It rained and rained. ‘Les Fostaires’ had two pairs of Wellingtons between them. They had, like us, expected unlimited sunshine. The water ran in torrents down the fields and became trapped in front of the house where it joined the cascade from the roof. Arno’s terrace it now appeared had not been such a good idea. It was covering the channel to carry away the water. Barry, ankle deep in the muddy river which now threatened to flood the house, wielded a great hoe to cut trenches to divert the flow. ‘I’m afraid Rabinowitz’s terrace is now Foster’s battle field,’ he yelled over the drumming downpour. We realised that something would have to be done about a gutter and a drain.
The house saved from flooding, we returned to our plans. Unknown to Mike or Barry we baked a large fruit cake and went into the nearest town for decorations and candles. It was so damp and cold that we had to light a fire and inevitably that meant many hours enjoying sitting round it. Time passed under the illusion that something was happening as we were mesmerised by its ever-changing form. What could we give them to eat? With the weather so wintry our thoughts turned to hot dishes, but we decided to begin the meal with a great salad Niçoise. It would at least be familiar. Then as a novelty for the French guests we planned to follow it with a deluxe version of Shepherd’s pie with garlic and mushrooms and for the children we made jellies filled with fruit and finally we would serve the cake. It was a somewhat arbitrary menu but once we had decided we felt a great sense of relief and got on with it. We would be twenty in all so there was much to do and a great deal of improvising with pots and pans. At least we now had a refrigerator in which to chill the white wine and the champagne.
At eight o’clock, bearing flowers and little gifts, they arrived. Simone, M. René’s wife brought two china angels, Claudette, a pair of decorative candles. One pair of English friends gave us a copper ladle and another pair, as a comment on the weather, brought a stone hot water bottle. The party was a great success. Our French guests looked relieved when we served the salad. They had obviously been apprehensive and still looked sideways at the three large Shepherd’s pies keeping hot on trivets at the edge of the fire.
‘C’est le repas du berger,’ we encouraged.
‘Ça sent bon,’ said M. Bertrand, or Raymond, as we now called him, ‘Mais…’ he hesitated. Claudette was unabashed.
‘Qu’est ce qu’il y a dedans?’ What’s in it? she demanded.
The list of ingredients, including garlic and parsley, reassured them sufficiently to take minute helpings to begin with, followed by larger platefuls, until the Shepherd’s pies were no more. Mutual relief!
The biggest surprise was the reaction to the jelly. True it was made with orange juice and stuffed with fresh fruit but the adults enjoyed it as much as the children. Raymond had two helpings and Claudette asked if we would bring jellies with us on our next trip, and so they went on the list. There is always a list for la prochaine fois – the next time.
The lights were turned out, all two of them, and our French guests actually chorused ‘oh la la!’ as Joanna brought in the cake with candles blazing. We sang ‘Happy Birthday’ and ‘Happy Anniversary’ and every song we could remember in English and in French. Judith and I, who had first met in the chorus of ‘Kismet’ – light years ago – attempted duets and Raymond tried to teach us local songs in patois. This was difficult as, although he was the only one with the courage to sing solo, he could not hold a tune. With more enthusiasm than accuracy he changed key before the end of each verse. But he loved to listen, clapping like a demon at the end and immediately demanding another. He was a great guest, truly the life and soul of the party. Parties were, in fact, one of his specialities as we were to discover later.
As it always does, the weather improved and the sun was twice as strong as it ever is in London. We took Barry to Cahors, home of the wonderful dark wine, to catch the Paris train. ‘Some of us have to work,’ he said wryly looking up at the cloudless blue. Judith and the children stayed on and as the tobacco was to be harvested we asked if we might help. The dark green rows resembled giant, flowerless gladioli but the leaves were broader and more fragile. Grandpa showed Mike how to fell each plant with a small axe so that they all lay in the same direction. We lifted them one at a time, balancing each heavy sheaf across one arm like a large bouquet, and were careful not to damage the leaves as we laid them along the edge of the nearby trailer. When the floor of the trailer was covered we walked behind it down to the tobacco-drying shed or séchoir.
