Lifetimes ago, while living in Charleston when my girls were young and we were all re-grouping around a fresh divorce, my close friend, Claire, discovered that she was terminally ill and she asked me to come be with her. Claire lived in England, in a village s-o-m-e-w-h-e-r-e.
With our new state of affairs in the family, dollars were practically non existent, but I felt I must go. I thought this might be a perfect opportunity for the girls and their father to heal some of the throbbing hurt together. Somewhere in my past I had heard about flying free as a courier, hence I investigated courier services with gusto.
By two days later I was on a bus to Long Island, New York, headed for a strange location connected to LaGuardia Airport. After a long day of travel, my carry on duffle bag and I walked into a holding area where half a dozen young artist/dancer types were sprawled out on chairs and benches. There was a map of the world covering an entire wall, with tiny colored flags pinned here and there all over.
Time passed and names were called, two for Paris, one for Madrid, one for Bangkok, and then mine for London. I was driven out to the plane’s stair ramp while being given my instructions. I was told that I would be checking twenty-six suitcases through customs, that there would be no problem, but that I needed to count them and make sure that all twenty-six made it through. Then I was handed three large envelopes and told to not let these out of my hands for any reason, not for a moment, and that this is why I was traveling in first class. These envelopes were accompanied by most interesting instructions.
When I arrived at Heathrow, after the suitcases were neatly through customs, I headed down a specified corridor, envelopes held firmly to my chest. When a man wearing a gray hat and striped tie appeared, I gave him the envelope marked ‘ONE’. Then I turned left, walking until I spied a man holding a red book and wearing glasses, and I handed him the envelope marked ‘TWO’. Then I veered off towards a bench where a woman sat holding a carpet bag in her lap, eating an ice cream and reading a newspaper. I sat next to her, smiled and envelope number ‘THREE’ was hers. Then she stood up, walked away and I sat there. Had any of this really happened? Was I in England? I needed to catch a train, but what is a queue? I felt discombobulated and not of this planet.
It was February and the English countryside looked cold. As my train pulled into the station and I clambered off, I felt that I was in Charles Dickensland. Narrow cobbled streets, stone walls, charming old fashioned shops and people bustling about. I asked directions to Stibbington Hall and eyebrows raised with a mixture of respect and curiosity, and I was ushered into a shop to call a cab.
‘Camelot’ was all that went through my mind when I stood before my destination. I had no idea that Claire lived in a castle. I stood in awe and chuckled at this adventure, and then walked up to the elegant carved door and raised the knocker.
A tiny birdlike woman, answered the door, reached for my bag, helped me off with my coat and “Miss Claire is not feeling well, but will see you in the morning.”
“Oh, alright…”
“I will take you to your room”.
“Thank you”
“You must be hungry, would you like some tea and marmite?”
“Excuse me?”
“Tea and Marmite?”
“I would love a cup of tea, yes…and excuse me, what is your name?”
“Nadine, M’am”.
“Pleased to meet you, Nadine”.
“Yes M’am”.
My room was more than a room, it was a chamber. It was grand and round and open and elegantly sophisticatedly appointed, and it was freezing. My tea arrived accompanied by toast and sardines.
Tea, toast and sardines on a hand painted tray, sitting on a gold rimmed glass top table from another century, in a freezing castle turret somewhere in England in the middle of winter.
Was I hungry? Was I tired? Was there a bathtub? Can I call my girls?
Yes to all. And I fell asleep.
The next morning I found Nadine in the kitchen stirring a pot of porridge and setting a breakfast tray.
“Good Morning! It smells wonderful in here.”
“Yes M’am, would you like some tea and breakfast?”
“I would love some, but first I must see Claire. Where is her room?”
“She doesn’t want to be disturbed as yet, M’am. She’s not feeling well.”
“I understand, but I would like to see her. I will take her tray up too her.”
“No M’am. I have the strictest instructions.”
By two days later I had still not seen Claire, but she relayed messages to me through Nadine. She was saying that she felt that she could not have company after all, and I should leave. I had come with hardly any cash, as I had thought that I would be staying with her, caring for her, and have zero expenses of my own. My non contract contract with the courier people, which I must abide by if I wanted a return trip, was for three weeks from the day I landed. I wrote a note to be delivered upstairs, sharing this. She wrote back saying that she might feel better in her other home, which was a cottage in the south of France, that she would pay for my ticket and we would fly there together. Miracle of miracles!
