A House in the Sunflowers (9 page)

Later that week we paid a last quick visit to M. Albert the plumber, to pay some bills and to make the final plans for the bathroom. It was a glorious evening and we found him and his wife in their garden admiring their vines which grew as a pergola and were heavy with bunches of purple grapes. We told him of our midnight visitors of the week before and asked if such a thing happened in his village. He chuckled, ‘
Mais bien sûr
.’ He looked at us as though sad at our ignorance. ‘
Quand il y a du soleil
,’ he said, ‘
il y a de la joie!
’ When there is sunshine there is joy.

C
HAPTER
S
EVEN

Back in London we were to need that joy to support us in the coming weeks. At the end of September our younger son Matthew was involved in a traffic accident and spent three weeks in a coma. Hour after hour we sat by his bed talking to him incessantly, desperate for the slightest response, and much of our talking was inevitably about Bel-Air. Eventually he opened his eyes but we had been warned that there might be brain damage. A succession of his friends came, the ever faithful Durrell each day after school, and sometimes he would move one hand slowly as if
in greeting before drifting back again into that world we could not enter. After several weeks the nurses would sit him up each day for an hour but all he did was stare into space. Was this how it would always be?

One day his father took in a sketch book and some bright, felt-tipped pens. Matthew, his head lolling forward, was propped in a chair.

‘This is Matthew’s get-well book,’ said Mike, with a desperate cheerfulness. He drew on the first page. ‘This is Matthew’s get-well clown. He’s called Fred. What’s he called?’ he shouted.

Matthew focused very slowly on his father. His mouth moved and a sound came out.

‘What’s he called?’ Mike repeated.

‘F-red,’ croaked Matthew. The ward stopped. Frantically Mike turned the page to scribble another shape.

‘This is Matthew’s get-well caterpillar,’ he said. ‘What shall we call him?’

Matthew looked puzzled.

‘Carbolic,’ yelled the old man in the bed opposite. Sister came running down the ward. ‘Well done,’ she said to Mike, ‘but that’s enough for now.’ She put our son back to bed and Mike phoned me at home. Later we sat by his bed. He was asleep. When he stirred we began talking to him. We planned the redecoration of his bedroom, a new carpet, bookshelves, the next
trip to France – perhaps we might fly – we just kept on talking. Suddenly he opened his eyes and looked straight at us. ‘Are-you-anticipating-my-being-in-
here-a-long
-time-then?’ he intoned in a loud Dalek-like voice all on one note. We cried.

The get-well book progressed daily with ever more difficult concepts. There was Doris the Dotty Dotted Dalmation who was going for a walk in the opposite direction from her master. There were the Doctors. They’re the Best in Town. The Problem is they’re Upside Down. And there was the Zebra with Horizontal stripes. All the other patients in the ward waited for the next picture. We had been warned that Matthew’s memory might be affected and so we brought in enlargements of photographs that we had taken that summer at Bel-Air.

Matthew had asked Philippe what the signs for BALL TRAP meant which we often saw in country lanes. He told us it was clay pigeon shooting and that he would show us how it was done. The village fête which had taken place before our arrival had included a contest in one of their meadows and afterwards Grandpa had collected up all the undamaged clay discs. We had borrowed the primitive launcher from the Mayor. A Heath Robinson-type contraption, it had been assembled by the local
mécanicien
using a metal seat from an ancient hay-rake and a large spring to catapult the discs. Matthew had had great fun using
a twelve bore double-barrelled shotgun at the shout of ‘
PULL
’.

‘Who’s that?’ we asked him. He glanced at the photographs then smiled. ‘It’s me. Doing Ball Trap.’ There were long weeks of physiotherapy to follow and hours of coaching for his ‘O’levels, alas only a few months ahead. We had so much to be thankful for. But it was not over. On Christmas Day he almost died again; this time from anaphylactic shock, a massive allergic reaction to eating a walnut. It was completely unconnected with his accident. Although he had always suffered from allergic asthma we were totally unprepared for such a dangerous reaction and our sheer ignorance nearly cost him his life. By the time Easter came round once more we were all in need of the quiet peace of Bel-Air.

