The Abbaye at Chãteliers 

I

The path on the coast which leads to the Abbaye is prohibited to cyclists. Interdit aux velos is the public announcement on one of those annoying stark signs. One wonders, is it because of the danger of collision or experience of previous litigious conflict? On the narrow ascending gravel tracks which overlook the bay of yachts, the hot gravel makes a kind of light dusty smoke when the wheels of my racing green bike trailer pull along. And little Max can stay put in there with his teddies and heart shaped biscuits even if I have to get down and walk. The sharp stones make me daydream of puncture-proof tyres.

Out on the water and on the rocks here and there is a mussel- or periwinkle-catcher, mostly inhuman ones but some human too. With their buckets and wellington boots mostly middle-aged portly and tanned, hats on for the deep afternoon sun. Deep masculine Ile de Ré voices and accents, some with upper arm marine tattoos. Try to keep relatively open minds and dexterous hands to address the obstinately closed world of their prey. The track is steep, and one wonders at other nonobvious reasons for the prohibition of bikes, spiritual ones maybe. Whatever that might mean these days now that God is dead, so they say. Although, let’s be honest, who knows when it comes to measuring the supernatural realities? This is not an exact science but requires a significant degree of art. My daughter finds and photographs two ladybirds mating and titles it the most beautiful event in nature. Knowing full well she is foregrounding a sexual encounter, smiling to herself inwardly.

As a family, we stop to collect poppies in the first field, although in the later fields they are often solo flowers. Their compatriots have been exterminated by man-made poison, so we leave those lone soldiers to survive for as long as they can hold out. At the Abbaye, the temperature goes past twenty degrees and it is still only mid-May. The ruin is of the twelfth-century Cistercians who still followed the Rule of Benedict; geckos green and grey with longish lithe bodies which rule its stony back walls are prehistory. My son finds a baby starling fallen from its high nest and cowering in a corner. He gently rubs its furry black-grey shiny plumage and it regains some courage to seek flight again. But the odds are now stacked against it, Dad, my son reports honestly and with a tone of real sadness. He can get quite sentimental like that, and sentiment isn’t to be discouraged in boys, especially right now.

II

Later that evening, we had cycled back through the lush purple lavender fields and the smaller sub-fields of sharp red and black poppies. The rows of flowers looked like waving Communist and Anarchist flags. Along the coastal cycle path, there were intermittent stop-off joints. Joints perhaps doesn’t do these social spaces justice, although they were too informal to be called restaurants or even bars. More makeshift operations in corrugated iron, selling the freshest and most luscious shellfish and either a chilled glass of white vino or of rosé. Honestly, I had never experienced such peaceful and yet exhilarating bliss. Ponge says somewhere that writing the truth down from life is a need, a commitment, even a rage. But also that it’s a matter of self-respect and that’s all there is to it. Et voilà.  

No one can remember when there was last even the smallest amount of rain here. Little baby Max is still staying put back there in the bike carriage with his teddies and his Where The Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak, which only half scares him, half makes him want to be a King. This is a text that is most underestimated for its political message.

As we pass some of the returning sailors and fishermen into the port village, I notice that their upper arm tattoos also include the names of first French girlfriends. Melodie, Anne-Laure and Fannie. I think of these passionate trysts of virile youth and some of that erotic or lecherous excitement which is still etched in some of these men’s faces and crow feet wrinkles. Some of the names are now scratched out. I wonder what keepsakes these women still have, oblivious to their unsuspecting husbands of now. You might have to whisper your answers, Melodie, Anne-Laure and Fannie, but be sure I can keep a secret. After all, I’m a feminist. And Max my youngest son still in the buggy reading intently is too. If Max was King I can tell you all for nothing those Wild Things well they’d have to get in line once and for all. And he would never abide the continuing hegemony of Patriarchy, as above all he adores his one and only.