The Forgotten Summer

by Carol Drinkwater

  ‘I wonder why you never felt able to confide in me. Was it because of Clarisse? Were you ashamed of your mother’s behaviour, or did you think it would entrench deeper my feelings against her? I wish I knew. I wish I understood. Annie’s my half-sister too, did you know? Patrick is my nephew. My father’s grandchild. It feels weird and quite wonderful too.’

  Jane wanted to reassure Luc that she would honour the hand he had held out to Annie, the generosity he had shown to Matty’s daughter and to Patrick, even if his financial problems had cost her greatly and she was not able to afford the same assistance. She had delivered his letter to Clarisse, who had read it, guffawed and tossed it to the floor at her bedside. ‘Always the foolish romantic, my boy. So unlike his father. Thank God.’

  Clarisse was growing weak and less and less reasonable, displaying streaks of cruelty towards poor Matty, who in return was patient always, bestowing care and attention upon her.

  Jane recounted some titbits of news. ‘I’m going to stay on, for a while at least, see how it goes. I’ll help out, as you wanted. It’s so glorious here now, Luc. These young summer days. The golden orioles have been feeding on the soft fruits and Claude is bad-tempered about it. “One of the few crops we have at present and I haven’t managed to keep them away. They nab the lot with their thieving beaks,” he moaned to me yesterday.’ Jane had attempted to mimic Claude’s accent. There was no one else visiting the cemetery to observe her talking to herself, waving her arms about, warming to her narration. ‘Arnaud discovered a swarm of bees up near the courtyard at the manor house. He said they’d fled their colony and were scouting for a new home.’

  The swarm had clustered and hung, like a giant chocolate egg, beneath the eaves of the newly converted stables, she told Luc. ‘I watched as he collected them – the whole bee community all at once – and settled them in a box in the back of his truck. He’s housed them now in one of his newly constructed hives. Their queen was among them, so soon the estate will have its own honey, Luc. Honey to accompany our morning croissants …’ She bowed her head, knowing that they would never again share this small delight together.

  Tender is the night at your side. And the awakening. Oh, Luc, if only …

  A tear fell and sank fast to her chin, then another. She rubbed her face with the back of her hand.

  ‘What else? Je t’aime. The place lacks a rudder, Luc, a motor. It lacks you. Clarisse is giving up on it entirely. Her poor health and mood swings, her increasingly unhinged mind mean that she’s more or less housebound and she’s not very good-tempered about that either. She says the farm is my responsibility. And I don’t know where to begin, whether I should begin at all or whether I should pack my bags and disappear, though I don’t know where. So, what now for me, Luc? Give me a sign, please. Tell me what you think is best for me. Wherever I end up, please stay beside me.’

  That evening, Jane sat alone on the terrace with a glass of chilled white wine, watching evening fall slowly and flocks of birds silently cross the sky to their feeding sites. In the distance, the sun was sinking behind ragged rows of trees in the unruly orchards. The sky grew red, like a rosary of fireballs hovering over the Mediterranean Sea. Slowly, as twilight paled into darkness, the silhouettes of the trees grew black. Venus rose. The moon appeared like a circle of muslin and began its languid trajectory. The darkness was thick and velvety. Jane felt at peace within it, her pain lying quiet, assuaged by the beauty.

  A text message pinged on her phone. It was from Dan. It read: Evening J, good to hear from you. Am back from a LONG shoot in West Australia, Prince Regent, Kimberlies. Delighted all getting resolved. Will call soon, Dx

  It lifted her heart to hear from Dan after so long, even if he was still far away. Beyond the loss of Luc, Dan was continuing to build his career, which both pleased and saddened her. She looked forward to hearing one day about the film he’d been shooting. She was surprised, though, by his comment about ‘all getting resolved’. Was he referring to Luc’s archives? Was he intending to help her? She hoped so.

  That night, before going to sleep, she considered her position, her options, her solitude. She felt less alone here, even while regretting that she couldn’t turn back the clock to share her new life with Luc in the light of all she now knew. She lay staring at the ceiling. The first ceiling that baby Annabelle, her sister, had ever set eyes on. Imagine that: she had a sister. She lay pondering sisterly activities. Bike rides together, blackberry picking. Borrowing one another’s clothes. Visiting her dad, their dad. Peter had a daughter and a grandson but would never know about them. That saddened her.

