The work was begun, but before they got round to the bridge itself Aquitaine had changed hands and it was Edward I of England who, in 1282, commanded that the bridge be started. It took seven years to build and was very beautiful, with five arches and three strong towers. It must have been well built as it lasted almost three hundred and fifty years until an enormous rising of the river carried it away. Today the bridge has only two arches of uneven width and the only sign of the towers is one huge base, which still remains.
There are two market days in Villeneuve. Every Tuesday and Saturday crowds pass through the medieval gateway to the colonnaded square in the centre. It is packed with stalls which, apart from the olive and nut and spice stall by the fountain, all sell fruits and vegetables, plants and flowers. There are large displays of every variety of salad, freshly cut batavia, curly endive, rocket, lambs lettuce, bunches of watercress a foot across. There are the long professional stalls aglow with perfect peppers, huge tomatoes, fat apricots, nectarines and early peaches from further south and the first scented melons. And there are the small stands, often just two wooden crates one on top of the other, where the local farmers’ wives bring in their surplus produce. Here you can buy, if you are early enough, for they are the first to sell up and go home, their tiny beans, real fleshy tomatoes from the field, small courgettes, sprigs of thyme and basil, bunches of sweet onions and the occasional mixed spray of flowers from the garden. Their faces have become familiar and so it seems have ours.
‘Ah, madame, monsieur, vous êtes revenus au pays?’ – ‘you’ve come back to the country?’ – asks the little woman with the high sing-song voice who grows the best French beans. We admit it, admire her produce and stock up with as much as we can carry. As we leave the market we can’t resist a voluptuous, pink, hanging begonia, for our porch. Almost a metre across, it gets heavier and heavier as we walk back to the car park. We stow our shopping in the car, carefully pulling the blind to shade the begonia, and return to sit and drink at the Café Tortoni and watch the world go by.
A canvas-covered jeep suddenly backs onto the pavement outside the estate agent next door to the café. A group of middle-aged men of various shapes and sizes in white shirts and dark trousers jump out and begin to unload music stands, instrument cases and, last of all, a tall cardboard box. The stands arranged, the instruments unpacked they amuse themselves by diving into the box like a lucky dip, and taking out a selection of straw hats and trying them on. A tiny sax player in shades, black hairline moustache and two-tone shoes, a French version of Sammy Davis Junior, disappears under a very large brim to much laughter.
Where to sit? Shade, under the estate agent’s awning, is at a premium. The drummer, likely to be the most energetic, claims first choice and sets up his kit against the wall in the far corner. More musicians arrive. By 10.50 the two trumpets, one of whom appears to be the leader, are seated and blowing gently, finding their lip. Suddenly there are three trumpets, and two trombones. They are coming from all directions. Another sax player, as large as the other one is small, sits beside him and unpacks his instrument. What time are they due to begin? Eleven o’clock? They seem in no hurry. We order another drink.
As eleven sounds from the clock tower over the great Porte de Paris, a third trombone is greeted by the assembled players, all adjusting their chairs, and blowing little runs and trills. The shady spaces are almost gone and the sun growing stronger. Just as we think they must be complete, the euphonium player makes a spectacular late entrance befitting the size of his gleaming instrument. He is accompanied by his wife who, seeing him settled, takes the car keys and disappears only to return with a tambourine to sit next to the leader. After another exchange of hats and more ribaldry, Sammy Davis seeming a willing butt, the leader at last taps for attention and counts four.
They start with a paso doble. It is such a relief that they’ve actually begun that it takes a moment to realise that they are not very good. But they are loud. The crowds, pouring through the archway into the boulevard, are momentarily startled and slow down to listen. Some put down their shopping, and fold their arms, others walk on with heads turned to look back. There are a few collisions, for many carry great pots of flowers, canna lilies a metre high, morning glories trailed up a wicker pyramid, giant hibiscus in pink and white. They grin at the musicians who play determinedly on and on, hardly a pause between each number, the music unfamiliar but predictable.
