Authors: Frank Moorhouse
Loose Living
A book of comic writing that incisively dissects our contemporary New Sensitivities.
How our Hero came to be a cultural ambassador in France fell into strange company; how he encountered the Duc and his entourage; how Europe responded to his Australian ways; how refinement eluded him; how the queen of commas almost brought him down by tugging his rope; how he became an honoured member of the Montaigne Clinic for civilised disorders; and how he began to discover the good life and how to get it when disaster struck.
As Australia turns to Asia, Moorhouse's hero is permitted one last look at Europe.
Loose Living
is his dispatches home, detailing his arrival in the wondrously civilised world of France; his glittering life at the chateau with the Duc; his fall into disgrace at the Ecole des Beaux Arts Perdus; and his appointment as Gregarious Fellow at the Montaigne Clinic for Civilised disorders, deep in the Pyrenees.
Incorporating Cuisine Cruelle compiled by Chef Bilson and the Duc.
For Carol and Nick Dettmann,
friends, advisors, and patrons of the arts.
In memory of Michael Vanstone
1951â1994
Editor of the
Sydney Review
Our HERO finds a
stone
in
HIS
shoe
S
OME
A
USTRALIANS
, often painfully nostalgic, are concerned about what is happening to life in France as it disappears into the new Europe and are also deeply worried by the democratic deficit in the new power structures of Europe.
I think the best approach to these concerns is to describe my own experiences while living in France, which I consider are still very typical of the sort of thing which happens these days to an Australian travelling in France, and which will be only too familiar to those readers who have already visited France.
After completing the 1000 Great Restaurants of Europe Tour with Chef Bilson (of
that
, more later), I was discharged from the Swiss clinic and advised by the doctors to do a 425-kilometre walking tour of the French Alps and the Jura to aid my recovery.
On the forty-second day of my alpine march, I arrived at a not-to-be-named village, with my possessions in an old leather haversack, a feather in my alpine hat, a stave, and a French poodle at my heels, and was warmly greeted by the folk as I strolled into the sunny Place Voltaire.
I was to discover that I was the first tourist to visit the village in eighty years.
I lunched in the sun on an outside table at the local Café de la Poste where, after chatting politics and art for a while, I realised that I had been âadopted' by the French family who own the café.
They recognised me from a dustcover photograph (the French being avid readers and admirers of all literature) and insisted that I eat again with the family in the kitchen.
Typically, the family is made up of the great-grandmother, great-grandfather, grandmother, grandfather and so on, together with nineteen children of assorted ages, and we all ate at a fourteenth-century oaken banqueting table in front of the huge open fires where there are always soups cooking and meats smoking.
The dogs eat the scraps on the rush-covered floor.
I was gratified to find that nearly all, young and old, had read at least some of my work. I also rose in their estimation by remembering all their names on the first introduction. A handy trick which I recommend to travellers in countries which have extended families.
I have to say that even on the tour of the 1000 Great Restaurants of Europe, I have never eaten such food! And the wine!
They served wine from vineyards of which I've never heard. There is no point in my mentioning the names of the wines because you'll never find them outside this particular village. âOf course,' they said, winking, âwe send the rubbish to Paris.'
Given the size of the family, they could not offer me accommodation, unless, that is, I wanted to bunk
in with three or four to the bed (something I was to experience under other circumstances and for different motives later in my European travelsâof
that
, more later).
They therefore arranged accommodation at the local
château.
They insist, though, that I lunch once a month with them so that we can continue our discussions of literature and so contribute to village cultural life.
And, warmly shaking their hands (four hundred of them), I agreed.
After my second fine lunch they called in the local priest, who took me in his dog cart up the steep hillside to visit the old Duc de Berry who lives in his magnificent
château
overlooking the valley of the Doubs (but alas, I was to learn from the priest, the Duc is a man of far from admirable character, in the conventional sense).
On the way up the winding path to the
château
the priest insisted that I share his humble repast with him, despite the fact that I'd just finished two lunches at the Café de la Poste.
