L'amour Actually (30 page)

  'You're kidding. We have to put up with this bloody racket for five months?'

  'Apparently it's mainly weekends and they still take the long French lunch break,' I told her.

  'Bleedin' hell! Geezers with guns and a bellyful of red wine. A perfect combination.'

  'Julien says we shouldn't go out walking in the woods without a high visibility jacket on.'

  'That'll go nicely with me gold platforms.'

  I laughed. 'Like you ever go walking in the woods.'

  'Yeah, well I might want to one day. You never know.'

  'Well, I suppose stranger things have happened. So, what was it you wanted to say?'

  She looked uncomfortable. 'Nothing. It's OK.'

  'It didn't sound like nothing.'

  'Nah, honest. It's fine. Another time, eh?'

  I shrugged my shoulders, 'OK, if you don't want to say. Listen, do you fancy coming to Beauville with me? There's a chicken sale on. I fancy getting a few hens for the garden.'

  'You?' she exclaimed in disbelief. 'I thought you hated them.'

  'Well, that was before I knew any,' I said, smiling. 'Did you see the henhouse that Julien brought round for me when you came in?'

  'Er, no, can't say I did but then I wasn't really looking, to be fair.'

  'So, will you?'

  'Oh, go on then. I haven't got anything else to do. Let me go and get my bag.'

  I downed my coffee and picked up her empty mug to take back to the kitchen.

  'See you in a few minutes. We'll take my car.'

  'Too right. You're not putting any filthy birds in my Merc.'

  Whilst I waited for Tracey to come back, I went to have a look at the place I had chosen to put my chickens. It was a perfect corner, too shady for anything to grow and with some good strong fencing on two sides. With Julien's help, I had managed to fence the other two sides and a gate had been fashioned out of an old pallet. The henhouse was a higgledy-piggledy affair, cobbled together out of some old tongue-and-groove cladding, but quite adequate. I had painted it a fetching shade of yellow but resisted the urge to put curtains up at the little windows, built to allow air and light into it. Julien had rolled his eyes when I suggested it.

  Martine had told me to make sure I got laying birds and not table ones and had lent me an old cardboard pet carrier to bring them home in. To be honest, I had no idea how I would even know the difference between layers and table birds but at least I could ask now. My French lessons were going well and I enjoyed the hours I spent with Martine, getting a little slice of real French life.

  'You coming?' Tracey was standing by the car, ready to go.

  'Yes, I'm ready. Let's go.'

  'Good grief, it's like a scene from
Deliverance
,' I whispered as we drove down the hill from St Amans de Pierrepoint.

  'Just keep driving. Don't look at them.' Tracey was sitting bolt upright in the passenger side, staring straight ahead.

  On either side of the road, white vans were parked a few hundred metres apart. Some had dogs in the back, barking to be let out, but each one had a man with a gun lounging against it. As we drove past, heads swivelled and followed us. The men were all dressed in camouflage gear set off with fluorescent orange caps. 'You'd think the hats would scare the wildlife off, wouldn't you?' I said.

  'To be honest, I don't care. Just get me out of here. It's like the hood in LA but with less smog and uglier dogs.'

  'Said the girl from Essex.' Under my breath, I started to hum the beginning of 'Duelling Banjos'. Tracey punched me hard on the arm.

  'Oh come on, you townie,' I said. 'They're just out enjoying a pleasant day shooting small, furry animals.'

  No sooner had I spoken than one of the hunters stepped out into the road in front of us, holding up his hand. 'Oh shit,' squealed Tracey, 'this is it. We're going to be executed.'

  Recognising the round, smiling face of Monsieur Gautier, the baker from Bussières, and one of the most unthreatening people you could ever hope to meet, I stopped and wound down the window.
'Bonjour monsieur.'

  In slow, precise French, Monsieur Gautier explained that the hunters had found a large number of boar in the woods and were in the process of flushing them out towards the road – so would we mind just waiting for a few minutes?

  
'Bien sûr!'
I agreed and pulled over.

