It was better before,” I thought to myself as I sat at the terrace of a café in front of Brantôme Abbey. And like all tourists, I added, “It's getting too touristy here."
Before ... That was when I used to come and visit John and Mary, when I would spend almost all my holidays with them. Maybe six or seven years ago. Like so many English people, they'd bought a house in the southwest of France, in the Dordogne, in between Brantôme and Bourdeilles, and they'd spent years restoring it to their idea of a rural Eden.
When I talked about them, I would say rather childishly, “They're my best friends."
It was a sunny day, Friday morning; the thick heat of July slowed everything and everyone down. The French peasants with their berets and their blue jackets were the only ones who didn't seem to feel it. Mary used to love the sight of them, little clichés of the French countryside. I liked it too, I suppose that's what you do when you're a tourist, you look for more clichés, you want to see what you already know about a place. They were talking amongst themselves, both hands resting on a walking stick, or with their big bellies forward, hands in their pockets. They didn't pay attention to the people from Bordeaux, or the Parisians, or the Dutch, or the English, walking around in sandals with a container of cheap Bergerac wine in each hand.
There were two empty chairs in front of me, and maybe it wasn't entirely by chance. It was almost as if I were waiting for John and Mary to come and join me. I'd met John at university twenty years before; he was one of those people who can never be content with the place they're in. They can't look at a landscape without dreaming of somewhere else. And while he was admiring Brantôme Abbey on the other side of the river, or the narrow streets, paved and empty all around, he would start talking about South America, Argentina, where I'd never been and which that particular year seemed to him to be a more desirable destination than any other. A few years before he'd craved to be on a South Sea island, or in Turkey, and even before that Western Canada, just to give a few examples. Eventually Argentina had become an obsession with him and it came back into the conversation more often than any other part of the globe. Just as, in the old days, he'd become obsessed with the South of France, where he'd finally settled and which didn't interest him anymore.
I was staying in a bed-and-breakfast run by an English couple, not far from John and Mary's house, behind the cliffs along the river.
There were medieval castles perched on those enormous rocks, and each time we drove past a certain one, Mary would say: “That's the house I'd like to have.” That was when we'd go and have a drink in the evening, around seven, on a little square by the château in Bourdeilles. You could have thought you were back in the ‘fifties, the ‘sixties, the seventeenth century, or the Middle Ages; you just had to choose where your nostalgia would take you. A French provincial village.
But John went on and on about Argentina. Even when we talked on the phone, long distance. And one day, the news stopped coming. I waited, hoping that I would get a postcard showing what had obsessed him for so long. An invitation to Argentina, or anywhere else. I had thought I was more to them than just a now useless object that had belonged to their English or Dordogne life, a piece of furniture too cumbersome to be carried around. I didn't wish them well at that moment, because I was hurt, and I must confess that I almost hoped their silence could be explained by some terrible misadventure.
I had made new friends, and for seven long years I tried to avoid going back to the Dordogne.
But every summer I would think about their garden, the taste of gin and tonic, and in winter I could just picture those log fires, I could smell the damp stones and the smoke. And I would think about all the things I missed with my new friends.
It took me a week after I arrived before I could summon up the courage to go back to the hamlet where they used to live.
The house was empty, of course. The light-blue shutters had gone grey. The garden was overgrown, and all of Mary's efforts to recreate an English country garden full of roses had disappeared under the weeds. The metal gate had rusted and was kept closed by an enormous chain.
That's when I heard footsteps behind me. I turned round and saw a tall, rather thin man with a face like a bird's, and sad, restless eyes.
"Do you want to buy the house?” he asked in French with a strong English accent. And I answered in English.
"No, this is just, er ... a pilgrimage."
"Really?"
"I didn't know the house was for sale."
"Well, I think it is. It's been empty a long time."
"Did you know the people who used to live here? John and Mary?"
"No, they were already gone when I settled here."
"Do you live in this hamlet?"
