‘Have the Portuguese arrived?’
Quashia shook his head. ‘Not yet. A lazy lot, those masons.’
‘I hope they have not gone out on the town with our money, or, worse, back to Portugal,’ I joshed.
I had no need to feel concerned. By half past nine, the daily mount was underway. In its customary fashion, the gangrenous old banger smoked and belched up the drive, stripping shoots and flowers in its wake, and the men piled out, puffy-eyed, looking exceedingly hungover and unshaven, wired with nervous energy.
Quashia suggested that, to facilitate our olive pruning, he was going to weedwhack the herbage along the terraces. I stayed his hand. The grasses and wild flowers needed to turn to seed first in order that they would regrow the following spring. In any case, they were not excessively long, ankle-length at most. I gave him a brief résumé of my outing to the organic farm, leaving out the use of the questionable product, but he was not convinced.
‘But what about the dangers? The fire risks?’
There were precious few fire risks in this season.
‘We have everything to gain, Mr Q. We’ll cut the land back before summer.’
He stormed off in a huff.
But I took heart from his daily presence and the knowledge that there had been no further announcements since Christmas of his desire to leave for any lengthy period of time, for whatever reason, be it teeth or pilgrimage.
Easter. Clarisse, baby Chiara and partner were caught up in the final weeks of the skiing season while Vanessa and her troop were off to Normandy with friends. We had invited no other guests so Michel and I took the opportunity to work on the land. Veils of yellow pollen dust were drifting off the conifers travelling like sandstorms on the horizon, while we laboured at shaping trees. Covered skies but warm, perfect working-out-of-doors weather – housekeeping the land, scrubbing outdoor furniture after the winter, Michel cleaning the pool (still not a squeak from Jacques). A joyous afternoon spring-cleaning. Tendrils of wood smoke fletched and perfumed the mornings. We were pruning, burning olive shoots, the cracked and fallen pine logs, winter debris. I heard the distant crackle of the flames as I clipped concentratedly, far removed on a different pocket of the grounds. When I went to fetch a bottle of mineral water, I spied a newt, a lovely shade of green, padding across the blue mosaics atop the pool. I left it be, wondering if he or she was searching for a site to breed. I spotted several chaffinches, the first in a while, but now they were about, singing sweetly, looping from tree to tree.
After lunch I spoke to Clarisse on the phone. ‘Michel’s birthday,’ I reminded. ‘Shall we organise a surprise party?’
She said that ‘Papa’ did not want one.
‘Has he said so?’
‘He told Vanessa when he was babysitting there.’
I was rather deflated by this news. I had been looking forward to the secrecy and intrigue, to the surprised delight on his face.
Several of the climbers I had planted the previous summer, soon after I returned from my western travels, had died off. This winter of heavy rains had been the culprit. Michel was working hard, arms outstretched, lost within the trees’ tangle of twisted branches while I trimmed back several of the smaller fellows – it’s that eternal reaching upwards that’s so exhausting – and then gave it up for the day. Potted and repotted, cleaned up in the greenhouse, planted herbs, aromatics: lavenders, thymes, rosemary. Mud-encrusted my fingers and nails. At the end of one of our long days of work, shattered from pruning – back stiff and arms as immobile as logs – while watering newly sown tomatoes and lettuces in the greenhouse, I spotted a small bird pass gracefully and without hitch right through the centre of a tree I had reshaped that very afternoon. I whooped to myself, delightedly. Yes! I had pruned well!
6
We had taken our time deciding whether or not to fell the survivor of our revered pair of cherry trees. The first had died over a year before. We had missed it greatly for it had been the snowy-white shade in spring, leafy-green parasol of summer and umbrella in winter to our deceased dogs, whose discreet resting place we had created about its feet and where, even as I looked upon the patch now, I could see the settling hump of earth that blanketed our darling Cleo.