So we had some monastery-baked bread and local
comté
cheese, together with some herring and potato, some smoked sausage, a small chicken and a bottle of fine wine from the monastery vineyard, all of which, much to my surprise, he carried in a small leather pouch on the belt of his soutane without the protection of grease-proof paper or plastic cling wrap.
It was gratifying to learn that the priest had read all my work and we discussed it in some detail while
lunching under an oak tree by a small stream in which trout occasionally jumped and salmon occasionally ran. Or was it the other way around?
At the
château
, again much to my gratification, it turned out that the Duc had read all my work and both he and the priest immediately began to discuss it in great detail, while I modestly remained silent, in awe of their taste and judgement.
Although he was about to go south to his apartment in Beaulieu (winking at me in a way which suggested that I knew all that the âapartment in Beaulieu' implied), the Duc invited me to stay on at the
château
, saying that I could have the run of the place.
I understood the plan was that I take over his apartment down at Beaulieu (and all that implies!) if and when he returns.
He suggested that the priest and I join him in a late lunch and although I informed him that I'd just eaten three lunches, he insisted and rang the bell for service.
I had another seven-course lunch and discussed my work in even greater detail.
I noticed that the priest, quaintly, in his old world fashion, put his cross on the table in front of him to ward off whatever sinister influence the Duc might bring to bear against the Christian faith.
The food! I have never tasted such food. And the wine! While the first two lunches at the Café de la Poste were splendid regional cooking, the Duc's personal chef pre pared remarkable food more from the region of Dijon.
So these lunches afforded an interesting contrast and I was able to make many notes for Chef Bilson and his staff.
As he was leaving the next day, the Duc insisted I move from the guest's suite to his personal suite in the
château.
Then with a traditional hug and a kiss on both cheeks (although as an Australian boy, I found the kisses a little, how shall I say? lingering?), he handed me a bunch of keys.
âHere,' he said, identifying one of the keys, âthis is the key to my private cellarâuse it well. I can tell that you are a man who knows and loves his wine.'
I was moved by this gesture and could see that my sound knowledge of wine had caused me to rise in his estimation. I would advise Australians who plan to travel in France or Italy to pay proper attention to their knowledge of wines. It does not hurt to take a one-year course at a school of culinary arts before travelling.
Identifying another key, he said, âAnd this is the key to the orphanage,' and he winked at me in a collaborative and conspiratorial way. Although I winked back I was not sure of his meaning, but a cold wind blew off the alps.
The butler's brother stayed on to attend to me, even though I protested that, being a self-reliant Australian, I was quite capable of looking after myself.
The Duc wouldn't hear of it, and I feared that to persist with my claims of self-reliance would offend him and I ceased my complaint.
With a round of cap-waving and cheering from myself and the remaining staff, he and his entourage drove off in their gleaming black, long-nosed, pre-war Citroëns, luggage strapped to the back and on the running boards.
For my personal use, the Duc left with me a 1932 sporting Citroënâone of only three built (it formerly belonged to Charles de Gaulle)âalong with a lovely 1923 hot-air balloon with a wicker cockpit (built for the Emperor of Austria), ideal for picnicking on the estate, as well as leaving me a couple of fine horses.
Attached to the
château
is the Duc's vineyard and 3000 hectare forest, where there is good hunting in season and from the streams of which the fish for the
château
are caught.
While readers will recognise this as all very typical of travelling in France, there is one unusual feature.
The American author Paul Fussell
1
told me that he'd heard of a curious old bookshop in the village which has a decent English language section. The village cannot be named because of a promise I made to Paul Fussell. Finding English language books is still difficult in provincial France.
I was eager to visit the bookshop, and Fussell is right, it's rather unusual.
It is in the older part of the village, with six floors, each reached by iron spiral staircases, and with reading nooks offering worn but comfortable leather armchairs.
In winter there are open fires burning and there is always a gratis bottle of Cognac on the table.
The English language section is on the top floor and rarely does anyone go there. The astounding thing is that the shop has multiple copies of all the Penguins going back to number one, complete sets of the Everyman and Thinker libraries, all the quaint Left Book Club editions from the thirties, together with the wonderfully perceptive Conservative Book Club series, the New American Library editions, as well as hundreds of other âfinds' including books autographed by James Joyce, Henry James, Henry Lawson, Miles Franklin, Ernest Hemingway, Tim Baker, Scott Fitzgerald and so on.
