Stig and I left them to their cave-like kitchen and sat on tree stumps to share the bottle of wine I’d carried up. He confessed that the constant fighting between Anna and Dylan was already wearing him down. I knew that the valley was reverberating their bickering as their yells bounced all the way down the hillside; Juliette had asked them to be more considerate – “Please remember you’re not the only people living here”. Stig’s solution was to move out to an empty house that he’d seen even higher up the mountain. This tiny, cave-like house had a window fabricated from a car windscreen and a bath outside. Everyone referred to it as “Andy’s house”. Juliet explained that Andy was a legendary English man who’d lived there for a while, and had been much admired for his strength and solitude, but who was now back in England living a more mainstream life.
I was astounded when Stig and Dylan managed to track down Andy via the internet to ask permission to use the house, which was granted. Stig declared it the most comfortable dwelling he’d had for years, undoubtedly charmed by the recycled car windscreen. He went on and on about having “running water” for the first time in ten years although, like Dylan’s, it was just a hose from a stream. He told me how he liked to fill the bath in the morning so that the sun would warm it sufficiently by late afternoon. He would then enjoy an open-air soak, accompanied by a joint. I reminded myself not to go wandering up there unannounced.
I invited them all down to dinner one night, feeling intrigued by the way that they’d chosen to live. There was a vast difference between their humble way of life and that of the comfortably equipped English incomers with whom I was spending so much time, sitting in their manicured gardens and drinking tea brewed in teapots. I’d noticed Anna and the others gawping at my house with its flushing toilet, shower and mains electricity, knowing very well that I was outside the boundary of their usual social network. This was articulated very visibly when I dropped a piece of baguette on the ground and went to discard it; one of the girls grabbed it back, saying ‘No, it’s ok, it’s us.’ Us, not you.
That night I stood stirring a lentil dhal for a couple of hours, watching the light sink lower and wondering where they all were. Had I been stood up? Eventually they began to arrive in dribs and drabs, with Dylan and Anna arguing loudly over whose fault it was that some of the others hadn’t followed them down. Dylan did his best to holler up the mountain with a yell that echoed round the valley as we all clasped our ears. I had assumed they’d all turned their noses up at anything as consumerist as a mobile phone, but then I saw Dylan get one out and look at it, shaking his head. ‘Can you call them?’ I asked.
‘I would,’ he said, looking sheepish, ‘but we haven’t bothered exchanging numbers.’
Anna strode into the house, introducing it to the toddler as if it were a museum– “Look! This is a real house!” – and leaving the child to bounce around on the furniture as if it were a novelty, which it probably was. Even Anna found it difficult to sit still, preferring to wrestle on the sofa with Antonio, one of the Italian youths.
Stig declared that he didn’t like my house at all. ‘It’s too modern, I prefer the one next door,’ he said. But he liked the food and he was the only one to really eat what I’d prepared. Juliette and Vincent shared a small dessert dish of dhal while most of the others just picked at it. But Stig demolished the dhal and then sat eyeing up the pear flan that Vincent had brought. Every time I offered him another piece he took it, until Vincent told him to just finish it off.
Stig wandered around looking at my photos of walks in the mountains, showing interest in the shots I’d taken of Goutets, a renovated summer village or courtal on a natural platform up in the summer pastures, or estives. I explained that it was now a protected heritage site where you could wander freely around the old stone huts. Dylan perked up his ears and suggested that perhaps we could all go up there and stay the night. I looked doubtful at the thought of us all traipsing up there and annoying the shepherds who were in residence throughout the summer. ‘We can go for the day, there’s no need to stay the night,’ I said. ‘If anyone wants to walk up for the day tomorrow, we can meet here.’ A few of them nodded.
‘We’ll be here after coffee time,’ said Stig. Eventually they all trudged back up the hillside, Dylan carrying the toddler, Anna and Antonio giggling together, and Stig carrying a torch and chimney brushes that he borrowed from me and promised to bring back the next day.
“After coffee time” was a vague nod to the morning gathering for coffee that took place at the unfinished yurt. In the end I waited until Stig and Antonio turned up just before lunchtime to walk up to Goutets. Stig expressed some anxiety that he was suitably dressed for a mountain excursion, perhaps expecting deep snow or a glacier. I reassured him that no special gear was required for a late summer excursion to the grassy summer pastures, and we set off.
It’s possible to walk all the way up to Goutets via a stony access track that zigzags up the valley head, but that way is long and tedious with little of interest apart from a few ruined barns and a battered British Bedford van that’s been abandoned by the roadside. Instead I led the other two across the hillside along forest paths that were steep but dappled with sunlight, and crunchy with acorn shells and the leaves of oak and beech. Stig stopped every now and then for a cigarette while Antonio told us of his dilemma; his parents wanted him to study a traditional subject at university, but he was fixated on the possibility of studying mind-bending drugs and their effects. I suggested that he think about the long-term opportunities offered by each of these fields of study, and then make a decision. He ran his way up to Goutets like a child, at one point vaulting over an electric fence to pull an apple off a tree, then spitting out the bitter fruit where he stood. When we finally reached Goutets they both turned their nose up at my stale bread and butter, preferring to stick to their smoked salmon sandwiches.
