A Short Walk from Harrods (13 page)

The terrible threat of a
lotissement
and seven or eight ‘high-class villas' cast a fearful blight on events for some time to come, but for the moment we were, I thought, safe. Very occasionally the Honda would roar down into the dusty track outside the damp house; there would be a hammering and banging for a time, turquoise sparks flew from some high-powered welding torch, but nothing much else happened. I almost settled down to my usual complacency. Jean-Claude would
never
go to India, they'd never give permission, in this glorious place, for a
lotissement.
And then, one day, some peripheral friends, that is to say people I knew but had never entertained, and by whom I had never been entertained in England, arrived on the coast with their two girls to look ‘for somewhere to buy for a holiday home'. The wife, a cheerful, pretty woman, said it would be lovely if we could all meet and perhaps we could give them some advice? About finding a holiday home, I supposed. And I thought of the damp house down the track. Instantly. After all, a pleasant middle-class family with two young girls would be a great deal more attractive than a housing estate of seven or eight villas plus swimming pools. They came up the hill, saw the house, fell instantly in rapturous love with it. Words like ‘possibilities', ‘peace', ‘fantastic views', ‘extensions' and so on flew about the place like bats at sundown. They were hooked – I was uncertain, not convinced that I had done quite the right thing. After all, it did mean neighbours, even if it was only for a few weeks in the year when the girls were on holiday from school. And what would Jean-Claude say? He was furious. At first. There was the usual breast-beating about ‘family heritage and five hundred years', and then, when I said that the people who wanted the place were a very good
family, careful and loving, who would lavish care and taste on the house and restore the olives and the vineyard because money seemed not to be a problem, he became a little more interested and said that he hoped I had not mentioned the price he had offered the property to me for? I assured him that I had not. And I had not. I wasn't such an idiot as that.
I
had the special price for the simple reason that I had been given the year's option on the property before Jean-Claude had come to realize that money could buy him Hondas and henna, or an Indian ashram.

Anyway, after long and contentious telephone calls from London the pleasant family I hardly knew succumbed to Jean-Claude and his lawyers and paid him a sum
far
in excess of the original
£
18,000 I had been asked for, and possibly in excess of the price I had had to pay for Le Pigeonnier. Jean-Claude really didn't want to sell. He was perfectly happy as things were, but when he heard that the head of the jolly little English family was quite determined to own the damp house and, added to which, would never countenance the word ‘No' under any circumstances, he gave in and for this, frankly, bloated amount sold the house on the marsh.

Thus I was saved from a huge building-site and got neigh-bours instead. It worked out pretty well eventually, although I had terrible feelings of guilt and doubt when the drainage diggers started ‘next door', and received a shattering blow when they began to prune the three hundred olives.

The hillside beyond my apple trees resembled a John Nash painting or, more explicitly, Passchendaele. It was to look like this for at least two years. And, what was perhaps sadder, was the fact that one morning, on my usual promenade about my land with the dogs, sorting out the jobs to be done in the
day, I saw, to my consternation, a vivid crimson slash of paint on a big stone. Bright as a huge gout of blood, the vicious strokes of crimson marked every stone on every terrace from the top road right down the length of my land to the bottom road. Jean-Claude had, quite properly I suppose, marked out the boundary. I found that it was also marked with equal ferocity on the boundary between the de Beauvallons' land on the east. So now we knew where we all belonged.

In time Monsieur Rémy, at my urgent request, erected a long chestnut paling fence down the length of the west boundary, cutting me off from the damp house. It was less intrusive than chain link, and one day, talking with Madame de Beauvallon over sherry in the Long Room, I learned that her son-in-law was about to build a house on her land adjoining mine. Nothing I could do.

They had owned the place, like Jean-Claude, for centuries, it was theirs to do with as they wished. Madame de Beauvallon, because she spoke such good English, was sent to break the unwelcome news. The house, she said, would be very sympathetic, we were above the site so we would never see it, and they would place it so that all the windows faced away from Le Pigeonnier in any case, to take advantage of the view. She was sure we would all get on very well together, and they would plant a great many trees to shelter my privacy. It was all extremely generous and understanding. Only Titty-Brown Hill would suffer. It would be isolated no longer. ‘Outside' was closing in.

