Ten Trees and a Truffle Dog (18 page)

  I'd put on my best shirt and trousers and Tanya had also chosen something a little more dressy than usual. There would inevitably be photos, and in years to come we would look back at this moment. Elodie, probably to her future chagrin, had been forced into a sailor outfit from a smart boutique in Avignon. I thought it looked ridiculous, but Tanya assured me it was very à la mode.

  'Nice day for it,' said Tanya, pulling her sunglasses down.

  'Couldn't be better,' I agreed.

  'Feels like we're shipwrecked sailors finally sighting land.'

  'Give me a palm tree, a pina colada, and a turtle to tow me ashore.'

  Nerves had put me in a frivolous mood. At times over the previous ten months I'd thought the project would never start. Now we were ready I was overcome with relief. All the administration, the wrangling over prices, the scheduling of the work, the worry over the foundations had finally come to an end. Brick would be placed upon brick and the home we hoped to live in for the rest of our lives would gradually emerge.

  The one reservation I still had was my relationship with Ange. In the musical
Chicago
, the lawyer Billy Flynn sings a song entitled 'Razzle Dazzle'. Flynn is defending a guilty client and he knows the only way to succeed is to distract the jury with a combination of magic tricks and fancy dancing. What follows on stage is an amazing combination of intricate footwork and sleight of hand.

  As we sat in the cafe, waiting to make our way up to the building site, I couldn't help but feel that Ange had being singing his own version of 'Razzle Dazzle' the morning he'd threatened to resign. Instead of being called to account, he'd left with an insouciant whistle and a click of the heels. Even now with the bulldozer waiting to go, there were still some grey areas on costs. However, we'd accepted we were in Provence and that pricing would never be as tight as we wanted.

  'Darlings, did I forget your anniversary?'

  Delphine pulled up a seat and the waiter instantly disappeared to fetch her regular espresso. We must have looked confused.

  'The finery, dears – I've never seen the two of you look so resplendent.'

  'We're starting to build today.'

  'Well, congratulations.' Delphine crumbled a sugar cube into her coffee, clapping her hands together and dusting the remains onto the floor for Fifi.

  'Why don't you come along, watch the ground being broken?'

  'Delighted.'

  'We're going down, rather than up; six metres of foundations.'

  'I'll need about the same for your tooth.' Sitting nearby our perma-tanned dentist had overheard our conversation and couldn't let the opportunity to remind me of the root canal I was putting off pass.

  'You said wait until the house was finished,' I stalled.

  'No pain?'

  'No.'

  'I guess we'll keep waiting.'

  I made a mental note to book myself in around the new year, just after we'd moved in. By then my tooth would be throbbing enough for me to justify contributing to the dentist's annual St Barts trip.

  The caffeine from the coffee kicked in and cleared my mind. We needed to be on site before ten so that I could take the confirmatory call from the bank and officially give Ange the go-ahead. Tanya and Delphine were busy catching up on village gossip; meanwhile, I mentally ticked off the bank's requirements – quotes for everything the mortgage covered, insurance certificates for all the builders, and life insurance for Tanya and myself. In all, I'd sent them one hundred pages, having checked and rechecked the bundle. Nothing was missing, so why was I getting increasingly worried?

  The sun illuminated another couple of tables, and a local vigneron pulled up a chair. His face was red and cracked from the early morning chill and the mud on his kneecaps and fresh scars on his hands attested to the hours of hard work.

  
'Salut.'
He waved.

  
'Salut,'
I called back.

  'How about repeating that wine tasting, only this time in the summer?'

  'Why?'

  'Nobody will have flu.'

  The English-French wine tasting had occurred during what was now remembered as one of the worst outbreaks of the virus ever. If anybody disputed the severity of the epidemic, the tasting was referred to as proof: 'Imagine it, people even preferred the English wine.' The joke never seemed to tire. People were so fond of the gag, it continued to introduce new customers.

