Last Judgement.

As so many undoubtedly have done for hundreds of years before us, we marvel at this vivid medieval glass, fashioned by the master craftsmen who also worked at Chartres. Other local craftsmen, who, at the time, contributed money for the great enterprise, are also commemorated. While Joseph lies, head on hand, perhaps contemplating the Pharaoh’s dream of seven fat and seven lean cattle, in the windows beneath him the medieval cooper, carpenter, and wheel-wright, busy at their work, are remembered.

Almost opposite our hotel is the fifteenth-century palace of Jacques Coeur, the Superintendant of Finance to King Charles VII. It is clearly a fascinating building and we begin a brief tour but are still so stunned with the beauty of the cathedral we feel we cannot do it justice. We leave, promising ourselves another visit to Bourges, another year. The road from Bourges to Sancerre is a delight, a patchwork of vines ready for harvest. The motorway up to the east of Paris is a different story. My days of enjoying fast motorway travelling are over and Mike finds his eyes are becoming very tired. We are glad to reach Compiègne. Alas, Compiègne seems as full as Bourges had been the
previous night and this time there is no quiet, forgotten hotel with a tinkling fountain. We drive on to Noyon, fearing to find the same problem and deciding that we have reached an age when it might be more prudent and less stressful to pre-book. We are lucky. The Hotel Saint-Eloi, with its
Restaurant Gastronomique
, sounds promising. We are not disappointed. The wonderfully extravagant mid-nineteenth-century house, complete with a grand ballroom, has only been a hotel for the last hundred years. It must have been originally designed for someone extremely wealthy and very elegant. Our room is very comfortable and the chef superb.

We feast on delicate, sliced
noisettes
of lamb with tiny vegetables all encased in a shell of the finest puff pastry. The desserts are shaped like boats, creations filled with variously flavoured creams and with sails of spun sugar, some of caramel, others of bitter chocolate. They are almost too beautiful to eat but once started, irresistible. The whole bill, including room and breakfast, comes to 145 Euros. As they say in the guide books, ‘worth a detour.’

It seems a fitting end to our summer in France.

Through the dark days of winter we looked forward to a visit to Bel-Air the following spring. It seemed a long time since we had been able to watch our trees come into leaf, to enjoy the plum blossom in the orchards, wild jonquils in the meadow and go for long walks in the fresh, sweet air. In spite of inevitably chilly mornings and evenings of that season and the constant cutting of wood to replenish the fire, we love the sun-filled few weeks we usually have in the early part of the year. It was made especially nostalgic for me as I showed early slides of Bel-Air each time I was invited to do one of my lectures about my books.

But Mike was not well. Although there was no return of the cancer, the damage done to surrounding nerves during what had been an extensive operation, and his perpetual anxiety about this, was affecting
us both. To balance his unhappiness I found myself assuming a relentlessly cheerful role. The after-care at St George’s Hospital was conscientious but limited. The urologist was noncommittal. Sister Ho, in charge of the colorectal unit, was always ready to listen and advise but Mike was keenly aware that his own anxiety was part of the problem and also that, every day, both she and the consultants had to deal with another dozen frightened patients still awaiting surgery. He was supposed to be one of the fortunate ones. The successful removal of a cataract at Moorfields Eye Hospital at the end of February diverted him but, in April, instead of our hoped-for trip to France, he had to return to St George’s for a hernia operation. Then, after he had some pain in his chest, slight angina was diagnosed and medication prescribed. Next year, we promised ourselves, we will make it in the spring.

We rang Raymond, only to learn with some surprise from Claudette that he and Corinne, Philippe’s wife, were stuck in Milan. What on earth were they doing there? They had been invited to Jordan, explained Claudette, to stay with Marie-Jo, Raymond’s niece and godchild. Marie-Jo’s husband, who worked for France Telecom, was in charge of setting up a new system in Jordan. It was a real opportunity, agreed Claudette, whose motto is usually ‘
il faut en profiter’
but, at the last minute, Corinne had gone with Raymond, as Claudette had become too fearful of the international
situation.
‘J’avais peur,’
Claudette admitted. Now the two travellers were stranded overnight in Italy because there were twenty centimetres of snow in Jordan! Until the shocked authorities could get to grips with this unheard-of phenomenon, no planes were landing. It was the beginning of a year of disturbed and destructive weather.

With Mike once more home from hospital, and making a good recovery, we made plans to leave London early in July. In May, Sally phoned to ask if we would consider letting Bel-Air to a friend who was in the process of moving to live in France. She, her husband and small boy had rented – or so they thought – a house for a month while they finished making their own house habitable. They were expecting a baby in August, the rented house had been double-booked and they had nowhere to go. We agreed. At least she could water my plants, I thought.