The temperature rises, the players mop their brows, tilting back the straw boaters. The wife disappears again and returns with a large bottle of Evian. The euphonium drinks first. There is the briefest of pauses before they flip over their laminated dots clipped to the stands and, after a count of three, off they go again. This time it is a waltz and a pair of middle-aged women at the next table get up to dance. The crowd is beginning to enjoy it. As some drift reluctantly away, mindful of chores to be done, others take their place. The sun blazes down. The strip of shade is diminishing. The thought of our cool, blue pool urges us to return home and, as we leave, the proprietor of the Café Tortoni emerges, to a round of applause, with two extra umbrellas to give those on the outside edge a little extra shade. We go home to swim and eat cucumber salad and a large and succulent-looking quiche, which we’ve bought from the charcuterie.
CHAPTER FOUR
The last time we managed a spring visit was in 2001, when we tried a new route, flying very cheaply from Stansted to Bordeaux. The coach ride from Victoria to Stansted felt rather elderly and stately, but I actually enjoyed seeing London from such a high point of view. I also enjoyed the lack of responsibility for getting there on time. It is a long way and we were in the very competent hands of a fresh-faced, chatty, driver, wearing an earring. We Buzzed to Bordeaux; no-frills flying. In fact there was just as much space as on a flight to Antigua, to which we had treated ourselves a few months before, and considerably less junk; no pillows, socks, earphones, or blanket to juggle with, and no tightly wrapped condiments and cutlery to enrage one, only to be dropped, irretrievably, on the floor or down one’s shirt. This time we simply chose from a tray of delicious sandwiches, which were so well filled that we found it enough to share one, deciding to keep the other to eat later. Alas, we had temporarily forgotten the foot and mouth epidemic. We were not allowed to take our sandwich off the plane. Firm but unexpectedly generous, the stewardess refunded the cost of the uneaten sandwich.
Our hire car was almost brand new and it was wonderful to be motoring once more along the uncluttered French roads. That April was unusually cold with bustling clouds in a bright blue sky. When we arrived at the house we were thankful that our friends Hugh and Sally had switched on our one, rarely used, electric fire and lent us another one to heat the bedroom. We laid a great wood fire for the morning and put hot water bottles in the bed before going down to the farm for our evening meal.
The first meal of the holiday in the warm kitchen where we have been so generously fed over the years is always special. We drink pastis or a home made apéritif, vin de noix or vin de pêche or, my favourite, quinquina
Here is the recipe, which was given to Claudette by a friend with family in Italy.
QUINQUINA
Ingredients: Four Seville oranges, one sweet orange and a lemon, a vanilla pod, and a kilogram of sugar.
Cut the fruit into quarters and macerate all for forty days in three litres of red wine and three quarters of a litre of eau de vie. Strain, bottle and leave for six months.
We, too, now make quinquina in London.
We began the meal with le tourin, the special soup of the region. The first time we tasted this garlicky broth topped with bread and melted cheese, we had been aroused in the middle of the night to taste it, with half the village, including the mayor, in our bedroom, but that’s another story and one that I have already told. This time the soup was not, said Claudette, fabrication maison, but was apparently left over from le repas des chasseurs, the hunters’ reunion of the previous evening. Raymond’s eyes shone
as he described the meal they had eaten, especially the salade de gésiers, bits of preserved duck gizzard, which followed the soup. He then extolled the next course, a civet de chevreuil, jugged venison, which was followed in turn by yet more venison, this time a roasted haunch, then came the fromage, and, to complete the feast, a tart; no doubt all washed down with excellent wine. Clearly there had been soup left over that evening, perhaps in anticipation of all that was to follow, and Claudette had simply brought it home. Nothing is ever wasted here. We, chez Claudette, followed the remains of the hunter’s soup with a delicious salad; golden-yolked eggs, tomatoes, sweet onions, potatoes and a smidge of tuna, everything fresh and delicious. Our hostess then produced an omelette aux asperges, followed by roast guinea fowl and potatoes sautéed with garlic.
As we discussed current affairs on both sides of the channel, Raymond declared himself perplexed by the approach to the problem of the outbreak of foot and mouth, then at its height in England. He couldn’t understand the wholesale slaughter.
‘La fièvre aphteuse,’ as it is called in France, ‘c’était toujours là,’ he said. ‘It’s always been around. If an animal got sick we treated it. Sometimes we used poudre de cuivre, or something else…c’était quoi, Claudette?’
