Open Writing

Dear Del,

Your weekend sounded very pleasant. There is nothing quite like a wedding to show the ever changing and shifting sands of family relationships.

The subject of my letter today comes about as a result of a wedding. Teddy’s sister’s wedding.

If you can, picture 1977 in England, a simpler time in many ways. The days of flared trousers, coloured suits for men and lots of hair.

We were visiting Teddy’s home in Kent for the first time as a family for this wedding. We were all very excited to be spending two months there and had plans to visit so many places including, we hoped, have a romantic weekend in Paris

After the wedding, the tumult and the shouting died down once the many Irish aunts, uncles and cousins returned to their homes.

My father-in-law from southern Ireland amused the grand-children by playing his concertina with music they called his diddley diddley music. He also unsuccessfully tried to convince the boys he was growing chickens by planting feathers in the vegetable garden.

He had even less success when he told them the rope surrounding their great grand parent’s graves was to keep the old people in at night. They decided grandpa was a little strange.

Our origanal plans to go to Paris as a couple were changed as we felt it would be a shame for the children to miss out.

With eagerness we boarded the hovercraft to cross the channel…… The tunnel was still someone’s pipe-dream.

We had booked into a small, very small, hotel stipulating the children were to be put in a room adjoining ours if not in a suite with us. We were assured by the travel agent this would happen.

Back in those days in Australia, tipping was rather frowned on as a type of Colonial left over condescension of upper class attitudes toward their servants and lackeys, so we didn’t think of tipping the taxi drivers, or the French hotel manager- and general man of all jobs about the place- who was to become known during the next few days, as Monsieur Incompetent.

Of course we later realized what a cultural mistake we had made. We were immediately considered not worth his valuable time of day. He also suffered an instant attack of amnesia which affecting any English words he'd ever known.

We were shown to our room and discovered with the aid of much hand waving and pointing the children were not in an adjoining room as we had requested but in a separate room and, a floor beneath us.

This I would not tolerate and although I had forgotten my entire school girl French, I think the staff and Monsieur Incompetent got the idea very clearly I was not happy.

Eventually there was a compromise and the children were squashed into the tiny, dark and very dusty room with us.

The weekend hadn’t started well.

While making up the children’s bunks, we became aware of a very large clock tower which loomed only a few feet from the hotel. It blocked most of the light and all of the view. In this tower were housed some of the loudest bells I have ever heard. Every quarter of an hour after the preceding whirring, clanking and rattling of its works, the bells would ring with such force it shook the glass of the one grimy window.

Gerald our older boy used the bathroom while he was waiting for something more interesting to happen. There was a sudden scream from the plumbing as water flew at the most enormous pace through the pipes. He shot out of the bathroom his eyes wide and clung to me.

After explaining to him he hadn’t done anything wrong he quickly lost his fear and took his sister and little brother into the bathroom to demonstrate how he had made the deafening noise. They all took turns with the fascinating bidet and its plumbing and Teddy and I knew trying to stop them from constantly making the pipes scream during boring moments of inactivity for the next couple of days would be very hard.

We unpacked as best we could in such a small space, wrote ‘Dust Me’ in the thick layer of dust on the top of the television and went in search of a meal and a walk.

Before we left the room, Teddy had noticed some controls on the bed. Naturally, being Teddy he had to see what they were for and discovered they were some type of device to make the bed vibrate. They were not working and as we all know, anything not working is an immediate challenge to Teddy.

While I freshened myself in the bathroom, now being called the toilet jet by the kids, Teddy fiddled with the bed and came in to me, eyes glinting, to say he had the bed vibrating but couldn’t work out how to turn it off. He would do that later.

Outside, the chaotic traffic terrified us. We were used to wide lanes and quiet open roads. The French drivers appeared to only use one hand for driving and the other to continuously honk their horns. As if one horn could be heard above the cacophony of all the other blasting horns. Such a multitude of irritable and impatient drivers was something we were not prepared for.

Gerald must have become distracted by something and not noticed we had walked across the road. He stood on the opposite corner frozen with fear. A small gentleman noticing our faces as we turned in panic and saw our son about to run to us, grabbed his hand and raced him across the road, risking his own as well as Gerald’s life. We thanked the small man profusely and didn’t let go of Gerald’s hand again all day.

The Eiffel Tower was of course on our list of things to see and we made our way there.

The crush of tourists jostling about in the viewing area didn’t really live up to the Hollywood images I had grown up with, nor did towing two young boys, one in a push chair, another with wide eyes trying to make sense of the world around him. Plus of course, there was the grumpy pre-teen daughter trying to pretend she wasn’t cold in a skimpy dress she shouldn’t have worn, and a husband reciting engineering dimensions. None of it came close to standing there looking out across the city on a clear starry night with Cary Grant.

We eventually returned to our hotel footsore and tired and switched on the dust covered television to watch the incongruous sight of John Wayne speaking French in the Wild West.

The children slept through the indigestion and clanging of the church clock but between listening to its slow progress marking the quarter hours through the dark Parisian night while we shook continuously on a bed with mechanical Parkinson disease, we slept very badly, if at all.

