A Chateau of One's Own Read online

  The next morning I awoke fairly early, washed my face and started down to the kitchen. Everything was in good order. I could see a few discreet crumbs sitting innocently on the stainless steel counter top. Good, our guests had eaten, I thought to myself. But what was this? Folded neatly next to the crumbs was a white piece of paper. I unfolded it slowly, my heart beating rapidly.

  Sam,

  Everything is fine. We were just wondering if you could leave the washroom empty of debris and trash for the mornings.

  Thank you.

  Martha

  Behind the main kitchen was the arrière cuisine for storing goods and washing dishes. I rushed in.

  There, like a drunken pyramid, were a few dozen bottles of beer. The room smelled like a brewery and looked like a tip. I believe I had had one beer the night before and Bud drank none as she was breastfeeding Blue. I was furious. All of the worry and planning and careful orchestration of eating schedules and my foul-up of letting the Guard’s House in the first place became apparent with this one annoying act of carelessness.

  I leaped upstairs. Bud was dressing Blue.

  ‘Bud, we have to talk to the gang. There are beer bottles everywhere in the kitchen and the guests had to wade through them to eat breakfast.’

  ‘I can’t believe that!’ Bud practically shouted. I could see a slight reddening along her neck, creeping toward her cheeks. She was angry. ‘I told them to put their stuff outside. It makes sense, though. Angus told me yesterday that they drink occasionally after work. I hope this doesn’t become habit.’

  I was furious too. Not only had we made a mistake but now the mistake turned into humiliation. It was just plain embarrassing. My blood boiled as I thought of ways to confront the offenders. Around 10.30 a.m., the lads found their way to the kitchen. I had been unaware of the hours they worked.

  ‘Hey guys, please don’t leave your beer bottles stacked here. You know we have to share the kitchen with the guests.’ I remained calm. I knew too we had many months ahead and I just couldn’t stomach a confrontation at this point in our employer–worker relationship. There were simply too many things on our plate. Avoidance seemed the best path on this day.

  ‘Oh, sorry. We were trying to be neat. We’ll get rid of them,’ came the groggy reply.

  We left it at that. I apologised later that day to our guests. No worries, they assured me. ‘It’s just that we have the girls and they were asking how people could drink so much beer.’ They were more than gracious. The work crew was very diligent about removing their bottles after that.

  That day around lunchtime, we loaded up a hire car and started toward Alsace. Monsieur Pernod lived on the border of Germany and France about six hours north-east of the chateau. It was decided that we would meet there at the notaire’s office to sign the deed. The notaire in France is a quasi-governmental figure who ostensibly serves the interest of both parties in any property transaction. He or she will register the deed, officially make note of any liens or mortgages, check the property boundaries and generally assure the legal transfer of ownership for the French government and the parties involved.

  Unlike in the States or Britain, none of the parties involved has a private solicitor. All rely equally and faithfully on the notaire. All this takes about six to ten hours of work on his part, maximum. The fee: around seven per cent, paid by the buyer, possibly a punishment for being successful enough to buy a house in the first place, added blithely to the five to seven per cent take for the estate agent. Astounding.

  It was good for us to get away from the chateau for a day or two. It was ironic – we had only just arrived and already we were seeking refuge. We drove throughout the afternoon and by early evening, we were tired. We found a simple hotel to break up our journey, setting off again early the next day. In a few hours, we arrived at the notaire’s office. There sat the notaire, a translator, Monsieur Pernod, his French-German wife and Philippe. We tumbled in, baby in tow, only slightly rumpled from our travels and recent ordeals at the chateau.

  We shook hands all round and got down to business. The signing felt anticlimactic, a mere formality. I had arranged a decent loan with an English bank at a good rate. We were set to pay the loan off for the next 25 years, based on my salary in America. The only hitch being that I planned to quit my job in the next six months and rely on our meagre savings and income from the chateau. Minor details.

  All went smoothly. The notaire read the entire deed of sale including full stops and relevant laws governing the sale, which took about two hours. We all sat patiently. Bud and I were eager to sign and the Pernods seemed just as eager to offload the white elephant as quickly as possible. Blue squirmed and squawked at her unnatural confinement. We thanked one another, each party feeling like they got the better part of the deal. Who was right?

  Monsieur Pernod offered one small piece of advice before hastening out the door, as if reading my thoughts. ‘With a house like this, it is necessary to find a way to do the work and repairs by yourself. Otherwise, you will go broke.’

  Just what I needed to hear. I am lucky if I can manage to change a light bulb on my own. I knew he was absolutely right. Yet somehow I refused to believe him. Denial is a powerful and wonderful thing.

  The day was still young so we decided to drive straight to the chateau on our way back. The weight of our acquisition sat like an obese, needy teenager in the car.

  ‘Do you think we did the right thing, Bud? Will it work out? Please tell me it will,’ I pleaded.

  ‘I think so. There is so much potential.’

  ‘But we only have so much money. And the monthly repayments alone, not including maintenance and utilities, are 2,500 euros a month. That’s a load of money.’ Bud and I were readjusting to talking in euros after the switch over. Euros were nice because they were like dollars – the rate of exchange was about the same with dollars a little stronger by the time we signed the papers.

