Our House is Not in Paris (11 page)

The following morning, we woke to the cooing of wood doves and the utter quiet of the countryside. I opened the windows and then flung open the heavy wooden shutters. It was cool and damp and, to my joy, there were two rabbits, their bob tails a flash of white bouncing along the road. It is true that everything always looks better after a good night's sleep, though perhaps not the fifth meal of
pain
in a row. As I couldn't find the keys to open the door, I clambered over the stone windowsill to sit on the steps to have my morning
café
. The rabbits paused beside the stone pillars at the entrance to our
jardin
and silently contemplated the sight of someone sitting on the steps of the house that was usually shut up. Just at that moment, Stuart emerged from the bedroom and found me struggling to swing my legs back over the high sill. He was understandably bemused by what I was doing. The church bells rang at seven to signal the start of another day: our first new day back in Cuzance.

With perfect timing, Jean-Claude arrived just after we had our showers and he was hugely relieved to see us. Strangely, they had not received either of my messages. My email was blank and the message did not appear on their home phone. It was all very mysterious. Just like every single day in France, it was on with the day's full program of events. Jean-Claude knew that, first of all, we desperately needed to go to the
supermarché
, since last night's plan to do so with him had not eventuated. He whisked us off to La Vieux Prieuré to greet Françoise, with whom we also had a joyous reunion. Then we set off to Martel, our nearest town, a mere seven minutes away. As we rounded the corner we caught our first glimpse of it, enveloped in the soft green folds of the hills. While quite small, Martel is beautiful, distinctive for its seven large towers, and steeped in history. It was then that we felt we were truly home again in the Lot.

We at last had our first lunch in Pied de la Croix with all our beloved French fare:
fromage
,
jambon
,
baguette
and plump sweet cherries. After only a short respite, we returned to Jean-Claude and Françoise's enchanted kingdom to see our new car. There were only a few minor scratches, and the colour was more beige than the anticipated green. We were very happy with our decision to make life so much easier by buying it through our exchange of emails, virtually unseen, apart from Stuart's brief glimpse of it in the dark last year. Jean-Claude kindly allowed me to have a practice drive around his enormous garden as I attempted to gain my confidence in readiness for driving on the right-hand side. I spun around the grass in circles and manage to avoid the three enormous oak trees. Memories of last year in the sporty new Citroën and my driving far too close to the ditch returned. I was determined this year to at least manage the simple seven-minute drive to Martel to shop independently.

Then, that night — only our first ‘proper' night — Stuart started to assemble the kitchen! I could scarcely believe that he was embarking on this challenge already. Oh, the joy of self-assembled IKEA.

From the other side of the world we had embarked on the brave — or foolish — enterprise of having a pool installed by email. So, this year, we came back not only to a house we needed to renovate but also a roof that was half started and a pool that was underway. It was meant to be
fini
…

A few months after we had returned home, we entered into a series of email exchanges to make arrangements for the installation of the pool. Extraordinary as it seems, at no point were there any phone calls at all, despite the vital paperwork that mysteriously went astray. Yet again, events seemed to take on a life of their own and assumed another level of utter surrealism. Making the decision to have a pool is enormous in itself, let alone from the other side of the world.

However, things seemed to unfold all by themselves in an arabesque of, at times, very charming emails. The one I loved the most was from the president of Piscine Ambiance, who declared:

Dear Mrs Cutsforth,

I am the President of Piscine Ambiance.

First of all, I want to thank you for your confidence.

Don't worry, the concrete blocks of your pool are okay and you will have no problem with them. Of course they are not ‘beautiful' but once they are assembled, everything will be all right. We have built thousands of pools and we never face any problems with the blocks. And we have a 10 year guarantee and insurance to cover everything.

I hope this mail will reassure you.

If not, do not hesitate to let me know or call me on my mobile.

Best regards,

Frederic Lorfanfant, President
Piscince Ambiance

I absolutely loved that email for its charisma and sense of ceremony. It was followed shortly after by another email for which I also felt delight, due to its charming tone and comforting reassurance:

Dear Mrs Cutsforth,

I fully understand the challenge and stress it can be for you!

We are very proud to build our first pool for Australian people!

I strongly believe you have done the good choice by selecting Piscine Ambiance as we take care of everything about your pool with no sub-contracting.

As you certainly know, we started the pool on March 10, but the mayor ask us to stop because he has not yet signed the ‘works agreement – autorisation de travaux' (famous French administration …)

Nicolas has taken care of it and we should receive the final agreement in the coming days.

When we have it, we will re-start the works.

When do you come to Cuzance next time?

PS: please Yannick try to send some pictures of the pool to Susan during the works.

Frederic Lorfanfant
President
Piscince Ambiance

We could have signed the paperwork in Cuzance the very afternoon following the morning when we visited the company to view the pools. As luck would have it, one of their representatives who spoke English was available for an appointment at our house. Mind you, I had conveyed the urgency of a site inspection and quote as soon as possible, as it was just a couple of days before we were to fly home. Nevertheless, this was not quite what we had planned and, as seemed to be becoming a frequent occurrence, events seemed to have taken on a life of their own. We actually drove back into the village off the motorway from Brive, right behind Nicholas's car, so I jumped out and got him to follow us. We had drawn a little map but, as there is no street name or house number for Pied de la Croix, it would have been rather challenging to find us.

After a quick inspection of the land behind the barn and a discussion of the position of the pool, in just forty-five minutes Nicholas printed a quote. It all seemed far too easy to be possible. And yet, easy it was. I've spent more time making momentous decisions about what pair of shoes to buy than about getting a pool put in for what was indeed truly becoming another life. Yet again, though, there were very few people we felt that we could actually share all this with. Somehow, it all felt like the lives of the rich and famous, not the life of two very ordinary people who kept taking more and more risks (and borrowing more and more money).