As though especially ordered to soothe our shattered nerves, we caught the full beauty of the plum blossom that spring. Every farm was ‘
en fête
’. Creamy white, flowering orchards patchworked the gently rolling hillsides of Lot-et-Garonne under the clearest of blue skies. Raymond has four such orchards and the highest one was especially beautiful, being carpeted with wild yellow tulips. The cuckoos called all day from the wood and we rejoiced to watch Matthew and Philippe walking together across the fields.

One morning Raymond took us into his cave to show us the great
barrique
in which he had put two
hundred and forty litres of
vin de Pays
, the product of the now well-established
Cave Coopérative
at Monflanquin. Apart from making a small quantity of sweet white wine for the family, he now sent all his grapes to the
Coopérative
and sadly his
petit vin rouge, fabrication maison
was now a thing of the past.

‘That barrel,’ he said, patting it gently, ‘is my best one. It’s made of oak and once held
le vin noir de Cahors
. I shall leave this wine to mature in here for at least four years and then, you’ll see, it will be something special. There are two hundred and forty litres there. Would you like to buy a half share?’ Naturally we agreed. He explained that each spring,
à la vieille lune de Mars
, which confusingly often falls in April, the wine must be taken out, the barrel washed, and the wine replaced. ‘
Ça c’est le nettoyage
,’ he said. ‘If you are here you can help me with it. And then of course, you’ll have to decide, in four or five years’ time that is, where you are going to keep all those bottles. All these alterations you are planning. Don’t forget somewhere for your wine!’ Slowly the house was beginning to take shape; as Grandpa always says, ‘
petit à petit, l’oiseau fait son nid
.’ Little by little the bird makes its nest.

The living room seemed larger with its handsome, freshly-tiled floor. There was a wonderful variety of tone and I spent several hours on my hands and knees wiping each tile thoroughly with linseed oil as I had been instructed by the tiler. The new main bedroom
was, as we had hoped, a splendid size and the ancient double window now included gave it added charm. We soon moved in and discovered to our delight that on a clear morning we could, sitting up in bed, see right down the valley. At other times we awoke wrapped in an eiderdown of early morning mists which the sun rolled slowly back, revealing first
le grand champ
, then a thread of smoke curling up from Grandma’s chimney, next the church spire and finally the distant horizon, clear and sharp against the sky. We vowed never to plant anything that would obscure that view.

We were invited to
faire le tourin
again that holiday. Twice in fact; they seemed to have got the taste for it. On the first occasion it was M. René, the mason, who plotted to surprise Raymond and Claudette and the rendezvous was at his snug little house in the village. There we gathered soon after eleven to find Simone, his wife, busily preparing the soup and the sausages. There were shouts of welcome at each new arrival in the steamy kitchen.

Towards midnight we all crept along the road, collars turned up against a chill wind, the sky full of stars. Philippe, in the plot, had arranged to switch off the porch light when he judged his parents to be asleep. Across the crossroads, past the village shop, we carted the bottles and the bread, the piles of hot sausages and the huge pot of soup. There was consternation
when, on arriving at the end of the village, we saw that Raymond’s light still burned brightly. There was nothing to be done but to carry it all back again and play another game of cards.

Half an hour later, the light went out, and the whole operation began again. Muffling our giggles we
tiptoed
up the gravel drive with M. René, as excited as a child, organising everyone in a stage whisper. Up the steps we went and into the veranda room. There were subdued clinks as the food and drink were laid quietly on the table and in we crept in single file, through the inner corridor, past the ornate sideboard and the stuffed birds and into the bedroom.

