The rain had stopped. The lake outside the green room door was subsiding slowly and the sun reappeared. As I sat under the porch watching the steam rising off the vineyard, I wondered what they would do for their twentieth anniversary and whether I would be here to see it.
Later the following evening we telephoned Raymond. We’d been keeping watch. ‘Ils sont arrivés,’ we said.
‘Les étourneaux?’
‘Oui.’
‘Merde!’ was his response. ‘Je vais chercher le canon.’
There were already blue plastic ribbons at intervals tied among the rows in this the newest vineyard, which we see from our front door. Raymond had placed great faith in these strips blowing in the breeze. For some reason, he was of the opinion that les étourneaux – the starlings – did not like blue and would avoid it. With the vines already heavy with succulent grapes, which were growing larger and riper every day, I thought the birds might think them worth any affront to their appreciation of colour. Every year les étourneaux seem to arrive around the beginning of September. They sweep in great wheeling clouds across the fields and if they are exceptionally numerous can decimate a crop. Fortunately they don’t seem to stay very long so it is more a question of persuading them to fly off somewhere else. For this the cannon was now to be brought into use. It would shatter the silence once every ten or fifteen minutes, causing the birds to fly up in alarm. Eventually it was hoped that they would get fed up and leave.
We once stayed the night with friends in the Dordogne. Their difficult neighbour across the valley had, so he claimed, a problem with sanglier, wild boar, eating his maize. In spite of the fact that no one else in the whole area had seen a boar, a cannon was employed. The noise was so loud and, being in a valley, reverberated against the hillside startling not only any sanglier but everyone else within miles. It also continued about every eight minutes throughout the night and we were very glad to get home. It is actually illegal to use a cannon after dark and eventually we were told that, in this case, the police were called in and dismantled it.
Raymond, having installed his machine somewhere in the middle of the vineyard, was concerned that it worked as it should. All was well for the first evening and we hadn’t had any sightings of starlings that day. Raymond and Mike sat on the porch drinking an aperitif while I prepared supper listening to Beethoven’s Second on France Musique, divinely played by an orchestra under Simon Rattle. Through the open door I could see the line of cows standing near the fence, watching Raymond and listening to his voice. The last few distant bangs of the cannon stopped as the light faded. Raymond drained his glass, bid us ‘Bonne soirée’, and we heard the tractor start up and then die away.
The next day, while we were preparing for our guests, the cannon suddenly stopped in the afternoon and, having been mended, did not stop as dusk fell. There was nothing for it but to switch it off later by hand. Raymond was going to a reunion that night. Would we do it? Of course. But we forgot. By the time we remembered, it was very dark. We decided to drive up the edge of the vineyard in our old 2CV. We didn’t want to risk our other car. The cannon is a small device, attached to a similarly sized gas cylinder. It sat on the ground somewhere about half way up one of the fifteen extremely long, leafy rows. I hopped out of the car while Mike turned it, trying to avoid the ditch. He parked and climbed out.
‘Can you see it?’
‘You have to be joking!’
‘It’s about two rows down from the poteau,’ he called.
‘I can’t even see the bloody poteau,’ I shouted. ‘Wait. I’ll get a torch.’
Anyone watching would have thought we were completely mad. We wandered up and down the vines with an ever more feeble torch in a darkness so deep that even the tall concrete electricity pole somewhere in the middle was invisible. The odd thing was that the noise, which should have guided us, was distorted and muffled in the thick leaves. Clearly the sound went straight upward for the benefit of the birds. Eventually Mike drove the 2CV across the ditch and around to the bottom of the vineyard and we advanced and reversed, sweeping each row with the main beam until we finally located the wretched thing. I walked up and switched off the cylinder. We bumped home down the uneven track, left the 2CV outside the barn and, at last, settled down for supper.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
It was early evening. The last before our friends would arrive to stay. Mike had already swum and had gone to shower, fix an aperitif and write a letter to Matthew. I stripped off and swam nude, an extra delight and something I don’t do when we have guests, not that I think they’d mind. The sun had been glorious all day with an intermittent gusty wind. I managed twenty lengths and each time I reached the deep end the perfume from the great rambling shrub by the pool was overwhelming. With its dull green leaves, silvered underneath, and the very small, hidden, creamy flowers, I wish my elaeagnus ebbingei had a more attractive common name. The ‘bee bush’ might do. At this time of the year the scent attracts bees of every kind. In the grand humming chorus of insects it seemed to be the smallest that made the most noise, apart from the occasional bourdon, the great black bumblebee. The perfume at the other end of this rural pool was not so appealing. Rotting fruit from two wild plum trees, which we had to cut back before we left, covered the rough ground.
