Brigid Keenan, British author of the best-selling Diplomatic Baggage: The Adventures of a Trailing Spouse, accompanied her diplomat husband around the world for nearly 40 years — which, she says, turned out to be good practice for being locked down while far from home.
On February 26 — about a hundred years ago, or was it in another life? — my husband “AW” and I put our car on a cross-channel ferry and drove through France to a place called Elche, in Spain. We chose this destination, an extraordinary oasis probably planted by the Carthaginians, because AW is writing a book about date palms. Afterwards, we headed back north into France, to our little house in a village not far from Montpellier.
We had planned to stay about a week: sort out the small garden, clean the rooms, get it ready for summer and then leave. AW was booked on a Buddhist retreat in Scotland; I had to concentrate on the monthly column I write for The Oldie magazine. (I was looking forward to interviewing actress Sarah Miles, the long-ago star of “Ryan’s Daughter” and a rumored sequel in which she will play a grandmother.) But Fate had other ideas: within a few days of our arrival, the whole world turned upside down, with all travel, commitments, appointments and engagements abandoned.
Almost two months later, we are still here — locked down, with one change of clothes each — in our French valley.
Back to the Beginning
I shouldn’t be surprised by Fate anymore. In all my years as a trailing spouse, most of our international postings involved short notice and other inauspicious beginnings. Belgium, Trinidad, India, Gambia, Syria, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan? Every relocation scored zero marks for me on the Gupte Scale. (The one exception was Barbados, which came after Trinidad and seemed like paradise.) And yet, I was equally heartbroken when it was time to leave each one.
To explain why we happen to have a house in France, a country that is not among the long list of AW’s foreign postings, I have to rewind a half century, when I was a young fashion editor at The Sunday Times. Out of the blue, I was asked to do a TV advertisement for Radiant washing powder — as far as I know, the first and only live commercial of its kind ever done — for a £1,000 paycheck.
This was a huge fortune in those days, though “not much for your soul,” as my disapproving best friend said. She was probably right, but I have never felt too much remorse because I took the money to France and spent it on a little house. (It was probably only worth about £80 but, unused to having any money, I made the mistake of boasting to the agent that I had a thousand quid to spend.)
My family — first AW, then two daughters, and now our four grandchildren — have come here every summer ever since.
A Sense of Vulnerability
When President Macron suddenly imposed the lockdown on France, it seemed a sensible idea for AW and I to just stay here and let our daughters and their families take refuge in our house in Somerset. Over WhatsApp, they agreed – in fact, they were already there! Alarmed at the British government’s lack of action as the pandemic became more obvious, they had taken our grandchildren out of their London schools and headed west.
Given that AW and I fall into the “most vulnerable” category due to our ages, if we had seized that small window of opportunity to return to England, our children’s families would have had to move back to London. So, it felt like the right decision for us to stay put — but a stressful one, nevertheless. I could tell from her voice that my younger daughter clearly believed she would never see us again, that we would get the virus and die in France. I have to say the same thought crossed my mind… and still crosses it. It might not even be the virus that gets us. And what if one of us gets ill, dies even? I can’t even drive AW’s car; what would I do?
For my sanity, I have decided to banish all conscious thoughts of this nature, although that doesn’t stop the bad dreams.
Counting Our Blessings And Pills
Early on, AW and I began to fret about running out of pills — both of us have to take vast number every week — but this turned out to be no problem. The local doctor gave us an immediate appointment, examined our almost-empty boxes, and prescribed a new supply. These had to be paid for at the chemists, and he charged €25 for the appointment, which will all be reimbursed — until the United Kingdom leaves the European Union at the end of the year.
In Somerset, it would have taken several weeks for us to even get an appointment with the doctor, beginning with a telephone call to discuss our specific medical symptoms. Our French doctor was happy to talk about all our worries, quarantine-related or otherwise — and his desire to see a better world emerge from this pandemic.
This is not to say that the French lockdown isn’t strict. Each time I go out of my house, even to empty the dustbin, I must carry a signed piece of paper stating who I am and why I am outside. The only permitted outings are food shopping, exercise (for no more than an hour within one kilometer of your home), and visits to the doctor. Our village is set among lovely vineyards and so far at least, the Gendarmes who visit every few days have not caught us sneaking off to walk the secret paths among the vines.
Living here for all these weeks, I have come to the conclusion that the French don’t know how lucky they are. Vans come to our village every week with veg, meat, groceries and every two days with bread. The Mayor obviously likes his food and orders oysters and mussels from the coast; villagers can add their own requests to his. A goat farm up the valley supplies delicious cheese; our neighbor sells eggs from her chickens. How spoiled can we get?
This Is Not Normal
But we do have to contend with homesickness. I keep reminding myself that we could not have lived with our children in England anyway, due to our health concerns. A sort of claustrophobia is another issue; I don’t want to go home, but the idea that I probably couldn’t even if I wanted to is frightening. My brother-in-law in England rang recently to say he was depressed, saying he feels like Schrödinger’s cat, neither alive nor dead. That made me feel better!
Our grandchildren are now back in school, online… how extraordinary is that? We are all treating this as the new normal, but every now and again I am suddenly overwhelmed by how ABSOLUTELY BLOODY ABNORMAL IT IS! IT IS A SCI-FI NIGHTMARE AND NO ONE IN CHARGE REALLY KNOWS WHAT TO DO! My brain goes fizzy with fear.
In Good Company
At this point, I thank God for my lifetime as a trailing spouse, following AW to embassies around the world. Famine and revolution in Ethiopia, landslides and collapsed bridges in Nepal, curfews, major power cuts, water shortages, an attempted coup in Gambia, earthquakes, some nasty accidents? These are just a few of the trials we have been thorough together.
Perhaps the most useful prior experiences for our current circumstances are all those “normal” times we had felt isolated in far-flung places, with only an unreliable landline or snail mail to keep in touch with the people we loved.
We bicker and quarrel: he likes pasta, I like potatoes; he likes tea, I like coffee; he’s a vegetarian, I like meat; I think he’s a control freak, he says I talk too much. Over the years together, however, we have learned to find each other good company. The best company. Perhaps we will even look back on this lockdown as one of the happiest times of our lives.
