by Peter Mayle
Once inside, he could make out the broad steps of a stone staircase rising up into the shuttered gloom. On either side of the entrance hall, double doors led to the main rooms of the ground floor, the classic bastide layout. He let himself into the cavernous kitchen, opening the shutters so that the late-afternoon sunlight flooded in to illuminate the motes of dust floating in the still air. A massive cast-iron range and a bath-sized sink took up one entire wall, glass-fronted storage cabinets another; the big wooden plank table was where it had always been, in the center of the room. Running his fingers across the table’s surface, he found the spot where he had carved his initials. Nothing had changed.
The tall, rectangular windows offered a view to the lower slopes of the Luberon. Between the house and the mountain were more vines, which, as Max could see, were being patrolled by the eternal figure on a tractor, towing a machine that was spraying a blue fog of pesticide over the neat green rows. That must be Roussel, probably still in the foul mood he had displayed in the notaire’s office. Max decided that their first meeting could wait until he’d calmed down.
Out in the vines, Roussel, with a peasant’s eye for any change in the landscape, however small, had noticed the opening of the shutters and was on his cell phone, announcing the news to his wife, Ludivine.
“He has arrived, the Englishman. He is in the house now. No, I haven’t met him, but I saw him in Auzet’s office. He’s young.” Roussel broke off while he negotiated his turn at the end of a row of vines. “Is he sympa? How do I know if he’s sympa? One is never sure with the English.” He looked over at the house as he put the phone back in his pocket, and sighed. Ah, the English. Will they ever stop invading France? He heard a yelp, and glanced at the vines behind him. Merde. His dog, who had been following the tractor, had been caught by an errant puff of bouillie bordelaise, and now had a pale blue head, which added to his already eccentric appearance.
Max continued to explore, throwing open all the shutters, peering into armoires and drawers, getting back a sense of the house’s geography while he compared the present with the past. It was, if anything, bigger than he remembered. Even Charlie would have to stretch his estate agent’s vocabulary to do justice to the six bedrooms, the library, the dining room, the immense living room, the kitchen, the back kitchen, the double pantry, the scullery, the tack room-and surely there was a cellar somewhere at the far end of the house. Max made his way through the living room, footsteps echoing on the stone floor, and paused to look at a group of photographs that had been arranged on the top of an elderly, dust-coated piano. His eye was caught by a faded black-and-white image of a man and a boy, squinting into the sun: Uncle Henry and his young nephew, each holding an old wooden tennis racket.
He moved on, through a small door beside the fireplace and down the short flight of steps that led to the cellar. Unlocking the door, he pushed it open, feeling a current of cooler air on his face as he fumbled for the light switch.
The single bare bulb lit a narrow, practical room. The floor was gravel, the ceiling low, the storage bins constructed of brick. The air smelled of must and damp cobwebs. A vintage enamel thermometer hanging on one wall listed temperatures from 50 degrees Centigrade to minus 15, with cryptic comments by the side of each figure: 50, for instance, was a nice day in Senegal; 35 was apparently a temperature that encouraged bees to swarm; minus 10 was cold enough to freeze rivers, and minus 15 was marked by a single chilly date, 1859. The cellar temperature stood at 12 degrees Centigrade, and Max remembered Uncle Henry telling him that it never varied by more than two degrees, no matter what the weather did outside. An equable temperature, he used to say, is the secret of a healthy, contented wine.
Max examined the bottles. There was a scattering of regional reds and whites-some Châteauneuf-du-Pape, a few cases of Rasteau and cassis-but the great majority was the wine of the property, decorated with the florid blue and gold label that Uncle Henry had designed himself. Max chose a bottle of Le Griffon 1999, and took it over to the upended barrel that served as a cellar table, where there was a corkscrew and a none-too-clean glass. Shaking the glass to dislodge the remains of a dead earwig, Max wiped it with his handkerchief before opening the bottle. He poured, then held the glass up to the light, allowing himself to have an optimistic moment contemplating the fortunes to be made from boutique wines.
