Ahead of the Tide: To Calais, in Ordinary Time

To Calais in Ordinary Time by James Meek

Cannongate

Pp. 389

Mixing elements of The Canterbury Tales and Shakespearean comedy, this story takes place in South-West England in 1348 as a group of bowmen (led by a man called Hayne) travel through the country from Outen Green in Gloucestershire to Calais to fight the French, as the plague is advancing steadily towards them. As the novel was published in 2019 all the reviewers drew contemporary parallels with Brexit and the existentialist threat of the climate crisis, but anyone now would automatically think of the Covid pandemic.

The novel is narrated from three different people’s perspectives, all with a clearly different voice. Will Quate is a serf who is bound to work the land of a nobleman, and he is betrothed to local beauty, Ness, but he sees a better future in proving himself an archer and buying his freedom through his service. The Lady Bernadine is the daughter of the aforementioned nobleman and betrothed to his friend in a deal done between them which favours the old men and not their promised daughters. Seduced by romantic notions inspired by a French novel, Le Roman de La Rose, she believes herself in love with a young knight, Laurence Haket who happens to be the owner of the troop of archers. Lastly, Thomas Pitkerro is a proctor or clerical administrator from Avignon on secondment to Malmesbury Abbey, who just wants to go home. He provides a record of the journey and acts as a substitute priest to the travellers.

The bowmen are earthy and brutal: with the exception of Quate, who has joined them later, they are rough men who kill, kidnap and rape. There are stories of fights and people being put in the stocks; there are set pieces of violent battles and startling frank sex scenes. Lady Bernadine thinks she is in love with Laurence Haket, but he has failed in her ideas of courtly love and has got a country woman, Ness, pregnant. While she steals away from her father, she disguises herself as Madlen, who is pretending to be Lady Bernadine, but Madlen is actually Hab – a rough young serf, pretending to be his sister, Madlen, wearing a dress he stole from Bernadine. Will Quate has agreed to marry Ness, but he falls for Madlen, while knowing she is an incarnation of Hab. It’s a mixed up muddled up shook up world indeed; one could almost call that a Shakespearean plot.

Some of the etymology is intriguing in itself: a river full of fish is ‘fishous’; once a woman is pregnant, she becomes the responsibility of the man who impregnated her – she must marry him and become his burden/ burd/ bird. The language is part French and part old English: the common-folk do not understand the words of the nobles and vice versa. The adventures and exploits will end at the sea, but for some, it ended when they left their village. “Only in Merioneth are there true things. Only there is the world true and forever. Here, or in France, everything is a tale. All shifts. Everything haps once, no more, and then it’s gone, out-take that some bard like me minds it.” If stories aren’t remembered, they might as well never have occurred. James Meek suggests that we need a common language to understand them.

Haute Cuisine (Les Saveurs du Palais) - Supremely Satisfying

Director Christian Vincent offers a delightful film which is as light and fluffy; insubstantial and impressive, as a perfectly executed soufflé. Hortense Labourie (Catherine Frot) is content to be a chef in Périgord with a farm, a menagerie and an elderly uncle to look after, until she is summoned to Paris as the private chef to the President of France (Jean D’Ormesson). The ministers are so arrogant it would serve them right if she simply refused, but then we would have no film, so she accepts and enters this beautiful, formal world, and the gourmet extravaganza begins.

She is given a tour of the Palais de l'Élysée, including the spotless kitchens with all the latest equipment. She moves among gleaming copper pans, printed menus and steamed tablecloths, and is given masses of directions and tips on protocol, but no mention of food. The men in the staff kitchen are no help to her as they resent her position in the private kitchen – they are macho and rude and call her Du Barry (after the mistress of Louis XV) – so if she wants to learn what the president likes, she has to deduce it by trial and error. She studies what is left over on his plate to try and understand his preferences.

Initially Hortense cooks decadent meals such as Savoy cabbage, Scottish salmon, Loire carrots – “I like things to come from somewhere” – but when she is finally awarded an audience with the president he says he likes classic, rustic food and begs her to “cook like my grandmother did; give me the best of France.” He asks for simple and authentic dishes without decorations – “I want to taste things” – and she gives him clams, cream of asparagus soup, fruit and pistachio tart, and Beef Wellington (which is called boeuf en croûte in France).

She has a sous-chef, Nicolas Bauvois (Arthur Dupont) with whom she develops a cute relationship – she insists that he call her by her name, rather than ‘chef’. Catherine Frot’s Hortense is a beautiful middle-aged woman with a ready smile and a twinkling sense of humour, rather than a Hollywood bimbette who would get the role if this were an American film. Although the chemistry in the kitchen is charming and appealing, it is refreshingly free from sexuality. Nicolas shares her love for food and its creation and gives her a sounding board to express her culinary methods and opinions – “I talk through a recipe – I can’t help it.”

The narrative is based on the true story of Daniele Mazet-Delpeuch who became the first female chef to a French president, Francoise Mitterand. In this film it is suggested that the president can talk for hours about food, and maybe it would have been better for him to do so instead of heading into politics. He and Hortense discuss old recipe books and the passion that went into writing them; they bemoan that no one writes like that anymore. Hortense believes that food should reveal individual character and is disappointed by a dish that is well-made but lacking in personality: “anyone could have made it.”

Insistent that she can source better food than that used in the main kitchens, she sets out to buy her own provisions and we are treated to scenes of specialist produce shops selling exclusively cheese, poultry or fish. She and Nicolas experiment and have fun in the kitchen with food and menus, exploring recipes and combinations. Hortense teases him that a pastry chef must measure precise quantities while cooks use instinctive dashes. We may not be able to taste it but the colours, textures and detail of the dishes are gloriously filmed supplying a generous portion of gastro-porn.

