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

by Carol Drinkwater

  The wine was an average table offering and, no matter who farmed it, it could never be much improved upon, but the district produced many fine wines.

  ‘Gigondas, for example: what exceptional reds! But this particular vineyard renders wine that is drinkable, nothing more. It sells at three euros eighty-five cents a bottle. Currently, seventy thousand litres a year is bottled. So, there’s an interesting business concern here. I don’t know the sum Thierry suggested for the vineyard, but I know for certain the vendors are open to offers, or if you don’t want wines, go for olives. As I said, precious little water necessary.’

  For an estate agent, he was beginning to sound a little desperate, and the water issues were baffling given that he had assured me the domaine and surrounding lands were very well serviced by subterranean springs.

  At the edge of the vineyard was an eighteenth-century lavoir.

  ‘This could be pulled down,’ suggested my guide.

  ‘Oh, but of course not!’ It was an attractive, authentic feature. There were several natural springs that fed into this parcel and their routes down from the mountains were being pointed out to me when, suddenly, the Spaniard noticed that the path alongside the vines was waterlogged, as the entranceway had been. Water was seeping from somewhere in the centre of the vineyard. He was on the phone instantly, hot and bothered, shouting to someone about never having seen such a sight here and what was going on.

  ‘It’s bled off into the vineyard,’ he was hollering. His Spanish accent with its thick, lispy sounds became evident when he grew angry. I was curious as to why he was personally so worked up about the situation. He surely did not think that such an incident would prejudice this potential sale. Or was there a personal issue at stake here that I was not party to? Fishy was the adjective that sprang to mind.

  Returning to our cars, I noticed just beyond a bank of exceedingly tall trees to the left of the property, beyond a stone wall that must have measured ten metres in height, along the only side to the house we had not visited, another house, older, possibly medieval. It must overshadow the windows on the west of the property. Why had I not noticed it? Because the shutters had been closed on that side of the house.

  ‘What is that building?’

  ‘The original house.’

  ‘Is it being sold with the estate?’ As we drew closer I saw that in its stylistically different and original way it was substantial.

  ‘No, there’s someone living there.’

  Oh. I pictured all privacy disappearing. ‘Ah, that’s the troublesome neighbour?’

  ‘No, no, he’s extremely kind, but is terminally ill, I understand. Not improved by the years of acrimony and fighting that has gone on with Madame des Bulles here.’

  The continued allusions were too frequent now to ignore and I was keen to hear the story. So I stood my ground and insisted and, reluctantly, he began to spill the beans.

  The tale proved to be a real-life Pagnol affair. Water, then, was at the root of it.

  Originally, the estate had comprised both houses and all the lands. The main entrance was elsewhere and belonged now exclusively to the expiring neighbour. However, all water sources had by an oversight or trickery at the time of division of the properties been left with the Napoleonic chateau. This forced the original house and the vine groves to be dependent upon the chateau for water.

  ‘Here, in this part of Provence, you understand, water must be shared, particularly from springs.’

  However, soon after her purchase of the chateau more than two decades back, Madame from Champagne had closed all access to the wells and sources. Wherever a stream or underground rivulet ran beyond her land she had blocked it off, thus sequestering all water for the chateau’s exclusive use. Incensed, outraged, the local population as well as many of the outlying farms became involved. The neighbour, younger and healthier at that stage, had, as a retributive act, closed off the gated entrance that had served both properties by permanently fencing off from the chateau the lane that ran the length of the main park. It was his legal right to do with this approach as he pleased, but the sharing had been a gesture of goodwill expected of ‘voisins’. Now it had been withdrawn. War had been declared. His act had forced the Champagne family, les Champagnoises, as these men had delightfully nicknamed them, to enter by the ‘back passage’, the servants’ and merchants’ access. This, of course, had infuriated Madame de des Bulles, the Lady of the Bubbles. She had taken the man to court and he, in turn, had brought a suit against her for water rights, as had the owners of the vineyard which, it turned out, belonged to the in-laws of the Spaniard.