  Did Annie know they were related? Did Annie have any inkling of the identity of her father? Had Luc known that his half-sister was also his wife’s half-sister? Had he been protecting her and her father? Was that why he had kept silent? Should she make contact with Annie?

  The possibilities were boundless.

  Tomorrow, she resolved, she would sanction the recruitment of workers to assist Claude. A squad making a concerted effort to set the estate back on track. She would remain here till the grape harvest had been brought in and possibly the olive harvest too. Beyond that? Well, she could decide her future later. Her gifts to Les Cigales, in memory of Luc, would be to clear out all that remained in the cellars, register Luc’s film archives with the various institutes and participate in the restoration of the domain. All before she deliberated over the building of her own future.

  She closed her eyes. She should contact Annie, of course she should. Excitement washed through her. It had been a long while since she had felt so alive.

  19

  Eleven were booked, behatted and taciturn. Claude had been hoping for a few more and would have been able to rope in an extra three or four if Clarisse had not embargoed the employment of Arabs on the estate. Arabs, especially Maghrebians, many of whom were Berbers, from north Africa, were the cheap workforce in these southern districts of France. They weren’t popular with the Provençaux. Au contraire, they were despised and mistrusted by many, but they came in handy for labouring purposes. Frequently, they worked, au noir, for cash, at lower than legal rates, and they kept themselves to themselves, respected salat – their five sets of daily prayers – and shied away from alcohol. Many small enterprises hired them for the manual grind, but that made no odds to Clarisse. She had always refused to employ them. She feared them, she said.

  Jane argued that she was being ridiculous.

  The Cambon family had fought against them in Africa and Clarisse feared their revenge.

  Jane overrode this nonsense and Claude found three willing Arabs to join the team.

  So, finally the roll-call was fourteen. Or sixteen, if you included Claude and Arnaud. Claude had offered the men le SMIC, the salaire minimum de croissance, the minimum wage, increased marginally at the beginning of the year by ten centimes to 9.53 euros an hour gross. It was a modest rate but a legal and declared wage. They would also be given their meals and a rough bed, if they preferred to stay over. He had told Jane that not a man among them had agreed to employment in return for a share in the upcoming harvest – ‘Too uncertain,’ he had explained. The truth of the matter was that he had never presented the proposition to his cronies. Times were hard down there in the south, and unemployment figures were on the increase all over France. La crise viticole was biting. Still, a man deserved a wage for a decent day’s graft.

  The rural workforce had their rights and demanded respect, which Clarisse was rarely willing to acknowledge. The men had been employed at Jane’s bidding on behalf of the estate. So the estate could dig deep and find the funds. It was Clarisse’s fault that the place was on the decline, no one else’s. Claude was ignorant of the fact that Jane was advancing the cash out of her own pocket.

  He and Matty were both living under the illusion that Clarisse or the estate, which boiled down to the same thing as far as they were concerned, had capital stashed away, no matter her pleas of poverty. He might have been a little more flexibl
e if Jane had confided that the funds were coming out of her own earnings.

  When Claude placed his hand-scribbled calculations on the breakfast table, Jane swallowed hard and sat down, seated stiffly against a straight-back chair.

  ‘We’re looking at a layout of fifteen weekly pay packets.’ Claude was already employed by the estate so his salary was not included, but Arnaud’s was. ‘So, it amounts to a little over five thousand euros per week. The national working week is thirty-five hours, a measure brought in by our socialist prime minister, Lionel Jospin, in 2000, and hotly ranted against by Clarisse. Beyond the thirty-five, the men are on overtime, Jane, and their hourly rate increases.’

  Jane nodded, staring at Claude’s sheet of paper torn from an exercise book. She sipped her coffee. This was going to gobble up all her savings and all that she had earned and put aside this year. She prayed it would not eat into the small lump sum she had been paid from the flat sale. It was summer, long days, and the urgently required work was enough to give her and her bank account nightmares. ‘How many weeks are we looking at?’