I remembered how hard it had been to face the fact that this exquisite tree, not just any nameless tree, had died and needed to be removed; that it, along with the animals it had sheltered, had reached its end. This pair of fruiting cherries was one of the surprises, discoveries, we had come across on the land after we had completed our first major clearance of the hillside. There they were, ligneous pillars of beauty and bountifulness, suddenly revealed in all their glory. Both produced the finest, burgundy-black cherries which, when you bit into them, bled a sticky, wine-tinted juice. In place of the first lost fruiter, I had introduced two small ones. Now, the second of the original venerables was following in his companion’s footsteps. Early spring was all about us. The red squirrels were reappearing. The sun was rising higher in the sky each day and everything else had burst into life, but this had remained the same: a dark post of wood with three tall fingers, just as it was when we had cut it back the autumn before. Lifeless, and we all of us agreed that the moment for its felling had finally, inevitably, come.
The men performed the deed and once this formidable fruit-bearer was down and sawn into hefty logs, we found that beneath the coating of bark, which fragmented at our touch, the once sturdy trunk was fretted and alive. Streaming rivers of enormous black ants inhabited networks of tunnels. Ascending from its root system, they had hollowed out the tree’s inner timbers and made their nests in a complex display of corridors, passageways, galleries. Entire communities were running frantically, at a loss to understand what had happened to their fine wooden home. I refused to spray them but feared they might take up residence in neighbouring trees – had they been responsible for the demise of these two fruiters? – so we decided to burn the cherry wood immediately, piling up a monumental bonfire. We brought chairs, cups of green tea, dragged some of the slender, withering lengths of striplings and root shoots from the pruned olives and sat together in the late afternoon watching the gradual disappearance of a being that had given us such a spread of beauty in its annual flowerings followed by its exquisite fruits. This was its final burst of light.
Quashia hinted that if I had agreed to spray it, this cremation might have been averted. I ignored his judgements and sat silently listening to its aerated timber crackle and pop. The tree burned all night. I woke once or twice and sat up in bed watching the tiny flames religiously devouring every last splinter. I slipped on a robe and stepped barefoot out to sit by the glow of the fire. Within moments, the two dogs had found me and flopped contentedly at my side.
We had lost Bassett, lost Cleo. The honeybees had gone. This tree, too, had released its spirit. Surely it was time for us to be moving on as well?
I loved it here more than anywhere I had ever known, but I would rather leave and move inland to another property where I was not faced by a choice that I could not live by. I had confided little of my uncertainties to Michel. He judged my worries extreme. Was he right or was the battle to stay here and live a simple pesticide-free existence impossible?
I watched the flames dancing beneath the clear navy sky potholed with liquid stars. An owl in the highest of the pine trees, overshadowing the cherry now burning at my feet, was hooting. I spotted its partner, flying low with silent beating wings, out on a hunting trip. They had young up there, I was sure of it.
I was recalling all that had brought me here, how I had found myself in this corner of the world fighting for trees and bees and squabbling the odds with an old Berber who wanted nothing more than to earn sufficient funds to send home to his family in Algeria, visit a brothel from time to time in Marseille and otherwise enjoy a quiet life. I had given up a great deal for this existence. I had changed languages, careers, taken on a family who at that time were not related to me, not of my flesh, married a man who sometime
s when I looked at him padding about the place in a dressing gown and bare feet I thought to myself: who is this person? What had I and this tall Frenchman, originally from Germany, who remained remarkably attractive even though his hair had gone grey and he was less lean, who worked with unremitting dedication, demanded next to nothing from life except his freedom to make the films that mattered to him, who never or very rarely lost his head as I was prone to do – what had we to do with one another? What had brought us together? How had we found ourselves living under this same flat Mediterranean roof? He, who I had intended would be the father of my children. He talked on the phone in languages I did not understand, recounted tales to me in our intimate moments of a childhood that was far removed from my own. Our parents had been on opposite sides in a war! What unexpected turn of fate had delivered us here together, living this life to which neither of us was born, but which had given us such immeasurable satisfaction? And what would happen now if we could not see eye to eye on whether we should stay or go? How much of Appassionata was woven into the fabric of our love?
