by Tony Hawks
“Pardon?” I queried.
“Je n’ai pas de lait.”
No, I wasn’t mistaken. He was telling me that he didn’t have any milk in.
And then it dawned on me. Andre thought that I wanted to go round to his house right now to hear these stories and he wanted to let me know that we couldn’t have coffee because he didn’t have all the requisite ingredients in.
“Non, pas immediatement ,” I explained. “Une autre fois”.
Andre looked relieved that this could be done at another time. A time when he could have a decent supply of milk in. A time when there wasn’t a party going on, which now seemed to be getting into full swing.
“Une biere, Tony?” said a voice, accompanied by a hearty slap on the back.
This was clearly the trademark of Alain, who, when I turned round, was standing there holding out a bottle of beer. To be honest, I wasn’t sure whether a beer was altogether a good idea. After all, I’d already consumed a good deal of Ricard, red wine and brandy, but Alain had gone to the trouble so it probably would have been rude not to. I took the bottle and was instantly ushered over to a table where cards were being played.
“C’est belote ,” announced Alain. “Allez jouer!”
Now I definitely wasn’t sure about this. Learning a new game of cards is hard enough, but when you add the fact that the rules will be explained in a foreign language, you hardly know what any of the cards are called, and you’ve drunk and eaten yourself into a state where all you’re good for is a bit of a lie-down—then it’s something best avoided.
“Non merci ,” I replied.
“Mai’s oui!” insisted Alain, who then slapped me on the back.
It was starting to feel like this backslapping leant more towards coercion than camaraderie. I was manhandled into a chair alongside a gentle white-haired lady and opposite Serges—he of the bulbous moustache. Beside him was Christine, the young waitress who had offered me the Hobson’s choice of porc ou poulet. After vociferous introductions from Alain I learned that the old lady was Marie, mother of’bonhomie’ Roger, and that Christine was the daughter of the deputy mayor.
“Bonne chance!” said Alain, inevitably providing me with a slap on the back as his parting shot.
And I needed it. Things didn’t get off to a good start when Christine explained that we were only going to use thirty-two cards. In my addled state I felt that this was unreasonable. Why not use the whole pack? We had them, and they were ours. It seemed silly not to take advantage. However, I showed great restraint and said nothing as Christine continued her short resume of the rules.
I now discovered that listening to the rules of cards is just like listening to directions. You only concentrate for the beginning bit and then you allow yourself to get distracted by different features of the information provider. Their hair, their mannerisms and, in this case, their eyes. Christine had lovely eyes.
“Tu as tout compris?” she asked, when she’d finished.
“Oui,” I replied.
This was a downright lie. Of course I hadn’t understood everything. I had only the faintest grasp of what had just been said, but Christine didn’t need to know that, and neither did anyone else.
They only needed to wait a matter of seconds before they found out, though. I led a high card and everybody immediately said, “Non, non!” I led a much lower one and everyone still said, “Non” Confused, I led the seven of hearts, and despite a few tuts, this seemed to be accepted. This clearly wasn’t the best of leads, but at least it fell within the parameters of the rules.
The game continued with me doing my best to look plausibly absorbed, but I was not someone who was gaining knowledge with each passing hand. All I could fathom was that we were playing some kind of whist hybrid, seemingly tailored for the express purpose of confusing the English.
One of the requirements of the game was that I had to shout ‘Valet tournant!” every time a jack was turned over. I did this obediently and with a great sense of purpose, totally oblivious to its significance. Occasionally I was urged to take a jack, at which point I had to shout ‘Valet prenant!” Secretly I hoped that the gusto and enthusiasm with which I performed these pronouncements would more than make up for the pig’s ear that I was making of everything else.
I’m not sure that it did. We played three games. In the first I was paired with Christine, in the second with Serges and in the third with Marie. I lost all three of them. I hate it when you get a run of bad luck like that.
I felt a slap on my back. Inevitably it was Alain, offering me another beer and asking me if I’d like to come and see his swimming pool. It was an odd request, but he announced that since I was English I’d certainly be wanting to put a pool in at my house. Splendidly bold presumption, I thought.
“My…swimming pool…is…very good!” he announced. “Only two minutes from here. Come!”
And with those words he began lifting me from my chair. He then led me by the arm out of the village hall. Had I not known that he lived with his girlfriend, I might have been less relaxed than I was. “Relaxed’ is of course a euphemism for wobbly on the feet, and we were both very relaxed. The short walk to his house was made hazardous by the fact that we had to avoid sober people who were arriving for the evening leg of this epic feast. No doubt Alain and I cut impressive figures as we meandered erratically past them offering up slurred ‘bonsoirs”.
“The new boy seems to be settling in just fine,” they might well have observed as we crossed.
Alain’s pool completely dominated his back garden. There was barely room for anything else. He extended his arm proudly towards it, almost as if he was inviting me to dive in fully clothed. I opted for a compliment instead.
“It’s very good,” I said. “Very good indeed.”