We had spent the morning shopping and the afternoon making a huge boeuf bourguignon. The beds were ready, the sheets rough dried in the sun and the wind. I hauled myself out of the pool to sunbathe and had fortunately just wrapped myself in a towel when M. Carpentier et fils, armed with pickaxes, appeared unexpectedly. They would like to make a start on digging out the ground. Was that convenable? With guests due the following day it was, of course, highly inconvenient, but so anxious were we to see the work begun that we agreed. For the next couple of hours they hacked away, the space growing larger and larger. If it rained now, I thought, not only would our lake be twice the size, it would also be filled with mud. But, there being no sign of even a passing cloud, we hoped for the best. They were, at least, tidy workers. They continued until about seven-thirty, laid down planks for our guests to walk on and left with a promise to return at the weekend to concrete in the strong wooden support and cut the steps.
The next morning we were up early. Les Spears, as Raymond calls them, would already be disembarking from the train at Brive. The temperature on our porch was only 54 degrees, a reminder that it really was September, but the low sun was already fierce in a blue, blue sky. Still in shadow, the cows were putty coloured, the sun just catching their rumps as they moved in unhurried fashion across the field. Heavy dew on the electricity wire swung loops of silver across the distant fields; the tall poteau in the vineyard now clearly visible. The far hillside, still undefined, was grey with mist. All the plastic chairs were drenched and the morning glories, which are Mike’s special favourites, lived up to their name, opening bold and bright against the rough white wall. Last year’s pristine gravel path, now with a baby-fine green covering, glistening with moisture, clearly needed more weed-killer. There was no wind; hence perfect conditions for the job, but it was almost too beautiful to attack.
We have a young, self-sown peach tree at the corner of the chai. The fruit, pêche de vigne, are small with delicious, red-stained flesh. As its name implies this variety was grown at the end of rows of vines, whether, as with roses, to warn of disease, or just to refresh the pickers I’m not sure. This summer for the first time our little tree was heavy with peaches. Had the trunk been stronger the branch would have broken, as so often happens with Raymond’s plum trees. As it was, the whole tree was leaning over. We were sure our guests would help solve the problem. Les Spears arrived about midday looking fragile. Mary and Bernard are both over eighty and Mary, in particular, had not been well. Over the next few days they began to recover from the journey. Nan and Tony, our other guests who have been coming to Bel-Air for the last 25 years, arrived the next day and as Nan had once been a nurse this lent authority to our welcoming Mary strictly
as convalescent. All she was allowed to do was pick some peaches.
Sunday was Mike’s birthday. We had organised a cake and champagne for later that evening but were all summoned after lunch to take dessert at the farm. It was not one of Claudette’s giant baba au rhum, a tarte aux poires, or clafouti aux prunes, but another birthday cake complete with candles and Joyeux Anniversaire in bright pink icing. There was a bottle of Armagnac for Mike and even a present for me as I had missed my French birthday celebrations in April of that year. Mary asked about the industrial-sized refrigerated cupboard humming away under the hanger. It was the first time our friends had seen it. Claudette smiled and once again told proudly about her solution to the problem of the regulations from Brussels.
‘On l’a acheté pour le petit veau, cette année,’ she said. She wasn’t going to repeat the outrage of the previous year and lose all her special delicacies.
‘Then who killed the calf?’ asked Mary.
‘It was cousin Robert, l’ancien boucher, who had slaughtered the calf for us at the farm this spring,’ she explained.
‘He cut its throat,’ she said, matter of factly. ‘The proper way to kill an animal.’
She didn’t approve of electrical stunning, claiming that it didn’t always work. This method was quick and they had hung the carcass in the new fridge. Bernie was interested, saying that this was the way both Kosher and Halal animals are killed. I mused about the beautiful little calf, and also about Robert, who loves bees and all living creatures.
