by Chris Dolley
Though I suspect it would have been filed away under justifiable homicide – there’s bound to be some ancient French Loi Plombier that grants all plumbers the right to execute summary justice whenever the wind blows from a particular direction.
It seemed that our vendor’s expertise as a designer of fires was only exceeded by his flair for plumbing. After all, plumbing does have far more scope for the creative mind – all those miles of pipes and limitless configurations. It must be something like designing a railway network; I could see the appeal.
But I could see a plumber who didn’t.
The problem had started on our first day – as most of our problems had. I think we must have ripped a sizeable hole in the space-time continuum the moment we set foot on French soil. It’s the only explanation that makes sense.
Unlike our hot water system.
We had been told that the previous owner had installed a dual system with a summer/winter switch. It sounded clever. The kitchen range heated the water in the winter, storing the water in a tank, and in the summer you switched over to a gas-fired heater.
Very sensible and it may well have worked four years ago when it was last used but it didn’t appear to want to work for us. We tried the gas heater first, we connected up our new bottle of Butagaz, turned on the tap and…
Nothing.
Was our system set to summer or winter?
We went in search of the switch.
Unfortunately it wasn’t obvious. We were told it lived in the cupboard behind the range but so did about eight others and ten spiders. Eventually, by trial and error, we found something that worked and discovered the gas heater didn’t.
So we called in a plumber.
Who arrived in his Citroen 2CV van a few hours later. A slight, smiling sexagenarian wearing bright blue overalls and a beret climbed out. I went to shake his hand and was surprised to be offered an elbow. I’d never shaken an elbow before and wasn’t quite sure what to do. Should I grasp it manfully and give it a tug or roll up my sleeves and rub elbows?
I went for the manful tug, always the best option during a First Contact situation. I later learned that elbow shaking was the local custom when your hands were too dirty to inflict on the unwary.
Either that or he was a Mason.
We explained our problem as best we could, resorting to the script on frequent occasions and reinforcing the message with a certain amount of gesticulation. Antlers, however, were wisely kept to a minimum.
It started well. The plumber understood. He’d disconnect the hot water and take the boiler away for tests.
Three hours later he was still trying.
The problem appeared to be that he couldn’t shut off the hot water. Every time he thought he’d succeeded, he’d turn on a hot tap and water would appear. It was like magic.
We’d see him in various locations throughout the house, pushing his beret back over his head and scratching his hair, then rushing off into another room and trying a tap or tracing the path of a pipe. I don’t think he could believe the number of appliances we had. Just when he thought he’d located every tap in the house, he’d open a door and there were another three.
I think he liked his plumbing simple – exposed pipes which you could trace, useful taps where you could isolate appliances, labels.
Whereas our system had been designed by an artist. An artist with enough copper pipe to match his imagination. We had pipes interconnecting and disappearing into concrete floors and walls, splitting into threes and fours, recombining, disappearing and, for all I knew, breeding in the wall cavities.
Heath Robinson could have taken notes.
But it did have a built-in resilience. You couldn’t switch it off. We could probably take a minor nuclear strike on a back bathroom and still have a tap working somewhere in the house.
Our plumber went home, temporarily defeated. But he would be back. Tomorrow.
oOo
The next day, our plumber returned, convinced he’d solved the problem. Somehow, the hot and cold water supply had become connected – probably a faulty mixer tap. Did we have any mixer taps?
“Eight or nine,” I replied. I’d lost count of the sinks let alone the taps. Several mixer taps later he was still confused. It was then that he found out that Monsieur Cavagnac had been the previous owner.
Several merdes later he was still spitting.
We thought he was going to leave us. At one point he walked off into the garden and we thought that was it. He’d abandoned his car and stormed off into the undergrowth never to be seen again!
But then we saw the traditional legs apart stance and realised … He was using our wall. Which just goes to show what he thought of our plumbing.
But you don’t have to stay long in France to appreciate that the French have a different attitude to the British when it comes to urinating in public. In Britain, it’s an offence. In France, it’s a basic human right.
At the top of an alpine chairlift or the edge of a supermarket car park, I’ve seen it all. In a manner of speaking. Although the top of the Alpine chairlift was by far the greater of the two surprises. The last thing you expect to find at 3,000 metres in the middle of a blizzard is a Frenchman with his legs apart.
Shelagh is certain it’s something territorial. An ancient male need to mark out a territory and ward off other males. Though how many males needed warding off at the top of the chairlift I’m not sure. Certainly I didn’t feel threatened or imparted with the need to mark an adjacent spot. But then I’m not French. And it was cold.
But I think she may have a point. And it might explain the strange behaviour of our dustmen.
Our property marks the boundary between the communes of Cassagne and Tuco. And every Tuesday morning the dust-cart wends its way up from Cassagne to empty our bins. And every time, the driver gets out, walks up to the tree at the end of our lane and relieves himself. Every Tuesday without fail, bank holidays included. He then climbs back in the truck, turns round, and drives back to Cassagne.