  Across the road a couple entered the
notaire
's office. They kissed as they pushed through the door and the golden plaque denoting the lawyer's office glinted above their heads. Quite possibly they were about to buy a house. I hoped for their sake they weren't trying to build one. How naive we'd been that spring day as we made the purchase, with the suited government official soothing any nerves with jokes he must make on a daily basis: 'I have to warn you, Provence is an earthquake zone – it's not like LA but once a whole
champ de lavande
was destroyed… I know there's no house, but
c'est la France
, you still need a termite inspection.' Each gag was accompanied by an apologetic chortle. At least they'd broken up the monotony of the hour-long appointment during which each line of the contract was read out loud.

  I took the last sips of my coffee and fumbled in my pockets for some euros. Tanya clipped Elodie into the pushchair and we strode confidently up the road. We were off to build a house.

Up at the
chantier
the full glory of the day revealed itself. The sky was, in the words of one local painter, 'almost absurdly blue'. At this time of year, he argued, it was too clear and brilliant to paint, obtaining a luminosity that defied the imagination and which would ruin all but the most impressionist of canvasses. To me, the lack of blemishes, the absence of a stray cloud, or the white plume of a distant jet, just the rich, luscious, unending blue was uplifting, but also somehow unexpectedly disturbing, leaving a nagging feeling that life could never be this perfect.

  As we got out of the car our feet dispersed the remains of a delicate dew. The mild winter meant that already the first trails of blossom floated by and the grass beneath our feet was lush and dotted with wild flowers. The land resonated with the smell of new growth, of shoots disturbing wet earth and buds breaking through bark. On the far side of the plot the engine of a JCB digger was whirring, churning out clouds of black smoke that drifted towards us like miniature thunderstorms. A few metres away a series of orange markings showed the footprint of the building.

  'Did someone murder a house?' joked Delphine as she lit a cigarette and took in the view. 'You guys are going to love it here. The space, the view and, from what Ange tells me of the build cost, not a bad investment.'

  'Let's hope so.'

  Ange clambered down from the distant digger, his trademark cap falling to the ground as he did so. Scooping it up, he hurried across the field towards us. I'd half feared that one of his frequent last-minute emergencies would have pulled him off to another
chantier
. But here he was, and if he was true to his word, our project was now his priority.

  
'Salut, Ange.'

  
'Salut, Delphine.'

  Ange kissed all the girls, and then almost as an afterthought included me. Our stubble grated uncomfortably together. His aftershave was so strong that just a little more friction would have lit a fire.

  'Do you have the cheque?' Ange was referring to the 5 per cent payment which we'd agreed should pass over when construction began. I tapped my jeans pocket. Without thinking my hand reached for the envelope. Instinct stopped me; better to wait for the bank's final confirmation. In France, once a cheque had been handed over it couldn't be cancelled.

  Together we stood staring at the view, our eyes tumbling with the fields towards the village. I bent down and picked some grass, tossing it into the air to check the wind and then watching as it dropped listlessly to the earth. Ange lit a cigarette and tapped his foot impatiently against the ground. Tanya wrapped her arm around my waist and gave me a hug. Only Elodie seemed happy rolling in the grass and pushing herself back up again.

  'Shall I take a photo?' offered Delphine.

  Tanya, Elodie and I hunched together, grinning obediently as we were snapped from all angles. From the twenty or so Delphine took one would surely make the coffee table of the new house. The faint chimes of the village clock rose from the valley below. In a land where time was elastic it was appropriate that the hour was always struck twice, five minutes apart. I wrapped my fingers around the phone in my pocket, waiting for the ring.

  'What's the plan?' I asked Ange.

  'See the squares?' he said, pointing to the markings on the ground. 'We'll dig down six metres until we hit solid soil and then lower in the steel and set the concrete. Should take a week, then we can start going up. You'll see, from there it will be quick.'

  Ange fell back into silence, once again tapping his feet on the ground. The churning engine of the digger made me want to forget the call from the bank and just get started. Thankfully, my phone rang before my will weakened. As expected it was the loans department.

  'Mr Ivey?' said a female voice.

  'Yes.'

