Ten Trees and a Truffle Dog (20 page)

  'And now, we have Snuffle, trained by Jamie.' We walked into the ring. Tanya and Elodie followed just slightly behind. The moment should have been a special one – the surrounding medieval buildings, the fluttering pennants, the festival atmosphere. However, I was about to be interviewed in front of 500 people in French and I was terrified.

  'How old is Snuffle?'

  'Seven months.' So far, so good.

  'Ah, the same age as Victor. Do you think he'll do as well?'

  'Let's see.' Trying to hurry through the interview, I crouched to release Snuffle.

  'And how have you trained him?'

  I meant to say that we'd started by putting truffles in socks and letting Snuffle play with them, but my mind momentarily went blank.

  'We put truffles in our shoes,' I confided, to raucous laughter. The French words for shoes –
chaussures
– and socks –
chaussettes
– are confusingly similar.

  'Typical English, so rich they can afford to let their dogs chew their shoes.' The interview concluded to more laughter. I flushed red. I needed a great performance from Snuffle to redeem some pride.

  'Go on Snuffle, find the truffles,' I urged, 'find the truffles.'

  Snuffle charged into the ring, nose to the ground. He hit the central area where Victor had so successfully located most of his finds, and kept going, full tilt.

  'He's found one,' said Tanya excitedly.

  'I wouldn't be so sure.'

  Snuffle was now 20 metres away and still going fast. Sniffing away he came to an abrupt halt as he rammed into one of the crash barriers that held the crowd back. Looking up he began to nibble on a lady's shoe.

  'That's the problem with using shoes to train your dog,' joked Sherlock to yet more laughter. 'Seriously, though, sometimes you think you've trained your dog, but the scent he's following is yours, not the truffle's.'

  It's often said that dogs are sensitive to human emotions. If their owners are ill, they curl up at the end of the bed, or if there's an ongoing family row, they make themselves scarce. To date, Snuffle had not demonstrated any ability to interpret people's moods. However, as the laughter continued, he looked around the crowd and bolted as fast as he could for the exit. Ears back, tail elongated, paws bounding forwards in a blur – it took a diving rugby tackle to stop him. Everybody applauded loudly. Perhaps there were some sports fans in the audience. Then I noticed that rather than pointing at me and Snuffle, the crowd was focused on Elodie and Tanya.

  Somehow, Elodie had wriggled free of Tanya's grasp and in messing around in the sand had uncovered a truffle. I was immediately convinced it was a total accident but the French in the crowd didn't seem so sure.

  'I've heard of a child in Périgord who can do this.'

  'Extraordinary ability,' concurred the man's neighbour.

  'Raised in a family of truffle hunters, though – this one's English.'

  'A sense of smell like that is God-given.'

  We hurried away before anyone kidnapped our child and forced her into a life of slavery on their truffle plantation.

I
n August in Provence, here are some of the things you can do: go hot-air ballooning, order delivery sushi, eat white summer truffles, visit a chocolate factory, dine in a Michelin restaurant, stay in a campsite, sleep in a five-star hotel, play golf, visit a market, drive bulls through the Camargue, drink wine, enjoy a spa, fry in the sun. The choice is as endless as the tourist dollar.

  Don't be fooled by the rustic feel of the place: if you have the money, then some smart concierge company can make pretty much any wish come true. Why else would Brad and Angelina, the celebrity burlesque act of Provence, forever be flirting with expensive properties, helicoptering through the hills, teasing estate agents with the seductive sheen of their black Amexes, before clamping the wallet shut and settling for a chaste château on a long lease?

  There's one caveat, though, one thing you can't do. Don't request a tradesman. 'Live wire in the bathroom, Mr Pitt? It'll have to wait until the first of September. Overflowing sceptic tank, Miss Jolie? The truck is at the mechanic's and the mechanic is on holiday until, you guessed, the first of September. Why don't you stay with the Depps?'

  Occasionally in life, there is an opportunity to rewrite the rules, to attempt the Provençal equivalent of landing on the moon, to achieve what even Brad, Angelina and all their millions can't; to find not just one tradesman, but a whole team of them, and not just to fix a problem, but to start building a house.