  How could I have been so shortsighted? The lavender beds had once been a tennis court – ‘Well, you can hardly have a tennis court in the forecourt,’ grinned the man at my side – the carp pond, once in an area of tranquillity at the back of the house by the kitchens where coffee might have been taken in the mornings or where the staff would have collected herbs and fed fowl.

  The house had been reversed. What had originally been conceived as the back door was now the front entrance and vice versa. The splendid sweeping staircase now at the rear of the ground floor had been a greeting point when the property had been entered by its original front door.

  ‘Her pigheaded foreignness’ had cost the woman from the north dearly. The community had closed ranks against this house.

  We were now in the company of the gardener, whose name was Baptiste. Tall, rather handsome with healthy, rugged skin and white hair, he was leaning, propped against a straw broom. He had long since given in his notice and only dropped by during the proprietor’s absence because he did not want to see a property so fine go to rack and ruin and because he grew all his vegetables here.

  ‘But who feeds the dog?’ I begged to know.

  An insignificant clerk from the local town, without wife or family, had been given sleeping quarters in a lean-to hidden behind stands of bamboo near the chapel in return for that service.

  Baptiste, along with dozens of others from the neighbouring villages, came to help themselves to the fish in the carp pond and to the seasonal fruits and flowers. Occasionally they used the chapel, too, but ‘she’ knew nothing of any of this. As the agent had said, from time to time a marriage was celebrated and the fine glassware and crockery, as well as some of the house’s exquisite furnishings, were brought out into the garden to service the wedding parties.

  ‘If we considered purchasing the domaine might you agree to stay?’ I asked Baptiste.

  He shook his head. The place carried bad memories for everyone. ‘You will find no one who will work here. In one sense, we judge these grounds cursed. On the other hand, our sentiments are intermingled with our past histories here, our childhoods and that of our parents and grandparents. Today, we simply take advantage of these grounds and most particularly the water sources.’

  Everybody came here, walking with buckets or driving up the back yard, to avail themselves to the spring waters that ‘she, the foreigner’ had closed off from them and their neighbours. From every direction, paths and tracks led the Montmirail residents here. The hunters knew how to penetrate her forests, to hunt the boar and the rabbits and hares, the young girls came to filch the flowers for their garlands. Everybody helped themselves to water and, when she was not in residence, many of the taps were opened and left to run freely, to irrigate every outlying farm, olive grove and vineyard at her expense.

  ‘Is she aware of any of this?’

  The two men exchanged glances and then the gardener, with his iris-blue eyes in a face that watched out at the world, quietly calibrating Nature’s shifts of mood, replied that he doubted whether she would have noticed. ‘Her thoughts and concerns lie elsewhere. She sees very little, though she deems herself smart. But we are smarter.’

  And the court cases, the litigations, had they been resolved?

  ‘More or less.’ Hardly sufficient reassurance for a potential purchaser.

  Well, then, might there be any chance of
a brief interview with the neighbour, to understand his point of view regarding these perturbing and not entirely resolved issues? Both men solemnly shook their heads. ‘Oh, no, he lives alone at death’s door, waiting for the final call. And if this becomes an inheritance issue …’ the men grinned. ‘She’ll never unravel it. If you want it, buy now before he dies, before it is too late.’

  Otherwise, the chateau would continue along this rudderless present, a diminished asset, repossessed in spirit by the progeny, the descendants of the local peasantry whose ancestors had toiled its expansive lands.

  I liked the house immensely, was drawn to its elegant space and generosity of bedrooms, but would we not be purchasing as many problems as I was trying to solve? The fly back home was the devil I knew. As I turned the car towards Avignon, I tapped out the number of Vincent’s mobile.

