Research and Procrastination

Everyday brings me more and more material to write about living in Aix-en-Provence, but I am finding it much harder to continue with the story about my grandmother.  Part of the delay is the need for ongoing research.  Some of it does not really matter, since I have so many gaps to fill in anyway.  But once I get started, one thread or thought leads to another, and before I know it half a day has passed without me leaving the apartment, with only crumbs to show for it.

If I were a novelist, this wouldn’t matter, because I would accept it was an essential part of the process.  I am not a novelist.  I am a person trying to construct a story that will make sense of certain parts of my life and pysche.  I find the need for authenticity, which is in fact part of my character, to be frustrating my desire to simply spew forth words onto the page.  So today, before I wander off into another little reverie about this place, I will put a little more of the grandmother story up front.

The Channel Islands are a long way from New Zealand.  In the first quarter of the 20th century, before Europe was shattered by war, they were even further away.  About 6 weeks by steamer, largely ignoring the Suez Canal that had opened in 1869, and following the traditional sailing route round the Cape of Good Hope, taking on fuel at Tenerife, Cape Town and Hobart.  A heady and exotic journey for anyone, let alone an unaccompanied young woman raised in the equivalent of a small English or French village surrounded by water.  

My grandmother had been preceded to New Zealand by her sister Mary, called May – the same names that would be passed onto my mother.  Mary was five years my grandmother’s senior, and the sixth known child of James and Adele Girard.  She arrived in Wellington as a third class passenger aboard the Tongarairo in July 1911.  Her occupation was listed as “domestic”, and her voyage, whilst exotic, would have been challenging.  

Third class had, until just a few years previously, been described as steerage.  Around 400 souls, each required to bring their own bedding and eating utensils, in four or six berth cabins on the lower decks of the ship.  Food was basic, porridge and preserved meats, with occasional meals of fresh meat and vegetables, and strict rules applied to on board behaviour.  Even so, there was company and entertainments, and the hard edges would have been eased by the novelty of the situation.  Not to mention being free of family direction and censure, and able to do as one pleased within the confines of the ship.

However for Mary, a strong and independent minded 22 year old, the hardship would have been greater than for many others.  If my mother’s cousin Gerard had his family history correct, she was pregnant when she left Jersey.  In fact, that was the reason she came to New Zealand.  She had been shipped off to avoid the shame of an unwed pregnancy, and with the hope that she would make a life and find a husband there.  It seems that Gerard was almost certainly correct. The dates suggest that by the time she reached Wellington she was at least three months pregnant.

No doubt Mary could easily have concealed her pregnancy while on board ship under the guise of seasickness, but who could wish such a journey on anyone pregnant and alone?  And what must her arrival in Wellington in mid-winter have been like?  There was a system in place to cope with new emigrants, which were actively sought by the government of the time.  A hostel for temporary accommodation, and assistance to find work.  She would not have been left standing on the wharf, but nor would she have been readily employable as a single pregnant woman.  In her favour was a shortage of marriageable women, particularly for men farming in those parts of the country only recently broken in.

How it happened is not known, but on 24 September 1911, presumably obviously pregnant by that time, she was married to Dennis Dominic Kelliher, a farm worker born in Geraldine in the South Island.  Her future in New Zealand was secured, and in January 1912 she gave birth her first child, my mother’s older cousin, Dorothy.  Three more children would follow within the marriage, and one without (another story).  No doubt her widowed mother back in Jersey was relieved.  Daughters in those days needed to be guarded until safely disposed of in marriage.  In the case of Mary, this had not quite gone according to plan, but the eventual outcome was acceptable.

So Mary was picked up on a sellers market, and installed at first in Gisborne and subsequently at Te Karaka in rural Poverty Bay, with a baby and a husband to care for.  She may or may not have been happy, but she had a price to pay for her sins, and I think she would have accepted that.  This woman, who became my great-aunt, is someone of whom I have some memory.  She was garrulous, cheerful, and self-sufficient, running a large boarding house in Spring St, Onehunga until the Railways took it for a rail extension that never occurred.  Her marriage, not ideal but serviceable, lasted till her husband died in 1965 (the same year as my grandmother) aged 76.

Even so, it must have been hard in the beginning.  Perhaps that is why my grandmother was sent to join her – to provide some temporary assistance with the two babies.  Either that, or to prevent her suffering a similar fate.  A little of both I expect.

Whatever the case, at age 19 she left London in January 1913 on board the steamer Tainui bound for Wellington. It was probably not apparent to her or her mother that Europe was on the brink of a war that would change the face of the world forever.   My grandmother was just another 3rd class passenger labelled ‘domestic’ setting out on an adventure.  

Hopefully someone was there to meet her when she arrived.  From Wellington she would first have had to travel to Gisborne by rail or ship.  She would doubtless have been impressed by a bustling and prosperous Gisborne, which was on the point of introducing electric trams in April of that year.  Whether or not she was impressed by the place she was to stay with sister Mary is another question.  

Enough of that for now.