He sniffed. He gargled. He shuddered, and immediately spat before rubbing his teeth with a finger to remove what felt like a thick coating of tannin. The wine was one step up from vinegar, enough to pucker the liver. Awful.
Maybe it was just an unfortunate choice of bottle. Max selected another one, going through the same procedure to arrive at the same undrinkable result. Not quite the gold mine that Charlie had in mind. Max decided to call and tell him the worst.
“I’m in the cellar, and I’ve just tasted the wine.”
“And?”
“Young, of course.”
“Of course. But promising?”
“Could be. Lacks finesse. Needs some discipline, a firm hand, a smack on the bottom.” He stopped, unable to keep it up. “Actually, Charlie, it tastes likes a gendarme’s socks. I couldn’t even swallow it. That bad.”
“Really?” Charlie sounded more interested than discouraged. “Well, that could be the fault of the maker rather than the grapes. It often is, you know. What we need is an oenologist.”
“We do?”
“A wine expert. I’ve been reading about them. They’re magicians, some of those boys. They fiddle about with the blending of grapes from different parts of the vineyard until they get the right balance. It’s like a recipe, really, except that it’s for wine instead of food. They can’t turn plonk into Petrus, obviously, but they can make a huge difference. Ask around. There must be a few not far from you. Anyway, how’s the chateau? No, don’t tell me. I’ll pop down for a couple of days when I can get away. Line up the ladies.”
Max was pensive as he left the cellar. Where would he find a wine magician? It was not the kind of listing you’d see in the Yellow Pages. Perhaps Maître Auzet would know. He’d ask her when they met for lunch.
At the thought of food, his stomach reminded him that he hadn’t eaten since his rubber airline breakfast that morning. He took his suitcases up to the rather grand bedroom-large fireplace, several bad oil paintings-that had been Uncle Henry’s, and after changing out of his suit, he went down to the village for an early dinner.
It was happy hour in Saint-Pons. Leather-faced men dusty from the fields were lined up at the bar of the café, loud and talkative, their accents as thick as the smoke from their cigarettes. Max ordered a Ricard and found a seat in the corner, feeling pale and foreign. Through the open door of the café he could see a game of boules in progress, the players moving slowly and noisily from one end of the court to the other. The evening sun slanted across the square, painting the stone houses with a coat of honey-colored light, and the café jukebox was having an Aznavour evening. Max found it hard to believe he’d been staring out of his window at a gray London sky only twenty-four hours before. This could be a different planet. And, he had to admit, a much more pleasant planet. The only blots on an otherwise sunny landscape were the disappointing quality of the wine and the prickly disposition of Monsieur Roussel.
A few kilometers away, Roussel and his disposition were engaged in a heated discussion over dinner with Madame Roussel, an admirable woman who had somehow managed to retain her optimism despite many years of marriage to a resolute pessimist.
“… it cannot be anything but trouble,” Roussel was saying. “Change is always bad, and he is young. He will want to take out the vines and make un golf…”
“More couscous? Or are you ready for the cheese?”
Roussel held out his plate for another ladle of the spicy stew without interrupting his gloomy predictions “… or maybe he will turn the house into one of those hotels…”
“What hotels?”
“You know, those little chichi places with old
furniture, and all the staff in waistcoats. Or maybe…”
“Eh beh oui! A nuclear power station, no doubt. Clo-Clo, how can you say such things? You haven’t even met him. He might have more money than the old man to spend on the vines. He might even consider selling the vineyard to us.” Madame Roussel leaned forward to wipe a spot of gravy from her husband’s chin. “In any case, the only way to find out is to go and speak to him, non?”
Roussel’s grunt could have been taken as yes or no. Madame persisted.
“You know I’m right, Clo-Clo. But for heaven’s sake don’t go with a face like a boot. Go with a smile. Go with a bottle. And while you’re there, don’t forget to tell him about my sister.”
Roussel rolled his eyes and reached for the cheese. “How could one ever forget your sister?”