"The house down at the bottom, you see? With the perigordine roof."
He put his hands together to imitate a steep roof, and nodded a couple of times.
"Did you know them?” he asked.
"Yes, I used to come and visit fairly often. And then, well ... we lost contact. Gabriel Puyjadas also knew them."
"The old man? He died."
"Oh ... recently?"
"Two or three years ago. But I know Sue Blythe who knew them."
"Sue? I know Sue."
He introduced himself and invited me to his place to have a drink. He was called Richard Collins and came from Batley in Yorkshire. We chatted for a while, had a couple of glasses of cheap wine. When I left he shook my hand and said that we'd probably meet again at Sue's.
* * * *
I went back to Brantôme to hang around, and like all the tourists I stopped in front of an estate agent's window. There was an English couple in front of me. I knew they were dreaming of living here all year round, writing books, painting pictures, wearing straw hats and flowered dresses.
That's when I saw it on the top left-hand corner of the window: John and Mary's house. And they were asking a reasonable price, too. That was yet another shock. As if I'd seen their clothes in a secondhand shop shortly after their funeral.
I walked in, trying to look wealthy enough to afford a second home in the southwest of France. As I spoke with an English accent, the agent had no difficulty in believing that I was more than comfortably off.
We made an appointment to go and visit the house the following day.
"Do you know the region?” he asked.
"A little."
"You'll see, it's very well situated."
I was tempted to make a sad remark, but settled for, “Is the price negotiable?"
At this stage of the proceedings, it was a stupid question, far too premature, and he gave me a puzzled look.
"You'll have to discuss it with the owner. But maybe you should wait until you've seen the house."
"Yes, of course."
It was very hot when we arrived at the gate; the light was blinding, like in a bad dream. The estate agent was talking at me, but his voice seemed to come from very far away, like an echo.
"Would you like to see the garden first?"
I said yes, but mostly to delay the moment when I would have to step into the house. I started wondering whether I would find their furniture still in place, covered with white sheets, or more likely with a thick layer of grey dust. Would I find empty glasses in the kitchen still bearing lipstick traces? The one last drink before leaving.
There was nothing left. But still I could read the signs that told me about the life of my lost friends. A dark stain on the floorboards where Mary had once dropped a bottle of wine. The grey line on the wall along the staircase leading to the rooms; it was there because John would always lean against the wall when he went upstairs. And Mary would laugh at him; call him an old man, sometimes even an old drunk. I had to smile at the recollection. And once again the agent looked at me strangely. We walked into the big room downstairs, which Mary called the sitting room. Our steps were echoing on the tiles. There were still ashes in the fireplace.
"You might have to do some work,” said the agen
t, “but nothing much ... it needs to be, er ... refreshed. If you'd like to follow me, there's another room behind the kitchen."
I almost said, “I know.” That was the room John called his study.
"Would you like to see the rooms upstairs?"
I was starting to have difficulty speaking. There was a lump in my throat, and I made vague noises to answer his questions. I couldn't help finding him irritating—even though I knew it was unfair—because I would have liked to be left alone.
"Do the owners live nearby?"
"Well ... yes.” I knew he was lying but I couldn't understand why.
"Could I meet them?"
"Oh, well...” he said with a sly little smile and a shrug of his shoulders. “If you buy the house, you'll meet them when you sign."
And I too smiled at that moment; I could just see them walking into the lawyer's office to find me there, pen in hand, waiting to sign the deeds and to invite them to stay in their own house. But if they were in Argentina, everything would be done through the post. At least they'd see my name on the deeds.
"Have you already had an offer for this house?"
"Some Dutch people have shown some interest."
"Right."
As we walked out, we saw Richard Collins, who was waving at us.
"Do you know each other?” the agent asked.
"We've met,” I said, and I could tell that he was getting more and more suspicious.