When we first found Appassionata, I had been looking for a new way to live. I had been searching for many years for my House by the Sea. I wanted to be able to chill out in between acting roles, escape city stress and commitments. It had not been clear to me then that I was hungering for a life in harmony with the world around me, the environment. Appassionata had seduced me, had seduced us. It became the centre of my world instead of a bolt hole on the periphery. I fell in love with the Mediterranean, with its nature and seascape and perhaps above all with its olive trees. The olive tree and all that it represented; the history, mysteries it carried within its DNA. I had never intended for all this to happen. I never intended for this modus vivendi to take such a hold, for it to kidnap me from what I had always perceived as my real life, but at some loosely evolving point, I cannot precisely determine when, I took my first steps along a new path and I kept walking. It seemed to be the ‘right’ route. At every crossroads, when opportunities to turn left or right, to veer off from this path, were offered to me, I kept going, immersing myself ever more profoundly in the universe of the Mediterranean and its natural surroundings. I grew more conscious of my environment. Nature became my companion, particularly when it became clear that I would bear no children, and I was happy, content in this life. At one with it. But now, I found myself at a crossroads that left me uncertain, troubled. To go forward, which was to say to stay and fight this environmental battle, demanded tools, expertise, methods, a system with which to combat the olive fly, but nothing suitable was on offer. On the other hand, to stay and ignore the choices to be made … to remain in the system, keep our AOC, keep faith with the local agrarian community and their traditional methods, enjoy our splendid olive oil, yet all the while knowing that the spray that fell on to these acres was endangering Appassionata’s ecosystem and would eventually seep into groundwater and contribute, even if only to a minuscule degree, to the degeneration of the earth, to the disappearance of honeybees, endangering other fauna and man … I felt unable to accept this.
So, this home, this idyll, this patch of paradise was calling upon me to champion it. Who would know if I simply turned a blind eye to this dilemma? Michel and Quashia, yes, but Michel was not as extreme in his philosophies as I am apt to be and Quashia was dead set against my ‘nonsensical reasoning’. No one else. Only me.
I must have nodded off by the fire, gazing into the remaining cherry embers, because I was woken by the vigorous barking of dogs. I looked about me, whispered their names. They had decamped while I was dozing. The fire had died. I shivered, felt chilly, sat up to listen. I assumed the alarm had been triggered by one of the neighbours’ cats. They used our land as nocturnal hunting territory. In broad daylight, due to the dogs’ bounding presence, they did not approach, but at night they were bolder and stalked their prey even to the perimeters of the house. It was too late for the boars. They were evening hunters in our neck of the woods, not dawn raiders. A cat or rabbit, then, had disturbed the dogs.
I stood up, stiff from having been curled into the chair. Everything was quiet again, still. I trekked back towards the house, the open bedroom doors, hoping to grab some sleep but then a yelping pierced the darkness, high-pitched, rather like a scream. It was not a screech owl, I felt sure, but an animal in pain. Once my ears were attuned, I realised that there were several creatures. I recognised both Lola’s and Homer’s barkings but there was another, unfamiliar to me. I slipped barefoot on to the upper terrace; the tiles were warm beneath my feet. I called softly into the night, beckoning the dogs. Creatures answered me, feeding owls perhaps, but not our two hounds. Neither came. Occasionally, they got loose and slipped out beneath the wire fencing where the boars had chewed holes to create access. I went for sandals, in search of them. Up and down the drive in the darkness I pursued them, but the barking had gone quiet. All had gone quiet, as though the night were studying me with watchful eyes. I sniffed, listened, waited. Perhaps it had been a fox? But where were our faithfuls? I searched everywhere, back and forth, circling. No sign of them. I wasn’t adequately dressed and did not feel inclined to penetrate the extremities of the property, mostly for fear of encountering nocturnal creatures I was unfamiliar with and because I had foolishly forgotten a torch. Eventually, I returned to the house. They would slope home when they were ready, as they always did. The other barking I had heard might well have been a fox or the Rottweiler across the lane. If our two had got loose they would have enjoyed positioning themselves outside his gate and tormenting him, harrying the great brute and for this, for sure, I would be in serious trouble with the neighbour again.