  ‘It depends how far you want to take this, how thorough you want to be. Back when Madame Isabelle was alive, the regular land crew counted eight, plus me as foreman. To get this place to where it was when she was running it will possibly mean work for a dozen employees for a year.’

  ‘A year? Lord, let’s see what we can achieve in a fortnight.’ Jane laughed brightly. She was putting on a brave, undeterred front.

  Claude nodded. ‘We’ll doubtless need longer, Jane. You’d better relate the facts to Madame, but I’ll tell the men to be ready to start the day after tomorrow. Tomorrow Arnaud and I will service the machines we own and we’ll drive to the cooperative to hire those we don’t. How does that sound?’

  Jane nodded. She dared not ask the tariff for machine rentals.

  ‘Any thoughts on how you want to go about the clearing?’

  Jane shook her head. ‘I’m counting on you to organize it, Claude. And while we’re about it, let’s get the tractor back under cover if you’re not going to be using it.’

  ‘Arnaud’s already towed it in. He’s preparing it for oil changes and it needs new brake linings. We’re sorting it.’

  ‘Good.’

  ‘Right, then. What I’ll do is this. I’ll break us up into four small teams of four men each, with me flitting between all of them, keeping an eye, as will Arnaud, but no matter how hard or thoroughly we work, Jane, we won’t be able to resuscitate all the vineyards. You’re clear on that, aren’t you? I’m not promising miracles here.’

  Again, she nodded.

  ‘We’ll tidy up as many fields and groves as we can manage and strim the highest-risk growth elsewhere. The days are getting longer and hotter. The region’s on red alert in terms of fire. The commune’s sent out leaflets to all the larger holdings, including us, warning that there’ll be hefty fines if we don’t clear back responsibly. When the tourists get here – it’s July so any day now they’ll start descending in droves – with their sloppy land ways, their disrespect for the environment, their selfish disregard for us working farmers. And if there’s one whiff of a mistral, the fires could flare up in a second. One thoughtless match, that’s all it takes. Or arson. Then the flames rage and spread at speeds that beggar figures. The estate should never have fallen into this decline, but it has.’ Claude was clearly thankful that Jane was finally giving him the go-ahead to cut and prune.

  ‘It’s in your hands, Claude.’

  That oniony scent of felled vegetation: weeds, wild flowers and grasses levelled. It was an exhilarating perfume. The buzz and thrum of machines firing in every direction. There was an unexpected splendour, a grace, in the sight and motion of the men hard at work. Figures squatting in the shade of the pins parasols for refreshment breaks, labouring in fields amid the sun-blasted yellows of Van Gogh, the delicate tones of Paul Cézanne, and even, in the pre-dawn light, if she were out of bed to ride with the crew, a hint of Millet’s The Angelus.

  Distant pines reaching for the sky, bleached-out vegetation, sea and mountains with only heat and crickets to remind Jane that there was life born of this ancient rock-solid stillness. Rural panoramas were being stripped and reconfigured by the muscular labourers with their chainsaws and cutting machines, their strong hands as rough and hirsute as giant spiders. Jane accompanied Claude on several of his morning or afternoon reconnoitres. Ahead of and encircling them lay semi-jungled fields, groves, vineyards climbing towards the purple-blue mountains. In each, where a quartet of men had set to strimming or uprooting the wild greenery and blossoms, there was orchestrated movement. Nothing appeared to be haphazard. Without a word spoken, a signal given, they worked in harmony, like dancers in a troupe. And before Jane’s eyes, as she watched, the landscape was transformed.

  She wished Luc and Dan had been present to film the metamorphosis. Layers of vibrantly pigmented growth were being peeled away, chiselled to the bone. Shafts of light were revealed through the empty spaces, a deep-blushed rose was the earth’s hue when revealed, while flurries of multi-coloured blossoms were settling, one on top of another, like a kaleidoscope of expiring butterflies. The contours of the terrain were being laid bare, exposed. Here was the most dramatic change. Where the sloping land was en restanque, a Provençal term for drystone or mortarless terracing, the eye was suddenly drawn to the chunks, the slabs, of magnificent limestone, orange-toned from having been embedded for centuries in the roseate soil, hewn from these Mediterranean mountains, to the medieval craftsmanship of the walls and to the powerful imagery of the hills.

