When we arrived the following Easter almost the first thing we did was unlock the chai to see how it looked with its newly cemented floor and high wall. This was our worst moment so far. For some reason, which will perhaps forever remain a mystery, M. René or his workmen had ignored the high end wall so clearly marked CREPIS CE MUR, which so badly needed attention and they had, instead, covered each of the other walls of beautiful stones with cement. I could not bear to look. I closed the door and wept in the garden.
There seemed no point in asking him why he had done it. He had become a friend and would have been upset and, more to the point, there was no way it could be undone. I tried not to think about it and, gradually, I have forgotten just how lovely the walls once were. It was our first and, so far, only major disaster and it taught us not to leave important work to be done when we are not there. At least, not by M. René!
Fortunately, the next day was the last of la vieille lune de Mars and time for le nettoyage. Our two hundred and forty litres of good red wine, maturing in the Cahors-flavoured oak barrel had to be scented, tasted and put into another barrel while the oak barrel was washed out, a happy distraction. Raymond rolled the substitute barrel outside onto the grass. He dusted it and, inviting us to stand close and watch, filled it with water. As he had anticipated it leaked on all sides, spraying us and amusing him. We patched the leaks with putty and topped it up. ‘We can leave it now to swell,’ he said.
In the veranda room he tipped the sleeping cats off the chairs. ‘Autrefois,’ he said, measuring out the pastis, ‘when we harvested the grapes, we would have to start washing out the barrels at least eight days before. We only put a little water in the barrel, we left it overnight then turned it to test the other side. A la vôtre! With twenty or thirty great barrels to do,’ he continued, ‘you couldn’t possibly fill them all. It would take too long and use too much water. People didn’t have water on tap then – you had to fetch it and so – ’ He turned his hand over, fingers limp and shook them in that unmistakably French gesture, ‘Figurez-vous le travail!’
The following afternoon we went down to help with le nettoyage. The barrel did not leak. It was emptied and positioned in the cave next to our special oak barrel. Now to fill it with the precious wine. Raymond put a large, wine-stained wooden tub beneath the bung of the full barrel and a funnel in the top of the empty one. ‘C’est le moment,’ he shouted, his eyes sparkling. With two swift blows he knocked out the bung and the wine gushed out. ‘Oh,’ he cried, pulling a mock face, ‘Ça sent mauvais.’
‘C’est pas vrai,’ we yelled.
He laughed. ‘Non, ça sent bon.’ He dipped a glass in the wine and we tasted. It was as good as it smelled and a wonderful, clear red.
Mike had to scoop the wine from the wooden tub with a small bucket and pour it into the funnel, working fast enough to prevent the tub overflowing. ‘Do you need another bucket?’ I called. ‘Non,’ Raymond replied. ‘C’est notre système. The wine is alive and must be disturbed as little as possible,’ he shouted over the cascade, as he inserted a piece of wood beneath the far end of the barrel, tipping it gradually to ensure that the flow of wine did not stop nor the barrel tip back. As the wine began to flow more slowly we watched anxiously for any sign of deposit. ‘Doucement, doucement,’ called Raymond. ‘Is it still clear? I can’t see properly from back here.’
‘Ça va,’ we shouted. ‘Et alors, ça va.’ He lowered the barrel which although empty was still heavy and he and Mike staggered outside to wash it out. There was almost no deposit and Raymond praised the filtration system at the Cave Coopérative. ‘Autrefois,’ he said, ‘C’était plein de peau et de tout.’ It was full of skin and all sorts.
Once the barrel was completely clean they struggled to replace it securely in the cave. Ancient floors of beaten earth are not the most even and each old piece of wood he selected to correct the slope seemed more warped than the previous one but at last Raymond was satisfied. ‘Là!’ he gasped. He replaced the lower bung and lit a sulphur candle which he suspended into the top of the barrel. The pale whisps of sulphur smoke which curled from between the slats made us sneeze and we reeled out into the fresh air until it had burned out. ‘Philippe won’t be very pleased when he comes home,’ chuckled Raymond. ‘His room is directly above and it seeps through the floorboards.’
‘He’ll have to sleep with his window open,’ I teased.
‘Jamais,’ cried Raymond. They are as astonished that we sleep with our windows and shutters open as we are that they sleep with everything closed. Perhaps the proximity of their animals has something to do with it.
The barrel disinfected with sulphur, the whole process began again in reverse. This time there was no problem about disturbing any deposit. The wine frothed as it was poured back.
‘In another three years this will be formidable,’ promised Raymond. ‘It already has a little goût de Cahors, don’t you agree!’ We all had another taste just to make sure.