I need not have worried about drought. On the night of June 4th a hurricane with winds of up to a hundred miles an hour raged across the north of Lot-et-Garonne. Forty millimetres of rain fell in two hours and hail battered the countryside. I had a frantic phone call about nine o’clock that evening from a very frightened young woman at Bel-Air, asking me what to do as there was water pouring in everywhere. Though sympathetic and naturally concerned, there wasn’t much I could do from Clapham except advise
her to use every available bucket and saucepan. We were accustomed to sudden storms but this one was clearly exceptional. We later heard about the firemen who worked through the night clearing fallen trees from the roads, the roofs blown clean away, and the orchards and vineyards devastated. She phoned again the next morning in a calmer mood to say that it had rained again that morning, normal rain this time, and none had come in. She had also realised how lucky they had been compared with their neighbours. 180 of Raymond’s trees had been affected. Some could be hauled up into place again but many were simply cut in half. There were mudslides everywhere and the fields of maize and sunflowers were a sorry sight. When we phoned Raymond he was very dejected

‘En quelques minutes, des années de travail anéanties,
’ he said. ‘Years of work just wiped out.’

It seemed churlish to even wonder what state our garden would be in.

We had many calls and emails from our tenant. One morning she rang to say that the chimney sweep had just swept the chimney. He was demanding 100 euros and she hadn’t enough to pay him. I forbore to ask her why she had let him in, in the first place, and spoke to this mysterious
ramoneur
myself. He sounded flustered and immediately reduced the price to eighty euros. I pointed out that as I hadn’t ordered the chimney swept, and as there were several houses
called Bel-Air in the region, it was likely that he had made a mistake. Perhaps he could return in a few weeks’ time and we could discuss it. When I rang Raymond that evening he said,
‘C’était un charlatan,
sans doute,’
which was not exactly reassuring. The word went round the village and everyone was on the lookout for the charlatan but no one ever saw him again. A very small heap of soot lay in the garden to remind us of his passing.

Three weeks before we were due to leave Mike developed a rash. It was all over his body and very itchy. His GP was on holiday and the locum, diagnosing an allergy, prescribed a steroid cream. This made no difference. The rash began to turn into small blisters, which grew ever larger. He had a routine appointment at the cardiac clinic on a morning when I was unable to go with him as I was giving a talk. Very worried, I left him with instructions not to come home until he had seen a consultant. It took him all morning and a change of receptionist to finally get through the bureaucracy of the N.H.S. to see the cardiac consultant who, unsympathetic at first, changed his mind immediately when he saw the condition of Mike’s skin. We saw the dermatologist that same afternoon.

She recognised the symptoms straight away and, within ten minutes, her diagnosis was confirmed by the consultant. Mike had developed
Bullous pemphigoid,
a serious disease of the auto-immune system in which
one layer of the skin attacks the layer underneath. We were naturally anxious to know what had caused it. She said that it was not an allergy. Was it caused by stress? She did not think so, but, she admitted, neither was the cause really understood.

‘But we’re off to France next week,’ said Mike.

‘I’m afraid you’ll have to postpone your visit for at least two weeks,’ was the answer.

Mike fretted at the thought of yet another stay in hospital, but some of the blisters were by now as large as eggs, especially on the soles of his feet. As usual he coped with the illness with fortitude and a determination to learn as much as he could about it. A very high dose of steroids and an immune suppressant were prescribed and his progress monitored. He also had to take another preparation to line his stomach against all this medication. The treatment began to work. The blisters were drained and left dull red marks, which gradually faded. Eventually we were told he could leave hospital. Armed with a long list of his medication, letters for a dermatologist in France, strict instructions about blood tests to check for infection, and a gradual reduction of the steroid dose, we came home. Mike couldn’t wait to get to Bel-Air and neither could I. Matthew helped us to pack and he loaded the car. We were off at last!

Down to Folkestone and through the tunnel, losing our way yet again trying to find the motor rail terminus
and commiserating with other similarly lost travellers, I did not realise that Mike had deliberately cut down on his eating and – more importantly – his drinking, in order not to be inconvenienced on the overnight train journey. We slept well. At breakfast next morning in the station buffet, Mike drank a small coffee and had a glass of water with which to down his dozen different pills which he took all at once. We set off from Brive in high spirits, only eighty miles to go and we would be home.

After about half an hour, and fortunately on the smaller road, I began to notice that my husband was not in full control of the car. Alarmed, I begged him to stop. He was very reluctant, clearly concentrating hard, but his driving became more and more erratic. He sped up, then slowed and at every bend the car wandered across the road. It was not yet seven o’clock and thankfully there was almost no traffic. As by now I was almost in tears, he was at last persuaded and we pulled up at the side of the road. He got out and disappeared into the bushes. Should I take over the driving? When we are in France, apart from short shopping trips, Mike always drives, I navigate. Consequently, I am not too confident on long journeys. I cursed myself for allowing this situation to develop. When he reappeared he sat firmly in the driving seat and just fell asleep.