The equally astounding thing is that the English language books are on sale at their original prices, â1s 6d' for example.
All my books were there along with nearly every other Australian writer.
The owner, now in his eighties, is extraordinarily friendly and was pleased to have an English language customer. He knew my work well.
He was amused when I told him how valuable his stock would be on the rare book market.
I urged him, at least, to adjust the prices. He said that he would âhave to climb the stairs to the sixth floor to do that' and he hadn't been up there for years.
He said that he made a fair profit on the prices as marked because that was what he'd paid for the books back in the thirties. I suppose his reasoning makes sense.
When he saw my enthusiasm, he urged me to take what I wanted and sell them myself. He refused payment, saying that a writer could never be rewarded sufficiently for what he gave to the world.
I said that book trading wasn't my business, however I felt I should buy a few complete sets of the first hundred Penguins as Christmas presents for my friends this year and as a way of keeping the old bookshop going.
Again, he waved away my offer of cash, saying that a signed copy of one of my books would give him more pleasure.
His estimation of me rose enormously when I told him that the Thinker and Everyman books had given me my education.
He and the local priest call in at the
château
frequently to play the strange local game of three-handed chess. During these rather charming evenings, the priest argues against the atheism of George Bernard Shaw and H. G. Wells and urges me to read G. K. Chesterton and Thomas Keneally.
I would like to note that I have become something of a regional champion at this form of chess and play in the inter-village competitions.
The priest always brings a gallon or so of the monastery's superb, and rare, Armagnac (his monastery has a branch down there) and, of course, the inevitable gift of a brace of pheasant, a
comté
cheese and a dozen or so ortolan.
As if I don't already have sufficient to eat and drink! Ye Gods!
But Australians should not get the idea that it's all chess and old Cognac and arguments about atheism here in the village. Through my connections with the Duc, I have fallen in with the aristocratic younger set, and we organise dinners and parties to mark the local feast days. Our fancy dress parties are incredible because not only do we have costume trunks going back hundreds of years, we have quite a bit of armour and so on to wear.
It may amuse my readers to know that I get about in armour most days, just for the heck of it.
The French are also impressed that as an Australian I should be such a fine fencer. Despite the villagers' entreaties, I declined to put myself forward to represent France at the Olympics. After all, I had already declined to represent Australia because of my aversion to competitive fencing.
Needless to say, after many bottles of Laurent Perrier 1921, one thing often leads to another at these costume partiesâas you might expect.
The French! There've been a few breakages and other damage which worries me a littleâhow to replace the irreplaceable, how to explain the inexplicable, when the Duc returns, if he ever does.
He seemed to be a man of the world and will be sure to understand.
It turns out that I have a natural talent for learning old musical instruments and have been asked to join the local musicians in their small renaissance orchestra. Through participation in the orchestra I have assembled
a remark able collection of medieval musical instruments of the region, mainly gifts from the older people in the district who admire my work. Most of the instruments, I realise, had been in their families for generations, but it is offensive to refuse such gifts.
I will, of course, donate them to the Conservatorium of Music upon my return to Australia.
The Duc took his personal chef with him. The old man and woman who cook for me in the evenings are limited to the foods of the region and cannot do much else. But what cooking! What bread! What tarts! What baked venison and pig!
The local peasants seem to feel that, as a friend of the Duc de Berry and as a writer (the peasants also truly value the arts), I deserve the finest of whatever vegetables or fruit are in season or were picked that day in the fields. Gifts arrive daily.
I have firewood, aesthetically stacked, to last a century! They are all learning to read English so that they can one day read my books.
What I can't manage to eat I give to the orphanage where I have become something of a patron. I think some of my Australian friends would be amused to see the photographs taken of me with some of the stunningly beautiful orphans sitting on my knee while I read from
Madame Bovary.
I assure you that their nightdresses, which will raise a few eyebrows in Sydney, are traditional for this lace-making region.