In the morning, his eyes bleary and bloodshot, Teddy promised if he managed to turn it off he wouldn’t fiddle with it any more.

Breakfast next morning was served by Monsieur Incompetent with very little grace and no plates. There was a dish of croissants in the middle of the table and some butter and jam.

A well mannered and very retiring English couple sat at the table with us but didn’t speak or communicate in any way. I began to feel our loud children and Australian accents must have intimidated them, although when I asked for a plate and Monsieur refused to understand, I improvised by using a table napkin and noticed the lady opposite followed my lead.

Of course they probably hadn’t enjoyed much rest overnight either, although I doubted he would have tried to get the bed vibrating. He didn’t seem the type.

We set out to find a post office. I wanted to send some postcards home.

In time we found one and I indicated I wanted some stamps for the cards and showed the address to the pale long nosed man looking over his rimless glasses at me from the other side of the counter.

He shook his head.

Mystified he couldn’t understand what I wanted, I repeated the actions of asking for a stamp and showing him the address once more, only this time in the well worn way of many people who have experienced the same problem, I went through it all again very slowly and much louder.

He shook his head.

By this time I’d concluded he thought I was English and French people appeared to refuse to understand English people and vice-versa. I pointed at the children and myself… ‘We’re Australian’ I bellowed loudly. ‘I want to post this to Australia!’

He shook his head again.

This man I concluded was the Inspector Clouseau character of the French post office.

‘I want airmail stamps,’ I continued. ‘Par Avion.’ As I said this I stuck my arms out to my sides and did what I thought to be an excellent charade of an aeroplane complete with sound affects.

Monica was mortified by her mother’s behaviour, the boys looked on with interest and Teddy left the building to stand outside in the sunshine and giggle.

We had been married long enough for Teddy to know that if one wished to fade into the flocked wallpaper of one’s surroundings, it was best not to go places with me.

The man behind the counter raised his sparse eyebrows, turned to a colleague working behind him and signalled for him to come to the counter.

They stared at me for a while after I repeated my charade murmuring things I was probably fortunate not to understand although I did recognise ‘imbecile.’

I gave up defeated and walked out after telling them in rich and fruity words they had probably not heard before exactly what I thought of their post office and hoped their ignorance of English was a pretence.

We moved on down the lane as I wished to buy a gift for my mother.

We must have walked away from the better shops to a less salubrious area and if I hoped to buy something I would have to make a purchase soon.

Eventually we came upon a window displaying ladies accessories. They looked a trifle tired and dusty and the dried blowflies resting in peace here and there indicated the window displays were not a priority for the owner.

I ventured in and found to my delight and surprise there was a good variety of articles. I chose a Dior scarf and asked the price. It seemed an exorbitant amount but I had been brought up to think of the Dior label as the best, so without any bargaining, I paid the asking price.

Perhaps here I should explain that in those days as well as not tipping, we would never have risked the ire of a shopkeeper by trying to bargain down the price of his goods. We would have thought it not only extremely bad manners, but a pushy habit demeaning to both purchaser and seller.

The saleswoman must have thought what a ‘twat’ I was and felt rather guilty as she took the wad of money from me because she wrapped the scarf in a lovely box complete with satin ribbons.

Only later did we work out how much we paid for the small square of coloured silk with the famous name in tiny print written in one corner.

My mother never knew the price but also because of the name, never wore it, in case she creased it, but kept it until the day she died still packed in the ribboned box. I suppose this compensated for the saleswoman robbing me.

Australians have since learned to bargain aggressively but we are still mean tippers.

When we returned to the hotel Monsieur Incompetent seemed suddenly to hurdle the language barrier because he understood I had wanted and failed to procure stamps. He wafted out the door and came back in a trice, from where I don’t know, with the elusive stamps. Gratefully I took them, belatedly tipping him generously and probably more than the stamps cost.

Another night passed with the clock bells still ringing the quarter hours and shaking the glass in the window while the bed, which Teddy swore began to vibrate spontaneously again without any assistance from him, continued until the morning when I took my revenge and went into the bathroom to press the button of the toilet jet and wake the building.

Before we left the French terminal for the trip home the children requested saveloy hot dogs with lashings of sauce.

As we boarded the hovercraft the hostess told me to nurse little William as they expected the crossing to be rough and it was the last trip they would make for the day. She proved correct. The craft banged into the waves flying high and landing heavily. Passengers with less hardy stomachs than ours began to rush for the toilets.

The children had enjoyed their hot dogs once but not again when they returned in macabre technicolour all over the floor not long before we arrived at Dover. Thus encouraging any remaining passengers in our vicinity who hadn’t been ill, to be so right away.

Pity the poor cleaners.

After a couple of hours and a thorough washing, we felt better and thankfully returned to the comparative sanity of Teddy’s parent’s home.

It was some years before the memories of this trip faded before Teddy and I tried once more, for the elusive romantic getaway.

Next week I shall tell you of our 25th wedding anniversary trip, now surely you would think that was a romantic time wouldn’t you Del?

Your stay-at-home ‘flower child friend’

Cynthia.

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