He slept for about twenty minutes and when he
woke seemed perfectly recovered. It was as though it had never happened. We set off again, my heart lurching at every bend, but he was his old confident self. We shopped briefly at Belves at a convenient supermarket close to the road, and soon we saw the outline of the church of Monflanquin on the horizon. Within half an hour we were turning into the familiar courtyard. We commiserated with Raymond and Claudette about the storm damage. Raymond nodded sadly. Claudette seemed more concerned with the fact that it was such a shame that we had not come earlier as they were all going to a concert that evening in a nearby church. The son of one of her cousins was giving a piano recital. Vincent is a brilliant young student and we would have much enjoyed hearing him but there was no way, after our journey, that we could even contemplate going.

‘We’ll all eat at seven,’ said Claudette, giving us our keys. ‘Then you can see how you feel.’ She is
ever-optimistic
.

As we drove up the track, through Véronique’s farm, the other track being still impassable, we could see the signs of devastation all around. A great swathe had been cut through the orchard. Trees, heavy with plums, lay prone. Bel-Air seemed to have been relatively lucky. The roof was intact and apart from several large branches from the ash tree, which had been hurled into the garden, and mud and leaves in the water channel,
everything else seemed normal. There were even some roses blooming through the weeds. Once again, Susan had cleaned the house. We were home and safe. I could begin to unknot my still-tense stomach.

We heard more about the storm as we ate together later. What a beautiful evening it had been with absolutely no warning of what was to come. How it had raged for two hours.

‘The area has been declared a disaster,’ said Raymond. ‘We’ll get some compensation but,’ he shrugged, ‘new trees take six years before we get any profit.’ As we waved them off to the concert he shouted, ‘Oh, I forgot to tell you, your phone is not working. I’ve notified them.’

As I lay in bed that night, listening to the silence before finally drifting off to sleep, I resolved to insist on sharing the driving down in future and wondered whether I was, in fact, capable of doing so. I was so happy to be here and knew that it would take several days of the special peace and quiet we find at Bel-Air to recover from my fright on the journey. But at about midnight I was woken by Mike in a state of great anxiety.

‘I’ve got cramp all over my body, every muscle,’ he declared, wild-eyed. ‘If it gets up to my heart I shall die!’ I tried reasoning but to no avail. I had never seen him like this. He was literally shaking with fear. It was then I remembered that the phone was not working.
Véronique and Jean-Michel were away. Raymond and Claudette out. I would have to drive down to the village and wake someone up, Jean perhaps, but I wasn’t even sure that she had arrived. Madame Barrou? But could I leave him in this state? My own heart was thumping as I tried to find some clothes. I heard a car coming up our track. Who could it be? I ran to the bedroom door and pulled it open. Too late – they had gone by. Then I saw the taillights and realised that the car had stopped further down the track by the water hydrant. A figure got out. It could only be Raymond who would stop there to check the water. They had obviously returned the back way from the concert in order to do just that. It seemed like a miracle. Still in my nightdress I ran through the long rough grass and down the track calling his name.

Within seconds he had come to Mike’s aid. Clearly worried, he tried to calm him. Then Claudette stayed with me while Raymond returned to the farm to phone the doctor. When Dr Rouquié arrived he diagnosed acute dehydration and exhaustion. Dr Rouquié is also the deputy mayor of Monflanquin, and a solid, very reassuring figure. He stayed while Raymond went to knock up the duty pharmacist in Monflanquin and returned with yet more medication. Dr Rouquié discussed the steroid treatment and made an appointment for a blood test the following week, gave me a bill for forty pounds for a night call over
a certain distance, and Raymond stayed till two a.m. What a tower of strength he was. When I finally got to bed I felt as though I had been through the Hundred Years War.

The next evening Judith was due to arrive. Mike absolutely insisted on driving to Agen to meet her. The high dose of steroids was weakening his muscles and he was determined to fight it. The weather was extremely hot. We were not to know that we were to experience the hottest summer on record. Jean came up to swim and sat drawing by the pool but the heat was just too intense to stay out of doors for long. Everyone was suffering. It was 100 degrees under our north-facing porch. Raymond said that no one could work after eleven in the morning. He came up twice a day to see how Mike was. Claudette sent melons and lettuces.

One morning Mike had a fever and I had to call the doctor out again. This time it was a throat infection, easily caught as he had almost no immune system. Another medication was added to the list and I made a chart and doled out the pills and capsules at intervals, ticking them off as I did so. The weather grew steadily hotter. I never thought that I would dread the sun coming up but the air just didn’t cool down at night as it usually did. There was absolutely no breeze and each sunrise just increased the temperature by another few degrees. Very early one morning, the thermometer
already showing eighty on the porch, I watched with such pleasure a few wisps of thin cloud obscuring the rising sun. But within an hour they had disappeared.