  'Oooh, get you, talking like a native!'

  I looked smug. 'I know. I'm getting pretty good now. Having a French boyfriend helps.'

  'Yeah, but I don't suppose you're learning the sort of things you could use in polite conversation though!'

  The sound of howling dogs and hunting horns broke the silence, and something crashed down the hill through the trees. The cacophony got louder and louder until suddenly three large boar broke cover and charged across the road in front of the car, quickly followed by a gaggle of piglets and some more adults. I counted about twenty-three of them. Not far behind were a ragged assortment of dogs and following them, more hunters. Orders were shouted as the boar made for the woods on the other side of the valley. I found myself caught up in the adrenalin rush of the hunt. 'Come on little pigs, come on, you can make it.' 'Blimey, don't let them hear you or they
will
use you for target practice.'

  Gunshots rang out all around us as the hunters took aim and started shooting. The boar carried on galloping across the fields for the safety of the woods.

  'Come on, faster,' I urged them.

  The gunfire got more intense, as did the shouting and howling of the dogs. It was completely feral. Still the boar continued, seemingly unharmed by the bullets that whistled around them.

  'Barn door and twenty paces springs to mind. This lot couldn't hit the
Titanic
if it floated past,' commented Tracey.

  I was still too wrapped up in the hunt to answer. The first boar were nearly at the edge of the woods. 'Good piggies!' I shouted excitedly as the last of the herd reached the safety of the woods. 'You made it!'

  Around them the hunters started to regroup, talking and gesticulating wildly as they worked out a new plan of action.

  Meanwhile the dogs milled around yelping and howling, not quite sure what to do next. Monsieur Gautier waved us through.

  'Wow, that was exciting!' I exclaimed breathlessly.

  'I think it's fair to say you won't be joining
la chasse
.' Tracey emphasised the last words. 'Only on the side of the animals,' I replied.

  Half an hour later, we were walking through the town of Beauville looking for the poultry sale. It was market day and the town square was full to bursting with stalls and shoppers. After a few false starts, we tracked it down to a building on the edge of the town that bizarrely doubled up as the local cinema.

  Inside, two rows of chairs facing each other were occupied by old men in
béret
s with a variety of birds either in cages or just sitting on the floor next to them. Some had baskets of eggs of every hue, from light blue to deep brown. Over in one corner, plastic crates of ducklings were stacked high, their inmates quacking indignantly to each other.

  We walked between the two rows of chairs, every pair of eyes following us as we went, until I spotted a likely looking farmer with some rather beautifully plumed birds.

  'Right. Here goes.' I marched purposefully up to the farmer.

  '
Monsieur,
are your hens good layers?'

  He gave me a withering look. '
Mademoiselle,
these are cockerels.'

  'Ah, so not good layers then?' I laughed to cover up my embarrassment. The farmer looked at me as if I was some alien creature dropped into his world from another galaxy. Behind me Tracey was snorting in a very undignified manner while the old men continued to stare at us. I still wasn't used to the whole French staring thing – and it wasn't just a surreptitious stare, this was the full-on gape. Accustomed as I was to our English reserve, I found it very unnerving.

  I grabbed Tracey's arm and pushed her towards the door.

  'Come on, let's get out of here. This place is giving me the creeps.'

  We made for another door at the side of the building so we wouldn't need to walk back through the line of farmers.

  'Oh my God,' I breathed, leaning on the wall on the other side of the door. 'I sort of imagined big willow crates with happy hens clucking away to each other. That was like being in some sort of asylum for chicken fanciers.'

  The door opened and an elderly man appeared, a chicken hanging upside down on a piece of string in his gnarled hand. The poor bird seemed resigned to its fate and just hung there like a feathery handbag with its wings outstretched, while the old man fumbled around with an ancient bicycle that was leaning up against the wall. He put his shopping bag on one side of the handlebars and the poor chicken on the other, before mounting the bike and wobbling off into the market place with the chicken slowly swinging backwards and forwards as he pedalled.