  ‘Well, it’s too late now. Let’s just look ahead and hope for the best. And you need to learn how to hammer a nail.’ Bud smiled.

  We slept fitfully in the chateau that night, and arose early the next morning. My train to the airport left at 10 a.m. I had to leave my struggling family and our not very hardworking worker bees so that I could go back to work, make the mortgage, and finish Mean Dogs. Our guests were still firmly settled in the south wing. They would move to the Guard’s House a few days after my departure. I could only imagine what further troubles this would bring. At the train station, I said goodbye to Bud with a small tear in my eye.

  ‘What’s wrong?’

  ‘I’m just sorry to leave you here to deal with the chateau by yourself.’

  ‘It will work out. The guests seem nice and Leo, Kate and Angus are ready to help out. As long as we can keep them on the straight and narrow.’ She laughed.

  ‘Take care. Call me when you get ready to move them over to the Guard’s House.’

  I trudged three thousand miles back to our dark apartment, a commute worse than anything I could have entangled myself in stateside.

  A few days later, Bud restrained herself from relating the full details of the changeover. When presented with the Guard’s House, our long-suffering guests simply said, ‘We don’t do musty carpets.’ So that was that. They held out in the chateau, sharing the kitchen with four other people and a baby whom they didn’t know. The beer bottles had magically disappeared but the aftertaste remained.

  A month after my return, Angus called me at the apartment. Bud was on her way back to New York, as planned.

  ‘Sam, we have a problem.’ I was used to this phrase by this point in my hotel-running career.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘The new guests have arrived and they are furious. The guy wants to speak to you.’

  Fifteen minutes later, he called.

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘Yes, Mr Juneau, this is Mr Givens. We have rented the Guard’s House. We’ve come all the way from Manchester to stay at your house. I am
calling to complain. We want our money back. The house is a disaster, the water is sometimes brown and the beds are uncomfortable.’

  ‘Other than that, is everything OK?’

  I truly felt sorry for him. He had paid his money and expected a peaceful, luxurious, quiet time with his family in the French countryside. I would be angry too. Sure, I had made a mistake and rented out the Guard’s House too soon. But we could work something out amicably.

  ‘What do you mean, “OK”? It’s just not on. My kids go out into the garden and there is cat shit everywhere. How could you rent a place out in this state?’

  My feeble brain scrambled to think of something comforting, something professional to say.

  ‘Well, first of all the cat shit is going to hurt no one. I can have one of the workers pick it up but there is no need to overreact. You could eat cat shit and it wouldn’t hurt you.’ It seemed like a sensible thing to say at the time. I was just stating facts. I couldn’t really defend the house itself so I chose to defend the cats’ honour instead.

  ‘I can’t believe you are saying this. We are leaving today. We want our money back. I’ve called a lawyer friend in New York and he will expect a cheque for the full rental amount in the morning.’

  ‘OK. I’m terribly sorry,’ I said, adding, ‘Enjoy your time in France. And please clean the house before you leave.’ This may have been perceived as a bit cheeky. But I knew, despite appearances, our team had spent a lot of time cleaning the house. I simply wanted our guests to leave it as they found it. This really set him off.

  ‘The only way to clean this sodding mess is to burn it to the ground,’ he snorted.

  An old adage informs wine lovers it is better to drink a wine too young than too old. But in the same way some vintners will ‘serve no wine before it’s time’, the chateau and Guard’s House were not mature enough to receive guests. Neither was I. Maybe there is something to be said for waiting for the right moment. How long would it take, though? Five, ten years? The thought depressed my naive soul.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Moving Experiences

  People who know things say moving house is a traumatic experience. One of the most traumatic things, in fact, a person can do. Losing a close friend or family member is up there, as is losing one’s job, divorce and even marriage. Yes, marriage can be traumatic too. I saw this on a list once of life’s most difficult things. All these things deal with loss. The loss of one’s home or nest, the loss of something dear or beloved, the apparent or real death of something that was a part of our lives. Let’s face it, life is sometimes difficult.

  The months back in New York, after that first summer in France, crept by slowly as we sat in limbo, not quite gone from the big city and not yet settled in the chateau. The dramas of the great cat move adventure, the purchase of the house, and the fresh, stinging failures of the Guard’s House weighed on us. We never faltered in our resolve to make the move. It’s just that the impending loss of everything familiar bore down on us. Of course, it was our choice, but we were giving up our careers, our friends in the States, the routine of our lives. So two contradictory but strong feelings battled within – excitement for the future and a small bit of sadness as we left the past behind.

  We returned to France once more over the December holidays. The chateau was unbearably cold with no respite in sight. Even if we could afford to heat the thing, it was impossible to get it warm. The ceilings were too high, the heating system too weak, the thick stone walls that served to cool the house in summer now collaborated with the damp weather to keep the cold in. The renovation crew had made good progress stripping wallpaper. They had even repainted the Guard’s House and the great hall in the chateau, which was 40 metres long, five metres high and four metres wide. It had been pink; now it was a rich dark, royal red. It looked great but the gang was freezing and underpaid. Mutiny at the chateau looked imminent.

