NIGHT LIFE IN RURAL FRANCE

Saturday Night Live at the Village Cafe

French village life is boring, a California friend had warned. After 13 years, I know better

The New Highwaymen play 70’s songs in the village café (author’s photos)

Long before I moved to the village, there was a cafe. Thirty years or more, one long-time resident guessed. No one I’ve asked remembers exactly when Serge took it over; two decades or so at least. He was already a fixture by the time I arrived.

In France, especially in rural areas away from tourist destinations, cafés are mostly gathering places, somewhere to meet up and drink coffee or alcohol, rather than a place to eat. Kind of like a bar, or corner pub.

Some cafés serve snacks, Serge didn’t. His café was the sort of dingy, faintly grubby place that once would have been hazy with cigarette smoke; other than that, it probably hadn’t changed much over the years.

I’d walk by on my way somewhere and peer through the window. Guys, mostly, gathered around the bar drinking beer or whiskey. The TV on the far wall always on, usually a soccer match or a French game show. Serge, elbow propped on the bar, sat behind it; middle-aged, corpulent, and in poor health. When he died a few years back, people were sad, but not surprised.

The cafe was shuttered, and no one knew when, or if, it would ever open again. Rumours of new owners occasionally surfaced, but a year passed, then another and the cafe remained closed.

Natalie now presides over the bar in the newly reopened village cafe

Closed until Natalie quit her job at the mairie (town hall), raised some donations to smarten the place up, and brought in local bands. Finally. villagers had somewhere to go without getting into a car and heading elsewhere. My California friend was half right, French villages can be a bit dull at times, but a lively café can change all that.

Last Saturday night, I walked up to the café to mix and mingle. Music drifted out into the street, and by eight the place was already filling up.

Over by the window, The New Highwaymen were halfway through a lively rendition of The City of New Orleans; by the time I’d bought a beer, it was House of the Rising Sun, then on to Proud Mary. Songs that brought back memories of California and driving down Pacific Coast Highway in my bright yellow VW convertible: top down, hair streaming in the wind, radio blasting.

The crowd —ex-pat Brits and French, mostly retired or nearly so — clapped and sang along, maybe lost in their own memories. My kind of music, I thought; judging by the enthusiastic response, their kind of music too.

I hadn’t been sure what to expect. After leaving the mairie, Natalie added piercings in her nose and lips, a green streak in her hair, and, on Facebook, became Lilith Goth. I knew if a punk band or heavy metal was playing whatever punk bands and heavy metal play, and the place was filled with my granddaughter’s contemporaries, I’d have had to promptly depart. Probably not alone.

But, Hey Jude and Sweet Caroline — this was good stuff. I drank my beer and sang along. When The New Highwaymen took a break, I joined them for a little chat.

The New Highway Men at the village café

Although the guitar player was singing City of New Orleans when I arrived, I addressed him in French anyway. I’ve discovered that the words to a song may be the only English some French musicians speak.

“Vous êtes français?” I asked. He laughed, “No luv, I’m Scottish.” We both laughed. The others were French, he said, all of them over 70 and one in his eighties. We agreed it was great, no sitting at home watching telly for this lot. Then he modelled his t-shirt for me.

When the band started up again, I had another beer and joined some ex-pat friends squeezed together on the tiny balcony overlooking the street, all grousing about how confusing the French language was. Something about the flower stem being a feminine noun and petal being masculine, or maybe it was the other way around. In any case, they agreed, none of it makes sense.

French is for the birds, they all agreed

I waited until other inconsistencies had been discussed before I brought out what surely has to be the most inexplicable of the lot.

“Vagina is masculine,” I said.

They all stared at me. “Fuck off,” one of them said. “You’re joking.”

I shook my head, assured her I was serious, finished my beer and walked into the cool dark night, feeling good about the evening and happy that the village finally has a café again.

I had a less age-appropriate, but equally enjoyable evening in a different village soon after I arrived in France. One Friday night, Pauline, an English-speaking neighbour, invited me to join her and some friends for a night out — at the café, naturellement. There might be music, she said, maybe food too if Marianne, the proprietress, felt like cooking. No menu, just whatever she served up.

By the time we arrived, a dozen or so local lads, perched on stools around the wooden bar, were feeling no pain. Most of them worked for the local wine cooperative. All, no doubt younger than my, then, fifty year-old son. Looking around, I realised I probably had a decade or two on everybody in the whole café, Pauline included.

Gloomily conscious of my age, I considered making an excuse to leave. Instead, I found les toilettes, peered at myself in the yellowing mirror, fluffed up my hair, and decided to hell with age. If I hadn’t let it stop me from moving to France at 68, I damn well wasn’t going to make it an excuse to limit the experience of living here.

So back to the bar and an empty stool next to Pauline; on my other side, a guy who introduced himself as Rico. His English was on a level with my French, but he said he wanted to learn more. He loved California, he told me, although he’d never been there. He’d never been to Paris either, but maybe one day.

A few glasses of wine later, the TV above the bar began showing videos of Elton John performing his greatest hits, and Rico went off to play pool. I talked to Pauline and her friends, who mostly wanted to know what it was like to live in California and why I would leave to come here — here being a small winemaking village in the middle of nowhere. Maybe the grass is always greener elsewhere.

People drifted in and out. The guy behind the bar set out a wicker basket of goldfish crackers; it didn’t seem very French, but they were gone in an instant. Marianne apparently was not in the mood to cook.

A guy further down the bar leaned over two other guys to tell me, “Elton John is the best.”

Feeling the wine, I couldn’t make my brain come up with a response in French, so I just smiled and nodded. Then he said it again and went off to join Rico at the pool table. He returned and said, “Elton John is the best.” Then, a little louder. “The best. Elton John is the best.”

Since a change of topic seemed unlikely, I thought about calling it a night. I would walk home, I decided; one advantage of a small village. And, although I hadn’t confirmed it with Pauline, walking alone, even at midnight, seemed perfectly safe.

I bid my farewells in English and French and heard again that Elton John was the best. The best. Rico, wearing the straw basket that once contained the goldfish crackers, was dancing on a table.

And my California friend said village life would bore me. Different strokes for different folks and so on and so on. . .