  'The documents are all here, and I've been through them all thoroughly.' Her tone was not positive and the fear that I'd inadvertently omitted something resurfaced.

  'Go on.'

  'It's the insurance. Your project manager's insurance covers building work but not managing others to do work.'

  'Presumably all he needs to do is extend the cover?' I looked up at the blue sky, fighting the rage that was slowly overcoming me.

  'Yes, but comprehensive insurance is expensive, that's why usually we deal with house-building companies.'

  'I don't understand.' I cut her off in mid sentence. The conversation quickly degenerated, with us both interrupting each other. Unfortunately for the girl at the bank, I had nearly a year of frustration to vent. The call ended abruptly with me demanding that the money be released and the bank refusing.

  'What's gone wrong?' Tanya demanded. I related the conversation and watched the bitterness creep into my wife's face. 'Stupid pieces of paper, why can't you do anything in this country...?'

  'It's all nonsense,' interjected Ange, 'pass me the phone.'

  Hope returned as he called the bank. Perhaps I'd misunderstood a key part of the conversation, or hadn't argued enough. Ange walked away with the phone pressed to his ear and we stood and waited. The day remained perfect; clear sky, warm sunshine, panoramic views of Provence, all reminding us what a peerless place we lived in. Delphine too felt the need for some distance and wandered off towards the trees.

  Insurance was a notorious problem in France. The industry was out of control, revelling in the endless stream of employment law churned out by Paris. A book I'd been reading –
Sixty Million Frenchmen Can't be Wrong
– explained how many of the country's problems dated back to the French Revolution. Unbelievably, the ruling classes were still terrified of the provinces and the spectre of the guillotine. To guard against a repeat, the government micromanaged, demanding to know in an almost totalitarian way what every member of society was doing. Types of work were categorised and divided and then re-categorised and subdivided until it became almost impossible to do anything legally. Nothing made the Parisian mandarins happier than the fact that everybody was a crook; it gave them the perfect excuse to employ an army of tax inspectors to make everyone's life miserable. No one had yet thought up a tax on wiping your bottom but surely it was coming. Squeezing into a WC near us would be someone from the
fisc
.

  'Surely Ange can sort it out,' encouraged Tanya, dragging me from depression.

  I shook my head. 'The woman at the bank didn't seem to think so.'

  'What'll we do?'

  'Find someone else. Ange will help,' I said, trying to be optimistic.

  Delphine and Ange intersected each other halfway across the plot and turned back towards us. The expressive shaking of heads and shrugging of shoulders seemed to convey the worst.

  'It's nonsense, Jamie, nonsense. I've never come across a bank like it. They're idiots, nothing will ever get done if you borrow money from them. Find someone else.'

  'We've already tried everyone.'

  'Try again. I'm telling you, if they're this difficult now, what's it going to be like when something changes mid project? Better off starting again.'

  His language quickly became too expressive for these pages. 'You can't sneeze in this country without some ******* official examining the bogey and slapping a tax on it.' On and on it went, with Ange's anger escalating out of all proportion to the situation.

  'Nobody from here carries that type of cover, you need a new bank,' he said, finally running out of bile.

  I nodded.

  'Darlings, we must all go and get very, very drunk,' announced Delphine, who had clearly forgotten the time of day.

  'See you in the bar at midday?' Ange shook my hand and headed back towards his digger.

  There was nothing to do but leave. Delphine gave us a parting hug. 'I am so sorry my babies. Don't worry, it'll work out soon. Trust Ange.'

Over the next few days we tried to figure out what had happened. Our instinct to lash out at French bureaucracy had been wrong. Annoying though it was, everybody knew the rules and it was hard to understand how somebody in the building trade had made such basic mistakes. Surely Ange must have realised he couldn't just divide up the work as he pleased? The worst interpretation of his behaviour was he'd known all along it was unlikely he could do the job, but had decided to push his luck to see what happened. Once again Ange had done a Razzle Dazzle dance to shift blame away from himself. This time round, though, I'd already seen the performance and the necessary sleight of hand was harder to pull off.