ON THE PROZAC

Some ten years later, I smile to myself at the memory of this marvellous party as I sing along in the car to NWA (“Nuns With Anoraks” I believe) as I drove once more towards Prozac, this time to say in my own bijou little cottage.  My dear old friend Fifi has since passed, and Fernande-Arlette and Bill are the new chatelains. Fernande-Arlette has also been the Mayor of Prozac since the death of her formidable mother, who had ruled Prozac with an iron fist in a velvet elbow-length evening glove since 1968.  

A few elderly retainers at the chateau came with the inheritance, they are notoriously venal and lazy, but the butler is the local CGT convener and his wife rules the kitchen, since Fernande-Arlette, like any self-respecting Frenchwoman, cannot so much as boil an egg.   The gardener is one of Bill’s old friends from the music business, a former lead guitarist who fried his brains on LSD, and now spends his days happily talking to plants and practising his tribal dancing on the lawn, naked in warmer weather.

Bill has not let success or France change him.  He can be seen in the market on a Friday loading up the boot of the Bentley with vegetables.  He built a recording studio in the basement of the chateau, which is occasionally used by visiting ageing rock stars or former BBC radio DJ's on the run from the tabloids.

The Chateau de Prozac dominates the town from the west side.  On the hill overlooking the east side of the town is another chateau, owned by la Baronne Gudule de Pétasse de Médeux (Belgian aristos always like to have two 'particules' to remind the French that they, at least, still have a monarchy, even though their country wasn’t created until 100 years after the French revolution and they had to import their royals from Germany). Gudule is a dyed-in-the-wool champagne socialist and her chateau is regularly home to itinerant refugees, juvenile delinquents in need of an adventure holiday, criminals on the run, Palestinian freedom fighters summer camps, and French Socialist Party candidates licking their wounds after the latest failed attempts to be elected.

The doctor, Frau Doktor Gertrud von Klampwangler, is German, and rides around the town on a Norton 750.  She lives with her wife Wally (short for Waltraud), who is a musician and former leader of the “Hot Flash” all-women brass ensemble.   Wally can often be heard practising her euphonium in the bell tower, and she has been known to play the bridal march on the trombone for the very rare civil partnership presided over by Fernande-Arlette.

 

Bogdan the Polish plumber, who was the last in a series of 5 stepfathers of the current Mayor, my old friend Fifi being a stickler for tradition, was left two small cottages in Fifi's will, and rents one to me.    It is quite small, with two bedrooms, a kitchen with a dining area, a cosy lounge and a garden which is big enough to potter round but not too much work, and a driveway for my second-hand jalopy. When I announced to Gorbals, my attorney, that I had found the perfect spot to make my final landing, he was most encouraging.  “You’ve found somewhere to die, then.”   Bogdan is my next door neighbour, which is very handy when the boiler goes on the blink.  

The many estate agents of the town are owned by French companies but managed by Brits, whose clientèle is 95% British.