Once more Richard Collins invited me in for a drink and promised to give me a lift back to my hotel. I said goodbye to the estate agent and told him I would call the following day to put in an offer.
"Are we going to be neighbours?” Collins asked.
I could tell from the warmth of his welcome that he was a lonely man, one of those English people who live in the Dordogne all year round; they wait for summer, for visitors to turn up. They wait a lot. Then, during the summer months, they have long drunken parties until late into the night, after endless winters spent without anything to do, taking it one day at a time, fighting the boredom and the cold.
Collins seemed extremely nervous, obsequious even, as if he was worried that I would leave him to face his loneliness too soon. He worked himself up into a sort of frenzy, talking with forced gaiety, trying embarrassingly hard to establish an intimacy between us. He reminded me of those drunks in bars who treat you like a long-lost friend if you exchange a couple of words with them; who will spend a fortune buying you drinks you don't want, and who won't let you go.
He started talking about old Puyjadas. He'd probably guessed that it was a good way to catch my attention. He explained that he hadn't known John and Mary, but that Puyjadas had told him a lot about them. He was right; he got me interested, because I knew they were very fond of the old man, whom I could never quite understand, and I was curious to know what he could have said about them.
Collins offered me a gin and tonic and poured himself a generous dose of pastis diluted with water. One of those tricks alcoholics resort to, so as to drink even more. He was starting to relax.
I had no appointment, nothing to do, nobody to see, so I stayed. Three hours later I felt that I had drunk quite a bit too much myself. He invited me to stay for dinner. I refused but I was now dependent on him. I'd been brought there by the estate agent, who'd left long ago, and I didn't have a car to drive back to my hotel. In the course of the conversation I learned that John and Mary's furniture had been sold through a lawyer in Périgueux. He was ashamed to admit it, but he'd bought one of their prize possessions, a Clarice Cliff vase, which I remembered very well. It used to be on their mantelpiece, in the sitting room.
I turned sentimental at the sight of that thing and with the help of the gin, I started telling him about John and Mary and what they'd meant to me. Eventually I asked him if he would sell the vase back to me when I'd bought the house, so I could put it back in its place. He laughed at me for a couple of seconds and then he accepted.
It was so much like John to leave everything behind, to forget everything, down to the one and only object Mary had really loved and cherished. They would have started from scratch, over there, in Argentina; they would have acquired new furniture, they would be living amongst new colours and new designs which I couldn't even begin to imagine. They had created a world for themselves in which they needed neither their old belongings nor their old friends. I hoped secretly that Mary had protested a little, that she'd suffered a little from that decision.
Collins had helped himself to more pastis and he too was getting sentimental. He talked about his family, his nephews and his nieces, and suddenly he asked if I wouldn't mind watching the home video they'd sent him. I couldn't think of anything worse, so I reached for the gin bottle before I said, “Not at all, I'd love to.” There was a whole pile of cassettes and DVDs by the television set. Most of them were of his family, he told me.
A load of fat kids in a hideous flat were saying hello to the camera. They all had pink cherubic faces, double chins, slow whiny voices, and dead eyes.
"This is my nephew Mark,” said Collins; “he's very bright, you know, but they don't want to put him in a special school because ... Oh! And this here is Bill. He's really sweet, Bill. Very musical; he plays the piano. The whole family's really musical, and here are my sister and her husband, my brother-in-law, see?"
A fat woman with thick square glasses was sitting on a sofa, leaning against a painfully thin man in a checked short-sleeved shirt. He was seriously balding, a sad little man who could have been anywhere between thirty-five and sixty-five. They both looked a little tense, self-conscious; somehow you could tell that they didn't like being filmed, even though they'd brought this torture upon themselves.
I must have fallen asleep and I suddenly felt a hand on my shoulder shaking me awake. I didn't know what time it was. But I guessed it was very late. Collins drove me back to the hotel even though he was terribly drunk and should never have gotten behind a wheel. The following morning I felt dreadful, but it wasn't an unusual sensation for a Dordogne holiday.