And it was. It was good. Everything about it was good. But if only I could have thought of something else to add. All the possibilities that sprang to mind would have seemed like I was taking the piss:
“It’s a very nice blue.”
“The water’s shimmering nicely in the evening sun.”
“Good shape. Rectangular is good.”
“The filtration system seems to be chugging along nicely.”
“Nice ladder.”
As I looked at Alain’s fine blue rectangular pool with its water shimmering in the evening sun, filtration system chugging along nicely and its nice ladder, I began to wonder if a pool was something that I should consider. I’d always assumed that owning a swimming pool would be too much bother. All that business people have to go through with niters, chlorine, covers and leaf removal. It never seems to me to be outweighed by the enjoyment attained from the actual time they spend swimming in it. But right now, relaxed as I was, I was tempted.
“I think I ought to get one,” I announced drunkenly, as if it was as easy as buying a shirt.
“Une bonne idee ,” confirmed Alain, before leading me back to the village hall.
There was something of a throng of new people gathered inside the door as we stepped back into the hall. Rene the Mayor welcomed us like newcomers, as did his smartly shirted posse. They seemed to have forgotten that they’d already greeted us thus some hours before. Or maybe they were just on ‘greeting auto-pilot’. Suddenly, and with some horror, I realised that I was still only halfway through the day’s social proceedings and that I would now be required to consume another meal, even before I’d had time to digest the first. And it wasn’t just food with which I’d have to contend—there’d be more drink too.
“Un aperitif, monsieur?” asked a volunteer waitress I’d not seen before.
“Oui, un Ricard ,” I replied.
Well, if a thing’s worth doing, it’s worth doing properly.
I have to confess to not remembering a great deal about the second gargantuan repast of the day. What I do recall is that whilst my stomach bulged unattractively, Jean-Claude, the owner of the house I was buying, stood up and made a speech saying goodbye to everyone in t
he village. Towards the end he welcomed me, le nouveau Anglais, and led everyone in a warm round of applause. I think I may have welled up a bit. I felt like grabbing each and every one of them and slobbering and slurring ‘I bloody love you’ into their ears at too high a volume, just like the street wino that I was getting ever closer to resembling.
I finished the night at a table wedged between Alain and Serges, the latter of whom congratulated me on my drinking performance.
“Tony, tu bois bien ,” he pointed out graciously. Then Alain slapped me on the back. I liked this place.
§
I had a headache in the morning, and the only thing that made it better was that I wasn’t suffering alone. Malcolm and Anne had bad heads too.
We were attempting to expunge our hangovers by engaging in the public-spirited activity of cleaning up the village hall. Just as volunteers from the village had prepared and presented the whole meal, it fell upon good souls like us to dispense with the debris. There were quite a few of us on duty, including the mayor and deputy mayor. It seemed that in this part of the world positions in high places did not excuse you from the menial tasks. Everyone mucked in together. Seemingly the only perk of being mayor was that you got to use the big ‘sprayey thing’. I expect there’s a technical term for such a contraption, but I don’t know what it is. Basically the ‘sprayey thing’ was a little machine attached to a hosepipe from which a big spray gun emanated. It was with this spray gun that the mayor prowled the village hall, spraying the tanned floor as he went. It fell to us lesser mortals to follow behind with big ‘scrapers’, pushing the soapy water away. Rene the Mayor conducted the operation with great pride and authority. There almost seemed to be a swagger about him as he waved his spray gun about the place. For a moment I wondered whether, if he was completely honest with himself, this was the thing he enjoyed best about being mayor.
Of course, there was the small point that the floor had never really been dirty enough to warrant the use of the ‘sprayey thing’ in the first place. A cursory wipe with a couple of mops would have sufficed. But no one had thought it wise to point this out. I mean, why deny your mayor his fun?
“Voila!” he said as he looked down proudly at the fruits of our labour.
A floor that looked pretty identical to how it had before.
“Très bien ,” I said, a bit like the school creep. Rene nodded proudly and smiled back at me. Shortly afterwards we adjourned for a big lunch. About time too.
No point in overdoing it.
§
Later that day I found myself clambering into my hire car (which hadn’t exactly been overused) and heading off to the airport. My stomach seemed to be considerably nearer the steering wheel than it had been a few days earlier, such had been the spirit with which I’d embraced French hospitality. Yes, I had given a good account of myself, and I swelled with both food and pride as I watched the mountains disappear from view in my rear-view mirror. For someone who didn’t yet have the keys to his new house, I’d surely made good progress. In fact, it felt like I was already beginning to settle in.
The steady monotony of the motorway reminded me that this was ‘back to England’ time. Already the last couple of days felt like a dream. How would I get on, I wondered, when I returned as the legal owner of the property?
What would happen to the dream when it became a reality?