I had overslept. Quashia was calling to me. It was gone eight. I padded downstairs to make coffee, to serve up the dogs’ breakfast bowls.
‘Take a look at this.’
‘Oh, my God!’
Homer, our German Alsatian, born on the farm, and the light of our lives, had been gruesomely attacked. His face was gashed and lacerated. Had he been clawed or might it be teeth marks? Shivering with shock, he had secreted himself at the foot of one of the cypresses, cowering in a corner. His wounds were now packed with congealing blood and soil.
‘He’s been mauled by a wild boar.’
But were the boars to blame? It must have been Homer I had heard yelping, then.
‘I’ll call the vet.’
Fortunately for us, one of the two new vets lived only lanes away – she and her partner had purchased the little riding stable on the far side of the hill – and she agreed to drop in on her way to the clinic. The incisions, she diagnosed, had been made by teeth.
‘I would say he has been in a fight, possibly, almost certainly with a fellow dog, a large one, but it is most curious that there is not a scratch on him elsewhere. Poor fellow is feeling very sorry for himself.’
Homer was given a tetanus injection, a five-day antibiotic course, oodles of tender loving care and extra food if he wanted it, but this he refused. He ate nothing for several days. He was sulking, in pain. He was discomforted by the bandage wrapped around his muzzle. As soon as I had replaced it and turned my back, he tore it off and dragged it through the dirt. The filthier it was, the happier he was. His pride and swaggering young manliness had taken a real blow. I did not know whether to laugh at him or cry with him, but I was determined to find the culprit who had inflicted such a wound. It was time to pay the neighbours another visit.
Armed to confront the worst, I strode down the drive where, to my utter amazement, I found himself beyond their gate, in body-hugging black leather suit à la Johnny Hallyday, splayed out on the ground. His bike had fallen on top of him. He reminded me of a beetle turned upside down with legs wriggling in the air attempting to right itself. The difference was that this fellow was face down and could not extricate himself.
The sight of him took me aback.
‘Can I help? Are you all right?’ Clearly not. I drew closer, gingerly. ‘Shall I ring the bell, call y
our … wife?’ Was she his wife? I had no idea. ‘Do you want a hand?’
Slowly, he turned his head, attempting to focus, to identify this woman looming over him. It was not yet 10 a.m. and he was smashed out of his mind. Whether he had attempted to go out and had fallen while mounting the bike or had been returning after an excessively heavy night, I had no idea. Whichever, he was incapable.
I dithered idiotically, not knowing what to do, forgetting about the plight of poor Homer. ‘I’m going to ring the bell,’ I announced. I took a step. The Rottweiler cantered up to the fence and shoved his snout through a triangular gap in the wire. He was barking, snarling. I realised then what had happened. Homer must have stuck his nose through the fence and the monster had gone for him.
‘Leave me be,’ slurred the neighbour, aggressively. ‘Can’t you sheee I’m fine? Fuck off.’
‘Right, I will.’ I turned on my heel. I had plenty of concerns of my own. If, as I felt sure, this Rottweiler had attacked Homer, I would make sure the dogs never encountered one another again.
As I plodded miserably up our hill, the white lorry belonging to the Portuguese came grinding up behind me. The men were whooping, laughing like schoolboys. You might have thought they were off on holiday. I stepped to one side and let them pass, watching as yet another branch cracked and snapped from the fig tree. Quashia had tied the hanging boughs of the olives back from the driveway towards their central trunks; not an ideal position for their development, but the alternative was far less appealing.
‘Good morning,’ I waved as I puffed up to the parking and the men, three only, were unloading tall iron rods. I was not in the mood for noise. I called to Homer who trotted slowly after me, bandage unfurled and hanging, and I started towards the house.
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