Last Tango in Toulouse (5 page)

Continuing the filthy and back-breaking task of shovelling barrowloads of dirt and other rubbish from the barn, he came across a folded length of old hessian buried deep within the debris. Pulling the light closer so that he could see better, he started to unravel the cloth, then reeled back in horror at the sight of a mummified dog corpse, obviously very ancient and somehow preserved in the dry soil where it had been interred probably close to a hundred years before. Why anyone would bury a dog on the upper level of a barn is beyond comprehension, unless it was a much loved hunting dog they couldn't bear to part with. Or perhaps it had died in midwinter and the ground had been too solid to dig a grave. It might have been stored in
the barn awaiting later burial, then somehow forgotten. Ethan wasn't thrilled with the discovery and quickly repaired to the bar across the road for a few cleansing ales to recover from his experience.

For one of the months that Ethan and Lynne were in France I was leading a trek high in the Indian Himalayas. While travelling I bought a house-warming present for the French cottage – a colourful dhurry rug which was packaged up in the traditional hand-stitched calico wrapping and posted to Frayssinet. Instead of being delivered to the local post office as I expected, it was held in customs in Toulouse, which meant that Ethan and Lynne had to make the tedious journey to pick it up, not to mention paying a huge whack of import duty, which I had also not anticipated. Cheerfully they set out to find the customs depot, never easy given the peculiarities of French signposting and roundabouts. However, Ethan had become quite a skilled navigator of the road system and they managed to find the right place and pick up the parcel without too many problems.

On the return trip they were stopped by an official police roadblock, a not unusual occurrence at the entrances and exits of the motorways. Dozens of police and their intimidating-looking vehicles were parked to one side of the road and motorists were being flagged down randomly so that their papers and licences could be checked. Foreigners are required to always carry their passports as well as all the relevant papers for any vehicle they're driving; fortunately, Ethan was well prepared and all his documentation was quickly found to be in order. But when the police noticed the suspicious-looking fabric-wrapped parcel, postmarked from India, on the back seat a more serious and thorough search was made. ‘The kids' were ordered from the
car and Lynne's handbag was searched. Ethan was frisked, the boot was opened and they even checked under the seats, in the glove box and side compartments. The rubber floor mats were lifted. Ethan was given a sharp knife and ordered to unwrap the parcel on the side of the road, with several heavily armed police with machine guns over their shoulders standing over him. Shaking slightly, he cut through the needlework binding with the knife and unfolded the rug, spreading it out on the grass verge. The police crouched down, examining it closely, fingering the fringes and turning it over several times. Eventually they called their colleagues to come and look. Standing in a circle around the rug, they praised its design and colour, slapping Ethan on the back and telling him it was a ‘très joli petit tapis' (a very pretty rug).

He quickly scooped it up, threw it onto the back seat and took off for the village and safety. He phoned me at home in Australia that night to berate me for setting him up with a suspicious-looking package from a Third World country.

Ethan and Lynne decided to stay in France until the sixth month of her pregnancy. They made the most of their time, travelling to Holland and then on to Paris by train and finally driving across the Pyrenees to Spain then down to the Mediterranean. It wasn't quite the carefree working holiday they had bargained for, but it was an exciting time as they came to terms with approaching parenthood and had their first taste of overseas travel. It could be a long time before they have such a chance again.

My desire to leave Leura and find a more tranquil rural lifestyle had not diminished, but David was still very anxious at the prospect of moving. We were now living alone and the location suited him perfectly – just an hour and a half from Sydney via the expressway, so he could go to Sydney for meetings and return the same day rather than staying away all week. He had changed his work routine and was no longer an absent husband. The irony of this was not lost on me. Our lives had become much less demanding with our children no longer living at home, and all the pressures of an extended family had vanished since the death of my mother. I sometimes wondered if Muriel's presence in the house had been one of the reasons for his lengthy absences over the years, but David assured me this wasn't so. It was pressure of work, simple as that, and he was pleased that I had my mother around for company and support while he was away, even if it had meant a weekend juggling act. Now he was virtually at home full-time and I wasn't sure I was thrilled with that option either.

Around this time our daughter Miriam, heavily pregnant with her fourth child, began to look for a larger house west of the Blue Mountains. She and her husband Rick searched initially in the Lithgow area, then eventually started looking in and around Bathurst, a country town we have always loved. Within weeks they put their house in Katoomba on the market and settled on a 1940s brick house in one of the more established streets of Bathurst. I was sad that the three little boys would now be more than an hour and a half from where we lived, as I had always enjoyed having them close by, but I fully appreciated their need to relocate. In many ways their reasons for wanting to leave the mountains, where Miriam had grown up, were the same as ours. They believed that the increase in population and the sheer number of tourists made the region not necessarily the best place to live, especially with young children. The streets had become very busy, the schools and local hospital overcrowded and Miriam, like me, had an idealised view of a suitable environment for children. The mountains had been perfect for my young family in the 1970s but were no longer perfect for her young family at the beginning of the new century.