I always used to prune the big fig tree down by the gates on the morning of Christmas Eve. I can't think at this moment
exactly why. Had mournful Monsieur Danté told me, perhaps? He was, when he chose to speak at all, well informed about local agricultural tips. Or perhaps I simply did it out of ignorance? I had never had a fig tree in my life before, until I came to Le Pigeonnier, so it is quite possible that sheer enthusiastic ignorance guided my cutters to the bare branches. The tree was enormous, and hung over the track scratching the paint-work off cars and knocking the postman, on one memorable occasion, off his yellow Mobylette. Christmas time was usually golden and warm. We ate out on the terrace sometimes, always drank our kir royale outside, admired the early marigolds and anemones, rejoiced at the sharp green thrusts of the wild daffodils in the sere grass under the pomegranate, and knew that they were the warning signs alerting us to the fact that the sap was rising and would be surging through the trunks of the big vines on the metal cage above one's head which sheltered the terrace. But that chore, the pruning of the vine down to the last three buds on each branch, had to be done on a certain day at the beginning of February, before the sap had fully risen. It was a brutal business as, armed with monstrously sharp clippers and secateurs, one staggered about dragging ladders and steps, cutting out the prodigal growth of the past year.

The bonfires raged, in a controlled state because of the fire risk, for days. They had to be doused every evening at the end of work with endless cans of water from the well. You can say that it was a remarkable, and exhausting, keep fit class which exercised every muscle you ever had and a good number you didn't know you possessed. It also sweated off pounds in weight. Healthy you would be, exhausted you would be, but proud you would be when the first grey buds
blushed pink, burst, and opened tiny green hands to welcome the early spring sunlight. Not an excess length in sight, trim, tied in, perfect; ready to cover the terrace once again and hang its clusters of plump muscat grapes, palest green, translucent as polished jade. They, of course, would bring the vicious
frolon
(hornet) and the lithe, big-eared, yellow-breasted vine rat, which went scampering across the dense growth of leaves and branches, scattering guests in anxious disarray. They were careless creatures and defecated, or urinated, gleefully at will. Hence people's understandable confusion, although, really, few ever received a direct hit. However, that was all to come later, long after Christmas and the cruellest part of the year up on the hill, the vicious January and February. Christmas in France is very unlike the five to six day glut which we seem to endure in England. It only really lasts for a day and a half: Christmas Eve and Christmas Day (even on Christmas Day the bars and bakers are still open). That desperate feeling of having to hoard enough food and drink for almost a week of siege never takes place. Trains run, buses move about. It is merely the celebration of the birth of Christ, and that is celebrated lavishly on Christmas Eve at Midnight Mass.

When they were retired and living in a little flat in the valley, I usually had a tea-party for Marie and Henri, up on the hill, after the fig-pruning. They had no family and no living relatives. Marie would dress up in her best, usually a blue angora or cashmere sweater from Marks and Sparks, thick stockings concealing elastic ones, good white shoes and handbag, and the furious red slash of lipstick. She had her hair ‘done': tight, white curls, gently tinted palest lavender. Henri was stuffed, not always comfortably, into a tweed
jacket and heavy brogues and sweated. We had Jackson's tea, toast, Gentleman's Relish, Dundee cake, Fox's Ascot biscuits and, if I could make the effort after burning the fig cuttings and laying up the table, cucumber sandwiches. It had to be, at Marie's insistence, a real English tea. There was no point in making the journey up the hill otherwise.

After tea, round the fire, we exchanged presents with little cries of surprise and pleasure, as if we had none of us expected to receive any. The dogs were lavished with love, chewed up the wrapping-paper and string, and everything ended, rather thankfully, with a glass of port. Considered to be correct, heart-warming, rather dashing
and
festive.