  I rarely found the opportunity to visit the papal city of Avignon but this seemed to be the perfect opportunity. Disappointingly, Vincent, from the Agrivert team, was not working. He was, however, in town and agreed after a little persuasion to meet up with me briefly. His location of choice was not his office, but a café outside the enclosed walls of the historic city centre. I spotted him as I parked – I’d got snarled up on the circular – looking tired, pale. Instead of coffee, he ordered a Calvados. I took Badoit. I had a long drive ahead of me in early evening traffic. I was hoping Vincent might clarify the situation on products awarded organic certification.

  ‘The farm we visited where you had planted up the wild flowers, the owners, manager, are using a spray created by a top-tier American crop-management company?’

  ‘An attirant,’ he said. ‘It attracts the fly to it and then kills it off.’

  ‘But it attracts and kills other insects, too?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘We have kept hives on our land and I want to do so again. Would this be a risk for them?’

  ‘Certainly.’

  ‘Then how has this product received an organic ticket?’

  ‘Its basic composition is from a fermenting plant so it is classed as a natural substance, not a chemical one.’

  ‘But it is toxic for the honeybee and other insects?’

  ‘Yes.’

  So, why had it been given an organic ticket?’

  ‘In my opinion, it is hazardous, though, to be fair, it is not on the Dangerous Pesticides list, so compared to dimethoate, for example, it is the softer option. Bio is a growing movement. Awareness is on the increase, more and more is being written about the hormonal imbalances, cancers, side effects, you name it, caused by agrochemical products and the government has been picking up on this. Many people are worried by talk of poisons being fed into their systems. And these are urgent concerns. This product is technically speaking organic because it is plant-based. It will help kick-start the organic olive industry, which, as you know, until we find out the results of Psyttalia is an almost insoluble problem. It gives olive farming the organic start it so badly needs.’ He shook his head and downed in one the Calvados set before him.

  I reminded him of the pyrethrum chrysanthemum. Why would this American product, which was also non-selective in what it killed, be given a ticket of approval while the Dalmatian plant was not available?

  ‘It’s a compromise. There are many of us working in the bio area who are not happy about that.’

  What other directions did he feel the bio path should be taking? What were his thoughts on Psyttalia lounsburyi?

  ‘It might prove to be a way forward in the future, but for the present our greatest hope lies in healing the earth. Little by little.’

  And in order to achieve that, in Vincent’s opinion, we needed to change our behaviour patterns immediately. To turn our backs on philosophies that supported taking from the land and giving nothing back, that applauded bigger and better crops.

  ‘We are told that mass crop production is essential to serve the phenomenal population explosions, but have such methods curtailed the rising levels of starvation on the planet? No. The truth is, man is confused and what we are fighting against is immense: international financial interests that are greedy, corrupt. In my opinion, we must be very wary of Monsanto, Dow, Bayer, individual governments and the self-interest displayed from within them. Do you think any one of them gives a hoot about the future health of the planet? It’s down to us. Every one of us. My job, as much as anything else, is to expand people’s awareness of Nature, of landscape. Urban wasteland, for example, that is our landscape, our future heritage, just as much as the mountain ranges, the olive groves, the vineyards. Let’s encourage city kids to farm those plots. Even if all one can contribute is one window box, one barrel in a dingy yard planted with flowers or vegetables, it’s a beginning. It’s the first step.’

  7

  Our Herculean pruning programme was almost at an end. Those trees that had not yet been touched must now be left until the following year because, on every branch of our silver soldiers, buds were beginning to peep through. That brief season of silky grey promise was upon us. The white blossoms were soon to come, shrouded for now within nodes barely larger than pinheads. Beyond buds were flowers and then came fruits and, as they plumped out, decisions …

  Weeds, land growth, plants of the maquis, were shooting up fast. The frogs were mating. Soft rain was falling. Michel was soundly sleeping, long hours, bushed, worn out from labouring on the farm. I was suffering from insomnia again. Silently torn by the prospects that lay ahead during the summer months, I had been encouraging all this heavy pruning, working at it myself, arm-aching physical exertion as much as I was able, aware that the more rigorously we pruned, the less substantial would be our fruit load and the less urgent would be the knotty question of whether we sprayed or not. The alternatives that I had come up with so far were all unsuitable as I continued to dream unrealistically of a world without Dacus.

