Henrietta Taylor - Escaping: A New Life, New Love and Three Guesthouse in a Small French Village

HENRIETTA TAYLOR grew up in Mosman, Sydney, and trained as a language teacher while travelling extensively around France and Italy. She now runs three rental cottages in Provence, in the south of France. Her spare time is spent failing miserably to train two black cats and two bilingual dogs. Her two bilingual children, Mimi and Harry, continue to give her handy hints about her shortcomings in motherhood.

HarperPerennial

An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers

First published in Australia in 2005 as Veuve Taylor

This edition published in 2016

by HarperCollinsPublishers Australia Pty Limited

ABN 36 009 913 517

www.harpercollins.com.au

Copyright Henrietta Taylor 2005

The right of Henrietta Taylor to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her under the Copyright Amendment (Moral Rights) Act 2000.

This work is copyright. Apart from any use as permitted under the Copyright Act 1968, no part may be reproduced, copied, scanned, stored in a retrieval system, recorded, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

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ISBN: 978 0 73228 145 8.

ISBN: 0 7322 8145 8.

National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication data:

Taylor, Henrietta.

Escaping.

1. Taylor, Henrietta. 2. Businesswomen France

Provence Biography. 3. Australians France Provence

Biography. 4. Tourism France Provence. I. Title.

338.76092

On This Side

To Mimi and Harry Taylor,

who have done a fine job raising me as a mother.

To Raymond W. Grose,

who holds my hand no matter where I am in the world.

On the Other Side

To Norman J.Taylor,

who turned me into Veuve Taylor.

I love you all.

IT WAS MID-AUGUST 1995. The holidaymakers had long since returned to their homes. There was an autumn chill in the air. It was along this esplanade that I had learnt to ride bikes and stand upright on roller skates in my childhood, during an endless succession of hot summers; it was a place where I felt safe and secure.

I swung my car into one of the many parking spots along the promenade and zipped up my jacket against the rising wind. If I could just let all of my pain soar off into the cheerless grey sky maybe I would be able to find a way out of the mess. If I could just let it go... but that would be impossible. This ache was almost physical, drawing me to its daily beck and call. Never before in my life had I experienced pain of this magnitude and now Id feel strange if it werent present every day. It was more than just grief; the circumstances had made my emotions more complicated than that. The only thing keeping it from overcoming me was the thought of the children Mimi, four years old, and Harry, just two and a half our two little babies, very much alive. Just the thought of them made a weak smile flutter across my face.

The park benches were empty. Only a few brave souls walked up and down the promenade, hand in hand or in comfortable solitude with their faithful four-legged companions. A bit of mid-morning exercise before the rain.

Seeing their contentment brought the pain back even more strongly. For the first time in my life, I was completely without direction. My internal compass was spinning out of control. I needed to sit down and wait for the mounting nausea and the accompanying waves of despair to pass. Empty my mind. Breathe deeply and slowly.

In the distance I heard a voice speaking to me: Pet, are you all right? Here, dear, wipe your eyes.

Through my veil of tears I could just make out the image of an elderly lady sitting at the other end of the bench, her skin papery, tendrils of white hair escaping from beneath the hat she wore pulled down over her ears. In her shaking hand she held out a packet of tissues.

You know, Ill give you some good advice for free. Men. They just arent worth it. We marry them and we have their children. They betray us and humiliate us. And in compensation, some of them even love us. But they dole out their love in small measures while we wait on them hand and foot. Pet, you girls of today just dont know how lucky you are. I would do it differently if I had my chance again. Take it from me; Ive been around the track enough times. Most of them are just not worth it and those who are well, theyre a bit thin on the ground! Dont go running away from your problems. Face up to things, dear. Turn your life around. Humming a tune immediately recognisable as Pick Yourself Up, an old Fred Astaire song, she continued: I suppose you dont know that tune. It comes from Top Hat, starring Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. You dont hear tunes like that nowadays. Take it from me, pet, theres no point crying. Go home and start all over again. And she shuffled off to avoid the impending rain.

Age does not necessarily bring astuteness or wisdom. My spiritual guru was incorrect about two points:

1. Men are definitely worth it.

2. I had spent enough of my childhood in front of the television to know that tune came from Swing Time, not Top Hat.

Norman had adored us every minute of every day he drew breath; from the moment he saw our two babies, he gave them his unconditional love. The same love he had given me the day we realised that we fitted together like pieces from a puzzle. My husband had lavished love on us unreservedly. And I had done the same in return. Together forever so we thought. That dream had soured in so many ways over the last two years but it hadnt changed my belief in love.

But my Park Bench Sage was right about one thing: I did need to start all over again. I didnt want to end my days bitter and twisted about what might have been. If I could just empty my head, start eating again and stop consuming so much alcohol and medication, I might be able to find a path for us to follow.

But how? As usual, I had no idea. The sky turned inky black and the first splotches of rain hit my face. If I could only remember where Id left the children...

THINGS HAVE A HABIT of changing course when you least expect it, particularly when you are not paying attention. All my life I had wanted to walk down the aisle wearing the big white veil and the drop-dead gorgeous dress, teetering on fabulous shoes. The church would be bedecked in divine floral arrangements and Id be fully dosed with medication to eliminate any risk of a red nose, hay fever, or horror of horrors a violent asthma attack like those that had plagued me all my life. These plans had been meticulously considered since the age of five. I practised walking slowly around the house with my head in a white pillowcase or one of the slipcovers for the armchairs. The Perfect Bride ready for the Perfect Fairytale.

My parents marriage had been quite unorthodox. My mother, Sheilagh, was from a huge Catholic Sydney family and my father, Jack, from a devout Jewish household in Glasgow. Hed left the navy to come to Australia at the age of twenty and quickly got into the rag trade. Sheilagh had worked as a librarian until Jack came into her life.