When Aurelle was tucked up in bed, Blanche went for a lie down as she was feeling tired – Aurelle had been poorly a couple of nights ago and Blanche seemed to have picked it up. To avoid waking them, Seth and I went out into Albi for a quiet drink and a catch up.
The first thing I noticed, as we walked through the streets, was how quiet everything was. London has five airports around it (Heathrow, Gatwick, Stansted, Luton, City), and during the day not a minute goes by without the boom of a plane soaring overhead. You get used to it eventually, and soon stop noticing it altogether. I only realised how perpetually noisy it is when, after a day in leafy, tranquil Richmond Park watching deer and hopping over little streams, I sent a video to my family to show them what a pastoral afternoon I’d had. Watching the video back – deer grazing in a pretty wood – I was stunned to hear the audio: roaring jet engines I hadn’t even noticed. In my memory it had been totally silent.
So it was nice to be in proper quiet, which compared to London’s brain-filtered ‘silence’, feels luxuriously thick and soft, like breathing fresh country air after a shift in a factory. The actual air quality in Albi was probably much better too, only I can’t tell you about that because I was smoking the whole time.
We wound into the town centre – only a 5-minute walk – and passed a bandstand with a brass band playing plodding music. I did a silly walk to the music to make Seth laugh, but he wasn’t looking; a moment later he started doing the exact same silly walk of his own accord, regardless. There were fountains with clear water and cafes and restaurants with people sitting outside under trees. In bars with seats and tables scattered around little squares, groups of friends sat, all ages, drinking and leaning over to laugh with one another, and when a latecomer arrived by bicycle, sundressed and windswept, they cheered and clapped.
“This is it,” I said to Seth, as we settled into two outdoor chairs with cold glasses of beer. “This is pretty much everything I want in the world, right here. I don’t know what I’m doing in London half the time. Look at this quality of life. Why does everybody think they need to chase money in the city to live well? None of these people are rich.”
But look how happy they all were – how connected, how present in the flow of life. They weren’t saving up, waiting for something to happen eventually – life was simple and close enough here that they could finish their day’s work, hop on a bicycle, and swish down to the square to be with the people they love – there to eat, drink and laugh, carefree and unguarded, and later cycle home to bed. Why did that feel so impossible in a big city? What was everyone so preoccupied with in London that made this feel so intangible?
“I think I’m a country boy, in my heart,” I told Seth. “I’ve been thinking about it a lot. I wanted to be a city person, and maybe in Berlin I was for a while, but I don’t know. I find myself longing for quiet more and more. This is perfect.”
I watched a dog run around the square, snapping up leaves that fell from the trees and bringing them to its owner, who ruffled its ears.
“It’s pretty nice,” said Seth. “But London’s good too, isn’t it? You’ve got all the museums and theatres and all that exciting stuff.”
“Yeah,” I admitted. “There is all of that.”
We drank one beer, then another, then Seth’s phone glowed blue.
“Ah mate,” he said. “Blanche has been sick and Aurelle’s woken up. I guess she’s really not well. I’d better go back. You can stay here if you want though, obviously.”
“Nah, I’m happy to go with you man.”
“It’s alright, honestly.”
So Seth ran off, and I stayed for another ten minutes to finish my drink, watching the scene and thinking slowly and vaguely.
*****
The following morning – Saturday – was supposed to be the start of our big camping trip. Seth had planned a long hiking route for us that would take us to a remote unofficial camping spot, and had packed provisions for any eventuality. On the Sunday, after sleeping in the wild, we’d hike several more hours in the daytime, eat a fine lunch at a quaint country restaurant, hike to a couple of points of interest, then return to Albi in the evening. With Blanche unwell, however, we agreed in the morning that the trip would have to be postponed – if not cancelled outright.
I didn’t mind too much; it was way too hot for all-day hiking anyway, and what with Seth still limping due to his ‘smashed up’ feet, I was happy to simply spend time with my friends and their daughter. Seth and I went to a fruit and veg market in the morning and bought nectarines, apples, avocados and bananas, unsure of our plan for the day but stocking up for a quiet afternoon in the house. Halfway through our shopping, Seth stood still and raised his eyebrows.
“God, I tell you what, I’m not feeling too great.”
“You think you’ve got what Blanche had?”
“Pfff, maybe. I hope not, but maybe.”
We went to the pharmacy and bought some anti-nausea medicine, and back at the apartment Seth rested while I sat with Blanche – who was now feeling much better – and bounced Aurelle on my knee. She took a shine to my sunglasses. I put them on her gently and she stared at me with stunned eyes.
“Wow,” I grinned at her. “You look so cool!”
This was the beginning of a 30-minute game of Sunglasses, which had rules only Aurelle could understand, but seemed to involve her asking me to put them on her face, then her gazing around in them for a moment before taking them off and straining the plastic arms in the wrong direction – and me not wanting to interrupt her playful experimenting until it looked like the things might snap.