7
SOS DIY
Back home in England I began to think that Alain was right. He’d stated quite clearly that I was English, and that this fact alone made it beholden upon me to get a swimming pool. In his own erudite words, it was ‘une bonne idee’, and I was aware that arguing with him on this matter was only going to lead to back trouble in the future. So, I started drawing little plans for where a pool might fit on the available land, and I even wrote to my chum Rene the Mayor to discover what was needed in the way of permission.
I was quite delighted with the form I promptly received back from him. It was called a ‘Declaration de travaux exemptes de permis de construire’. This effectively meant that it was a form you filled out which, if approved, gave you permission not to need permission. If this was an indication of what French bureaucracy had in store for me, then installing myself in this house was going to be an arduous task. Filling out the form made me feel like Corporal Jones from Dad’s Army, who always asked Captain Mainwaring’s consent for everything he did.
“Permission not to need permission,” he would have requested.
“Don’t be ridiculous, Jones,” would have come the reply.
But Captain Mainwaring wasn’t in charge of the French bureaucratic system. The post-war de Gaulle had been most diligent in ensuring that hadn’t happened. No, he’d got French bureaucrats to do it, and the ‘Permission not to need permission form’ may well have been one of their finest achievements.
As it turned out, not getting permission was quite a complicated business. I had to make a sketch of where the pool was going to be on the land, including its dimensions and a cross-section drawing revealing its depth. My mind boggled as to what would have been required had I actually needed their permission. Presumably they would have demanded further information, like birth certificate, blood type and special dietary requirements.
One of the consequences of completing the form and sending it back to the mayor was that I became aware that the swimming pool was now more than just a ‘maybe’ in answer to friends’ questions about whether I was going to get one or not. If my application for not needing permission were successful then it would become a major project for the new home, alongside plonking on the piano keys. But many questions remained unanswered. How much would it cost? Would I use it enough? Would there be a sporty type on a ladder blowing a whistle if I ever got the opportunity to do some petting?
Then there was the guilt factor. I’d already been through it once with regard to buying the house in the first place. How could I justify having so much, when so many people in the world have so little? Bloody conscience—why couldn’t it just mind its own business for once? It was assuaged a little after some surfing on the net revealed that the pool would cost me less than half what I’d pay for a fancy four-wheel drive. Now I didn’t feel so bad. Self-serving and hedonistic, yes, but not bad.
Not long after this period of form-filling and soul-searching, I received a letter from the notaire’s office informing me that the signing had all gone smoothly in my absence and that the house was now mine, all mine. Yes, I thought, but I’ll believe that when the keys are in my hand, and not before. Experience was teaching me that in these matters it was prudent to be a sceptic.
§
Spring had turned to summer by the time I set off to claim my treasure. I hadn’t wanted to go alone and I was travelling with Brad, who months before had done such a sterling job in devising a way for us to get my piano into the original white van. The original white van that regrettably was still not fully out of my life. I hadn’t realised that it had been my responsibility to let the Department of Transport know that I’d had the van towed away and crushed. An official letter had recently informed me that my failure to do so now made me liable to a hefty fine. Surely, I mused as I wrote out the cheque, this would finally be an end to the saga? Could there be any other ways that this van, deceased as it was, could drain my resources still further? Was I soon to discover that it had gambling debts for which I was responsible?
Brad and I loitered in the aisle of the plane, waiting for our turn to file down the steps and onto the French tarmac of Pau airport. A wave of hot humid air hit us as we stepped out from the plane’s pressurised cabin. The mountains, no longer snow-capped, swallowed up the horizon.
“Yes! We’re in heaven!” said Brad, pausing on top of the steps that would soon take him down to earth.
“Good, isn’t it?” I replied, slightly less euphorically.
I hoped that this trip would make a good break for Brad. He was waiting on a divorce, and although the process thus far had be
en amicable and he was well set to become good friends with his wife, I still felt he was carrying a burden of sadness and disappointment around with him. It felt great that I could provide succour by offering him the break of a few days’ relentlessly lugging furniture and unpacking boxes. It seemed the least I could do.
The drive was hot and humid, but then it was summer in the south of France, so it wasn’t unexpected. We wound down the windows and let the hot air circulate in the car until gradually it cooled as we began to climb and gain altitude. It wasn’t long before we were driving through the centre of Bagneres, almost in awe of the towering grey peaks that seemed to have sprung up all around us.
“What’s the first job we have to do?” asked Brad, displaying a splendid understanding of the fundamental nature of his trip.
“We have to collect the keys from the notaire’s office,” I replied. “It’s just up here on the left.”
Brad waited in the car whilst I climbed the stairs to the notaire’s office. I was nervous. I felt sure there’d be some last-minute bureaucratic hitch. But no, five minutes later I emerged from the offices waving the keys triumphantly above my head.
“No problems?” asked Brad, as I got back in the car.
“None at all. The notaire’s secretary handed over the keys. I didn’t even have to sign for them.”
A cynic might have believed that now all of my money had been successfully divided up amongst all the interested parties, there were no further hitches because nobody really gave a toss any more. But I was far too excited for such a cynical thought to have crossed my mind. I had the keys! The house was mine at long last.