2006 - A Piano in The Pyrenees (25 page)

“Brad’s coming out again,” I said to Ron, who was in the kitchen frying some bacon for his breakfast.

It had been the smell that had woken me up. He shouldn’t have been frying bacon and he knew it. Ron was taking tablets for his high blood pressure and he knew this kind of food wasn’t good for him.

“He says he’s going to come and help you build the pool,” I added.

Ron’s face lit up.

“That’s good,” he said, not managing words to match the delight of the expression. “I like Brad.”

Suddenly it all fell into place. I knew now why Ron’s periods of hard work had been so sporadic. I understood why breakfast, lunch and the
sieste
had become the most important parts of the day. It was because he didn’t like working alone. When I’d first met him, Ron had always worked with an Irishman called Mick, who also happened to be his best friend. Ron hadn’t been the same man since Mick had fallen in love, got married and gone to live in Tasmania. I mean, Tasmania of all places? Mick couldn’t have found anywhere further away.

Although Ron pretended to like his own company and played the role of the loner with considerable aplomb, I reckoned that he was happiest when there were other people around. After all, this was when he could display his quick dry wit and sometimes cruel sense of humour. Brad’s imminent arrival caused an immediate lift in the mood of my friend, builder and housemate. After breakfast he even started to whistle.

“Who can that be?” asked Ron, interrupting a rendition of ‘Walking On Sunshine’ in response to the sudden and loud knock on the front door.

“I’ve no idea. We’re not expecting any deliveries today, are we?”

“Nope.”

“Perhaps the neighbours have come round to protest about the smell of bacon.”

I made my way to the door and opened it to find Rene the Mayor standing there. He shook my hand, asked me how I was, and then pointed to Kevin’s wood exhibits on the grass verge. Oh no, I thought, could it be that he was an admirer of Kevin’s work and that he wanted to buy some? Surely rural life couldn’t warp artistic taste to such a degree?

“Tony, I am sorry but you will have to move this wood that is before your house,” he said, precisely.

Rene went on to explain that vehicles needed to use this bit of verge to pass each other if they came head to head outside my house.

“I am sorry,” he repeated.

“Please, Rene, don’t be sorry,” I said, in all sincerity.

What a lucky break this was. I could now get rid of Kevin’s extremely poor quality artistic creations and blame it on the mayor. No need to cause Kevin offence.↓

≡ At least until he reads this.

“What was all that about?” asked Ron as he attempted to wedge some thinly cut French bread into the toaster.

“The mayor has asked me to move Kevin’s wood.”

Ron burst into laughter. It was more than a fit of giggles. These were big laughs. Expressions of joy. For perhaps the first time since we’d got to the house, Ron appeared to be happy.

I attempted to take advantage.

“Do you want to make a start on the tiling down below?” I asked.

I was being more direct than usual. Normally I had to work hard to select the delicate blend of words that might persuade Ron to vacate the kitchen and slouch off towards the workplace.

“Righto,” said Ron, almost with a spring in his step.

I should have invited Brad over earlier.

§

Ron remained in splendid form throughout the day and into the evening.

“What shall I cook tonight?” he said, after he had completed the closest thing to a day’s work that he’d put in for some time.

Ron’s enthusiasm for cooking our evening meal was something that had been slowly building over the past week or so. Previously a self-confessed devotee of the instant meal, since coming to France he’d broken free from these shackles and become eager to cook whenever possible. In the supermarket, when we shopped together (I tried to keep this to a minimum, for image reasons), Ron seemed strangely drawn to courgettes.

“Do we need that many?” I’d ask, upon viewing the basket brimming with the green vegetable.

“Oh, you can never have too many courgettes.”

But he was wrong—you can. And we did, most of the time. For at least half the average week, one of the kitchen cupboards was rendered completely inaccessible by a huge pile of them.

Ron also bucked the current trend against frying things. In fact, he chose the frying option for pretty much everything he cooked. It was almost as if he’d arrived at the theory that as long as the dish contained courgettes, then it was healthy. Yes, the courgette was healthy, but it was also compulsory. Just as a devout Jew might insist on kosher food, Ron’s conscience demanded the fried courgette. Every man needs his religion.