Those were the quiet Christmases. Some were busier and, frankly, more fun, especially if the family arrived from England. A bigger adventure, a larger deal for which to cater. But we never had turkey and plum pudding and that stuff. Never saw a cracker or, even worse, a Christmas tree or decorations, which seemed always inappropriate in the sun. Ice clinking in long glasses, melting in the champagne bucket. Bees zooming into the orange and lemon trees heavy with almost sickly scent. Lunch, traditionally, was
boudin blanc,
mashed potato, Brussels sprouts, a giant trifle and a cheese board with fresh fruit. With copious libations of wine. Supper came after Midnight Mass (if one went), with a snack of smoked salmon and hot toast or Brittany oysters before making the journey through the dark, twisting lanes to town and the twelfth-century cathedral.

The bells summonsed us over the hills and little valleys, across the groves and fields. Turning the last corner before climbing up to the town, the cathedral suddenly burst upon the astonished eye lit all over, glowing amber and gold,
standing high on the ramparts like an enormous galleon, except galleons don't have towers and belfries; but it
had
a sailing splendour about it. Inside the great doors, the huge stone pillars soared into the shadowy vault of the roof with a faded coat of arms painted on to the planked ceiling. The scent of incense, of hundreds of years of incense, loitered and meandered about, mixing with the fatty smell of melting tallow, as a thousand candles guttered and glittered in the draught, throwing dancing shadows across the rough stone walls, all gold and silver. Honey-light on the limestone pillars, cracked and gouged here and there from a distant, devastating fire which had almost once destroyed the cathedral.

The place was animated by excited chatter, the clatter and scrape of wooden chairs and pews, the patter and clacking of feet, the smothered laughter of sniggering choir boys, the sonorous organ, the flushed expectant faces, the new suits and best coats, the smart hats with little veils, the modest handkerchiefs over modest hair, the dark clothes of the peasants, the sparkier ones of the shop-keepers, the nodding lilies, tuberoses and carnations on the high altar, the soaring Christ, arms outspread, the tall candles, the great oil paintings in elaborate frames, all gilt and curly stucco, glowing from the side walls and the distant little private chapels. There was altogether a jolly, festive air, a feeling of ‘coming together', of joining. Some people had journeyed for miles through the hills, and families greeted each other with low calls of pleasure and recognition, bobbing and smiling, the children smothered in nylon net and giant white plastic lace bows, the boys in bow ties and oiled hair. All one's friends were there; discreet little nods and waves across the wooden pews identified us:
Madame Bruna and Monsieur Rémy, Madame Pasquini, Florette Ranchett and her disagreeable husband in a sharp grey suit, the Meils flashing silver smiles, the de Beauvallon family in the large family pew, boxed in as befitted the ancient gentry, the bakers, the vet, Dr Santori, the girls from the check-out at Monoprix, the manager of Casino with his sparkling wife a-glitter, rhinestones and faux pearls at wrist and neck, and the very old with sticks, crutches and medals, bent backs and shaking heads. All life was present to celebrate the birth of the Christ child and to worship at his giant crèche, ablaze with fairy lights and worshipping angels, by the great doors.

I enjoyed Christmas Mass very much. The sheer theatricality of it all gave me enormous pleasure. There was absolutely no sense of religion about it as far as I was concerned: the war had put paid to the last embers I might have concealed somewhere deep within. Picking bombing-targets, being responsible for the death of, sometimes, hundreds of people (people just like these at the crèche and before the high altar), blundering into the unspeakable agony of Belsen, watching bulldozers shovel bloodied carnage into open graves, all that and more put paid to religion for me. I went to enjoy the lights, scents and music, in much the same way that I would have attended a village fair: for the excitement, the lights, the fun.

Forwood, from a staunchly Protestant family background, had faint interest in any part of the proceedings (dismissed amusedly as ‘popery'), but came along because he could drive and I could not and it would be impolite to the guests who had come for a ‘real French Christmas' not to. So they got it, and driving home through the frosted lanes, the stars bright in the
southern sky, the hoar heavy in the hollows, embalming grasses and the few remaining leaves on the brambles in white velvet, the crackle of ice on the puddles and the thought of the big iron stove in the Long Room glowing with embers and a big olive log (from the pruning), sighing and flickering across the rough stone walls kept everyone in a joyous mood; to the extent that everyone sang what they could remember of ‘Silent Night' in various keys and banished, for a time, its banality. This is how it
should
have sounded. Not as it usually did, droning out as muzak in Monoprix.