Return to the Olive Farm (The Olive Series Book 4)

by Carol Drinkwater

  ‘Have you by any chance heard of a vegetable and olive producer called Luke?’ I gave Nadine his full name. She thought for a moment and then shook her head.

  ‘Curious, I tend to know most of them in this region if they are officially registered as organic. Did you spot the artwork alongside the paths?’

  I nodded.

  ‘Ingenious and fun, aren’t they? They were created by the manager. He trained as a blacksmith.’

  We had reached the lower fields now, where the rest of the group, the farmers, had congregated. I noticed with a smile that the young apprentice was also wearing a striking striped jacket of many colours. All these men were on their haunches studying the ground with gravity. Henri, our talkative colleague, was frowning at the goutte-à-goutte pipes that had been wrapped round the small trees.

  ‘They are too tight!’ he cried. ‘I must talk to Simon. This won’t do at all! He will strangle his trees. They will develop deformed. How can he not know this?’

  The apprentice was watching me observe Henri. He caught my eye and grinned. ‘Where are you from?’ he ventured shyly.

  ‘England, Ireland, predominantly Irish, but I have lived over here for a long time now.’

  ‘Is that why you are here, eh? Foreigners like the sun.’

  ‘I married a Frenchman and we bought an olive farm …’ I fell silent, considering the plight of our olive farm.

  The young artisan was from Bordeaux, which explained why his precious knife also carried the same provenance, and he was here studying for two years with Henri. ‘I want to be an organic farmer, to help build a cleaner world for our children,’ he shared with engaging timidity.

  Henri was still banging on about something or other. No one was listening. I felt rather sorry for him. His face was pale, deeply lined and he really did look dog-eared. So much energy, he expended, on knowing best.

  The bands of Mediterranean flowers were not so evident in this season. If we had been visiting in May they would have been in flower. Even so, the variety, the diversity, was apparent.

  ‘How do you know which are the bad weeds?’ asked the apprentice of Vincent.

  ‘There are no bad weeds. They all serve different functions. Some attract insects, others repel. Each has its role to play in the ecosystem here. Each is of vital importance.’

  I lifted my head, listening to gentle wind music in the branches. In the distance was a soft fruit orchard: cherry, peach, apricot, nectarine. The grounds were humming, vibrant with butterflies, wasps, bees. One goldfinch I spotted. Low drystone walls marked grassy terraces, even if some were tumbling and could do with a day or two of Quashia’s skills. Clumps of lavender edged the rows of trees. It was an idyll, seemingly of another era, which perhaps was the point. Suddenly, I recalled the groves in Andalucía, regimented armies of trees, not a blade of grass in sight, not a bird or insect working the fields, as well as the soil specialist’s warning that desertification was a serious threat to the entire region if the earth and waterways were given no opportunities to regenerate.

  Here was its antithesis.

  We roamed silently. The brush of my footfall whispered in the grass, weaving my way in and around old masters and the recently imported adolescents. Even Henri had quietened down. We were in orchards cobwebbed with natural treasures; a garden of delight. The Arab or Moorish notion of a garden: a place for solitude, tranquillity, reflection.

  And I felt I had much to reflect upon.

  How did this proprietor make these groves work, how did he counter the destructions of Dacus? Without a word, we all began our return to the top of the land. Nadine triggered her finger, bidding me follow.

  ‘Let’s go this way and I’ll show you where Psyttalia has been housed; though, be warned, there is absolutely nothing to see.’ As we strolled, the house was high above us, beyond an extended terrace where an infinity pool had been constructed. We passed through a darker zone, overhung with tall trees including one or two mighty eucalypts fecund with flower. Here the grounds were timbered and rank, lusty clumps of irises, wild gladioli, Phlomis, or Jerusalem sage, rosemary, lavender, thyme. It was mildly damp and giddily aromatic.

  The groves in this area were older – this might have been the original olive plantation – and many had fly traps hanging from them, a method used to alert farmers to the arrival of Dacus. Nadine said the proprietors did not run the farm. There was a manager, Simon, born and bred in St Jeannet, whose ethos was pure organic. He had steered his employers in this direction.

