Ten Trees and a Truffle Dog (10 page)

  I couldn't work out whether this was a real compliment or just a platitude. Had Philippe been expecting more? Here was a broker who could pick and choose his clients and apparently pleasing his palate was everything. My fear was that despite the professionalism of the staff and the chef's concentration on detail, the meal was a little too simple, a little too polished. Where was the potential for disaster or moments of culinary genius? Still, Philippe seemed relaxed enough, enjoying the sun on his face and ignoring the queue of customers still looking for a table (it was past the witching hour of 2 p.m.). We ordered some coffees, which came accompanied with freshly baked miniature chocolate cakes and finally got back, somewhat obliquely, to the subject of the loan.

  'Just one question,' I interrupted Philippe. 'Delphine said to choose our restaurant carefully – why?'

  Philippe smiled. 'By letting you choose the restaurant you told me a lot about yourself. Firstly, you were kind enough to come to Saint-Rémy. Secondly, you sensibly avoided the name restaurants – quite wrong for a business lunch – and thirdly, you chose somewhere that serves great food at a decent price. By doing so you showed me you knew the area.'

  'And the fact that we grew up in the city and don't know the first thing about dogs?'

  'You can always get a pig instead,' Philippe joked as he rose from the table and held out his hand. 'I'll be in touch when I've agreed everything with the bank. The gap in your finances is only small. Plus, there's the truffle income. Don't worry, it won't be a problem.'

  It should have been perfect: my wife and I sitting in the spring sunshine about to realise our dream. The warmth on our skin was uplifting and neighbouring tables bubbled with bonhomie; bottles were upended in glistening ice buckets, and waiters summoned to provide
digestifs
. Parisians taking long weekends passed by, their stride as jaunty as that of the designer dogs trailing in their wake. As Philippe left us we began analysing our lunch, what had been said, how we'd managed to convince him. Finally, we moved on to the daunting topic of building the house – when would we begin, which materials to use, the precise positioning of the house on the plot and, of course, which builder to choose.

  Our mood was still upbeat as we left the table and walked through the cobbled streets, pushing Elodie's pram under the Roman arch, following the path of the summer bull run to the central square. There we sat on a bench underneath an ancient plane tree which was just coming into bud. The
tricolore
extending from the nearby
mairie
fluttered above our heads. Chicken turned on a rotisserie outside the butcher's and an assistant was busy dressing the window of the nearby art gallery. The surrounding buildings cut off the sun and the drop in temperature was immediately noticeable. I shuddered and edged closer to Tanya. Suddenly the spectre of winter had returned.

  Perhaps had we stayed in the sunshine we could have managed our doubts but in the cold shadows the nervous feeling which had been building, and which at first I had put down to excitement, finally crystallised. What if Philippe was just a foolish old man and the collective finance departments of the ten or so banks we had originally applied to were right? Our wine business was profitable but it was still young and relied on the goodwill of numerous small clients. Any decline in sales would see us quickly struggling. Then there was the question of finding truffles. Philippe had been right to challenge us. What real hope did we have of learning the secrets of a shadowy profession? It wasn't as if we could walk into the village and ask the nearest truffle expert to show us their trade.

  'Are you sure we should go ahead?'

  Tanya was gazing into the sky. 'Funny, I was just thinking the same thing.'

  Had it been just the two of us there would have been no question. Together we'd left London and set up our own business in a foreign country. Buying the piece of land was a risk; however, both of us believed that opportunities should be taken. We had always wanted a life less ordinary. But our first daughter, without us noticing, had changed this. Just a glance at her face provoked an overwhelming desire to protect her.

  'If we ever needed to sell, it could take years.'

  'I agree – Elodie's education, our parents, the wine business going bust…' Subconsciously I started scratching the back of my neck. 'There are plenty of reasons we might have to go back.'

  'And yet?' Tanya's words were loaded with a subtext. If we walked away, there would always be regrets. Somehow, we would find a way to make it work. We always had in the past and we always would in the future.

  'And yet,' I agreed. We sealed the deal with a kiss.

I
t was the end of August and Provence sweltered under intense blue skies. The summer scents of lavender, thyme and rosemary evaporated under the punishing sun, fruit in the market shrivelled before the shoppers arrived and the locals barricaded themselves behind thick walls, draping wet towels over whirring fans.

  The land rippled with heat and emergency wards filled with seared dehydrated tourists, their skin as raw and bloody as the steak served in the village cafes. Olive trees withered, fridges combusted with shuddering sighs, wells ran dry and armies of ants marauded across the cracked ground. People prayed for a storm and bickered over whether the heat was as severe as 2005.

  Temperature readings were held to be inconclusive; instead, shoulders were shrugged and fingers were pointed at the earliest ever grape harvest and the greedy village Labrador who'd continued to gorge himself in 2005 and now scarcely twitched when thrown juicy remains. The debate was finally settled when the owner of the notorious key-swapping
resto
cancelled the regular Thursday night get-together. Only then did the residents of Provence nod sagely and declare themselves to be in the midst of a
'vraie canicule',
grateful that there was nothing wrong with their libidos after all; it was just too hot for sex.

  On the final day of the month Tanya and I called a summit meeting of all the artisans who had been so studiously avoiding our calls for the past sixty days. Granted it was July and August in Provence, but quotes that had been promised in April still hadn't arrived. Our righteous indignation somehow prevailed and miraculously, incredibly, a meeting took place before 1 September. Perhaps everyone had heat stroke and had simply forgotten the date, but here they all were: builder, electrician, plumber, window fitter, door fitter, painter and, of course, Ange, the project manager.