Claudette frowned. ‘It’s all so long ago. Grezille was it called?’
‘Oui. C’est ça,’ said Raymond. ‘The same stuff they used to use when they shoed an oxen. And we used chaux vive, quick lime, to wash our boots. We did isolate the sick animal but it was very rare for any of the others to catch it. If it got better, which it usually did, tant mieux, so much the better. If it remained feeble…well, off to the abattoir, but…killing the whole herd,’ he threw up his hands ‘Jamais! C’est de la folie! Mind you,’ he added gloomily, ‘until ten years ago we did vaccinate against it. Then – les gens de Bruxelles,’ his face made it quite clear what he thought about them, ‘they changed their minds. It was Britain and America who persuaded them. It’s the large industrial farms that cause all the problems.’
‘Comme toujours!’ said Claudette, carrying in an enormous flan.
She then proceeded to tell us just what she, as a working farmer, thought about common market regulations. Each year she hand-rears one calf, which stays with the mother and is only given a supplement of cereal to augment the mother’s milk. This calf provides the family with veal for the next year. Now, apparently, she had just been told that the latest regulations meant that after slaughter, the abattoir would return to her neither the brains, the intestines or the sweet breads; all the specially prized delicacies which she loves to cook and for which she has many special recipes.
‘Même pas pour la consommation familiale!’ she cried indignantly. There was a gleam in her eye, which suggested that she intended to find a way round this next year.
A few days later the carcasse of her special calf came back from the slaughterer and we went down to watch it expertly butchered by Robert, Grandma’s cousin. In his long life he has been both a butcher and an inséminateur, and now, in his busy retirement, he is an enthusiastic beekeeper. He drives an old Post Office van, which has been repainted with VIVEZ MIEUX! MANGEZ DU MIEL! in large letters on the side. On market days he chauffeurs the little bus, which takes the old folk from his village to market. Today he was le boucher.
The operation was to take place in Grandma’s kitchen where, so long ago, I sat to pluck my first and only duck. I can clearly remember the weight and the scent of its still-warm body on my lap, and the quiet amusement of Claudette and her mother at my squeamishness. Today, for the calf, the kitchen is all prepared. The long table is covered with scrubbed oil-cloth, another smaller wooden table placed at right angles. Already at the far end of the table lies the pallid head of the calf, the long-lashed eyes closed, the pale, thick, protruding tongue curved upward.
Robert greets us. Almost eighty now, his great jowls a little slacker, his sturdy frame just a little lighter, his eyes are still as bright as ever behind his small, round spectacles. He sharpens his knives with a flourish, his one-shouldered butcher’s apron securely tied and reaching almost to his ankles. He places the knives precisely then goes outside to help Raymond. Together they stagger back in with the half-carcass. It seemed a small animal when alive; dead, even half of it seems enormous. And after all the bureaucratic fuss about brains and sweet breads and intestines I am astonished to see the gleaming spinal cord, considered in England a possible source of BSE, running the length of the body. Claudette dismissed my enquiry with a ‘Pouff’ – there were more important things on hand.
As Robert deftly chopped and sliced, each cut of palest pink meat had to be carefully wrapped in tough yellow plastic bags for the congélateur; first le filet, then les côtelettes, followed by the tougher cuts for pot au feu.
‘And don’t forget to make me a little slit in each piece,’ she insisted. ‘To put in my farce.’ She makes her stuffing with bread, egg and garlic. Robert’s mobile eyebrows twitched but he obliged, using the tip of his knife with extreme delicacy. As each section of the calf was cut up the possible dishes were discussed that could be concocted from ‘une bonne escalope, un jarret de veau, une demie épaule’.
‘Could you not roast a half-shoulder as you might with a lamb?’ I enquired. They considered momentarily then shook their heads. ‘C’est meilleur en casserole avec des petits légumes,’ they agreed.
Robert too, was bemused by the English reaction to la fièvre aphteuse, the foot and mouth.
‘I remember ’46 and ’47,’ he said. ‘C’était l’épidemie mais,’ his eyebrows shot up. ‘One or two might be infected. They might even lose a toenail – that was the worst – mais…jamais le reste du cheptel l’attrapait. Jamais! Never the rest of the herd.’
‘Just what I told them,’ agreed Raymond.
