Page 6 of Beautiful Losers

‘Knob,’ I muttered under my breath as he rejoined the others.

In the weeks leading up to the move, I questioned the sanity of what I was doing on an almost daily basis, drafting an email to the owners of La Maison Bleue several times to pull out of our arrangement. I had lied to Dermot – we weren’t fully booked. Not even close. I had one family coming to stay a few months after we arrived and that was it. I should have backed out. There was still time. But Dermot’s certainty I would fail (not to mention the fact that in one week, Ari and I would be homeless) had settled the matter. We were moving to France.

The night before we left, Yiv helped us box up our two-bedroom flat in Kilmainham. (We lived in the part of the neighbourhoodThe Dublinerevidently didn’t visit when the magazine raved about the area’s ‘hip restaurants’ and ‘creative vibe’.) I put Ari to sleep on a blow-up mattress and Yiv and I sat on the floor of the living room eating her mum’s Dong’an chicken out of foil cartons like old times. The following morning, we set off. Drove to the docks and boarded a ferry for Cherbourg. I bought a cup of coffee and Ari a carton of orange juice from the café on board and we made our way to the wind-beaten deck, my coat wrapped around us, and watched Dublin get smaller and smaller as we drifted out to sea.

4

I have made zero progress with the village baker. Sabrina Rousseau is as frosty with me now as she was when we arrived a month ago. Honestly, I don’t know who inserted the giant rod up her arse, but it’s not coming out anytime soon. Still, I continue to go to Utopie every day after dropping Ari off to his new school because it’s the onlyboulangeriein town and the things that woman can do with butter and flour border on the preternatural.

Today, I buy a couple of croissants, wishing Sabrina a nice day as I leave. As usual, she looks physically pained by the exchange. Outside, Cordes is gearing up for the day ahead. The owner of theépicerieacross the road fills wooden crates with heritage tomatoes and shiny aubergines; at Chez Colette, the bistro next to Utopie, three old men are talking politics over shots of espresso.

I make my way back toLa Maison Bleue, past the pharmacy and the old-schoolquincallerie, its window displaysheaving with everything from doorknobs to oven scrubs, stopping to check out the latest additions to the phone-box library. It has an eclectic mix of titles – Voltaire, Lee Child and half a copy of something calledBrioche and Balls: A Gastronomical History of the Cathar Resistance in Cordes. A self-published work by a David S. Perkins (who, according to the comprehensive biography on the back, enjoys Mozart and backgammon, and moved to the region from Gloucestershire in the early noughties), the 250-page recipe compendium-meets-historical tome is but a mere sample to whet the appetite. There’s a Post-it note on the cover saying that should the reader wish to enjoy the remaining 150 pages, they’ll have to part with twenty euros at the author’s book signing in Chez Colette next week.

Here, in the lower part of the village, daily life unfolds for Cordes’ inhabitants, a mix of around a thousand locals, anglophones and big-city dwellers, looking to escape the rat race. And blow-ins like Ari and me, looking to escape full stop. Every Saturday, leather-clad bikers arrive for the weekly farmers’ market, piling into Chez Colette for a shot ofpastisbefore hitting the road. Above the main square, a series of narrow, cobbled streets, gothic facades at every turn, wind their way up to the fortified old town.

I’ll admit, it’s hard not to be seduced by the place. Albert Camus was among the influx of artists and bohemians who arrived here in the 1930s. He wrote,The traveller who, from the terraces of Cordes, looks at the summer night sky, knows that he needs to travel no further, because the beauty here, day after day, will remove any loneliness.I’m not too hot on my French existentialists, but I’d say I was more on Sartre’s wavelength, agreeing with his assessment that ‘Hell is other people’.

My palms nicely warmed by the croissants, I empty the greasy paper bag onto a plate and fill a cafetiere with coffee. The smell of creamy butter fills the room. Damn that Sabrina Rousseau. Her baking has become an essential part of my morning routine. Dropping Ari off to school, walking home, making coffee, eating a pastry. Thirty minutes in which I don’t have to worry about rising damp or what new mess Dad has got himself into or whether or not I made the right call moving here. And it strikes me as sad that she doesn’t know, as she gets up at 4 a.m. to twist sticky dough into a crescent shape, that what she’s offering isn’t simply an exchange of goods for money. It’s a lifeline.

‘Do I smell Sabrina Rousseau’s handiwork?’ Leonard is standing in the doorway, wiping his hands on an old tea towel. ‘That’s a fresh coat of paint on all the downstairs shutters.’

I smile. ‘You legend. Pull up a chair.’

I ended up hiring Leonard for a job the week after we met. I hadn’t been prepared for the amount of work involved in getting La Maison Bleue into shape. Besides, we kept bumping into Leonard everywhere we went. When he was buying rolling papers in thetabacand chickpeas in the supermarket. As he was walking down Rue Saint-Michel with his guitar case strapped to his back. Each time, he’d greet us like he’d just reconnected with a long-lost cousin. (He might well think we’re related given the Irish connection.) Ari was an instant fan, and I’m a fan of Ari, so I asked Leonard if he’d sand down the dining table on the terrace. He’s been turning up ever since.

‘What’s her deal anyway?’ I say, putting the cafetiere, a couple of mugs and the plate of croissants on the table.

‘Sabrina? She’s not so bad once you get to know her,’ says Leonard, lifting a pastry.

‘She has no interest in letting me get to know her,’ I say. ‘The other day, trying to make conversation, I told her I was thinking of visiting Albi as I’d heard the cathedral there is worth a look. She stared at me blankly like she didn’t understand a word of what I was saying, so I repeated myself. Eventually, she goes, ‘I have never heard ofAl-bi, only Al-bi, emphasising the last syllable instead of the first. Honestly, she’s a first-class pain in the hole.’

Leonard laughs. ‘Hang in there. She’ll come round. How’s the little guy doing at school?’

I flop into the chair opposite Leonard and sigh.

‘Still not settling in?’ he says.

‘The teacher had to drag him off me again. He kept screaming, “Stop! My body is my own!”’

‘Where did he get that from?’

‘I’ve been trying to teach him about bodily autonomy and stranger danger. He seems to be getting the message. We were in Carrefour last week when an old woman squeezed his cheeks in the condiments aisle and told him he wasmignon. He smacked her hand away and told her to respect his “bodily lobotomy”.’

‘Way to go, Ari!’ Leonard chuckles. ‘He’s setting boundaries. If there’s one thing the French appreciate, it’s directness.’

‘Hmm. I’m not sure his teacher would agree.’

‘Hey, school is a big adjustment, never mindbeing the only non-French kid in class. Give him time. It’s only been a couple of weeks.’

‘I hope so,’ I say, dunking a croissant into my coffee. ‘Ari’s not your average five-year-old. He was already different and now he’s the pale Irish kid who doesn’t know whatcaca boudinmeans.’

‘What’scaca boudin?’

‘“Poo sausage”. It’s an expletive just for kids, which is the most French thing I’ve ever heard. Irish children’s first swear words are whatever creative obscenity they’ve picked up from the adults around them. I believe Ari’s was, “Fuck me Jesus”.’

Leonard’s eyes widen.

‘In my defence, I almost set the house on fire making fish fingers.’

---