  He worked with the traps. They alerted him to the arrival of the infestations. ‘He follows this with a spray, a natural plant-based product from America.’

  I named the product.

  ‘Yes, that’s it, though I believe it is being sold under another brand name in France. He also sprays the leaves of the trees, some of the olders, that is, with argile.’

  ‘Argile, clay?’

  ‘Yes, the product is kaolin-clay based. Mixed with water it is sprayed on the leaves and fruits and creates a barrier that resists insects. It is a repellant rather than an insecticide. It dries to a white powder and leaves the tree a ghostly silhouette of itself. Of course, if it rains the barrier runs off.’

  As we passed beneath several of the loftier olives, I spotted veins of white powder on their leaves, reminding me of a clown wearing traces of forgotten make-up. A mask.

  ‘Has this method been proven? Are the long-term effects known?’

  Nadine shook her head. ‘It is being tested in Italy but nobody is quite sure yet whether detrimental side effects will show up later.’

  In my mind’s eye I saw a Mediterranean where all olive trees were coated in white. A phantom landscape. I pictured a world where, as protection against viruses as well as the sun’s harmful rays, every living creature wore a full protective screen. ‘I wonder whether the clay mightn’t disturb both the tree’s respiratory system and its ability to perspire?’

  ‘Yes, I agree.’

  Nadine and I had arrived at the precious spot where the exotic flies had been given their post. As she had warned, there was nothing at all to see. Even the paniers, the baskets in which they had been delivered, had been taken down.

  ‘Now what?’ I asked.

  She shrugged. ‘We have to wait till summer to see whether or not they have burrowed below ground or whether they have simply perished.’

  ‘And if they have perished, will that be the end of the Psyttalia experiment?’

  ‘No. The researchers will try the same experiments next winter. All is not lost yet. No results, no decisions, for five years.’

  I liked this young woman and felt that I had found an ally.

  ‘Will you come aboard?’ she asked, possibly reading my thoughts. ‘Join the bio movement? Hellishly difficult for olive farmers, of course, but we do offer support, advice and encouragement.’

  ‘But this proprietor manages.’

  ‘Yes, both he and his wife are terriens with a true respect for the earth but they also have excellent guidance. Simon was suckled on olive buds, I think,’ she grinned. ‘But the new trap system, the American product, has made a considerable difference here.’

  ‘I understood it killed bees. In fact, is toxic to a number of insects.’

  She dropped her head. ‘I know, but I guess you have to make choices.’

  I considered this, the impact of it. ‘Then how can this farm’s oil have been registered as organic?’

  ‘The American insecticide is not a chemical. Spinosad is a natural combatant created from organic compounds made by soil microbes.’ She glanced at her watch. ‘We must go!’

  I had recently looked up asbestos and found that it was also not a chemical, but a naturally occurring mineral. How many years had it taken for its detrimental effects to be acknowledged?

  I had agreed to run Vincent back to the station. We were behind schedule and I was a little unsure of the route from here. Nadine said he should grab a ride with her rather than risk missing his tr
ain. We shook hands and I thanked him for his time.

  ‘How did the Spinosad-based product get its ticket?’ I asked him as he prepared to shoot off. He looked away, eyes towards the summit of the mountain, squinting into the light or because he could not face the truth of the answer.

  ‘How has such a product earned an organic certificate? Please, Vincent.’

  ‘It’s not a chemical.’

  Nadine was calling.

  ‘I have to go. I’ll miss the train.’

  ‘Please can I telephone you in Avignon?’