We’ve never seen the Tuco dustmen, but we have a sneaking suspicion that a similar border ritual is carried out on another day and on another tree.
Having successfully warded off any wandering plumbers from our back garden, our plumber returned. And decided the next step was to dismantle the summer/winter switch. We’d given up on the range by then so it seemed the sensible solution.
Yards of superfluous pipes and taps were removed. It was amazing just to watch. The more I looked at the pipework in our cupboard behind the range, the more I could see a faithful interpretation of the entire London Underground in copper – complete with sidings and points. It was a work of art. But was it plumbing?
Gradually London Underground was dismantled – privatised and stripped down – the hot water tank disconnected and the water drained.
I dreaded the turning on of our kitchen hot tap. But it had to be done. A few swift turns ... and out came the water, as strong as ever.
I thought our plumber was going to cry.
But he didn’t, he gave us a resigned smile and proffered an elbow. He’d be back.
oOo
Now, I know as much about plumbing as I do about the internal combustion engine but I couldn’t see what all the fuss was about. Why didn’t he just cut off the water supply to the entire house? Hot, cold or lukewarm, what did it matter? It was the water heater that didn’t work, so why not just cut off the water, disconnect it and take it away?
Shelagh told me I was being too simplistic, and proceeded to explain that if there was cold water bleeding into the hot water pipes then we’d never get really hot water. There’d always be an amount of cold being fed into the system.
It sounded plausible – technical explanations always do, for a while – but was the price of really hot water worth a live-in plumber?
The next day dawned with two plumbers on our doorstep. Were they breeding in the wall cavities too?
Luckily not. Our plumber had decided to bri
ng a friend. A local guru, renowned as a man who knew his pipes.
The two of them raced around the house, a blur of bright blue, switching taps on and off, deep in conversation one minute and chuckling the next.
At least someone could see the funny side.
The funniest by far being the cupboard behind the range. The friend couldn’t keep away. He kept going back for another look, rummaging through the large pile of discarded copper and giggling.
But eventually they had to admit defeat. This was a pipe too far – even for a guru.
“Chop all the pipes off at ground level and start again,” was his advice. Slightly on the drastic side, I thought. We’d only rung up to have a water heater looked at.
But I suppose that’s the plumber’s-eye view of the world – all pipes should be exposed, easy to maintain and well-labelled. Me, I see nothing wrong in hiding pipes. Or in the occasional scale model of the London Underground. It all adds to life’s rich tapestry.
I turned the conversation back to the water heater. Wasn’t it about time that someone looked at it?
With the water turned off at the mains, the gas heater was disconnected in five minutes. It then disappeared into the back of the van and with a raised beret, a smile and an elbow the two plumbers disappeared. No doubt with a new story to regale their grandchildren with.
I was left wondering how much it would all cost. Plumbers had a deserved reputation for being expensive and we’d had two and a half days worth. And that was before anyone touched the boiler. God knows what he’d find wrong with that?
Perhaps he’d give us a reduction for entertaining his friends?
It was then that a frightening thought occurred. Our vendor wouldn’t have, would he? Surely not? People don’t build their own gas-fired water heaters, do they?
I thought of the insert. I thought of the London Underground in copper. I thought of bleeding water taps. And worst of all, an exploding plumber visiting his workshop roof considerably quicker than anyone thought possible.
A day later our plumber called. He was alive and had fixed the boiler. A small piece of plastic valve had cracked and broken. He’d replaced it and was ready to put it all back again.
He still wasn’t happy about leaving us with a system that bled cold water but was resigned to the fact that life wasn’t fair and some things were meant to remain a mystery.
He was a philosophical plumber.
Animals Behaving Typically
“Cat fight!”
“What!” I sprang from my pillow, engaging automatic pilot on the way down, one leg in a pair of jeans, the other still asleep.
What the hell was happening?
“Cat fight!” screamed Shelagh once more from some dark place on the other side of the bed.
An awake eye peered at the clock – 1:35 – the middle of the night. That’s why it was so dark.
I staggered across the room in search of slippers ... or the light switch ... or possibly the window. Brain was not quite sure. Legs were even less so. Especially the solitary one, half-buried in a pair of jeans.
I fell down. It seemed a sensible course of action. And it gave Brain an extra few seconds to arrive at an explanation.
Something about a cat fight?
A strange yowling noise burst in through the open window. Oh my God! Now I remembered. The Black Cat! Both our cats had been injured in fights – Guinny had had to have stitches, Gally had limped for a week.
Was the Black Cat back? Was it attacking our cats?
I stopped struggling with the trousers, threw them off and staggered arms out-stretched through the gloom towards the bedroom door. Which immediately flew back and met me halfway, Shelagh having got there first.
Closely followed by Gypsy.
I was somewhere in between. Dazed, confused, half-asleep and under attack from a playful puppy. A predicament lent a considerable piquancy when it’s pitch black and your clothes are on the other side of the room.
I grabbed my dressing gown from the back of the bedroom door and stumbled into the hallway, trying to fight off Gypsy, get dressed and find a light switch all at the same time.