Max finished his drink and left the café, stopping to watch the boules game. Uncle Henry had once explained the niceties of the point and the tir, the raspaille and the sautée-funny how the words came back to him without any recollection of their meaning-and had demonstrated the correct way to stand and throw one sunny evening on the gravel in front of the house. But the most important asset for any player, he used to say, was a talent for dispute. Argument was vital to the proper conduct and enjoyment of the game.
One of the players was about to throw. Feet together, knees bent, brow furrowed in concentration, he pitched his boule in a long and deadly arc that knocked aside two other boules before coming to rest within a hairbreadth of the small wooden target ball, the cochonnet. It looked to Max like a clear winner, but it was nothing of the sort; it was merely the signal for a heated debate between the two teams. The distance in millimeters and fractions of millimeters between boule and cochonnet had to be measured, then measured again, then challenged, which of course required yet another measurement. Voices were raised, shoulders were shrugged, arms spread wide in disbelief. There seemed to be no immediate prospect of the game continuing. Max left them to it and continued across the square to the restaurant.
Chez Fanny, with its tiled floor, cane chairs, paper tablecloths and napkins, and posters of old Marcel Pagnol films on the wall, was small and unpretentious. But the restaurant possessed two secret weapons: an old chef who had learned his trade at l’Ami Louis in Paris, and who cooked accordingly; and Fanny herself, who provided the ambiance, that intangible ingredient vital to any restaurant’s continuing success.
It has been said that you can’t eat atmosphere, which is true, and that the cooking is all that counts, which isn’t. Eating is, or should be, a comforting experience, and one cannot be comforted eating in chilly, impersonal surroundings, a fact that was very well understood by Fanny. She made her customers-all of them, not just the men-feel loved. She kissed them when they came in and again when they left. She laughed at their jokes. She was incapable of having a conversation without physical contact-a touch on the arm, a squeeze of the shoulder, a pat on the cheek. She noticed everything, forgot nothing, and appeared to like everyone.
She had, of course, heard about the new owner of the big house. Anyone in Saint-Pons with ears had heard about him, either from the official village information service, the butcher’s wife, or from the wise men of the café. She watched Max walking across the square and saw that he was heading for the restaurant. She turned to a mirror, making minute adjustments to her hair and décolleté before stepping outside.
Max had started to study the framed menu that was nailed to the trunk of a plane tree.
“Bonsoir, monsieur.”
Max looked up. “Hi. Oh, sorry. Bonsoir, madame.”
“Mademoiselle.”
“Of course. Excuse me.” For a few seconds they looked at one another in silence, both smiling. An observer would have guessed that they liked what they saw. “Am I too early?”
No, monsieur wasn’t too early. He had come just before the rush. Fanny placed him at a table on the small terrace, brought him a glass of wine and a saucer of sleek black olives, and left him with the menu. It was short, but filled with the kind of dishes Max liked: a choice of deep-fried sliced zucchini, vegetable terrine or a pâté to start; bavette aux échalotes, roasted cod, or brochette de poulet as a main course; cheeses, and those two reliable old standbys, tarte aux pommes and crème brûlée, for dessert. Simple food of the kind that attracted customers rather than Michelin stars.
Max made his choice and settled back in his chair, his feelings a mixture of contentment and anticipation as he watched Fanny embracing a group of four that had just arrived. Somewhere in her family, he thought, there must have been some North African blood. It would explain her coffee-colored skin, her mop of black curls, and her dark eyes. She was wearing a sleeveless, close-fitting top that accentuated the slender column of her neck and the curve of a jaunty bosom. From the waist down, she was wearing jeans and espadrilles. Max wondered if her legs were as long and well shaped as the rest of her.
She caught him looking at her, and came over to his table, smiling. “Alors, vous avez choisi?” She sat down opposite him, pad and pencil at the ready, and leaned forward to take his order.
With some difficulty, Max kept his eyes on the menu, to prevent them from their natural inclination to stray, and ordered zucchini, the steak, and a carafe of red wine.
Fanny noted down the order. “Is there anything else you’d like?”
Max looked at her for a long moment, his eyebrows raised and his imagination churning.