Total propriety! Under an enormous quilt, Claudette wore her neat pyjamas, as demure as any track suit. After the first startled awakening they laughed and got eagerly out of bed. We all trooped back into the still warm kitchen and in a few minutes Claudette reappeared fully dressed, even wearing her flowered pinafore. As though it were midday plates and glasses were swiftly laid while Raymond disappeared into his secret
cave
for some of those dusty undated bottles of
vieux Cahors
. Not having had a
cave
when we had been so visited, and, in any case, not knowing the form, we had simply drunk what had been so generously provided. Now we began to learn the obligations of those visited.

The second occasion was at the end of that holiday.
This time Raymond and M. René were joint instigators but it was Simone, M. René’s wife, who provided the means of entry. She cleans the school and also cooks the dinners for the twelve pupils and she simply stole the key to the school house. Late the next night the headlights of the odd passing motorist through our mad village would have briefly illuminated a stealthy and laden cortege advancing up the silent street.

The door of the schoolhouse creaked alarmingly, as did the wooden stairs up which we climbed one behind the other, to surprise the schoolmaster and his wife in the flat above. It was, in fact, we who were surprised. The school master had been out at a reunion and had driven home just in time to see the last intruder slipping into his house. Guessing what was afoot he merely crept up the stairs behind us and had the last laugh at our astonished faces when we found his wife in bed alone. ‘Just as well she was!’ said M. René afterwards.

At Bel-Air, the old staircase removed, we could now see the size of our bathroom to be. M. René had cut a window through the meter thick wall and had put down the first layer of cement flooring. He had also enclosed the space at the end of the corridor for the inside lavatory. M. Albert had almost finished the plumbing and we went to choose a plain white bath and bidet, and from M. Brut we ordered a pine
cupboard in which to set our handbasin. As soon as the floor was finished our bathroom could be fitted.

That summer we welcomed Philippe to London for two weeks before leaving for Bel-Air.
Il faut en profiter
being one of Claudette’s maxims she had despatched her son to improve his already competent English and we were pleased to find him intrigued by everything and an easy guest. On his first morning he leapt up from the breakfast table with a cry at the, to him, unbelievable sight of five fat breasted pigeons browsing on my Clapham lawn. Without his gun he learned to watch them and one of my favourite memories is his astonished delight as the birds in St James’s Park fed confidently from his outstretched hand. Once he was home however he soon reverted to the national pastime and this autumn he cheerfully spent days cramped in a treetop hide waiting to gun down a passing pigeon.

His observations on going to school with Matthew were interesting. He found the discipline incredibly lax yet the teachers less friendly and more distant. He also thought the uniforms bizarre. I have to admit that the easy elegance and cleanliness of most of the schoolchildren we see in France – even the satchels they carry and the mobylettes they ride are stylish – contrast sadly with the drab, and inevitably grubby, daily-worn uniforms of so many English pupils.

We decided to buy a small motorcycle for Matthew to give him the same freedom as Philippe. Only 50cc,
they can be ridden at fourteen and, as there is no public transport between thousands of French villages, they are essential. While her brother was off with the rest of the gang Véronique would often come up to the house to give me a
dictée
. She marked severely. ‘
Une petite faute, un demi-point
,’ she would say firmly as she looked over my latest effort, then her eyes would widen as her father’s did. ‘
Mais, là, ça c’est terrible!
’ She enjoyed playing schoolmistress and it was very good for me.

The bathroom was now installed and the dreams of luxuriating in soft and scented water a reality. Its soothing powers were even more appreciated when we were initiated into the strenuous pleasures of the potato harvest. ‘
Demain
,’ announced Claudette, ‘
on ramasse les pommes de terre
.’ At eight-thirty next morning we joined the rest of the family at the top of the wide sloping field in front of the house where all the vegetables are grown. The air was fresh and we wore the usual pullovers to be discarded as the sun climbed. Heaps of sacks were distributed the length of the four long rows of potatoes. Grandma and faithful Fernande from the next village carried baskets and rakes. Fernande wore her usual thick woollen socks and flowered overall. Her face is even wider than M. René’s and as she smiled at me, her row of large uneven teeth made her look like a friendly pumpkin lantern.