  And the land made no complaint. Au contraire, the liberation seemed to give it voice. Higher inland towards the base of the mountain, the olive groves, all planted on ancient terraces, were also being cut back, but there the men left great swathes of the wild vegetation to continue to grow freely. The visual result was an enchanting patchwork of colour and height alongside razored yellowing grass. They docked and cut the swards, shaving circles round the feet of the silvery trees, revealing felled daisies and knobbly, snakelike olive roots, grey as elephants’ trunks, burrowing across the surface of the pebbled calcareous soil.

  ‘By late 1962 when the Cambons took possession of this domain, Les Cigales was a bankrupt affair. The women drove a hard bargain and purchased it for a good price. No one locally had the funds to step in. In those early days, the olives picked during the estate’s harvests were trussed up into hessian sacks and transported to a local co-operative set on a craggy slope west of Malaz, where they were pressed into peppery green oil, bottled and sold locally.’

  As she stood on dried earth and stone, listening to Claude with his head raised upwards towards the mountainside, the sight of the gnarled groves spoke to Jane’s soul.

  ‘How many olive trees have we on the farm?’

  ‘Three hundred centenarians and close to seventeen hundred younger ones, planted by our two French-Algerian women during the 1990s, the decade when European Union subsidies had looked favourably upon French olive businesses. The fruit is harvested by us and then Arnaud drives it in that old truck to one of several mills hereabouts where it’s pressed into oil. Only a few kilos of our fruit are cured for table olives.’

  ‘Any particular reason?’

  ‘Our variety, the cailletier cultivar, is particularly fine for oil. We produce some of the best oil in France.’

  Jane recalled the disused mill near Cherry Tree Lodge from her childhood expeditions with Luc, and its burbling stream that in high summer dwindled to a trickle. It was rated number seven on his list of ‘Les Cigales’ Top Sixteen Hiding Places’. The stream water was clear as glass, eau potable, quenching their thirst after their long hike to that hinterland spot. They had wiled away many contented hours at the old mill while Luc took photos and made sketches of how it might have looked and operated, and Jane watched, weaving daisy chains or jotting down the French names of the flowers in a sketchbook Luc had given her.

  She often wond
ered why Luc spent so much of his time with her and not with the twin sons of Claude and Matty who, a little older than she, were closer to his age. ‘They have to work when they’re not learning,’ Luc had replied. ‘In any case, I like to pretend you’re my kid sister. I would have liked a sister.’ It had saddened her back then that he had thought of her as a small sister when her passion for him was on fire.

  And now they both had a sister. Annie.

  ‘I remember the water mill up behind Clarisse’s lodge.’

  ‘Oh, Lord.’ Claude laughed, and his brown face puckered into a dried fruit. ‘That place has long since fallen into disrepair, Jane. Not for a century have olives been pressed on this estate.’

  ‘Why are they leaving so many pockets of grass overgrown and not strimming the entire grove?’ she asked. He was tearing morsels off a baguette with his teeth and chewing them with a lump of hard cheese. He’d been up since four and this was his second snatched breakfast.

  ‘Habitat for nature’s creatures, Jane. Pollen for the honeybees and every other pollinator, all of whom entretien the grounds and do their bit towards keeping the earth healthy. That in turn helps keep the dratted olive fly at bay. Even so, it’ll be a poor olive crop this year in spite of all those good-looking fruit fattening on the branches. I fear we’ll lose the lot. It’s a bloody shame.’

  ‘Are all these olives no good, then?’

  ‘Without looking closely, I’d guess that about sixty per cent of them have already been infested with fly larvae. We didn’t clear the groves and burn the fallen diseased drupes at the end of the harvest last year. We were going to do it after Christmas when Luc got back from London …’ Claude fell silent, picked a crumb off his unshaven chin. The strimmers droned on insistently. Only the cicadas answered back. For one moment their zinging was like the wailing of women at a wake.