88.
Emile is stomping about the living room, collecting the glasses from a rickety cabinet, the bottles from the kitchen and a cloth from a drawer. He makes a fuss doing it as I stand with my back to the fire.
"I would at least like to know where I come from, " he is saying, " BE where I come from. I don't know how you do it. Your roots must be in England, surely".
This has all come about because I have been talking about my mother, how, as she shrivels and shrinks, back into the soils from whence she came, I go more to England.
My roots and tendrils are from England, indeed, I answer, but I have ancestors from Languedoc, the Auriols, and I want to be more in France nowadays. Must be the landscape, the wild. He nods slowly and glances at me from behind the bottle.
Marie will come in soon from the barn, struggle with her boots, tut and swear and then roll forward with a wide grin to join us in an aperitif.
"And the folk, the people here ? how do you manage not to feel a stranger?"
I do feel a stranger, I say, always a stranger, even though you are all very kind. But that's not quite the point because I have not burned my boats. I explain that cliche and he's tickled by it. He'll make up a verse before too long.
After the drink and conviviality I tackle the wind outside again and weave my way to my own fireside. The sun is stronger every day. It was 16 C. yesterday but today the sun's warmth is displaced by cold gusts.
Emile is stomping about the living room, collecting the glasses from a rickety cabinet, the bottles from the kitchen and a cloth from a drawer. He makes a fuss doing it as I stand with my back to the fire.
"I would at least like to know where I come from, " he is saying, " BE where I come from. I don't know how you do it. Your roots must be in England, surely".
This has all come about because I have been talking about my mother, how, as she shrivels and shrinks, back into the soils from whence she came, I go more to England.
My roots and tendrils are from England, indeed, I answer, but I have ancestors from Languedoc, the Auriols, and I want to be more in France nowadays. Must be the landscape, the wild. He nods slowly and glances at me from behind the bottle.
Marie will come in soon from the barn, struggle with her boots, tut and swear and then roll forward with a wide grin to join us in an aperitif.
"And the folk, the people here ? how do you manage not to feel a stranger?"
I do feel a stranger, I say, always a stranger, even though you are all very kind. But that's not quite the point because I have not burned my boats. I explain that cliche and he's tickled by it. He'll make up a verse before too long.
After the drink and conviviality I tackle the wind outside again and weave my way to my own fireside. The sun is stronger every day. It was 16 C. yesterday but today the sun's warmth is displaced by cold gusts.
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