Her downfall comes partly at the hands of the main kitchen chef who is upset when he thinks she has muscled in on his territory. She is in charge of appetizers, mains and cheese; he takes care of dessert, and he questions the categorization of cream cheese which he insists she removes from the dishes served at a family dinner. For a country whose revolution is proverbially based on the distinction between bread and pastry – “Let them eat cake” – this seems apt. When she is called to account for the fact that her meals are three times as expensive as those from the main kitchen she counters, “I work with people who share a passion for excellence – it comes at a cost” and she has justification in her claim, “A cook is not an accountant; a cook is an artist”. 

As well as the financial aspects and personal rivalries, Hortense must face the fact that as he ages, the President is forbidden rich food by his health advisors. There will be no more cheese, sauces, or rich or fat foods, and she sulks to Nicolas, “I hope you like working with fruit”. She must now run everything past his guards, which image is turned on its head when she has them running across the courtyard to ensure that dishes are delivered at the correct temperature. Her argument when she is told that she can still cook anything for President’s guests, but just not for the President himself, is that she wasn’t brought in to cook for ambassadors. Ultimately she cannot overlook her passion for the food for the sake of her position.

The film is framed by her experience on a French Antarctic base as a cook for the scientists and surveyors there. She runs by the beach and over the bleak countryside in an environment that couldn’t be further from the opulence of Parisian palaces. On her last day she tells the team that she has bought a truffle farm in New Zealand, combining her loves of the miracle and perfection of truffles with the beauty of virgin territory. Whether in decadent chateaux or primitive extremities, food is more than just physical sustenance. True fans of gastronomy will find much in this film to nourish the soul.

Amour - I love it

Obviously a festival favourite, this French language film has been shown at Paris, Berlin and Vienna, among others and won the Palme d’Or at Cannes 2012. It is a powerful exploration of an elderly couple, Anne (Emmanuelle Riva) and Georges (Jean-Louis Trintigant), whose relationship undergoes severe strain when Anne suffers a stroke and Georges has to care for her.

The story is told in one long flashback, so the outcome is known from the beginning. Both Anne and Georges are retired piano teachers, and an introductory scene shows them among an audience watching a pianist at a performance. The film features a lot of talk about music, and lots of records and CDs on the bookshelves, but there is no intrusive background music. Towards the end Georges drifts into music in his mind and he imagines Anne sitting at the piano.

One of Anne’s former pupils visits her and begins to play a piece on the piano in the apartment, but the film is often silent. When Georges plays the piano himself, we can clearly hear Anne’s breathing. A cleaner comes and does the hoovering; other sounds are running water or the chink of a knife on a plate. To break the quietude, Georges does the washing up with the radio on.

Apart from the opening concert scene, the film is shot entirely in the apartment. There are close-ups of the landscape pictures on the walls, and further intimate images of Anne’s face as she is fitted with a nappy by a nurse. This silence and single set, combined with a very small cast could become oppressive were it not for the sensitive direction of Michael Heneke and the outstanding acting abilities of the couple and their daughter, Eva (Isabelle Huppert) which flesh out this everyday domestic tale of ageing and family dynamics.

Anne’s incapacity is the result of a failed operation on a blocked carotid artery. There is only a 5% failure rate, but that is little comfort for the patient. Anne makes Georges promise never to take her back to the hospital, which he is willing to do in the early stages. She returns to the apartment in a motorised wheelchair, spinning around with rare laughter. They realise they still have many stories they haven’t told each other even after so many years of marriage, and their emotions intensify with their memories.

As Anne deteriorates, she becomes increasingly frustrated and grumpy. Georges tells her she will end up friendless and scolds, “What would you say if no one came to your funeral?” to which she replies, “Nothing, probably”. Georges cuts up her food, dresses her, takes her to the toilet, and washes her hair with a saucepan in the bath. He acts without any trace of rancour but it is clear that as he must do everything for her, neither of them has any independence.

When Anne tries to reach for a book, she falls out of bed and breaks a lamp. Georges calmly repositions her, and all the inanimate objects, mildly rebuking, “Can’t you call me when you need something?” Anne begs him not to treat her like a moron and insists that she doesn’t want to go on – not for her sake but for his – as she knows it will only get worse. His own fears are of being burgled or invaded and he worries about leaving the apartment to fetch groceries, involving the concierge and his wife who keep a respectful distance while supplying neighbourly assistance.

Hiring a nurse gives Georges some relief yet, despite his daughter’s urging, he refuses to renege on his promise. Eva reinforces the audience’s understanding of the bond between her parents when she tells Georges that she remembers hearing them make love. Unlike many children, she wasn’t embarrassed at the thought of her parents’ sex life but rather felt reassured, thinking it proved that they were in love and would always have each other.

Eva’s husband has affairs, which she is used to although her father doesn’t understand why she stays in an unhappy relationship. And this is the nub of the film – no one can understand the ties that bind, whether through marriage or blood. Georges tells Eva, “I love you as much as your mother” but his ability to juggle affiliations is limited. When Eva bemoans Anne’s state, Georges tells her, “Your concern is no use to me. I don’t have time to deal with your concern. It annoys me to see you breeze in here saying what’s right. Who do you think you are?” She is family.

Armour is subtle and stunning, saying so much in so few words. It is heart-wrenchingly beautiful and dignified, despite its somewhat depressing premise. We can only agree with Anne’s final whispered words; “C’est beau, la vie”.