I waited until twelve and then I called Sue, hoping she would give me some information about John and Mary.
* * * *
Sue invited Collins and me, as well as another character I'd never met, to her place. We very quickly got talking about John and Mary. The other guest was a Frenchman, aged about forty, who asserted that Mary had had a lot of affairs with a lot of men, himself included. He said it was just a one-night stand in his case. I refused to believe him, of course. You could tell he would have said just about anything to be the center of attention. He said that Mary had had an affair with the lawyer and then with the estate agent who'd shown me the house. He also pretended that that was the reason why John and Mary had left and that they probably didn't live together anymore. He added, with a lecherous look, that he was sorry they'd gone, especially Mary. I didn't hit him, I didn't start a brawl, but I wish I had. I hated that man, and there was no doubt that he deserved a punch in the face. Maybe I acted like a coward.
Anyway, he went on, and told us all that old Puyjadas, their neighbour, had disliked them intensely. During the last years of their stay in the Dordogne he'd made their lives a nightmare, even poisoned the dog Mary had bought, a sweet puppy she was very fond of. To get his own back, John had poisoned Puyjadas's cat, Sue's guest said. It didn't sound true. Of course not, it wasn't a bit like them. But after all, how could I be sure? Seven years ago, would I have believed anybody who told me that they'd forget me, that they'd let me down?
The Frenchman was trying to explain that you shouldn't trust the welcoming attitude of the locals; it was all superficial. It was as if he was trying to remind us that we would always remain strangers.
Collins wasn't saying anything. He was nervously biting his lip, casting glances left and right, fiddling with his fork; he didn't dare look at anybody.
* * * *
The following day, I called the estate agent as soon as I woke up and put in an offer for t
he house. I also asked him if it was possible to borrow the key to have one last look. I wanted to know how long it would take before he would tell the owner about my offer; he simply answered: “It shouldn't be too long."
I was alone this time. I was at the door of that room; I hardly dared walk in because I knew it had been their bedroom. There was an old fashion magazine on the floor by the wall; the pages were all crumpled, dried out and dusty, pictures of the time when they lived here. Maybe I'd given them too much importance. Suddenly I felt stupid, worshiping these two people who hadn't even dropped me a line, a postcard. It was certainly stupid to spend all that money to buy a monument to lost friendship, a shrine without bones.
I heard footsteps below, outside, in the garden. It was broad daylight, a beautiful day, not a time for ghosts, so it didn't take much courage to go and see who was there.
It was Collins, of course, shyly looking around, turning his head left and right like a frightened bird. He gave me a large smile and waved when he saw me.
"I thought it would be you,” he said. “Still on your pilgrimage?"
"It's pathetic, isn't it?"
He shrugged and leaned his head to the side.
"I know what it's like to lose people you love,” he said. “I look at those films of my sister and brother-in-law. You ... you buy houses so you can look at the walls, at the white rectangular spaces where they used to hang their pictures ... and then you'll remember how the furniture was laid out, what went in which corner. Will you put your bed in the guest room or in their room?"
And, with a melancholy nod, he looked towards the upstairs window.
I called the agent and explained that due to unforeseen circumstances I couldn't bring back the key immediately. He would have to wait until the following day. I asked him if he'd told the owners about my offer. He knew I was lying about the key, and I could tell he was irritated; he answered rudely that he was very busy at this time of year and that he hadn't had time to talk to the owners yet.
I was determined to go back to the house that same evening, light a fire in the fireplace, maybe, even though it was the middle of summer, and sit on the floor and drink a bottle of red wine. While waiting for dark, I visited the château in Bourdeilles where I'd been with John and Mary. After that, I had dinner on my own in a luxurious restaurant near the river, in Brantôme, where they used to celebrate good news and successes. I ordered a whisky before the meal, like in the old days. I ate while looking at all the tables where we'd sat in the past.
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