A large barn, some eight metres high, it had a raised platform near the door against which the trailer of tobacco was carefully positioned. The reason soon became clear. Standing on the platform we were able, without effort, to reach the sheaves. Grandma handed us all a stout, four-pronged hook. ‘Watch,’ she said. Above the platform, at head-height, there was a line strung across the shed with a row of short metal rods suspended from it. She fixed the pronged hook to the bottom of the rod, lifted a sheaf of tobacco by its thick stem and, pushing the hook through it, suspended it upside down. When all four hooks were full we detached the whole thing and carried it across the shed to where Raymond waited with a rickety pulley. He hoisted them up gradually until there were five sets of four sheaves, one below the other. Now the reason for the great height of the shed was clear. As it began to fill with its canopy of dense green foliage it was like some exotic jungle or a set for a commercial for coconut bars.
Again we sang. Raymond started it. ‘Chantez Philippe, chantez Véronique,’ he shouted. France had just won the Eurovision song contest with a surprisingly reasonable song about a child and a bird and I remember Véronique’s sweet small voice in that cool leafy interior while the sun blazed outside. Pushing the hooks through the tough stems made my fingers ache and, as I so often do, I watched Grandma and marvelled at the strength in her apparently frail body. Raymond grumbled about the low prices the dealers would give for the leaves when they were dry and taken to market.
‘How long will it take for them to dry?’ we asked.
He shrugged. ‘Ca dépend du temps.’ It depends on the weather. The farmer’s universal cry, but we had already begun to appreciate that in this corner of France it was unpredictable.
And, once again, we all ate round the farm table. So many meals we have enjoyed there. Claudette seems to think nothing of working three or four hours in the fields and then preparing six or seven courses for a dozen or more. Grandma scurries about to help her and everything is grown or prepared on the farm. And the melons! This summer was our first real gorging on the local, small, Charentais melon. Round, striped green and yellow with perfumed apricot flesh, once the season has started there is an abundance. That year was particularly good and our friends kept us supplied.
‘They must be eaten,’ Claudette would insist, bringing us another basketful. We ate them at every meal – especially breakfast. What joy to find a gourmandise that did not fatten!
‘Les Fostaires’ left eventually for England and we began to realise that we too would soon have to close up our house in the sun and go back to London. The weather was still perfect. The evenings were shorter but it was still warm enough to eat outside and wait in the silent darkness for the first stars to appear. Sometimes a satellite would trace a path across the universe. How would we adjust?
The list of things for Easter ’78 grew ever longer. In exchange for the original furniture in Bel-Air we had agreed to bring out, the next time we came, anoraks and sweaters for the children and a Black and Decker drill, all much cheaper in England. We planned and measured. Where could we put a bathroom when we could afford it? What about the kitchen? Washing up in a plastic bowl on a sloping camping table had lost its appeal. Should we make the small south-facing room off the main room into a kitchen? We could not decide.
‘Think about it,’ said M. Albert, the plumber, ‘and let me know when you come again next Easter.’ At that moment Easter seemed an awfully long way ahead.
We closed the rickety shutters, just another thing
that needed repairing, and we locked the door. Bumping down the track for the last time we hung out of the windows to get our last glimpse. Strange, we never did this when we left London.
‘À la prochaine fois!’
CHAPTER SIX
Easter the following year was early and cold but there was no snow. We spent many hours collecting firewood, there being, alas, no floorboards left to burn. Now we understood the neat woodstacks adjoining local houses. Fortunately Matthew and Durrell enjoyed dragging dead trees from the wood and sawing them up. They whittled sticks to make individual, decorated toasting forks. These normally centrally-heated youths were endlessly fascinated by the great open fire.
The house was full of vases of wild daffodils and Grandma had planted the yellow washing-up bowls with great purple pansies. We cleared the straggly hazel hedge which obscured our view up the meadow from the front door and I began to dream about a terrace on the opposite, south-facing side of the house. This became my special project but, due to sheer incompetence, it took me several years to finish. The preliminary clearing of the ground was made difficult by stubborn lengths of old chicken wire embedded in the soil. It seemed probable that this was where Anaïs’s poultry had once scratched and squawked and each time I thought that I had removed the last tenacious piece, another buried end taunted me. The clean sweet air and the view which greeted me each time I straightened up kept me going.