  Meanwhile, back at the office in New York, there was a persistent rumour that my show was about to be cancelled by the network. The ratings had been decent and the documentaries were well made and entertaining. But my network was the underperforming stepson of a bigger network that didn’t really tolerate underperformance. It seemed like heads might roll again after previous bloodlettings.

  This suited us just fine. I had something lined up, something that I desperately wanted to do. Maybe I would get a severance and we could finally make the break and run for France. As for my colleagues, fear and loathing hung in the air like a putrid smell.

  One morning I made my daily 45-minute trek out to the studios a few miles west of Manhattan. The first thing I heard as I sat down in my cubicle was, ‘Sam, today is the day. I think you’re next.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Four people have been fired. The show is cancelled.’

  Our show had once had as many as 35 producers, a whole gang of associate producers, and half a dozen seniors as well as production people, engineers, editors and a couple of reporters. Since we had bought the chateau, those numbers had been brutally whittled down to eight producers and a handful of support staff and one or two senior people. To say the network was poorly managed is like saying the Titanic had had a leaky tap.

  I used to think of these almost monthly firings like guerrilla warfare in suits. Executives and human resources people would be seen hovering around our boss’s office. Hushed conversations would spill out occasionally from closed doors. Then the boss or one of the human resources people would wander out and toss a career hand grenade into the neatly spaced cubicles. There were usually three to six casualties at once. Producers would stumble around, dazed and confused. It was all a bit cruel. It would have been better to cancel the show outright and send all these hapless souls out into the world to fend for themselves at once. As it was, we never knew who would get it next and when. Some people cried while others were just pissed off. Some of the younger kids had never been fired. If you stay in TV for longer than three years, you will have been fired or your show will have been cancelled. It’s just the nature of the business. But dragging it out like this was gratuitous.

  There was an electric buzz going around as first one, then two, then three and finally four people were fired. My beleaguered friends and co-workers reported the same thing. The show would go into reruns, production would stop. Everyone would go. I called Bud.

  ‘Bud, they’re cancelling the show.’

  ‘No way. Well, I guess it’s about time. They’ve been threatening for months. Now we can move.’

  ‘Let’s see what happens. I’ll call you when the execution is over.’

  I was thrilled and excited. Now, no more excuses. We would pack up and go. I had greatly resented being at the mercy of someone else. Who has the right to determine my fate? Whether I can support my family or not? I had looked down the TV road and seen a future filled with just these types of disappointments, this type of prolonged treachery. Feckless executives making decisions that took no account of human factors or loyalty or even quality. Decisions made for the sake of making decisions. Decisions that affected our lives and families.

  My good friend Keith – a lively, smart, kind Lithuanian Jew from Queens, New York – was called into the boss’s office. I could see him sitting there shaking back his long mane of black, unkempt hair. Keith was a producer like me. He had a book deal and could take or leave our current gig. No fear there. He knew the cardinal rule of television, and corporate life: always, always have something else lined up.

  Keith sat in the office joking and joshing with the boss. He came out ten minutes later.

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘Don’t tell anyone this, but they’re keeping two producers to do updates and shoot the occasional new story. They asked me to stay.’

  ‘That’s great. You’re staying, right?’

  ‘No way. I have that book to write. And they’ve been screwing us around for too long. I’m outta here.’

  ‘Good for you.’

  Ou
t of the corner of my eye, I could see my boss, tall with a fashionably shaved head and killer spectacles, loping down the corridor.

  ‘Sam, can you come into my office?’

  ‘Sure.’

  I walked to his office, my heart beating rapidly against my chest. Why was I nervous? I had made plans, Bud was ready to go, we had bought the chateau. My life flashed before my eyes. I sat down. My boss sat across from me and looked me straight in the eye.

  ‘Today is the day. The network is cancelling the show.’

  ‘It’s about time.’

  ‘It’s true. But there’s one catch. We want you to stay on, to do updates, hang around, produce new stories from time to time. We’re keeping two producers and we want you and Keith.’

  I had feared the firing but had actually wanted it. It would have been perfect. Don’t quit, just get thrown out, take a little pile of money and leave. No hard feelings. Better things ahead. Now this.

  ‘That’s an interesting turn of events. Why did it take them so long to make a damn decision?’ I was frustrated, flattered and confused all at once.

  ‘They didn’t know what to do. There was a lot of pressure from the top. They wanted change for change’s sake. Do you want the gig? Same money, less work.’

  ‘I have to talk to my wife. As you might know, we bought that chateau in France and we’ve been waiting for the right moment to take the plunge.’

  ‘OK, but I have to know in the next ten minutes.’

  ‘Got it.’

  I strolled back to my desk and told Keith the news. We laughed.

  ‘I’m supposed to give him an answer in ten minutes too,’ Keith snickered.

  ‘It looks like we’re both going to tell him no. What a rush! This is great.’

  I called Bud.

  ‘So, this is the last day for the show. They’re firing everyone, like I said.’

  ‘Did they let you go yet?’ Bud asked.