“Pommes frites? Gratin? Salade?”
Later, sitting over a Calvados and a second cup of coffee, Max reviewed the first day of his new life. With the optimism induced by a good dinner and the soft warmth of the evening breeze, he could see that his initial disappointment over the wine was nothing. That, according to Charlie, could be fixed; as for Roussel, he would probably require some diplomatic handling, and Max would have to tread gently. But the other discoveries of the day were all encouraging-a potentially wonderful house, a delightful village, and two of the prettiest women he’d met for months. And perhaps more important, there were the first stirrings of a sense that he could happily fit in down here in Provence. Another of Uncle Henry’s nuggets of advice to the young came drifting back into his mind from years ago: There is nowhere else in the world where you can keep busy doing so little and enjoying it so much. One day you’ll understand.
He paid the bill and overtipped. The restaurant was still busy, but Fanny found time to come over to wish him good night with a kiss on each cheek. She smelled like every young man’s dream.
“A bientôt?” she said.
Max smiled and nodded. “Try to keep me away.”
Five
God’s alarm clock, the sun, came streaming through the bedroom window and woke Max after the best night’s sleep he’d had in years, even though sleep had not come instantly. In London, there had always been the lullaby of distant traffic, and a glow in the sky from the city’s lights. In the country, there was total silence, and the darkness was thick and absolute. It would take some getting used to. Now, half-conscious and at first not sure where he was, he opened his eyes and looked up at the plaster and beam ceiling. Three pigeons were conducting an interminable conversation on the window ledge. The air was already warm. Glancing at his watch, he could hardly believe he’d slept so late. He decided to celebrate his first morning in Provence with a run in the sun.
Although many foreign habits, such as tennis, were now familiar to the inhabitants of Saint-Pons, the sight of a runner was still enough to cause a flicker of interest among the men who spent their lives in the vines. A small group of them, trimming off overgrown shoots, paused to watch as Max ran by. To them, voluntary physical exercise in the midmorning heat was an incomprehensible form of self-torture. They shook their heads and bent their backs and resumed their trimming.
It seemed to Max that he was running more easily than he had ever done in Hyde Park; probably, he thought, because he was breathing sweet air instead of the fumes from a million exhaust pipes. He
lengthened his stride, feeling the sweat run down his chest, and moved onto the shoulder of the road as he heard a car coming up behind him.
The car slowed down to keep pace with him. Glancing over, he saw Fanny’s curly head and wide smile. She overtook him, then stopped and pushed open the passenger door.
“Mais vous êtes fou,” she said, and cocked an approving eye at his legs. “Come. Let me take you into the village. You look as if you need a beer.”
Max thanked her but shook his head, not without some reluctance. “This is what I do to get rid of the Calvados. You know what the English are like. We love to suffer.”
Fanny considered this national peculiarity for a moment, then shrugged and drove off, watching the running figure grow smaller in the rearview mirror. What an odd lot they were, English men; uncomfortable with women, most of them. But that was hardly surprising when one considered their education. The public school system had once been explained to her-all boys together, cold baths, and not a female in sight. What a way to start your life. She wondered if Max would settle in his uncle’s house, and found herself hoping he would. The selection of unattached young men in Saint-Pons was severely limited.
After the third mile, Max was beginning to regret that he’d turned down her offer. The sun seemed to be focused on the top of his head, and the air was still, with no breeze to relieve the heat. By the time he got back to the house he was melting, his shorts and T-shirt black with sweat, his legs like jelly as he climbed the stairs to the bathroom.
The shower was a classic example of late-twentieth-century French plumbing, a monument to inconvenience, no more than a vestigial afterthought attached to the bath taps by a rubber umbilical cord. It was a handheld model, thus leaving only one hand free for the soap and its application to various parts of the body. To work up a satisfactory two-handed lather, the shower had to be placed, writhing and squirting, in the bottom of the bath, and then retrieved for the rinsing process, one body part at a time. In London, it had been a simple matter of standing under a torrent; here, it was an exercise that would tax the ingenuity of a contortionist.