  As bait we'd invited them all to lunch and we sat in the heavy shadows of our dining room. There was no question of eating on the terrace. Slowly, imperceptibly, our English instincts were leaving us. For a week's holiday the blinding furnace of the outside world was enjoyable but day after day, week after week, the heat began to test nerves. Even barricaded inside there were constant reminders of the season. The trees throbbed with cicadas, their incessant song occasionally interrupted by the drone of cumbersome firefighting planes circling the distant hills, belching water onto the chargrilled forests. The acrid smell of Manu's grapes, which had begun their fermentation on the vine, crept into the house. Earlier that day the first tractors laden with grapes had snaked their way towards the
cave
cooperative. At least the intense heat pleased the vignerons – starving the vines of water concentrated the flavour, and made for a great vintage.

  The men ate with their faces low to their plates, occasionally muttering to each other, but essentially concentrating hard on their food. They shared the same dark, slightly shrunken eyes, and wind-burnished, sun-cracked, skin. Hidden from the outside world, clustered in the shadows, it was as if we were planning a crime, rather than trying to organise building a family home.

  Ange had his weathered baseball cap pulled low over his head, and only when he occasionally removed it to mop his brow could I catch his eyes.

  'So what's the latest?' I asked as he cut himself another large slice of goat's cheese and onion tart.

  'Soil survey has arrived – five metres of clay,' Ange clucked in disapproval as I turned down an extra helping of tart. 'You'll have to send it to the engineers, but it's not going to be cheap.'

  The sound of Elodie crying carried from the bedroom. The
canicule
had destroyed any hope of a routine. Our daughter wore only a nappy and still woke drenched in sweat. Sleep took place when she was too tired to cry.

  'Her teeth are arriving, poor thing,' announced Tanya as she clasped Elodie to her chest. As was his habit, Ange rose and kissed Elodie on the forehead. 'Isn't she beautiful?'

  We nodded, proud as ever, oblivious to the less than aesthetic blotchy red heat rash which covered her body. The rest of the men also rose from their seats and clustered around.

  'Have you tried ginger?' asked Ange as he bit into the slice of tart I'd rejected. 'Smear a little on her gums, it's a natural anaesthetic.'

  'Lavender rub on the chest before she sleeps,' added the plumber.

  'Homeopathic suppositories worked for us,' said the electrician, who was several years younger than us.

  Tanya was already searching in the fridge for some ginger, but I was determined to continue the progress update.

  'Any firm prices yet?'

  I looked around. Eyes fell to the floor.

  'It's August.' Ange's raised eyebrows implied I should have known better than to ask.

  'Clack.'

  The noise came from the driveway. Whoever it was, they weren't worth sacrificing the bubble of cool air trapped in our house.

  'Clack, clack.'

  The sound was vaguely familiar, like metal on metal, reminding me of the camaraderie of the regulars who sipped pastis in the shade of plane trees and rattled their boules together as they waited for their turn. However, at this time of day the square in the village with its wooden sleepers and members' bar was a barren dust bowl. In any event, the sound had never carried before.

  'Clack, clack, clack.'

  After five years of living in Provence I'd learnt that from the beginning of June to early September you never ever opened the shutters between midday and midnight. In fact, a Provençal would prefer you to proposition his wife or poison his prize truffle dog rather than fling open his windows. The reward for this obstinate determination not to let the light of day into houses was that the cold air remained trapped and in the eyes of the locals there was no real contest between having a view and being able to sleep at night.

  However, curiosity overcame me and I opened a window to take a look.

  Strange sights are not that rare in Provence. Only the previous week a local butcher had chopped the heads off two pigs, placed sunglasses on their eyes, cigarettes in their mouths and hung signs around their necks saying 'Sarko and Carla'. The display proved an instant hit with Japanese tourists, who tended to huddle in excited groups before one of their number was propelled screaming hysterically towards the pigs for the obligatory photo call. Ever enterprising (but of course avowedly socialist) the butcher made space beside the pigs and started charging 2 euros a snap.

  I am still not sure which was more alarming – the sight of one Japanese woman kissing a dead pig's head or the view that confronted me as I poked my head into the sunshine, so bright it momentarily seemed white. Briefly I considered phoning the
pompiers
. These jacks of all trade were responsible for dealing with everything from fires to hornets' nests. If I made the call, then ferrying deep-fried boules-playing tourists to hospital could be added to the list.

  'Clack, clack.' The two young men continued their game, oblivious to my stunned gaze. Both of them dripped enough sweat to drown a swarm of flies. They wore Bermuda-style swimming trunk shorts with colourful polo tops tucked in behind their bottoms like horses' tails, leaving their bare chests exposed to the brutal sun. One of them had the dark skin of someone who tans easily, the other was cursed with freckles, and welts of sizzled skin covered his body, giving the appearance of an extreme case of measles.

  'Come here,' I urged our lunch gathering.

  Despite their obvious exhaustion the players remained blithely cheery, sharing a bottle of rosé between shots as they rested their hands on their knees and panted like athletes at the end of a marathon. Stranger still, they were lobbing their boules over the old pig shed at the bottom of our garden. Tiles could easily be snapped or windows broken but the potential for damage didn't seem to worry the two intruders; instead, they whooped with delight as their boules disappeared from view.