That summer we were inundated by toads. During the day they hid motionless in corners, crouched behind the refrigerator, under the broom or in the wheelbarrow. As dusk fell they emerged in search of food. Their promenade was always in the direction of the pond where, I assume, there were more insects. We watched them pass, dark plodding lumps, totally unperturbed by anything in their path. If you kept still they would walk, cold and heavy, right over your foot.
Adam, our elder son returned. Bel-Air, we were pleased to see, had become a part of his life too. He spent several days in the attic wiring the rest of the house. It was a great pleasure to be able to read in bed. As a present he had brought a spotlight which he sited discretely on the porch, angling it to illuminate our bottle collection. There were those bottles marked CAIFFA and I still did not know what they had contained. Larousse simply stated that Caiffa was the ancient spelling of Haifa. Once again it was Grandma who gave us the answer. Caiffa was a company, a little like Kleeneeze, with travelling salesmen. It was based in Paris and sold almost everything, and gave stamps with each purchase. Another search in Anaïs’s hat box produced a catalogue. Les Etablissements de Caïffa for 1927. Grandma turned the pages nostalgically. ‘I remember when the Caiffa man came on horseback,’ she said, ‘with all his wares in two great pannier baskets. We used to run to meet him. How we looked forward to his coming.’
Many of the bottles had contained Seidlitz powders and Anaïs had also kept a small brochure written in 1933 by Doctor Berchon, whose precept for a healthy life was as follows: Il suffit d’avoir la tête fraîche, les pieds chauds, et le ventre libre. All you need is a cool head, warm feet and an uncluttered stomach.
After giving a lurid description of the dangers of self-poisoning by constipation, the learned doctor continues by extolling the virtues of Le Seidlitz Charles Chantaud which should be taken by anyone wishing to achieve an advanced age. It certainly seems to have done Anaïs no harm as she lived to ninety-two. A combination of magnesium sulphate, tartaric acid and bicarbonate of soda, it was said to purify the blood. M. Chantaud’s success lay in his having found a way of transforming the remedy into granules which, packed in glass bottles would, unlike mineral water, keep indefinitely. ‘For thirty years,’ continues the enthusiastic Dr Berchon, ‘Le Seidlitz Chantaud has helped to cure migraine, gout, rheumatism and piles. From the salon to the theatre. At the ball. In the shop or studio it is now pronounced the King of Laxatives!’
That summer I began to work in earnest on my south-facing terrace outside the main bedroom door. The last strand of chicken wire removed and the ground fairly level, the problem had been the waist-high weeds which seemed to take me all the Easter holiday to clear, only to be back even more thickly when we returned in July. At last I did what I should have done to begin with, and weed killer and black plastic had resulted in a beautifully bare patch of ground. My terrace could now begin to take shape.
M. René tried to convince me to pave it with des pierres d’Allemagne, a machine-cut paving which is quite pleasing and has the advantage of being level. I, forever stubborn and in any case unimpressed by his aesthetic judgement, wanted to create a terrace which would look more integral with both the house and the garden. I had seen old terraces made of the local pierres du Lot and that was what I wanted.
A few kilometres outside the village M. René stores his building materials. Yes, he did have some of the great stones, if that was what we wanted. He explained to me how to cut them with a hammer and cold chisel and how to bed them in sand. ‘C’est du travail!’ he said. I couldn’t wait to start. Back and forth we went with the van, disturbing the basking lizards as we loaded sand and stones. You could tell at once which stones would split and where to place the chisel, and many of them contained fossils. Apart from helping me collect the materials Mike left me to it, thinking I would never finish it. My terrace took me three holidays to complete and I enjoyed every moment. I filled all the rough joins with a pale cement containing plenty of lime and smoothed it to leave the stones standing proud. I curved the edge into the grass and now it looks as though it has always been there. Of course it will never be as level as if I had used prefabricated slabs and each year I must repair a few joins or remove the odd weed, but my pierres du Lot are beautiful and change colour to a soft rose-beige when it rains.
My worst enemy in the garden is la taupe, the mole. Watering our grass simply provides him with damp earth in which to frolic. My lawn reduced to an uneven sponge, he finds himself beneath the terrace where he carelessly hurls up a stone or two before careering on under the flowerbed. Grandpa, muttering, sets his traps to no avail and I console myself by letting the mole do the digging and using the earth he provides to fill my flowerpots.
This summer our campsis radicans or American Trumpet Creeper, which two years previously we had planted as a straggly small shrub against the south-facing wall, finally climbed to the roof and we counted thirty-five scarlet blooms. I wonder why this spectacular climber is not more common in England as it can survive extremely cold winters.
