A Holiday with my Mother
This story is about Callum, a recently divorced man in his late twenties who goes on holiday to the south of France with his fifty-something mother. Soon after they arrive there is a heatwave, which effectively confines the pair to their remote villa with its own swimming pool. Here, on the secluded patio, late into the sultry, moonlit nights, Callum discovers a different, wilder side to his mother.
I hope you enjoy the story. Comments welcome as always.
Sylviafan
I suppose by most standards my divorce was pretty amicable. We'd grown apart over the years, developed different interests and discovered that actually, we weren't that fond of each other. So we had a trial separation and then we did the legal stuff and sold the house and I bought a flat in the centre of town and that was that.
But however much it was the right thing for us to do, I was depressed by the divorce and I went into my shell a bit and stopped going out and seeing friends, even though I was really quite lonely. My friends tried to persuade me to come out, insisting that a night on the town and getting out of my face was just what was needed. They were probably right, but somehow I couldn't face it; couldn't face having to appear cheerful; couldn't face the prospect of my friends trying to set me up with a girl in every bar we visited. Next week, I kept telling them. Or next month.
I also stopped phoning my mother on a Wednesday. This was one of our rituals, and an important one for me because my mum and my now ex-wife hadn't always seen eye to eye, so my visits to my mother had been a bit sporadic and tended to put a strain on an already disintegrating relationship. I imagine she was expecting me to visit her more often after the divorce, but somehow I couldn't even face that. Which was crazy, because my mum is the world's least judgmental person and I could have talked to her about how I was feeling.
In the end, after I hadn't returned about six phone calls, she came round to my flat one Saturday afternoon. I was in of course; I was always in, when I wasn't at work.
I answered the doorbell slowly and reluctantly. There's no spyhole in the door and no way of seeing who's standing the other side, but I had a shrewd idea who it was and I was feeling guilty for not returning her calls.
'Hello, stranger,' she smiled at me as I opened the door. I smiled back, mildly embarrassed and stood aside to let her in. She pecked my cheek in passing and made her way to the little kitchen where she found a vase for the flowers she'd brought and put the bottle of chenin blanc in the fridge.
'Tell me what you've been doing, Callum, I haven't heard from you for about three weeks. Have you been ok?'
She's great, my mum, although I can understand that she's not everybody's cup of tea. She's a scientist, working in a university laboratory in the field of animal behaviour, and she's got a scientist's mindset and behaviours. She's quiet and reserved and she doesn't laugh very often. She doesn't talk unless she's got something to say and she thinks carefully before she opens her mouth. And when she does talk, it's with a quiet authority and clear logic that used to piss my ex-wife right off. Cathy was the very antithesis of a scientist, but she did have quite a decent pair of tits, which probably tells you a lot about why our relationship failed.
My mother is Dr Simpson by the way. Her first name is Sylvie, which is a French name, because she's French-Algerian; she grew up in Perpignan, near the Spanish border. If you listen carefully you can tell that English isn't her first language. Not that she's not grammatically and idiomatically perfect, but some of her vowel sounds have a hint of Gallic in them and she still has that light touch with some syllables that is so typical of that language. She looks French too, if you know what I mean. Jet black hair, with a few silver strands, now, and a Mediterranean, light olive complexion. She's got a rather long and narrow face with deep-set, serious hazel eyes, high cheekbones and a firm chin and mouth. She's about five feet seven inches tall and very slender. At that time I couldn't have really described her figure more accurately than that because as far back as I could remember, she'd always worn very functional and unflattering clothes. She didn't really care about her appearance; I suppose that was the scientist in her again - judge me by my brain and not by my appearance. So it was big jumpers and leggings most of the time. And little or no make-up, which was ok, with her complexion; she doesn't have very many wrinkles to cover up. Also she doesn't wear any jewellery except a thin, gold wedding band on the third finger of her left hand. She also wears spectacles with black frames which make her look even more academic than she is, if that's possible.
To complete the family history, my mum came to the UK as a student and studied at the University of Cambridge where she met my dad. They got married after she completed her doctorate and I came along a few years down the line. Twenty-seven years later they're still married, in name at least. But dad spends most of his time in California and mum doesn't seem to mind being on her own; she's very self-contained.