The strange thing about the pool and the company was that we started our communication with Nicolas, who just dropped out of sight without any explanation for quite a long time; then Yannick entered the picture for a while, then it was back to Nicolas. These emails were interspersed with a few in April from the president, who seemed to just make a brief and grand appearance to assure me to trust the company and as an acknowledgment of the stress of such an undertaking across the many miles. To tell you the truth, everything always seemed so remote and distant from my everyday life at home that I never actually felt stressed at all, which is unlike how I usually am in my ‘real' life.

So, below are some of the emails that trace the unfolding of the pool. Fortunately for us, in yet another strange quirk of fate, Jean-Claude and Françoise returned to Cuzance at exactly the same time that the work on the pool started. While it seems this was precisely the way we carefully planned it, so that Jean-Claude would step in as our de facto manger, it was, in fact, a coincidence. Yet again we had reason to feel profoundly grateful to him, for without his emails there were long periods when we had absolutely no idea what was happening with the pool and its progress, if any at all. As things got underway, we would race home to check our emails from him to see what was happening. There were quite a few disquieting moments to say the least.

By early April, we heard again from Monsieur Lorfanfant, who declared:

Susan,

We have received the authorization from the Mayor! We will re-start no later than mid-May in order to have your pool finished for mid-June when you return.

Thanks to Jean-Claude, we were able to see it all unfolding as he sent lots of photos to show us what was happening. It was all absolutely astonishing, from the enormous gaping cavity dug out behind the barn — in, yes, exactly the right place — to the dismay about the crack in the concrete after it was poured, and then the long silence from Piscine Ambiance and an inexplicable delay with progress. Once more, it was Jean-Claude to the rescue to explain that the paperwork had not been lodged with the Mairie, although we had thought from our initial emails that this had happened at the outset. Jean-Claude now became even more entwined in the proceedings and invaluable to us in shooting emails back and forth to us, explaining that the he had spoken to both the company and the
Maire
on our behalf. I think he loved both the drama of it and being an advocate for the Australian couple. And so it was resolved — again, without any calls from us, but we don't know how on earth we would have ever been able to overcome the language barriers if we had tried to call to unravel the cause of the delay.

The outset of our email exchanges were somewhat more brief and prosaic, however, than the drum-roll tone of Frederic Lorfanfant. The first, in November, after our return was simply:

Bonjour, I send you the details bank account for the first deposit. Nicolas

This was followed by:

Bonjour, I make the drawing for the exact location and I send you for have your approve. There is possible to send me the detail by mail or fax. Best regard, merci, Nicolas

I replied promptly to let Nicolas know that we had posted the contract and that he should receive it within a week. I wished him luck as we knew there was snow in Cuzance. So, throughout November, there was a flurry of emails regarding the pool liner colour, the drawings, the location and, most importantly, the deposit. And, yes, we agreed with Nicolas's recommendation of the brown-toned, mosaic ‘Esterel' liner that matched our ‘rural' setting of surrounding dry, brown grass and the old neglected orchard nearby. All seemed to be going very smoothly until …

Bonjour,

Happy new years.

I do not receive the information for your land in France.

Is important you send me for the declaration.

Best regard, Nicolas

We asked Jean-Claude to contact the company to find out what was going on. His reports were still our only means though of trying to discover what on earth was happening. In March he wrote:

This morning I went to check the pool to see if people had started work at your place. No sign of any activity. At least you will have no problems with your pool as it is embedded in rock, as you may have noticed in the photos I sent you. On my way home, I went round your plot and had the surprise to notice that the Giraudeux (the people who have the house opposite yours, across the unsurfaced lane) have a sunken swimming pool (with a system to heat the water!) being nearly completed by Piscine Ambiance.

Your part of the village is definitely becoming civilised and gentrified!

Love to you both, JC

However, their work seemed to come to a halt as well, when Jean-Claude next told us:

Piscine Ambiance has apparently left the Giraudeux pool after setting up the water heater. Unfortunately I have not yet seen the owner so I do not know anything really. But … I am still plodding the ground! I hope your fears concerning the pool are groundless! Love JC

Françoise then decided it was time for her to do an inspection of our building site and informed us:

Hello you two,

So nice to be able to communicate so easily and frequently! Jean-Claude enjoys it thoroughly and I participate in every exchange. So you will not be surprised to hear that on our return from Lyon, my first little walk was to see the start of your swimming pool in your charming spring garden. I was amazed to see the huge quantity of stone, rocks and ground the excavating produced! I did not focus too much on the problems with the concrete elements.

Anyway, life here is sweet; Cuzance looks so neat and tidy! The people are so nice. It is a pity that you are not yet here to enjoy it with us. Love, Françoise

Finally, at the start of April — the day before my birthday — there was good news. We had been perturbed by the fact that our paperwork, which we had now posted several copies of, appeared to have gone astray. It was Jean-Claude who emailed us triumphantly.

Dearest Susan,

After rain interrupted my gardening and the sun came up again, I went for a walk that started at the town hall; good news, the building permit for the pool has arrived and been published for ‘Mr et Mme Cutfprt', only the Mayor says the liner can be any colour at all except ‘blue lagoon', a restriction that did not appear in Gerard Gireau's permit. Same restrictions concerning the colour of the safety fence (if any) round the pool. I hope this piece of news will please you as much as your birthday card that you sent me did. Jean-Claude.

Our elation that it was going to finally be underway was short-lived when we received the following email from Jean-Claude at the end of April. Well, this one was actually sent to Stuart, as Jean-Claude would have correctly anticipated my extreme alarm.