  Michel found me seated in one of the armchairs, listening to the birds outside, the pre-dawn chorus, a sure sign that the days were growing warmer and longer.

  ‘How would you like to spend your birthday?’ I asked him.

  He burst out laughing. ‘Is it giving you sleepless nights? Something intimate, just the two of us.’ He rested his hand on my head and urged me back to bed. ‘Staying awake won’t resolve anything,’ he mumbled, padding back to the reassurance of pillows, bedlinen, oblivious to the fact that I was not accompanying him.

  Morning broke and I was still there. At my side was a collection of dictionaries and botanical encyclopaedias. I had frequently asked myself why certain flowers, plants, were acceptable and others not. Where did the word ‘weed’ originate?

  Here, offered by The Oxford Dictionary was what I found for WEED:

  A herbaceous plant not valued for use or beauty, growing wild and rank, and regarded as cumbering the ground or hindering the growth of superior vegetation b) a plant that grows wild in fresh or salt water

  e) used with defining word to form the names of wild plants such as BindWEED, DuckWEED etc.

  Any herb or small plant

  Tobacco b) a cigar or cheroot

  An unprofitable, troublesome noxious growth.

  At what stage had some of the glorious plants, wild flowers some, others such as burdock, been cast to one side and labelled ‘weed’? Botanical racism!

  In certain cultures and kitchens, burdock roots were highly prized. The stinging nettle was another. Nettle soup is a delicacy and a great bonus for good health. High in iron, it counters anaemia and hair loss and is the exclusive larval food plant for several butterfly species. I was interested to learn that The Oxford Dictionary suggested that a weed is an ‘unprofitable, troublesome noxious growth’. This rather damning and dramatic interpretation was the sense in which it was commonly used in modern parlance rather than as ‘any herb or small plant’. When did that shift in perspective take place, and in what ways had it biased our relationship to gardens, to the plants growing around us? Weeds, creepie-crawlies, bugs. They had become ou
r enemies. They turned us against Nature, encouraged the perception that we had to keep its growth, its profusion, at bay, before it took over, got in the way. Was not such a philosophy the basis upon which the giant chemical companies were proselytising? ‘Kill off all weeds, ground cover, bugs, and the irrigation will be fed directly into the crop.’ A philosophy put forward by industrialised and monoculture farming.

  The sun was shining. Higher up the hillside, as I returned from the gate with the post the Portuguese were rowdy and cheerful. Earlier in the morning their smoke-ridden lorry had taxied up, delivering a second cement mixer. I noticed Quashia, who was working with sand, cement bags and spade, coveting it. It seemed that wherever I walked on the land cement was being mixed.

  My email to the States had met with silence, and I was beginning to believe that it had been a prank, Spam. Instead, yet another envelope from the olive bodies had plopped into our letterbox: our grant, our stipend from Brussels, miserly though it was, a mere four hundred plus euros per annum, had been withdrawn. The notification informed us that no further transfers would be made into my bank account. The reasons given were that we had delivered no récolte, no harvest, the year before.

  ‘But the latest European legislation states we are entitled to that aid whether we harvested fruits or not. Remember the tobacco farmer I told you about in Extramadura?’ I argued.

  M raised his hand to silence me. There was more. Last year, according to the letter, our forms had been inaccurately completed. Neither of us understood what inaccuracies they had found or whether these were the real reasons for penalising us, but for such an insignificant sum it did not seem worth the hassle of finding out.

  ‘I’ll see if I can get to the bottom of it. Otherwise, if it proves to be too complicated, we’ll just let it go,’ sighed Michel wearily.

  He filed this letter along with the others from the olive farmers’ mutuality, from whose membership we had also been expunged in spite of numerous attempts on his part to persuade them to the contrary. Slowly, we were slipping off all lists, all those societies and bodies Michel had gone to such lengths to have the farm registered with.