We moved into my lounge-diner which is the biggest room in the flat by a long way and I sat in my chair by the window and mum sat on the two-seater settee and I told her about what I'd been doing since we last spoke, which didn't take long.
Afterwards she sat looking at me for a few moments, not saying anything, just thinking.
'I think you need a break, Callum,' she said, eventually. 'To get away from this flat, this town, for a while. Have you got any holiday left this year?'
'I haven't used any yet, so I've still got four weeks. But—'
'Perfect! Well how about this: you and I go and stay in my sister's holiday home for a couple of weeks. I'll visit friends and family and you can come if you want to or you can just chill out by the pool. I can be around as much or as little as you want. We can do some walking and take Benoit's boat out on the lake, I'm sure he wouldn't mind. No! Let's go for three weeks! We can get the car ferry to Dieppe and drive down. That would be lovely and there's nothing much going on at the University over the summer break. And you'll still have a week's holiday left for Christmas,' she added.
I had rarely seen my mother so animated.
'How do you know Aunt Amelie won't be there?' I asked, taken aback by the suddenness of the proposal.
'Well, let's find out.' Mum slipped her mobile phone out of her bag and speed-dialled her sister's number. Aunt Amelie answered after six or seven rings and mum began a conversation in French.
My mother spoke to me in French from when I was a toddler and I'm fluent in that language. She started out with a bit of family chit chat and then asked her sister if we could come and stay in her holiday home sometime in August. I couldn't hear what the reply was, but mum gave me a thumbs up and a few minutes later she said her goodbyes and broke the connection.
'Sorted.' We can have the place any time in August; they're going on a cruise to southeast Asia.'
My mother's sister had taken the precaution of marrying someone high-up in the French automotive industry. Hence they could afford a holiday villa on the hills overlooking Lac du Caramany in the foothills of the Pyrenees, not that far from where she'd grown up in Perpignan. Benoit, her husband, was a keen fisherman and so he also had a boat on the lake.
I'd been to the place once or twice as a kid. It was quite remote, accessed by little better than a cart track, but it had everything you needed, including a fifteen-metre-long swimming pool. It also had a great big lounge-diner with picture windows overlooking the lake, two bedrooms, each with a bathroom, a well fitted kitchen and a double garage. In short, it was a perfect place to recover from a divorce and even in my vaguely depressed state I could see the attractions.
'Ok,' I said. 'Yes, great. Thanks, Mum.'
We fixed a date and mum went online and booked the ferry from Newhaven to Dieppe. Then she fetched the bottle of chenin blanc.
'This deserves a celebration. Oh I'm so glad you like the idea, Callum. We'll have a lovely time. It's been years since we went on holiday together.'
We left England two weeks later, at the beginning of August. The weather was clear and warm, the sea calm and we disembarked at Dieppe without incident and began the six-hundred-mile journey to Caramany, taking it in turns to drive on the uncluttered and beautifully surfaced French motorways. In the early evening we stopped at a service area and booked two rooms for the night in the anodyne motel.
We ate in the motel restaurant, which was actually quite good. We also drank a bottle of wine and a glass of Armagnac. I felt relaxed and happy for the first time in months. Mum had been on good form in the car, telling me anecdotes of work and of her childhood in the south of France and I'd responded with a few tales of my own and, at one point, she'd even laughed out loud, something she very rarely allowed herself to do.
We started early the next morning and after another five hours on the road, including a stop at a supermarket to stock up on supplies, we reached our destination in the late afternoon. The Satnav didn't recognise the track down to the villa, but fortunately mum did and we parked up in front of the garage, found the door key and the alarm code hidden under a horse trough, and went in.
After we'd unpacked we strolled out onto the patio that extended out at the front and sides of the house and admired the view. It was beautiful! The villa was nestled into the hillside and in front of the house the ground dropped away sharply giving an uninterrupted view of the sparkling blue lake. On the opposite shore, dry hills rose, dotted with villas such as ours, and in the far distance, above the haze, the white peaks of the Pyrenees were just visible to a keen eye.
Closer at hand, a huge chestnut tree dominated the side of the property. Underneath it's spreading branches there was a vine-covered pergola with a scattering of patio furniture: sun loungers, little tables, settees and chairs with outdoor cushions. There was also a barbecue area with a gas-fired grill.