Goutets was built on a glacial platform just above the tree line and it’s by far the most captivating of the courtals, as it’s an entire network of small separate hamlets. Looking down from the platform you can trace the long route through the woods that you’ve just walked, whilst behind you’re encircled by the immense ridge of the Pic de Trois Seigneurs. These summer villages were a feature of the Ariège landscape that grew and declined with the rhythm of the population. The combination of poverty and a population surge around the turn of the 18th–19th century encouraged people to move up to the higher Pyrenean valleys during the summer, taking their families and animals to live with them. Local people reminisced about huts built by their grandparents, and the days gone by when the extended family would go up for the summer, taking cows, sheep, pigs, goats and rabbits. The long summer days were spent tending the animals, making butter and cheese, and growing vegetables and hay for winter. Yet the same over-population led to many other inhabitants moving away from the area, starting a depopulation trend that was exacerbated by the First World War. In 1874, when my own house had been built, the population of my commune had been a little under 2,500, but by 1931 it had fallen to just over a thousand. Continuing to decline during the war and subsequent decades, it has languished below 200 since the mid 1970s.
After Goutets was abandoned in the 1960s, the efforts of the local maire, who happened to be a geography teacher, brought Goutets partially back to life. Jean-Louis Loubet garnered local manpower to partially restore some of the buildings, and it’s now a protected heritage site, open to anyone with the time and energy to walk up there. One or two shepherds can be seen living up there in the summer months, watching the cattle and tending a small vegetable plot. Visitors who make the effort to hike up are charmed by the assortment of buildings, ranging from square dry-stone cabanes, or barns, with traditional slate-covered apex roofs, as well as more unusual smaller huts whose square walls are topped by a grassy-domed corbelled vault roof. This type of hobbit-style hut, known as an orri, was built with just eating and sleeping in mind, having little space beyond that n
eeded for a bed frame. The rudimentary chimney was just a hole in the wall. Other huts were built to house chickens and pigs, while those that were built over a stream served as a basic fridge known as a mazuc, where the cold water kept the milk and butter chilled. Almost all of the huts have doors that remain unlocked and I showed Stig the old iron bed frame in one of them that still had its traditional mattress of dried ferns. He lay down on it, claiming it to be as comfortable as anything he had in his “houses”.
The following week saw most of the visitors leaving the yurt camp until just Dylan, Anna, the toddler and Stig remained. Dylan was frantically trying to finish off the yurt, although the logic of completing it in order to leave it exposed to the snow on a wooden platform, at a height of 925 metres, escaped me. He admitted that he’d been dreaming of spending a winter here in isolation, looking down on a white world, although he must have known that the heavy snowfall and temperatures falling to minus 12 or lower would soon kill off any romanticism. Apart from that, the yurt had used up most of their money and he needed to go back to London to pick up more work.
Stig was also being drawn in to the vision of a solitary Pyrenean winter and had even talked about fetching a car-load of books back from the Netherlands to see him though the long months up in Andy’s house. But in the end common sense prevailed – for a start, the “running water” that had so charmed him would spend the entire season frozen solid.
In the end we all left the valley on the same morning, making our way in different directions; me to the airport at Toulouse, Dylan in his van rumbling the length of France towards the Channel and Stig to the more temperate Aude. The yurt had finally been finished and it sat proudly on its platform, superficially solid yet horribly vulnerable to the approaching winter.
Dylan, Anna and the toddler climbed into their van, while Stig and I shared a last coffee with Juliette and talked about what he called “our little community”. It wasn’t necessary to mention what an unconventional mix we were, but that very contrast, together with the unexpectedness of our time spent together, and our acceptance of each others’ ways, was what now made it seem precious. We said our goodbyes, insisting we’d keep in touch but knowing deep down just how unlikely it was that our worlds would merge. Stig stooped down to return my hug, his musty ginger locks swinging around my face. ‘Drive carefully,’ I said, and he nodded.
‘Always sixty, nothing more,’ he replied. I followed his battered van down to Massat where we parted ways, blowing horns and waving animatedly while locals stood on the pavements and stared at us.
Dylan and Anna had come to this part of France seeking a life that was more fulfilling than what they had back in England. While Stig was a temporary visitor, he too had been drawn to the idea of settling there, at one point wondering whether he could make a living by growing and selling vegetables at the markets. There were certainly some faint parallels with the English incomers, as the essence of every move was a search for a more rewarding or meaningful life, whether they were looking for more simplicity or a challenge.
Sharing a bottle of wine outside with Dylan one night, while Anna had retired to bed with her jam jar of water, he talked about coming here to “find peace”, hinting at an escape from something that remained unspoken. It was certainly a temporary relief from a grinding existence in London, but in the end, I suspected that they didn’t have sufficient funds to do things properly. The land itself had been cheap for a reason; it lacked proper access and the habitation permit that would allow people to live there legitimately. Local officials turn a blind eye if people are living quietly and causing no disruption, but constructing yurts for paying visitors was a different thing altogether. Just as I’d seen with some of the English I’d met, things hadn’t quite been thought through. The fact that something was initially affordable – in Dylan’s case, a whole swath of land and two barns – meant that it probably had a lot of other issues that it was just too easy to overlook during the excitement of that first step. We’ll make it work.