On warm evenings in high summer, after eating outdoors on whichever side of the house takes our fancy, we sometimes stroll down the track and turn into the lane which winds to the village. The heat still rises from the tarmac and in the shrilling of crickets we eventually arrive opposite the church where the old ladies sit. All grandmothers, except poor Thérèse who lives in the Presbytery and must wear a wig for she is bald, they talk of gardens and grandchildren. Thérèse suffers from an incurable disease rather like leprosy and her deformed hands must be dressed each day by the nurse. Gaunt, mutilated, but uncomplaining she sits between the others as they discuss le kiwi which Mme Laval has planted this year. It will be three years before it fruits and we know whether or not it was a good idea. ‘On verra,’ Mme Laval shrugs and smiles, ‘et comment ça va les fils?’ They always want to know how Adam and Matthew are. Usually someone is knitting for a new baby. ‘Bonne nuit,’ they chorus sweetly as we at last continue up the street to visit M. René.
His door is open and Simone, his wife, is shelling white beans for bottling. They are called locally les cocos and her washing-up bowl is almost full with these gleaming pearls, every shade from palest green to a subtly mottled silvery white. Delicious, especially in a tomato and onion sauce, the aftereffects are sadly the same as with all beans, what Grandpa calls la musique des pauvres!
In a chair by the open door sits M. Benoît waving both arms in a flurry of greeting. He is seventy-four but looks much older, with baby soft, silvery hair which fluffs from under his beret, and a toothless smile. The watery blue eyes widen when he sees that we have brought sweets and he takes one eagerly in his long, pale fingers, flat and so soft with beautifully shaped nails. Making breathy high-pitched sounds he sucks the fruit jellies noisily. He smiles. He wants to thank us but cannot and suddenly his eyes fill with tears. M. Benoît is dumb but not deaf. Born into a time and place where speech therapy was unheard of, he gave up trying to talk when his early efforts were ridiculed. Unmarried, he lived alone in a small house just outside the village where he cultivated a patch of land and was independent until his health and strength at last failed.
It was then that M. René and his wife took him in under an agreement called rente viagère. It is, in effect, a life annuity contract still quite common in rural France. An old person without relatives to care for them may make a contract with a friend or neighbour to be looked after and supported financially until they die, in exchange for their property. When I first heard of it I wondered whether it might be open to abuse, but as Mme Rene said, ‘if anything were to happen to old Benoît I would be the first suspect.’
One evening when Raymond had just finished harrowing le grand champ, relaxing at Bel-Air, Pastis in hand, he told us that it was exactly by such a contract that he had acquired our house and land. Anaïs, then almost ninety, had come with her son, himself in his late sixties, to ask Grandpa if he would consider such an arrangement. With no running water and their only heating the great open fireplace, which meant the constant cutting and carrying of wood, they no longer had the strength to care for land and livestock. Their only relative, a niece, was herself already looking after aged parents and parents-in-law. Grandpa agreed but asked them to wait until the following year when his daughter would marry Raymond and then the young couple would sign the document. And this they did. Seeing that I was very interested Raymond brought me the agreement to look at. It was the sheer practicality of it that impressed me. At that time, 1961, the house and all the land – vineyards, woods, fields – had been valued at 14000 francs. Raymond and Claudette paid 4000 francs and then agreed to supply annually:
fourteen hectolitres of wheat at each harvest
three barrels of 220 litres of red wine
a pig of 100 kilos live weight at carnaval
200 kilos of potatoes
4 cubic metres of firewood in September
50 Faggots
enough barley, oats and maize for 12 fowl.
The old couple kept the right to all the fruit and vegetables but not to sell them, and at the end was the most succinct detail of all: ‘It is agreed that all these items shall be halved on the death of one, except the firewood.’ I don’t know how the chicken managed! Raymond paid the rates and taxes and Anaïs did not need to worry about her handicapped son. She died two years later.
One can only imagine how lonely and isolated Alaïs must have felt after his mother’s death. For many years he had suffered with ulcerated legs and he now neglected them until he was obliged to go into hospital for lengthy treatment. Once there he became frailer and decided to remain. Each Sunday Raymond took him his week’s supply of wine and tobacco and anything else he needed, and when the weather was fine he would bring him up to Bel-Air to sit in his favourite spot, looking southwards down to the distant hills on the far side of the river Lot.
In 1968 he died and was buried at his mother’s side in the hill-top churchyard in the next village. Raymond and Claudette, young newly-weds, took over the land, the woods and the vines, the barn and the pond. But the house was closed and left to the spiders to wreathe in cobwebs, and the mice to nibble in the attic. For the next eight years it quietly gathered dust waiting for us to bring it back to life.