  He nodded awkwardly. We said our farewells and I set off myself, pondering all that I had seen and learned. In my distractions, I took a wrong turning and found myself circumnavigating the cliffside in a steep downwards spiral. It seemed to be leading me nowhere and certainly not towards the motorway. I was in a maze of stone. Down narrow and then narrower lanes, erstwhile donkey tracks, chiselled hollows, rabbit runs, sunk between mountain slab, barely the space to swing a cat, until I found myself facing a locked iron gate set within an impenetrable wall of solid stone. The light was fading. Evening was fast descending, darkness closing in around me, and I had no idea where I was. Hemmed in, there was nowhere to make a U-turn and reversing upwards at such an angle was precarious. Uncertain that I was capable of it, I stepped out to gauge the space available and suddenly tilted my head upwards. There, like an apparition beyond the black filigreed gates, soaring skywards, was the castle. Lit from beneath, it was magical and gave the impression that it was floating, drifting off into outer space, rooted nowhere.

  My guts were churned up, not least because I was so lost and night was falling. This cul-de-sac was my mind. I knew we would not spray our trees with white clay. It was unattractive, would change the look of the landscape and a tree covered in clay was, to me, an imprisoned being. So, what was the alternative? The American product that harmed the insect life in the groves? I did not want to consider the possibility that the organic olive future being created here in France was based on compromise.

  I gazed once more at the castle. According to Vincent, the village of St Jeannet was believed to have been blessed for its fecundity, its bountiful mountain springs. Painters such as Dufy and Poussin had found inspiration here, as well as the poet, Prévert. I would find inspiration, too. There was a route out of this maze; I had only to find it.

  I spent most of that evening on the internet – I skipped the St Patrick’s Day party, too late home, in any case. On a Canadian website I learned that the recommended organic product was ‘highly toxic’ to bees exposed to direct treatment, to drift or any residue of the product that might have fallen on plants in blossom. The product’s official site suggested that it was harmless to arthropods, while other advice warned that it should not be sprayed near lakes, that this liquid must be kept from rivers and aquatic habitats such as ponds and creeks. It had the potential for run-off, I read.

  What does that mean, I asked myself. It meant that the product should not be applied if there is any possibility that it could spill or drip from the trees and settle on the earth, seep into the soil, go underground and into water.

  Do not apply if rain is forecast within the next forty-eight hours.

  When it rained, the product was washed away. It had been of little use to the fruits and, instead, it would have been washed on to and then into the soil, sinking deep, polluting the water sources that feed wells, springs, rivers.

  I laid my glasses on my desk. It was almost one in the morning. Not only was this product recognised as being dangerous for pollinators such as bees, it had the possibility, according to what I had read from several different sources, of poisoning groundwater.

  This was not an easy subject. Its ripples travelled far beyond our olive farm and it left me confused about how to proceed, but I believed my resistance was something I should stand up for. That, or leave the farm.

  The following morning, a little exhausted, I was downstairs to greet the arrival of our masonry team. Tradesmen down our way tend to commence work somewhere between seven thirty and eight. It was now approaching nine fifteen and there was no sign of them. Of little importance, of course, as long as the work was achieved within a reasonable time frame and was of good order. Otherwise, they could labour away, as far as we were concerned, whenever the hours suited them. I was about to return upstairs when I heard the creaking of our manually opened gates, the spluttering of their truck. At first at breakneck speed, they then slowed at the waving of my arms. I was like someone directing pedestrian traffic, signalling them to take it easy and not distress the trees.

  ‘Good morning, bom dia,’ from me when they had parked and alighted.

  ‘Bonjour, Madame,’ the growls of response.

  ‘Would anyone like a coffee?’

  Silence.

  ‘José, would you like …?’

  Four heads turned. Three were José. ‘Si, Senhora?’

  ‘Coffee?’

  Each member of the quartet shook his head, which seemed to be a painful exercise.

  ‘Would you prefer tea?’

  Again, head shakes.

  ‘Water?’

  ‘No, thank you. We drink the tap water.’

  ‘Actually, I rather advise against that. We are not on the mains system here, and … well, it’s better to stick to mineral water. I’ll bring you a bottle.’

  ‘Tap water is fine, but I’d like a glass of vin rouge, please,’ called one, he with the smoke-strangled voice.

  I stopped in my tracks.

  ‘Vin rouge?’ It was nine thirty. The sun was still climbing, fingering its way up behind the pine trees on the eastern quarter of the hill.