It is deep into autumn in France.  The temperatures in the north are truly frightening to a born and bred Aucklander, but here in the south of France it remains mild, with temperatures ranging from 0C just before dawn, up to 15C or so at midday.  I go out at lunch time  wondering why I am wearing a coat, but by the time come home the sun is low in the sky and the temperature is rapidly dropping.  When the Mistral blows the temperature remains the same, but it gets under every layer of clothing down to the skin, and you would swear it is much colder.

Today I will go out late in the afternoon.  Yesterday I saw street decorations being put up, and I want to see them lit at night.  I will wear long socks, boots, jeans, a long-sleeved silk-knit undershirt (50 Euros in stores but scored for 10 at the market), a woollen jumper, a fully lined woollen overcoat, a silk and cashmere scarf (knitted by me since I got here), and a pair of cashmere lined leather gloves (purchased many years ago in Rome).  I could wear a hat, but I am saving that till it gets really cold.  I will be warm enough, but that is all.  I could be warmer, but I refuse to wear a puffer coat or jacket (so far).

The Mistral is very efficient at stripping and re-distributing the leaves off the oak, birch, and walnut trees that line the streets.  We tend to forget that most trees are deciduous in the northern hemisphere, and the effect of the wind at this time of year is dramatic.  I posted photos of this on FaceBook the other day, but there is a clean-up going on in my back yard as well.

The leaves littering the streets in the Centre Ville had disappeared entirely by yesterday afternoon, but the last of them will come down as soon as that wind blows again.

I tried, in the photo above, to let you see that this very young man is smoking, but suspect it is not visible.  So take a look at this.

This terracotta pot sits outside the front door to my apartment block.  It is not there for decorative purposes.  It is an ashtray, and it gets emptied regularly. What you see are all fresh cigarette butts.  The French still smoke, young and old.  It is frowned on officially, but no one would be so rude as to reproach someone for smoking in public.  There is a reason those outdoor tables are occupied in the restaurants all year round.  Smoking has progressed to the outdoors, but that is all.  Sending smoke drifting across your table in a restaurant is not a social crime.  And yes, they do still smoke Gauloise too. And cigars!

I have been sitting here typing away with the tv going in the background.  Mdme Choux had very considerately set the tv up to operate on half a dozen or so English language stations, but they were so inane and carried such trivial or ancient programmes, that I could not watch them.  Finally, I figured out how to pick up the normal French tv channels, and quite frankly, they are only marginally better.  However, they do carry news that is not Fox, and they have the advantage of accustoming my ears to spoken French.  I can only understand a fraction of what I hear, but even so it is good for my accent, and I can follow the gist of dramas and the news without having to actually understand what they are saying.  It is funny how superfluous actual language is to basic communication.

So I let it run in the background much of the day, and I sit and knit in front of it late in the evening.  One thing I do love here is the infomercials.  I never watch them at home because I am such a sucker for a hard sell.  But here I can watch and lust for the items without being tempted to buy, because I have no use for them whatsoever.  Even so, I really, really want a battery powered spinning brush on a stick to clean the bathroom and other hard surfaces, an electric pot that chops up veggies and cooks them into a delicious, nutritious and low calorie soup, and all of the dozens of meal plans and weight-loss products that will give me that sleek, French silhouette in less than six weeks.

It is just as well there are actual stores here too, for me to cool my lust for shopping from time to time.  I have become adept at entering a store now.  Inevitably the shop owner or assistant will greet me, “Bonjour”.  I always reply, “Bonjour”, or occasionally, “Bon soir”, if it is early evening.  Then they offer to help me.  There are a variety of phrases for this, and I often have no clue what they are actually saying, but my standard response is, “Juste regards, s’il vous plaît”.  Just looking thanks.  This seems to work for almost every occasion.  If I want to know more about a product or try something on, it gets a bit more complicated.  But my French and Franglais is up to it.  Then, as I depart, there are more compulsory pleasantries.  I say, “Merci, au revoir”, and they say, “Au revoir Madame, bon journée”, or “bon soirée”, as the time of day requires.

This is quite a comforting routine.  It allows me to imagine I am in control of the situation.  The problem is that sometimes I am not.  I recently had an experience where I wanted to buy a jumper that was on a mannequin.  There were others piled on a display table, but not the right size and colour.  I explained what I wanted.  No, that was not possible, because then the model would be naked.  But could they not put another jumper on the mannequin?  No, because the mannequin needed the size I wanted, and the ones available would be too big or too small.  Could the mannequin perhaps have a different colour or style?  “Non, ce n’est pas possible”.  I gave up, but not in good grace.  I may have to avoid that particular store now.

The other slight problem I have is that in the smaller stores I have become visible.  Here she is again, that rather large, white haired woman, with the appalling French, is what I imagine they think.  They recognise me.  They remember what I was looking at last time.  They engage me in conversation.  This is manageable when I am buying lamb chops, a baguette or raspberries.  I can do talk about food in French.  But it is more difficult when it comes to clothes, shoes and other consumer goods that range over a wider vocabulary and range of choices.  I am no longer in control.  I will have to up my game.

Ok, enough for now.

BTW, my tap is still leaking.