In Congénies

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We lived for a while in Congénies, that sun-struck rural town just northeast of Montpellier. Newly married, with two small children, we struggled to know what adult life really meant. 

Our semi-detached house sat near the lake: modern - but suburban and ordinary. I was working long hours; you found in teaching a part-time escape from the drudgery of domesticity.

We needed the money.

We had a kitten - which you doted on - and no idea of preventive care. The fleas took hold, colonising the thick carpet pile of our living room. 

Searching for home remedies, we discovered that our youngest, still in nappies, worked as a kind of flea-magnet. We carried him across the carpet, little black specks leaping eagerly onto him. Then, in the garden, we would scrape them off one by one. 

Eventually, wearying of this pointless, ineffectual ritual, you called in the pest-controllers, who with their cryogenic cylinders put an end to the madness.

There were rare evenings when the roulette wheel of the babysitting circle spun round to us. We would drift down to the market square, past the quiet Quaker house, to the café with music where we'd drink beer in the warm evening air and converse like grown-ups. 

Later we'd stroll back, hand in hand, through the darkening streets, tired, and pleased with each other. 

At the lamppost outside our house I would press you against the iron: une dernière étreinte passionnée, before we re-entered the world of domesticity, duties and diaries.