In the spring I ventured up to inspect the yurt and was saddened but not surprised to see that the weight of the snow had caused its destruction. Open to the elements, it was leaning at an angle, with the window frames shattered and the glass broken. Without getting too close I could see a miserable patchwork of sodden clothes, dripping hangings and books that were curled with damp. Jets of water spurted along the entire length of the hose that had provided their “running water” as it had been left in situ, undrained. I emailed Dylan to let him know, but he was already aware of the disaster. He’d offered the house to some friends, who’d done their best to clean up the sodden mess before leaving.
3
The French Resistance (And Resisting The French)
I skidded on fallen chestnuts as I ran down the path from Dylan’s camp, trying not to jolt my back as I stumbled over tree roots. I’d had a bounce on the trampoline next to the yurt, a toy that was used more by Anna than the toddler, but my ambitious attempt at a forward fall had jarred the length of my spine. I’d slunk off in agony, thankful that my graceless folly had gone unnoticed.
It was my final visit to Dylan’s camp and Juliette and I had walked up together. We sat with Stig and Anna, huddled around a huge blackened kettle on an open fire, while Dylan shuffled around in his too-big orange waterproof, bringing us jam jars for the coffee and a length of saucisse. Autumn was beginning to break through, with less hazy but noticeably shorter days that began with a slight chill. As lunchtime approached I reluctantly took my leave, as I had an appointment to meet with a couple in one of the Saint-Girons cafés. ‘Don’t forget to ask them if they use English paint,’ laughed Dylan. As someone who took whatever was available, he’d found the English insistence on their national brand of paint rather ludicrous.
I picked my way down the track, pondering the vast social divide between the people of this morning and those with whom I’d arranged to drink tea that coming afternoon.
Jim, Iris and I sat in the glass conservatory of the busy town centre café. I was aware that an odour of smoky bonfire still clung to me. ‘I can’t get on with some of the food here,’ said Jim, shaking his head as he looked at the menu. ‘I mean, for a country that makes so many cheeses I don’t know why they can’t make some really good ones.’
Iris looked over at me apologetically. ‘He’s so rude about the French people. So rude.’
Jim laughed, ‘Ok, so that’s a bit of a generalisation, but most of the cheeses seem to have been concocted out of a plastics factory. I just don’t like that. I buy Cheddar from the Intermarché in Foix because you can buy Cheddar there. There are a few things like that that I really do miss, and the British shop here has pasted over some of the cracks, for getting just one or two of the bits you really miss.’ The British shop was actually the reason we were sitting in the café; Iris had come in while I was chatting with Tina, and she’d offered to be interviewed, along with Jim.
Few of the people I spoke to admitted using the two British shops in the Ariège, yet Iris described their opening as a turning point that ended their isolation. ‘We used to go to an English vet at Tarascon and he told us about a British shop starting up, and so we were one of her first customers. It’s surprising how much better I felt because I did feel like I wasn’t on my own anymore.’ Her tone was of relief as she described being grateful for “the support”.
The idea that one must avoid everything British, from people to food and shops, had been pervasive up to that point, so it came as a surprise when Iris spoke effusively about the British shops. In fact she showed bemusement when I asked if there was a stigma associated with them. ‘Not a stigma, no, why?’ she asked, adding that there wasn’t always a local alternative to replace the things they missed. Iris particularly craved salad cream. They were helped out by friends who spent a few months in France at a time, bringing foodstuffs such as teabags as they drove “backwards and forwards”. It was the first time that anyo
ne had been happy to admit it, with Jim framing it as making the most of what’s available.
‘I don’t see that it’s a problem at all, really. I don’t think you can draw a line under fifty years of being in a country and just change overnight.’ Compared with Gerald he seemed unimpressed with the Ariège cuisine. ‘I was disappointed for a long time… I didn’t want to go out for meals, because past cassoulet you were struggling, but you do adapt a lot over time. But you can’t just forget all these things you’ve grown up with and been used to.’ Ariège seemed a bit of an odd choice for a couple who’d been used to dining out regularly.
I was even more struck when I heard that they’d chosen to move here without ever having visited the country. Like Pat and John, who’d drawn on the idea of challenge and adventure in early retirement, Iris had seen moving abroad as a way to avoid a waiting room for the retired. ‘We lived on an estate in England for 27 years and I noticed towards the end of living there that I could see people sort of digging in to die. I can’t put it in another way – they were having the soffits done with plastic so they didn’t have to do those again. And I’m not ready to dig in to die.’ I knew exactly what she meant. A colleague who was only a few years older than me had described how they’d replaced all of their furniture and had bought the best they could afford, as “it’s probably the last furniture we’ll need to buy”. I understood the practicalities, but it made me shudder nevertheless.
A House at the End of the Track Page 10