I had noticed that Raymond was wearing his striped jersey. Soon he disappeared and we heard him returning with the old Citroen. It stood gleaming and throbbing in the courtyard to be admired.
‘C’est pour les Spears,’ declared Raymond. ‘On va faire un tour.’
Nan and Tony had already sampled the transformed car the previous year. Mary, always elegant, tied a scarf over her wide sun hat, making a perfect Edwardian lady, and off they went, waving regally. Cake and champagne were repeated at about nine o’clock that evening at Bel-Air.
‘Deux fois, le champagne,’ said Raymond happily raising his glass. ‘C’était une bonne idée!’
Sleeping every afternoon under the tree, Mary continued to recover and, their brief stay soon over, they, like us, decided to drive all the way home. Soon they were packing up and looking at the map.
A single sternbergia appeared in the garden. I had first noticed these bright yellow, crocus-like flowers when we visited the hilltop town of Bellaye many years before, late in September. Bellaye looks down on a loop of the river Lot, giving a superb view of the surrounding Cahors vineyards. These brilliant flowers were everywhere, pushing up through the grass verges between short, pointed green leaves. I imagined them to be a yellow version of an autumn crocus but later I discovered that they were of the same family as daffodils and snowdrops and, rather to my surprise, hippeastrums. They originate in Greece where they can cover a hillside and are thought to be the ‘lilies of the field’ of the Bible. I had bought a few plants in the market one summer and as they are totally invisible for most of the year it is easy to forget exactly where they’ve been planted. They make an exotic contrast against another of my late flowering favourites, the desmodium. This is a shrub with long arching sprays of small, pea-like, dark pink flowers which sway in the wind. It dies away completely in the winter, leaving a tangle of dry stems which make good kindling. The new shoots are the only problem. They push through the grass and weeds in late spring, just when I am busy with the strimmer. I have made many a mistake. It is so infuriating to think that the two-inch shoot, a bit like a coltsfoot, that I have just cut off, would, in a couple of months, had I been less clumsy, have become a flowering delight, four feet long.
It was gardening weather. Cyclamen, which Tony planted years ago, appeared under the rose bushes. Nancy bought more in the market and dug them in around the trunk of the ash tree. We cut back the japonica and pruned the early roses. We borrowed Raymond’s long tree lopper to tackle the laurels. Not for Raymond a modern aluminium version as I have in London. His was made with a long straight branch cut from the wood. The blades were fixed at the top somewhat precariously with a single nail and were manipulated by pulling on a rope. It was not easy. We took turns. We had planted the laurels behind the low wall which shelters the pool from the north. They were growing ever taller and wider. Mike insisted that they were completely out of hand. I rather enjoyed their profusion. As usual it was Nan who arbitrated and then did most of the work. While I did my best with the side facing the pool, she took more drastic measures on the other side.
It was just as well we made the most of the weather. The next afternoon the sun disappeared. There was a change in the air. Ominous clouds began to loom up from the west and we could hear distant thunder. We can see for many miles and watched the storm approaching. There seemed to be two dark funnels but it was all moving very slowly. We made tea and sat up high on the terrace for a ringside view. The thunder rolled around for an hour and a half, like an angry bull, uncertain whether or not to strike. There was a brief reappearance of the sun, perhaps it would miss us after all, but a spattering of rain eventually made us pack up the tea. As we did so there was sudden, brilliant, sheet lightning. We hurried under the porch, thunder deafening us right overhead. For about three minutes we watched as a heavy downpour raced and gurgled down the water channel but then we had to dive for cover. Hailstones, larger than cherries, came horizontally across the field and clattered onto the porch. In seconds they had built into a pile around the base of the well and even skittered through the open door into the house. The noise was furious. We ran into the green room, which Nan and Tony were using, and which faced the storm, to see water cascading down the north-facing wall. The hail-stones, so fierce and at such an angle, had simply forced themselves up under the tiles. There was already a leak above the bed. Nan and I simply rolled up the whole mattress and bedding and rushed it through the front door, across the living room and into the yellow bedroom. We laughed as there were already two mattresses on this bed. Now there would be three. The story of the Princess and the pea came to mind. It was just as well they changed their bedroom as the excavation outside their door was now indeed a very large muddy lake.