At 5pm, after a relaxed afternoon of playing and lazy chatting, Seth called it back on: he felt better, Blanche was better, and we could safely go camping. I was glad; it was the summer solstice, the longest day of the year, and even at 5pm we’d have a good 4-5 hours of sunlight left. Dancing nimbly around the toddling Aurelle, we packed our bags, loaded up the car, and shot off into the country.
“I just hope you don’t get sick now,” said Seth, laughing.
We stopped off at a small town built around an enormous gorge with a long, curving river in the bottom – stone buildings on either side of it, a couple of houses down in the valley, even houses in the eventual oxbow lake cliffside island in the centre. If such a geologically dramatic town existed in England we’d have crowned it a world wonder; people come from all over the globe to visit Stone Henge, which is a very nice henge as far as they go but is, I’m pretty sure, quite aesthetically underwhelming for most visitors. France, like Italy, is full of so much of this insane beauty, however, that 90% of its gravity defying, fantastical medieval towns don’t even register on the tourist trail.
We each used the public loos at this town before heading into the rural region of Aubrac, knowing that we’d rather not have to squat in the wild if we could avoid it, then drove another 50 minutes across broad green meadows with large beige cattle that Seth told me were a famous breed. Finally we turned off into a small car park beside a reservoir, skirted on one side by a copse of trees.
Ugh. Just – I’m getting flashbacks from even writing this.
“Here we are!” said Seth, as we climbed out of the car in the afternoon sun.
“Will there not be a lot of midges and mosquitoes, camping by a lake?” I asked immediately.
“Nah mate. Should be fine. And we’ve got repellent anyway.”
“Okay.”
We took a short walk through the wood to the lakeside, bidding hello to a group of French fishermen as we passed, and almost immediately the long, leafy grasses and nettles set off my hayfever.
“Fuck,” I said, between wheezes and sneezes. “I forgot to bring my tablets.”
I knew Seth had been excited about the trip and would likely have very few opportunities like this as a new parent; I didn’t want to be disappointing company, so I tried not to complain too much, even as I felt my lungs tighten and my skin blotch and my eyes begin to stream with tears.
“Is it really bad?” asked Seth.
“Quite, yeah,” I said. “But it usually calms down in the evening, when the pollen has settled.”
“When will that be?”
“I dunno. Maybe… midnight.”
We explored the reservoir and walked out along a metal platform (climbing over the ‘interdit’ sign) to peer down the drain of the lake: a bottomless black hole with water cascading into it. It was a nightmarish vision and freaked both of us out a little, so we hurried back to the car and opened a box of wine to commence the evening of deep conversations and silliness – our staple mode, and the ones in which our first bonds were forged, seven years ago in Australia.
I told Seth about my thoughts and changes over the last year – about San Francisco, about Big Sur and the cessation of my desire for a Kerouacian lifestyle, about London, about my increasing desire for a calmer, healthier sort of life. In turn Seth told me about his thoughts as a father, about the day of Aurelle’s birth, about his relationship with Blanche, about his carpentry school, about his hopes for the future. We laughed a lot about Australia, all the mad characters from the blueberry farm and where they are now. Petit Jeremy’s working in New Zealand now, apparently, after a stint in a cult in Norway.
Three glasses of wine in, the sun was setting, and we left our supplies to head down to the lakeside to watch. On the far bank of the lake a herd of Aubrac cows were grazing in the meadow, the soft clanking of the bells around their necks drifting unbroken to us across the water. Down by the marshy edges of the lake, frogs were singing back and forth in crickety, reverberating tones, and fat dragonflies with wings like military choppers swept at right angles across the surface of the water, snapping midges out of the air. Below the surface, little fish swam in small shoals – occasionally shooting up to gobble a fly, though always at a spot just outside my peripheral vision; I’d hear a splash, then glance over to see only ripples and stillness.
Seth took out a knife he’d received as a gift, made in an artisan village in the area – lots of artisan villages in France, they fight to keep their crafts alive, fiercely rejecting modern conveniences and conveyor belts – and sliced up a block of comte cheese which we slapped into baguettes torn open with our hands and garnished with butcher’s ham.
“This is the life, hey?” said Seth, bathed in gold, legs stretched out before him.
“Yeah,” I said beside him, eating my bread and trying to ignore my streaming eyes and itchy ears and runny nose and tight throat and incessant, insatiable need to sneeze. “Definitely.”
As I swallowed the cheese – comte has a rich, slightly bitter taste – I felt my stomach twist and lurch. I shrugged it off; it was probably the wine. A cigarette would settle it. I lit one and smoked half before realising it was a bad idea: my body was not merely being fussy about what I was putting into it. It was rejecting anything I put into it. Something was about to happen.
“Seth,” I said. “I don’t feel so great.”