  ‘It’s all he drinks,’ grinned another. I had not yet figured out who was related to whom and which of the foursome was not José.

  I delivered a tray of glasses and a bottle of mineral water along with one small glass of red wine, which the slightest of the men, whose facial skin was drawn tight like a beaten old drum, downed in one gulp, slapping the glass back on to the tray.

  ‘Au travail,’ he rasped, while peeling the Cellophane off his Gauloises packet with his teeth.

  He lifted a mallet, raised it high above his head, dark, hirsute armpits exposed – he was naked from the waist up – and began to slam and smite yet another section of stable walls. Powder clouds rose. The building groaned and cracked. This labourer might have been a bantamweight, but the brickwork buckled without argument, tumbling like the walls of Jericho. Back inside the house, in my den, disks were shimmying off the shelves and congregating in untidy streams across the tiled floor. Everything else stacked on the bookshelves – papers, framed photographs, dictionaries, files – was shifting, sliding slowly, subsiding groundwards. The building was almost rocking to the all-powerful bulldozing. Defeated, I closed up my computer. Concentration was impossible. I decided to go to the garden centre instead and then make my way, early, to the airport to collect Michel. If the fabric of the house was not up to this, I did not want to be around to witness the consequences.

  At the end of the day, Michel beckoned the team – only three very dusty Josés by this stage – signalling them to install themselves at one of the wooden garden tables. ‘Shall we take a moment to outline and agree upon the timescale of the payments and decide what needs to be paid in cash?’

  They agreed readily, grabbed cigarette packets and sat themselves down, smiling, nodding, coughing, lighting up.

  It was customary down our way to pay 40 per cent of the negotiated fee up front, but Michel usually insisted upon a smaller investment at the outset.

  I offered the trio a glass of wine.

  ‘Non, non merci, Madame. We are driving; there are police everywhere these days.’

  Their words were fact. ‘Sarkozy’s France,’ I lamented.

  ‘Mais oui, la France de Sarko. It’s a crying shame. You can’t get away with anything any more.’

  ‘A chilled soft drink perhaps?’

  They shook their h
eads disgustedly.

  Money matters settled, a substantial cash portion handed over there and then to facilitate the purchase of their materials, also ‘on the black’ – the Mediterranean société noire – they rose, ready to bid us bonsoir.

  Before they departed, requested Michel, ‘An approximate schedule, please. Most of the working materials are here now, is that correct?’

  ‘Oh, non, Monsieur, there’s the cement mixer, sand, bricks, bags of cement. Plenty more to come and these will be arriving on a daily basis.’

  My heart sank.

  ‘Well, the demolition of the far side of the stables has been completed?’

  ‘Yes, and tomorrow we’ll begin hauling all that debris away from here. Keep your parking area spick and span,’ they grinned.

  ‘Merci beaucoup. So, can we assume one month to completion? I think you mentioned such a date to my wife?’

  ‘Well, to be on the safe side, let’s say six weeks. Then the entire production will have been put to bed, have no fear.’

  ‘Good, good, that’s settled.’

  Before they wheeled off down the drive, the pugilist of the party, petit José, swung back and said: ‘There is no chef among us, no boss, you know that, don’t you? We are, each one, le boss.’

  A curious parting gambit, I found it, as was their respect for the drink and drive laws.

  The following morning, Michel was returning to Paris for yet another brief spell in the editing suite and I, as always, was up soon after five to drive him to the airport. He would be home before Easter, though, and I was still optimistic that his daughters or one, at least, would come and spend the holiday with us. Michel had a big birthday coming up and I wanted to plan a surprise party, encouraging the girls to be my accomplices. When I returned I found Quashia digging along the border of the cottage garden, planting oleander bushes propagated in our greenhouse, a few lettuces, pots of thyme, rosemary purchased by me the previous weekend. The gate was wide open. Still, I drew up and stepped out of the car. It gladdened me to see him preparing his kitchen garden. I read it as a commitment to his life here.