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Entente volatile: Samantha Brick and her husband Pascal's relationship can be stormy
She became infamous after she said being beautiful made her life hell. Now, in the final part of her unabashed memoirs, Samantha Brick recalls how her unlikely fiance’s temper flared as she made the transition from failed businesswoman to French housewife, and how she said goodbye to her old life for ever.
At last I’d sold or given away nearly all my possessions, moved out of my rented house and packed my suitcases full of Marmite and Hobnobs. ‘Are you sure you’re doing the right thing?’ asked Dad before I left for France.
I gave him a reassuring hug. I couldn’t even contemplate the possibility of having to return to the UK, tail between my legs. And, anyway, I was going to be living the expat dream: gorgeous French lover, sweet rustic house in the Lot region in south-west France, miles of unspoilt countryside.
So I loaded my car and drove over with Mother, who was coming for a brief break to get to know my fiance better.
When we arrived, Pascal greeted us with a huge smile, crying ‘mon amour!’ as I collapsed into his arms. All my fears melted away. Yes, he was a French carpenter with a large moustache, and I was the former owner of two TV companies (which had gone bust), but I knew we could make this work.
That evening, we were invited to a neighbour’s dinner party. Pascal was wearing a pair of tight faded jeans with a black linen shirt, unbuttoned to mid-chest and revealing large biceps. Sexy as hell, he looked as though he’d stepped out of the pages of a Jackie Collins novel.
At the party, he gravitated towards a couple who speak only French and ended up talking to them for more than an hour. He didn’t even stop when we were asked to sit down for dinner â€" so I marched up and tugged on his arm.
‘Now,’ I said firmly. ‘You’re coming with me now.’ I could feel the former TV boss coursing through my veins again as he turned to look at me. ‘Right now!’ I added for emphasis.
Rural bliss: Samantha and Pascal at home in picturesque France
Pascal’s usually soft, chocolate-brown eyes flashed with inky-black rage. ‘No woman talk to me like zat!’ he spat before stalking out.
The room momentarily fell silent. Merde! I thought to myself.
I followed him outside and found him smoking a Gitane. His body was taut and coiled, like an animal about to pounce. I’d never seen him like this before. ‘Pascal, please?’ After what seemed like hours, he calmed down.
By the next morning, news of our spat seemed to have spread around the village â€" but at least my macho French lover and I were speaking to each other again. Just.
City girl: Samantha took a while to adjust to her French husband's country ways
As soon as Mother had flown off, he took me for a drive. What a romantic gesture, I thought, envisaging a spot of al fresco ‘make-up’ sex in the secluded countryside.
But no. My fiance wanted to take me on a tour of his worksites, to see the roofs he’d be building and to teach me all about his outils (tools). Heavens!
‘If I forget an outil at home,’ Pascal enlightened me, ‘you must come tout suite!’
It wasn’t just his work routine I had to take on board; I needed to learn how to be a French housewife. As Pascal shares custody of his ten-year-old son, Antonio, I’d also be in loco parentis from the get-go. Me, who used to employ an army of people to clean, cook and look after my two dogs! Privately, I was terrified.
So I won’t fib; the first month was brutal â€" like Cinderella in reverse. I was up at 6am, getting to grips with breakfast as a sh ort-order chef. When both father and son had eaten, I chivvied Antonio into dressing for school, while preparing a bag for Pascal: water, beer and hankies.
After walking our three dogs, I swept the kitchen and living room with a large natural-fibre broom, then washed up, before preparing lunch. Pascal, I was painfully aware, expected a four-course meal on the table within moments of his arrival at midday.
The first course was a doddle: thinly sliced cold meat served with fresh bread. The second course was usually un steak haché â€" minced steak shaped into an oval patty â€" with buttery pasta. He wouldn’t eat anything that involved pesto, parmesan or salad. ‘I’m not zee rabbit!’ he retorted more than once.
Then there was cheese, plus yogurt or fruit, plus coffee. Pascal merrily returned to work at 1.30pm, with zero idea of the effort it had taken me to pull it all together.
Afterwards, I collapsed in a heap for half an hour, washed the dishes, walked the dogs and collected Antonio from school â€" where the mums gawped mutely back when I said ‘bonjour’. What was I doing wrong?
Antonio eventually informed me that I looked like a femme de ville (city woman) with my blonde hair, heels and designer labels. ‘You’re not normal, Sam,’ he added helpfully.
The right decision: Samantha is happier now that she has left her two TV companies behind for country living with her husband
One day, I realised I was the only person who seemed to be using the laundry basket. Do the French wash their own underwear, I wondered?
Over breakfast, I decided to ask the boys. Pascal looked mystified. ‘I wear zee same for two, three days a time, Sam. Why?’ It turned out that Antonio did the same.
I just about stopped myself from pursing my lips, folding my arms and unleashing a tirade about hygiene. That evening, I asked them to walk me through their bathroom routine and laundry habits.
Pascal said his face might get a scrub once a week, and he couldn’t remember the last time he’d used the shower. If he forgot to brush his teeth, and they were looking somewhat yellow, he’d give them a scrub with Cif â€" the kitchen cleaner! His T-shirts were changed when they started to whiff.
I was aghast! But when I gently explained I was implementing a new ‘ change-everything-daily’ routine, the look on their faces told me this wasn’t going to be easy.
Early the following morning, I tiptoed around their sleeping forms and swooped on their dirty clothes. Then I plonked them into the laundry basket. In their place I lay out a sweet-smelling set of freshly laundered garments; I even softened the blow with a squirt of lavender water.
Thirty minutes later, you’d have thought the world had ended. To say pandemonium broke out is putting it mildly â€" but when they dawdled into the living room to have breakfast, I couldn’t help noticing how well turned-out they looked.