It all stopped as suddenly as it had started and the next morning the sun shone, the sky was blue once more and les Carpentiers appeared early and cut a drainage channel. The water vanished and the earth steamed. They brought up the handsome, square wooden support for the new roof section. It had a metal peg at the base, which they hammered and then cemented into place, and the next day they fixed the sloping diagonal cross beam of the new roof and the two straight edges at right angles which were cemented into each wall. Now we could see how it would all work. These timbers were untreated and Tony and Mike spent most of the day with brushes and a tin of wood preservative. Soon our old friends, so much a part of Bel-Air, had to leave for their long journey back to Northumberland and were not able to see that corner of the house finished. ‘A l’année prochaine,’ we toasted. Next year!
There were minor crises during the next few days when the cement mixer broke down and young Carpentier who was, we learnt, called Peter – pronounced Pitaire – had to mix by hand. Eventually our wide steps were cemented and by the end of the week, when his father came to inspect the work, there was only the roof to be finished. We left M. Carpentier fixing the rafters and went to buy voliges, the laths to go underneath the tiles. These were already treated with a lurid yellow preservative and it was quite a relief when they were covered. Our pile of ancient tiles from the Château were unearthed and carefully overlapped. Our perennial problem had finally been solved, the umbrella could be moved from the bedroom door, and guests in the green room would not now get wet before they reached the shower.
The storm had cleared the air. The weather was gentle. Misty mornings were followed by golden days, droning with harvests. Our view across the fields was once again revealed, chunk by chunk, as a great gree
n combine lowered its silver rockets and carved its way through Raymond’s wide field of maize, five rows at a time. Usually it is a steady stream of corn-cobs, which hurtle out into the waiting trailer. They then go to be dried all winter long in the high wire cages, les cribs, which stride so decoratively across the countryside. This time it was different. I watched as the combine spilt out single grains, like silage, but a larger stream and pure gold, unlike the variations from lime green to ash brown of silage. Jean-Michel came by briefly, keeping an eye on the proceedings.
‘On va faire la farine, cet après-midi,’ he shouted. ‘You should come and have a look.’
All was creamy white flour in the barn when we went down after lunch to watch the milling. Jean-Michel, his eyebrows and hair already coated, as were his long cotton coat and Wellingtons, looked like a snowman, or a street mime artist, except that he was never still. He was clearly in charge, with Raymond nowhere to be seen. I knew that there was an old, battered milling machine in the other barn, rather like an extra large baby mouli. This was clearly a much more sophisticated arrangement. The tractor, with its small but powerful mill attachment, had been backed into the barn. The golden grain poured in and the flour flowed out of a tube into a trough lined with black plastic. Jean-Michel, in between yelling instructions, was tramping it down and levelling it off. The head of the farming machine cooperative, to which Raymond belongs, had brought a small group of interested students. They took turns to drive the trailer back for fresh supplies. No dubious animal protein or other undesirables would be going into this winter feed.
Everything was turning colour. Our sumach trees are always the first to come into their true glory, followed by the Virginia creeper. Even the leaves on the boule de neige were tipped with pink. We had seven fat, glowing, pinkish-red pomegranates hanging outside the living room window. Across the newly cut maize field I could see the glowing shape of a field of soya bean. Close up one can distinguish the wonderful tones of yellow, orange and scarlet. Scarlet too were strings of berries twined round the barn door by the white bryony, which, with a root like an enormous white swede, rampages everywhere with its delicately shaped leaves. Even the leaves on the fig tree were turning. Some of the remaining fruit, too high to reach, had split open and peeled back showing the soft, red-brown flesh and golden seeds. The last few peaches hung on our little tree. On our way to buy wine to take home from the Coopérative we passed a splendid field of millet. The ripened spears of bronze glowed in the sunlight against an almost violet sky. I thought of our friend Jean, a painter, who was coming back to her house and studio in the village in a few days’ time. Jean had recently retired from running a busy art department and was, I knew, looking forward to her new freedom to stay and enjoy the autumn landscape. But she would have to hurry. The drone of distant combines signalled a complete change of scene. Two days later the burnished rows of millet had vanished, replaced by great brown furrows of rich soil.
Reflections of Sunflowers Page 14