The debate continued about where to put the kitchen. Now that the other two bedrooms were habitable, should we make use of the small, low-ceilinged room which adjoined the main room? We might, perhaps, knock through a hatch, or even remove the upper half of the wall completely. We simply could not decide and eventually we did nothing. Just inside the front door where, after scraping the green lichen from the wall to paint it, we had first installed the cooker, became the kitchen’s permanent place. The ever-open door provided an extractor and all we needed now was a worktop and a sink.
We consulted M. Albert the plumber. Yes, it was possible. The long runaway out to the septic tank which we had thought might be a problem did not seem to bother him. As he pointed out, the floor of the corridor was still earth. We chose a large, plain white china sink and M. Albert recommended a carpenter to build us a pine surround. A kitchen corner began to take shape. I felt that in a holiday home where all were encouraged to help, a separate kitchen was not a good idea and I had noticed that most of the simple local homes into which we had been invited were so arranged.
M. Brut, the local menuisier or carpenter was clearly impressed by Mike’s rough designs for two wall cupboards and a worktop. ‘Pardi!’ he exclaimed, switching off his saw and brushing the mountain of wood-shavings off his desk to clear a space. Pardi, an archaic corruption of Par Dieu – By God – is one of M. Brut’s favourite expressions. He also undertook to replace those of our shutters which were beyond repair and when we returned that summer we were delighted to find all the work completed.
What joy to wash up under hot running water! One of the bonuses of having lived so primitively in the beginning was the enormous pleasure at each improvement. The pine cupboards and surround were, like M. Brut himself, handsome and solid, the long ornamental hinges were very French and, most important of all, the cupboards were totally mouse-proof. Et voilà, a kitchen corner. In fact most of the preparation of food is done out-of-doors, sitting on the porch or in the sun. The only thing we had not bargained for was M. Albert’s unfortunate positioning of the water heater. With about eighteen feet of wall to choose from he had fixed it right beside the original hand-hewn granite sink that we had uncovered. Its handsome edging stones were now partially obscured by a modern multipoint that would clearly at some time have to be re-sited, but I consoled myself with hot soap suds.
As it was now not needed for a kitchen we thought again about the small, low-ceilinged room which faced south. One hot morning after breakfast we stood looking up at the badly worm-eaten false ceiling of tongued and grooved pine. Were the worms still active? Was it worth treating? We wandered out into the wide earth corridor behind it and looked up. There, at least two feet higher, were the original oak boards and massive beams which must surely run across above the worm-eaten pine. We looked at each other and, as with most jobs that we have done ourselves at Bel-Air, the decision was mutual and, once voiced, instantly begun.
Down came the dusty slats. Leaves, cobwebs, mouse and bat droppings filled our hair and eyes but, as we had hoped, we uncovered the original boards and beams. Gleefully we worked all morning, carrying out the worm-eaten slats to form a welcome stack of firewood. The plaster on the exterior wall of the room was loose and crumbled away as we brushed against it. We realised that it was simply a crude earth mixture that would have to come down at some time and we were in a demolition mood. We had a ten minute break for food (how un-French!) and then began, gently at first, to knock away the earth.
What excitement! The floor was soon covered with dry clods and through the choking dust we could see the wonderful stones emerging. They were far too handsome to be plastered. We could have them cleaned and leave this wall in pierres apparentes as it is called. The joins between the stones we would fill with a light-coloured cement and leave the stones proud. Once begun it was compulsive. All afternoon we worked, dragging the rickety ladder from the barn to supplement our small stepladder. There were far more urgent tasks waiting but we did not care. When the wall was almost finished we heard Raymond chugging up the track. He switched off the engine and wiping the sweat from his eyes climbed down from the tractor. ‘Viens, viens!’ we shouted. His face made me laugh aloud. His mouth dropped open as he gazed alternately up at the ceiling and down to the chaos on the floor.
‘Mais…qu’est-ce que vous faites?’ he cried, his dark eyes round as marbles. It was plain that he considered us quite mad but did not like to say as much.