Round one to me.
I confess that when I moved to France, I’d pictured myself living la vie Française, skipping along the lanes in flippy skirts and strappy tops (in fact, I wear neither, for fear of ticks). I’d assumed I’d be drinking rosé on the terrace most evenings, and t hat I’d adjust easily to running a French household. What planet was I on?
And yet â€" there was something very reassuring about the regular humdrum of domesticity. It gave me something constructive to do, which meant fewer opportunities for self-pitying navel-gazing. Yes, of course there were moments when I grieved for my old life. Anything could trigger them off: finding an old business card, watching a plane soar across the sky and imagining the Alpha women inside it. I used to be one of those, I’d tell myself. And then the tears fell freely.
Exactly a year ago, I dimly recalled, I’d been working in LA, where I always had dinner at the latest sushi bar. Frankly, if anyone had told me then what I’d be doing now, I’d have thought they were bonkers.
New life: Samantha settling down to her successful writing career at her home in the Lot region of France
Sometimes, I felt cloaked in the same depression that overwhelmed me after my business failed. Then Pascal lay awake with me night after night, holding me in his arms, offering tender reassurances. It was during these hours of darkness that I learned the real meaning of love.
As the weather cooled, he gave me a crash course in how to create typically French winter meals â€" pot-au-feu, boeuf carottes, lamb tagine.
He was not, I discovered, a patient man, so when things got burnt or overcooked the atmosphere in our house prickled with barely contained tension. Strangely, it was the little things that caused his temper to ignite. ‘Sam, Sam, SAM, NON!’ he’d shout, genuinely vexed with me. ‘Pas comme ça!’
He’d then whip the knife or spoon out of my hand and make what appeared to be a minuscule adjustment in my chopping, stirring or blending. ‘Voilà , comme ça!’
At least I finally discovered, one Friday night, that the key to Antonio’s heart was hamburgers, slathered in ketchup. When he’d finished, he thanked me with a sticky kiss on each cheek â€" and suddenly I didn’t want to be anywhere else in the world.
One December evening, Pascal called his son over and told him we’d set a date for the wedding. Are you happy, he asked? ‘C’est genial â€" it’s great news Papa!’ Antonio leapt up and gave Pascal a hug before throwing himself into my arms. I caught Pascal’s eye and he winked at me. Result!
Throughout the evening, as we walked around the village square, Pascal proudly announced our news. There were cries of ‘Félicitations!’ as we passed from one well-wisher to the next â€" and I tried not to wince as each was invited to the wedding.
On Christmas Eve, as Pascal passed me a glass of champagne and slipped an arm roun d my waist, I thought to myself: what an astonishing end to my annus horribilis.
I still barely spoke the language and my L-plates were firmly in place when it came to keeping house. But I was slowly putting myself back together again and unpicking the thorny, professional traits from my personality.
The light-bulb moment came during a stand-off with Antonio about tidying his room. ‘Insiste pas, Sam!’ he shouted. ‘I just don’t want make bed when you insist tout le temps!’
That made me think about all those years I’d spent micro- managing my colleagues in TV. If I’d just backed off, they’d have got on with things anyway â€" and probably much quicker.
It had taken a ten-year-old boy to expose one of the many ugly sides of my character.
More poignantly, I realised that it was only in living together that Pascal and I had truly begun t o get to know each other. ‘I know you change for me,’ he whispered, ‘your life, your home, your work â€" everyzink. I know your life before was exciting and ’ere eet isn’t.’
I shook my head, thinking: if only you knew. In fact, there was still one door on my former life that I formally needed to close. My British TV company had already gone bankrupt, but I was scheduled to appear in court in LA to wind up my U.S. company.
Femme de ville: Samantha Brick in 2006, when she worked in television
During the long-haul flight, partly paid for by selling my Cartier watch, my mind was awash with painful memories of the six months I’d lived in LA, the dreams I’d had of creating a life there.
At the baggage carousel, I kept my head down, fearful of recognising anyone. It didn’t help that I unwittingly followed the svelte form of the actress Sienna Miller through customs and into a burst of paparazzi flashbulbs.
She elegantly folded her tiny figure into a waiting limo while I waited in line for a bus. It was a timely reminder that without money, you’re nothing in LA.
Not long before I’d fitted right in with the LA work ethic â€" up at 5am, gym at 6am, office by 7.30am. Surely a few calls, with a large dose of humble pie, were all it would take to return to this lifestyle? Everyone loves a comeback kid, right?
But I knew that this life wouldn’t make me happy any more. It may be a cliché, but perhaps I’d had to lose everything before I could appreciate being loved.
After a fitful sleep, I nervously pulled on one of my few remaining suits. The court proceedings were brief, and four hours later I was at the airport, buying a snowstorm model of LA for Antonio.
When I arrived home, Pascal and Antonio were waving to me from the terrace. They both rushed down the stairs, our dogs enthusiastically leading the way.
All five were jumping up and down, alternately pawing at me, kissing me and hugging me.
The following morning, as I walked the dogs, I looked up at the deliciously blue sky. I was spinning around, laughing to myself, as I watched a couple of planes making vapour trails.
And at last I realised: I no longer dreamed about where they were going. I had zero desire to be a passenger on one of the m. I was one of the lucky ones who’d already reached her destination.
Postscript: Samantha Brick, wearing a dress bought from eBay for £25, married Pascal Rubinat on May 31, 2007. The ceremony was witnessed by their families, nearly everyone in the village â€" and a sprinkling of Sam’s girlfriends, who turned up in Manolo heels and designer tea-dresses.
Adapted from Head Over Heels In France by Samantha Brick, published by Summersdale on April 1 at £8.99. © 2013 Samantha Brick. To order a copy for £8.49 (inc. p&p), call 0844 472 4157.
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