  'Well I really think I've seen it all now,' Tracey shook her head slowly. 'That's Sunday lunch sorted then.'

  I watched them go, my eyes starting to mist over. 'Come on, let's go and save a couple from certain death shall we?' I turned and marched resolutely back through the door.

  
'Mademoiselle…'
a buxom woman dressed in the requisite nylon housecoat called as soon as we entered. I recognised the wizened old farmer next to her as the one I often bought eggs from in the market in Bussières. The woman spoke in warp-speed French but I was able to make out the words
'poules pondeuses'
, laying hens. She pointed to a couple of sorry-looking birds that lay spreadeagled at her feet. I had envisaged some pretty, dark-brown speckly things but these were ginger with no feathers on their scraggy necks.

  'Oh my good God,' whispered Tracey, 'they remind me of Deirdre off of
Coronation Street.'
The birds looked at us with sad, beady eyes. 'What's wrong with their necks?' she asked.

  'I don't know. Hens peck each other so maybe these were at the bottom of the pecking order.'

  'Pecking order? That's very funny.'

  'No, it's true, that's where the saying comes from.'

  'No!'

  'They are very well behaved though. They aren't even trying to escape.'

  The woman picked one up and it was only then that I noticed their legs were tied together with old pairs of tights. She thrust the hen at me but I backed away.

  
'T'as peur?'

  'No, I'm not frightened,' I told the woman, putting my hands out for the hen. The woman dumped the hen in my arms and chatted on about hen husbandry, most of which I didn't understand.

  
'Combien?'
I asked. Martine had told me the going rate was about fifteen euros for a pair.

  
'Quarante euros.'

  'Forty euros! For these mangy birds?'

  Wily woman, I thought. She knows us expats are a soft lot. I reached for my purse, to the delight of the woman.

  '
Oui,
I'll take them.' I handed over my box.

  'Sucker,' Tracey whispered in my ear.

  The woman shoved them rather unceremoniously in the box, their legs still tied so they wouldn't escape.

  
'Un moment.'
Holding a finger in the air as if she had just had a brainwave, she disappeared out through the door. The old farmer continued to watch us benignly. She returned a few minutes later with a dishevelled, ratty-looking cockerel that was probably half the size of the hens. How on earth would he…

  
'Cadeau,'
she said, interrupting my thoughts as she shoved it in the box before I could argue and smiling as if she had just given me a winning lottery ticket.

  Some present, I thought. I really didn't want a cockerel what with all the dawn crowing. I looked from the cockerel to the hens and back again.

  
'Er, madame, il est petit, le coq, mais les poules sont grandes.'
Was I really discussing the conjugal duties of a cockerel?

  The woman winked at me.
'Il se debrouille.'

  He'll manage. The old farmer, who had remained silent throughout the whole transaction, chuckled to himself. I wasn't sure if it was because of the conversation or the fact that they had managed to comprehensively shatter the local glass ceiling for poultry prices.

  With the three birds in the box and the lid firmly taped down in case of any Colditz-like tendencies, we walked the line between the old men and headed back to the car.

  'I could murder a coffee.'

  'Do you think they'll let us in with a box of chickens?'

  'They won't know if we don't tell them.'

  We chose a café with a large terrace looking out over the market square and sat down in the corner, pushing the box out of sight.

  'I think we got away with it,' I whispered.

  'As long as the cockerel doesn't start crowing.'

  We ordered two
grand crèmes
and sat watching the noisy hubbub of the market while the odd cluck escaped from the box under the table. The café looked out over an art deco-style market
halle
with three large arches on each side, topped with a canopy of red brick tiles with an ornate central finial. Stalls were piled high with fruit and vegetables, except for one corner, where incongruously, an Asian food stall was selling spicy delicacies. Every now and again, the smell wafted over to us. 'I could murder a Thai chicken curry,' Tracey murmured. 'Quiet! They'll hear you.' 'Who? Oh, sorry hens. I could murder a Thai prawn curry. Better?' 'Much. Come on, we ought to get them home before they start to object.'