“So, what shall I cook?” repeated Ron.

“Oh, anything you fancy,” I said, knowing what was coming.

It was a fine evening. The sun set over the house as we finally sat down and dined on the balcony. We looked out across the valley.

“Not much movement at the crossroads tonight,” said Ron.

“No. Very little action. But I guess rush hour is over.”

This had become a kind of game. Halfway up the other side of the hill, two single-track roads met. This was the ‘crossroads’. Ron would spend hours looking out dreamily in its direction, and when I was with him, I couldn’t help but join in with this vaguely meditative pastime. A car passing, the odd pedestrian, a farmer rounding up his sheep in adjacent pastures or the movements of the solitary horse in the adjoining field—these all became topics for discussion as the weary sun slowly retreated beyond the horizon and tucked itself up for the night. It may have been inane, or even utterly pointless, but these lethargic dialogues went some way to affirm the stress-free nature of our existence here.

On this night, though, the conversation went beyond the usual comment on the passing of a Renault van or the swooping of a bird of prey. No, tonight we talked about life. Ron recounted stories of his youthful adventures and of the many scrapes and brushes with danger that he’d survived. He’d lived a full life, but something had gone wrong somewhere, and he made no attempt to disguise the fact. The problem was that he had no enthusiasm for the future. I asked questions, I dug deep. What did Ron want? Did he have a plan for how to head towards it?

“I don’t really know,” he said with a shrug.

“Well, I don’t think that’s so unusual,” I replied. “None of us really know what we want. We just think we do. But it helps to have a goal or target of some kind. However simple. For instance, it needn’t go much beyond a desire to approach the next day full of a passion and enthusiasm for every task in hand.”

Ron looked at me, a little puzzled. Perhaps he suspected that this was all some ploy on my part in order to get a better day’s tiling out of him. Or perhaps it was simply because what I’d said was puzzling. Nothing more, nothing less. My sentence, like life itself, was puzzling.

“I keep having this recurring dream,” he said, switching subjects rather.

“Really? Perhaps there is some clue there. What is it?”

“It’s to do with my car. Every night I have a dream that involves me leaving my car somewhere, only to find that it’s not there when I come back. It happens over and over again.”

“It must mean something.”

“Yes, but what?”

It was a difficult question. What did it mean? What is happening in our subconscious mind? Are there messages there for us, and if so, do we have the skills to interpret them? And what happens if we get it wrong?

“Perhaps it just means that you’re crap at remembering where you’ve left your car.”

“Great. Thanks, Tony,” said Ron with a laugh. “How much do I owe you?”

“That’ll be fifty euros, please.”

“I’ll pay you tomorrow. That’s it for tonight, I’m off to bed.”

And with those words Ron slid off in the direction of the woodshed.

Une Soiree Musicale

“So. You’re the fella that went round Ireland with a fridge?”

“That’s me.”

“You big eejit.”

We were sitting on Mary’s balcony and I was talking to Nigel, an Irishman—one of the four who had arrived the previous night, all somehow crammed into Mary’s limited accommodation. I sipped my coffee, glowing a little from the fact that the bizarre journey I had made in Ireland years before continued to bring me recognition and approval.

“Which number son are you, Nigel?” I enquired.

“I’m not actually Mary’s son,” he replied. “I’m the only one here who isn’t, though. Paul, Miles and Daniel are.”

The three men all looked over, raised their coffee cups ever so slightly and nodded in confirmation. These guys were a much quieter crowd than I had expected. When Mary had mentioned that her sons were arriving, I’d anticipated a noisy, drunken rabble. A bunch of Irish musicians—on holiday? Wouldn’t you?

“Who was playing the piano yesterday?” I enquired.

“Oh, that was me,” said Miles.

“It was beautiful.”

“Thanks.”

On completion of our short exchange, his eyes darted back to the rim of his coffee cup.

“Are you all set for tonight’s gig then?” I asked.

“Hardly,” said Nigel, who seemed to be the spokesperson for the group. “We’ll rehearse a little this afternoon, but basically we’re just going to have to busk it.”

Brad and I were in the same position. Tonight’s concert certainly had the potential to be of a shambolic nature.