And then there was light. At least for a short while – our hall light being on a timer carefully designed to extinguish itself ten seconds before you really needed it to. Like when you’re desperately trying to unlock the front door and find your shoes at the same time.
And there’s nothing quite so unexpected in a dark hallway as a cold nose slipping under your dressing gown as you bend over in search of shoes.
I screamed.
Gypsy barked.
Strange nocturnal noises wafted in through the cat flap.
Whereupon I was admonished – stop playing with the puppy and go save our cats!
As if I was trying to do anything else.
Gypsy continued to bark and boldly go places where noses hadn’t and shouldn’t have gone before. I struggled with the door. It opened, I fell out. Gypsy’s lead was thrust into my hand, plaintive yowling drifted in from my right ... and then we were off. Man and dog sprinting across the fields towards the sounds of battle. Surely even the Black Cat wouldn’t hang around once he caught sight of a giant dog bounding towards him.
“It’s coming from over here!” I shouted over my shoulder as we plunged through the stubble of last year’s maize crop.
“Is it Gally?” shouted Shelagh.
It was difficult to tell, it was coming from such a long way off. Not so much in the field as over the far hill.
And was it a cat?
I stopped.
And listened.
Wasn’t that a cow?
I looked back at Shelagh, standing on the patio bathed in the glow of the outside light. An anxious figure staring fieldwards, flanked by two interested cats.
Two cats?
I looked at Gypsy. She smiled and wagged her tail; this was what life should be like – faithful hound and master stride out into the night to hunt cows by moonlight.
I was not so enthused.
oOo
It had started on our second night. I think the local feline population had called an emergency meeting as soon as they sniffed out our arrival – cats having that uncanny ability – and a ginger tom had won the ballot for first shot at the newcomers.
He tried the ‘Homeless Cat’s Plaintive Serenade Under The Bedroom Window In The Middle Of The Night’ ploy – an old favourite and usually a sure-fire winner. Certainly, we’d fallen for it before. But this time we had two cats in residence and felt that our quota had been well and truly filled.
The next night he tried the ‘Homeless Cat’s Plaintive Serenade From Under The Bed’ ploy. A much bolder stratagem and a considerable surprise at two o’clock in the morning. One minute I was asleep, enjoying a cat-free dream, the next I was awoken by a discordant caterwauling emanating from less than one foot below my left ear.
And he was caterwauling in French. I could tell by the accordion accompaniment.
Having a cat flap certainly has its disadvantages. Singing cats unexpectedly gaining access to your bedroom in the middle of the night being one of them. Sharing a bed with a very large puppy has only one advantage. The singing cat didn’t stay long enough to appreciate it.
But he did appreciate the cat flap again – at great speed – closely followed by the aforementioned very large puppy.
With the failure of the singing ginger cat, the starving black cat was sent in. Its job was to beg for food. Well, perhaps not so much beg as ask very quietly when no one was around then come back at night and strip the property of everything edible – including Gally’s favourite fishy-shaped croquettes.
And the best part of a loaf of bread – the middle part – carefully excavated through its paper wrapper.
Its stomach bulging from the night’s endeavours, the black cat then climbed to the top of our fridge freezer and was promptly sick from a great height. Lending a textured wavy stripe to our fridge door.
We could forgive a
starving cat the croquettes, perhaps the bread as well. But I think the wavy stripe was going a bit too far.
After that we kept a nightly watch.
And so did our cats.
Especially Gally, who had taken the theft of his croquettes very badly. They were his favourite. And more than that – they were fishy-shaped.
We’d first noticed his penchant for fishy-shaped crunchy bits in Devon. The cat supplement we bought there was composed of variously shaped and flavoured croquettes but we noticed that Gally invariably picked out the fish-flavoured ones. He even developed a rather bizarre ritual of biting their heads off first and spitting them out. Leaving a residue of assorted meat-flavoured stars covered in tiny fish heads.
Guinny’s reaction to the invasion of her home was somewhat different. She underwent a transformation … and became … Guinevere, Warrior Kitten.
We first noticed the manifestation of her new identity one night when our evening peace was destroyed by what sounded like a herd of medium-sized elephants rampaging up and down our stairs. Naturally we assumed it was Gypsy and shouted at her to be quiet. A sad black face stared back at us from an armchair on the other side of the room. For the first time in her life the words ’Not Guilty’ and ’Gypsy’ could be used in the same sentence.
Intrigued, we tracked the noise to its source. And found Guinny – aka Guinevere, Warrior Kitten – and normally such a quiet unassuming cat, performing one of her new training work-outs – charging up and down the stairs, leaping at imaginary foes and raking the wallpaper with her claws.
I think she’d been watching too many Sword and Sorcery films – evil cat burns down young kitten’s village, young kitten spends many years learning martial arts, young kitten grows up to avenge attack on village and evil cat gets just desserts.
Unfortunately the Black Cat hadn’t seen the film, or if he had he’d slept through the ending. The result being, a fortnight later, a trip to the vet for the Warrior Kitten and a renewed nightly vigilance.