Robert tapped his nose. ‘C’était un complot, un complot des marchands,’ – a plot by the wholesalers, he said, darkly. ‘Il y a trop de viande dans les grands congélateurs – there’s a meat mountain. Si vous tuez beaucoup de bêtes, vous pouvez vendre les autres – if you dispose of all the live ones you can sell what you already have in the freezer.’
‘And it’s the small farmer who suffers every time,’ said Raymond, ‘comme toujours.’
It did get warmer that spring but it also got wetter. We took Raymond and Claudette out to Sunday lunch to try a new restaurant, Le Moulin de Labique. In spite of the rain, which had just begun, the setting of the old mill was very picturesque. We were rather alarmed when we first entered to find that we were the only customers, but we had hardly sat down when a party of fourteen arrived and the room soon hummed with discussions of the menu. Once again, in this region of good food, we marvelled at the choice and the value for money. The days of five courses for 80 Francs had gone forever but, for 150 francs, at that time about £15, there was a choice of three starters, one of which was a salad with semi-cooked foie gras. The main dishes included a roti d’agneau with orange and ginger, un civet de cannette with tagliatelle, or magret de canard – duck breast – with a honey and shallot sauce. As usual we all had something different. The lamb was especially good and the portions were generous. Claudette enjoyed herself, tasting everything. She loves to eat out and is much more adventurous than Raymond, who prefers to stick to what he knows. The desserts included gratin de poire avec eau de vie de poire and a homemade mousse aux framboises, so I was happy. And we drank a good bottle of Bordeaux for 10 francs.
The patron was in the process of restoring the rest of the building and took us on a tour to show us the beautiful tiled staircase leading up to the accommodation above. We wished him well. There are many such enterprising ventures, which begin hopefully, but the season here is short – mid-July to the end of August, as far as the French holiday-maker is concerned. Even les étrangers are heading homeward by the end of September. To make a good living all year round one must attract and keep local wedding parties and reunions, and the competition is fierce.
We ran
to the car park, the rain even heavier now and clearly settled in for the afternoon. But Sunday is Raymond’s day off. ‘On va rendre visite a Ursula, peut-être?’ he asked eagerly. ‘Je voudrais bien voir sa petite maison.’ Ursula had recently sold her very large farmhouse with extensive outbuildings and had moved to a smaller house. She always welcomed visitors, but I knew that she had broken her wrist during the winter and I wondered if we might find her a little frail. She was, after all, well over eighty. Braving the rain and up to her ankles in mud, she waved as we stopped the car. Her short, stylish hair with its blonde streaks was crammed under a sou-wester. She had just finished mucking out her two horses.
We crowded into her snug little house, hung with all the rosettes she has won for riding competitions. It is just across the courtyard from that of her daughter Susan, who came in briefly to greet us before dashing off again through the rain as she was preparing a meal for fourteen that evening. They are a formidable pair. Ursula showed us the photographs taken the previous summer when Susan had brought her mother back to England for a surprise party. Susan’s brother had organised everything and the large and extended family had decorated a barn and crowned Ursula, ‘Queen of the Summer’.
‘And the wrist?’ I enquired. ‘Is it better?’
She flexed her arm. ‘What a nuisance it was,’ she said. ‘But I’ve almost forgotten about it now.’
‘Elle est indefatigable!’ said Raymond as we left.
It rained the next day and the day after. A frog took shelter in the bathroom. There were lakes on either side of the house and, with the incessant rain, an inevitable drop in temperature. We kept the fire constantly burning. On a brief trip for supplies we were splashed by a council lorry, carrying large and ominous road signs. ROUTE INONDÉE. Getting the garden into shape, one of the main reasons for our visit, was out of the question and I consoled myself by listening to France Musique, the French equivalent of Radio Three, while polishing the furniture. It gave me pleasure to look at the newly plastered wall in the main living room, which our gentle giant M. Duparq had finished at the end of the previous summer. Only the bottom half had needed replastering and the new work was skilfully blended with the rough finish above it. While removing damaged plaster around the window he had unearthed some very attractive edging stones and had waited until we returned from shopping before covering them up again. When we decided to leave them exposed he was pleased and pointed them with great care.
Reflections of Sunflowers Page 3