We flew together practically in silence. This was a different version of the delightfully bright and funny friend that I had known. When we arrived at her French cottage there was a heaviness in the air that intensified with every breath. Claire turned to me and said that this wasn’t going to work and she offered to drive me into Montpelier.
I was deposited outside of a hostel on a cobbled street, with money for a plane ticket back to England. As she drove off I stood in numb non function. This was not a disaster but it felt complicated. Maybe it wasn’t. Logistically, as long as I got back to England in time to catch my flight home, I would be fine. Financially, if I lived on practically nothing, I could make it two and a half weeks.
As a teenager, my mother’s passion was for her offspring to speak French, and so we were not allowed to speak English at the dinner table on Thursday nights. We offspring resisted big time, but somehow, at this particular moment, my cellular memory came through in unbelievable ways and I managed to orchestrate a seventeen day stay in the hostel through a scowling concierge. This was not a friendly place.
The town of Montpelier became my friend. I wandered its streets. I found a bakery where I could buy a loaf of le pain complet (whole wheat bread) and make it last two days. I found The Musee Fabre which one could enter for free on certain days and housed the most exquisite display of paintings. I met people to smile at and be smiled back at. And I noticed posters announcing that The Harlem Opera Company would performing ‘Porgy and Bess’ at the opera house on my second to last night.
I bought a ticket for a seat in the cheapest tier, knowing that in most theater communities, season ticket holders do not show up for every performance, hence empty seats. I assumed my paid for seat and visually scoured the arena spread out below me and right before the curtain went up, I ran down and grabbed one of the vacant seats a few rows from the stage.
‘Porgy and Bess’! I was so enthralled that after the last curtain call, I ran out of the theater and wound my way through to back stage. The entire cast was throwing off costumes. rubbing off make-up and grabbing clothes and each other for a night on the town. I stood there and said “Can I go with you? I’m an American and all alone!” The most glorious hugs and welcoming ’You got it, Baby’ and ‘Whaaaat? You all alone? No way!’ and ’Sure thing, come with!’ and off I went.
Somehow in the beauty and exhilaration of all of this, I forgot that there were hostel rules. One had to be in by 11:00 sharp or else….I had never been out at night and hadn’t registered on this.
At 2:00am on this particular freezing night in February, I found myself standing outside a hostel on a cobbled street in the south of France, locked out and all alone.
Among other racing thoughts:
Not one person in my personal world has a clue as to where I am. Maybe I’ll freeze to death and just disappear and that will be that.
And then my endless, hysterical ringing of the front doorbell finally roused the concierge, who angrily stuck her head out a second story window, yelling at me in French, to which I screamed back at her (and my mother would be so proud that I found the words!) “J’ai perdu ma clef!”…which only elicited a stream of France expletives, that I could tell were talking about what time it was, and I burst into tears.
But somehow this experience was the end of my due diligence with these people. Maybe it was because I delivered my French words perfectly, or maybe because I was clearly brought to my knees in sobs, but I was not only let in, but the next morning I was invited to a sumptuous breakfast and exuberantly chatted to. And this was my second to last day! How sad! Who knows what adventures might have laid ahead now that I had finally made it ‘in’, but I would never know.
I flew back to London and rented a room for one night in a seedy hotel, and then realized that I still had a few dollars left. I refused to go home with any extra money, as that just did not seem right after all of this, and so I bought a ticket to see Judy Dench in a matinee of ‘Mother Courage’ and I bought a Liberty of London tapestry bag for myself as my one physical token that this trip had actually happened.
I flew home. No drama in the courier department. I caught a bus to Charleston, and it was if I had never left. But I had, and now I was h-o-m-e.
PS. As Claire rejected my presence, what I learned later while working with women with cancer, was that often people who are at a final stage of life, because they feel that so much is no longer in their control, they choose such things…such as keeping loved ones away….so that it is THEIR choice as to when the farewell comes.