“Cakes anyone?” said Mary, emerging from the kitchen with a tray brimming with assorted goodies.

Mary definitely had a spring in her step and an extra zing about her. The mother in her had been instantly revived by the arrival of her offspring. She could now care for, organise and occasionally gently chastise her boys, and it was clearly invigorating her.

I had to leave this pleasant coffee morning one cake earlier than I’d like to have done, because time was pressing and the other half of the British musical duo needed collecting from the airport.

“I’ll see you guys tonight,” I said.

“Yes. And maybe we could have a bit of a jam towards the end of the night?” said Nigel.

“Yes, maybe we could,” I replied, a little nervously.

The idea of jamming with some professional musicians appealed. But it also had the potential to highlight just how little piano practice I’d been doing of late.

§

I kept thinking that the car was going to break down, but it just continued chugging along. As I sped along the motorway at a steady 120kph, I wanted to congratulate the vehicle on what a fine job it was doing for me. It started every morning on command, and it got me to and from town, trouble free. Two reasons prevented me from vocalising my gratitude:

I didn’t want to tempt fate.

I didn’t want to get in the habit of talking to cars.

Nevertheless, I was beginning to feel confident that the ‘Curse of the White Van’ was finally behind me. Perhaps I was in danger of becoming a little too complacent.

On the return leg from the airport Brad and I provided fellow motorway users with light entertainment. As they overtook us, they looked into our car with amazement, perhaps because music rehearsals don’t usually take place in speeding saloon cars. One woman in particular seemed to become fascinated and she allowed her four-by-four to cruise parallel for quite a while whilst she tried to fathom what was going on in our car. In an age when everything is getting smaller and smaller, it must have appeared most odd to her that my in-car entertainment system was a bloke in the back seat playing the guitar. I wanted to wind down the window and shout, “You should see what it’s like when I’m listening to classical!” but I was singing harmonies at the time, so it just wasn’t possible.

This eccentric and possibly quite dangerous rehearsal had been forced upon us by the constraints of time. Although Brad and I had a repertoire of ‘songs around the campfire’ material, there was a big difference between that kind of impromptu beer-induced singsong, and being introduced as an act who would serenade a seated, expectant and sober audience. Emergency rehearsal was crucial.

“I have a bit of a confession to make, Brad,” I said, in a short break between songs.

“Oh,” said Brad, a little concerned. “And that is?”

“Your name. I’m afraid you have a stage name now.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, Malcolm phoned me this morning and told me that they’re printing up a programme for tonight’s event. He wanted to know your surname.”

“And?”

“Well, I just couldn’t resist giving you a new name.”

“Why?”

“Not sure. I just couldn’t help it.”

“And so what is it?”

“Brad Titman.”

“Brad Titman?”

“Yes, Brad Titman.”

“Brad Titman? That’s pathetic.”

“Yes, I suppose it is.”

The problem had been one of timing. The mischievous concept had popped into my head the moment that Malcolm had asked the question. Why not come up with a rude surname for Brad, the significance of which would be lost on the French audience? The problem was that Brad Titman had been the first name that popped into my head, and it just wasn’t a very good effort.

“So I’m Brad Titman whenever I’m over here, am I?”

“I’m afraid so.”

Brad sighed and went back to strumming.

We’d only been back at the house five minutes when Malcolm and Anne called round. They looked a little flustered, as well they might. I looked out onto my driveway and noted that their car was full of amplifiers, microphone stands and musical instruments, all of which they’d managed to borrow for the evening from various sources in the locality. As in the previous year, the responsibility for coordinating proceedings had fallen heavily on their capable shoulders.

It seemed to me that Malcolm and Anne were the textbook English settlers in France. I guess like many others before them it had all started when they’d sat in their kitchen in suburban England and discussed the sums. If they sold their house, could they afford to buy in France and still have enough to live on, provided they could muster a moderate stream of income from somewhere once in situ? For them it all added up, and they’d joyfully kissed goodbye to the British rat race, blissfully exchanging nine-to-five stress-laden jobs for stunning views, mountain walks and a daily dose of good red wine. I’d asked Malcolm once what they both missed most about living in England.