By now we had seen that the pattern of the stones continued on the other side of the newer, thin wall which divided this room from the bottom of the staircase, and would extend to the original window with the iron-studded door above it. We explained that we thought of moving the interior wall back to include this window with its hand-cut stone opening and transom. Raymond nodded gravely. ‘Oui, la fenêtre est jolie. Elle est tellement ancienne.’ He looked suddenly relieved. Perhaps these English were not entirely crazy.
Needing something with which to clear the floor I looked up the word for wheelbarrow. I followed him to the barn where he unearthed for me the oldest wooden barrow I’d ever seen. He smiled as I tugged at the handles. ‘C’etait avec celle-là que Anaïs faisait ses commissions au village’, he said. It takes me fifteen minutes at least to walk to the village shop and it is downhill all the way. I imagined having to pull this barrow, loaded with shopping, back up the bumpy track and I was once more humbled by the hard life of my predecessor. I longed to know more about her.
I felt her presence strongly, there were so many of her things still in the house. In the drawer of the sideboard which she had polished I found her rusted needles in a wooden case, dusty spools of thread, worn wooden spindles and dozens of rolled up strips of material torn from shirt tails. The boys, imagining they might contain treasures, unrolled a few but they were simply scraps for patching, a sign of her poverty and thrift.
As she had promised, Grandma had brought me the photograph. Anaïs must have been in her early thirties when it was taken. A strong, handsome woman in a dark dress and white cap she stands protectively behind a sturdy boy of about twelve years, who is holding a hoop. Was this taken before he caught polio or was it just a thoughtlessly cruel photographer’s prop? They look confidently enough into the camera, unaware of the tragedies to befall them; a sad contrast with Raymond’s description of the last days of a frail and bed-ridden, ninety-two-year-old Anaïs and her semi-paralysed, reclusive and elderly son. I had the photograph copied and now they hang beside the sideboard where I feel they belong. After all, Anaïs lived at Bel-Air for over fifty years.
&n
bsp; As I now turned on my tap for unlimited hot water I thought about the tiny water compartment in Anaïs’s stove that we had removed. I imagined her chopping the sticks to light it, as my own Mother had done on those far off Monday wash-days of my childhood. (I remembered too the mad scrambles to unpeg everything when the first shout of ‘raining’ was heard across the back gardens.) Here the washing dries so quickly. I stretched a line from Raymond’s barn to the ash tree and nothing smells sweeter than clothes dried in a hot sun and a strong wind blowing across flower-filled meadows.
Of course, it does rain here. On such a day when I had been finally driven from the garden by heavy squalls at twenty minute intervals, I remembered Anaïs’s battered cardboard hat box which we had found in the attic. It seemed a good moment to take a closer look at the contents. My French was improving for I had found a course at Morley College and had gone right back to the beginning with a very young and equally fierce Mme Rousseau whose teaching methods were, to me, a revelation. Simple but amusing texts, the dramatising of scenes transposed from one tense to another, extracts from current magazines and newspapers, poems by Prévert and songs by Brassens, and the severity with which she corrected us in the language laboratory kept me enthralled. It is due to her hard work and the later inspiration of Madeleine Enright and Georgette Butler, also at Morley, that I have at last progressed to the joys of Flaubert and Victor Hugo, Molière and Anouilh. But I still make idiotic mistakes and would dearly love to be truly bilingual.
Almost the first thing I opened, after I had dusted everything in the box and shaken out the mouse droppings and dehydrated spiders, was Anaïs’s school reader. A ‘new’ edition of La Petite Jeanne published in 1876 with her maiden name ‘Anaïs Mauriac’ laboriously written inside. Although tattered it had not actually been chewed by mice as had so many of the letters beneath it. Blessed and approved by no less than a cardinal, an archbishop and three bishops it is, as one might expect, the most moral of tales and yet has a simplicity that reminded me of Flaubert’s Un Coeur Simple. It is Jeanne’s story from early childhood to the grave and the four sections into which it is divided, childhood, in service, wife and mother, and widowhood, prophetically chart the life of Anaïs herself and, I imagine a great many other girls of that time.
A House in the Sunflowers Page 6