Visiting them in Bathurst at the weekends, David and I started looking casually in the windows of real estate agencies and discovered that we could probably afford a small farm for what we could make selling our house and garden at Leura. To get a feeling of what was available in the district, we began looking more seriously at small properties. Almost immediately we found one that was absolutely perfect, within twenty-five minutes of Bathurst. It had everything we wanted. Only twenty-five acres – not too difficult to manage; a handsome old house in good condition with lots of open fireplaces and even a walk-in pantry;
pretty views all around and, best of all, unlimited water from a deep spring as well as a meandering stream and one good-sized dam. We were among the first people to be shown over this farm and as we walked around it became obvious to all three of us – Miriam had also come along for a look – that this was exactly right. David kept shooting me stern glances, trying to dampen my obvious enthusiasm in front of the real estate agent, but Miriam and I could barely contain our excitement.

In so many ways, this little farm epitomised the dream of rural life I had had when we moved to the mountains all those years ago.

In some ways, Leura had always been a compromise for me because I had wanted a proper farm, not just a house with a large garden. However, in those days (as now) farms closer to Sydney were way beyond our budget and farms further west were too far for David to commute. During all those years I had endeavoured to recreate a mini farm at Leura, and here at last was a real farm just ready for the taking. The prospect of my grandchildren exploring the paddocks and bushy areas around the farm filled me with happiness. Although we knew it would be financially very difficult in the short term because we were not ready to sell our Leura property, we decided to grab the opportunity because we realised that such an ideal place may not become available again. There were tenants in residence and we asked them to stay on until we were ready to move.

My gardening friends often ask me if it was heart-wrenching to leave behind a garden that took twenty years to create and I can only respond by saying that, in truth, it was easy. It was like the weight of the world being lifted from my shoulders. Somehow, my garden had become the symbol of my entrapment;
instead of being a joy and a release from the pressures of my working life, the garden had become just one more pressure in itself. It was all connected to my striving to maintain an image of perfection, of always being in control. And gardens, as nature rightly intended, are very difficult to control unless you spend hours a week tending them, or employ a small army of gardeners. I had endeavoured to create a low-maintenance garden but, by its very nature, the Leura garden required a huge amount of my attention and energy. It had a large area for growing vegetables and herbs; there were fruiting trees, bushes and vines, old and new roses, woodlands, perennial borders and an area for growing rare alpines. Not to mention dozens and dozens of potted plants that needed regular watering, feeding and fussing over. While I was overseas the weeds in the garden had really taken off. The beds were choked with buttercups and blackberry had seeded right through the shrubbed areas. Despite my attempts at mulching, the weeds were overwhelming and I was faced with weeks of back-breaking work to whip it into some sort of order so that I could continue using it as a location for filming the gardening program.

When I returned from France, I discovered that my heart wasn't in it. I could barely summon up the energy to spend two hours in the garden; the pleasure of it had gone. I hadn't lost interest in gardens or, more specifically, in plants. But the passion had dissipated. I still have no idea where it went.

My passion for my job as a presenter on the television program
Gardening Australia
had also severely waned, and it was only with effort that I maintained the enthusiasm to continue filming. Although I enjoyed strong relationships with the team – the researchers, producers and film crews in particular – I felt stale
and jaded. I was also a little peeved at some of the attitudes of the ABC. The program had gradually become ‘commercialised', with a whole range of gardening products being developed to be sold under the
Gardening Australia
banner in what is known inside the organisation as the ‘Bananas in Pyjamas' factor. These days programs are expected to generate merchandise to turn a profit for ABC Enterprises, and I felt that this commercialisation was somehow undermining the independent integrity of the show. We had always prided ourselves on avoiding endorsements of products. Now, suddenly, we were being encouraged to promote our own range of gardening paraphernalia, exploiting the brand loyalty of our viewers. I believe the role of the ABC is to make fantastic television programs, not flog bags of potting mix, so this disenchantment added to my restless feelings.

In my typical fashion of handling pressure with humour, I decided to play a trick on the
Gardening Australia
magazine editors during a period when I was feeling particularly frustrated. I wrote a monthly column called ‘Future Directions' which looked at scientific breakthroughs, in Australia and overseas, related to botany and horticulture. One month I put in a bogus item of news – created off the top of my head – just to see if anyone in the editorial department would notice. I made it pretty obvious that it was a joke and I intended to phone them after a week or so and point it out just in case it had slipped through the system.

Fragrant Solution

Disposal of dog manure has always been a huge problem for the French and now a group of their own local scientists has come up with a revolutionary and environmentally friendly solution. Using a heat treatment and
a freeze-drying process they are converting the scooped-up poop into a rustic soap that is recommended for gardeners and outdoor workers. Marketed as ‘Parfum de Merde', the soap comes in three colours and fragrances and is cleverly made into the shape of a small poodle. Cute!

The problem was that I wrote the item, giggled at my own naughtiness and promptly forgot all about it – until two months later, when I opened the latest edition of the magazine and there it was, in print. Nobody had thought it was a hoax and it had simply gone through the system without question. It made me realise that as presenters or gardening writers, we could say just about anything and people would believe us. When the ‘powers that be' finally found out they were furious, but most of my work-mates thought it was hilarious.