  While the rest of the world was cursing bankers who'd gambled away the wealth of nations, Tanya and I were quietly grateful. Right at the moment when we were casting around for new builders,
La Crise
, as the French called the credit crunch, was in full swing, decimating the economy and crippling, in particular, the construction sector.

  Since the debacle with Ange, we'd approached a number of house-building companies. For some it was too late; the tumbleweed was already blowing between the desks, the shutters clapping a funeral march on rusty hinges. Others had only a skeleton staff and usually they'd been turned delirious by the financial storm. Manic laughter drove us from such offices. 'Build a house? We haven't even got money left for lunchtime baguettes, let alone to pay suppliers for materials!'

  Finally, though, we found a company near Aix-en-Provence with staff still in their right minds, albeit playing with paper clips and nervously eyeing the closed door of the owner's office. The diggers waited in an idle line outside and stockpiles of bricks threatened to become historical monuments. When we knocked on the door, it was almost too late; the company was scrambling for breath. Only by doing the unheard of, the almost profane, could the business be saved. However, this was no ordinary construction company. In the office, perfume, not sweat, was the dominant smell, and on the desks nail varnish replaced the usual pictures of naked women. The place was run entirely by women, and the owner was savvy enough to recognise salvation when it walked through the door. We could pretty much name our price – our house would be built, and what's more they'd start tomorrow.

  Thus, precisely five months after our last failed attempt to start the construction, Tanya and I were once again standing on site. The digger's engine was turning over, the same dark storm clouds of diesel were floating towards us, but this time there was one important difference: everything had been approved by the bank. At my signal – handing over the cheque – France would never be the same again. The unheard of would become reality. Atoms might collide in the particle accelerator but no scientist or social anthropologist ever thought the day would come when a
chantier
was officially opened in Provence in August.

  Of course, there was an explanation – the workmen we were introduced to were not native French, rather immigrants from Africa, probably Tunisia. Cheque in her handbag, company saved, the French
directrice
of the building company would be off for her usual month in St Tropez, punctuating the lazy days by the pool with the odd lunch at Club 55. Before she could head for the beach, though, she had one piece of bad news for us.

  Madame Roland spread the plans out on the bonnet of her black Range Rover. It was early in the morning and the sky was still a benign pale blue. The sun which had crept over the tops of the trees provided a soft light, the warmth of the rays revitalising rather than burning the skin. A soft scent of pine drifted in the air.

  'Monsieur Ivey, I need to show you something.' The words were almost smothered by the pneumatic squeal of the digger's arm clawing into the hard earth.

  '
Regardez
, these are the architect's plans and these are our execution drawings.' Her heavy make-up glinted in the sun.

  The second set of drawings was covered in markings giving measurements for everything from the windows to the staircase. The writing was tiny, the detail precise. As we hunched over the plans Madame's dyed blonde hair swirled into my face, carrying with it the smell of peppermint shampoo.

  'Don't you see the living room? It's designed for Corsicans.'

  Corsica was notorious for its vendettas, its cured meats and its inhabitants' love of knives. Momentarily, I couldn't place what these attributes could possibly have to do with our living room. Then I thought of Napoleon.

  'It's a major problem – jump in the air and you'll hit the ceiling.'

  'What do we do?'

  Earth rained noisily to the ground and the arm of the digger swung hungrily downward.

  'We just build it higher.'

  The words were drowned by a fart of diesel.

  'Can we do that?'

  'There's a small risk.'

  'A risk of what?'

  'That the
préfecture
will inspect and demand rectification work.'

  'What, knocking it down?'

  A landslide of soil tumbled earthwards. The digger had already created the 6-metre deep square for the first concrete foundation.

  'It won't come to that. Never does.'

  'What's the alternative?'

  'We stop work and you reapply for planning permission. It'll take you six months and there's no guarantee you'll get it.'

  By my feet Elodie was digging away with a spade, creating her own foundation. We'd been explaining how we were going to build a house and gradually she'd embraced the idea. At home her toy chest was filled with diggers and men in hard hats, and her favourite programme was now
Bob the Builder
.

  'There's one more thing,' said Madame Roland. 'If we add to the walls, that will put extra strain on the foundations. Should be no problem, but I thought I'd mention it.'

  After anger, and then fury, comes despair. I'd already exhausted the two preceding emotions; instead, there was a calm emptiness, a sense of ceding to the inevitable. It seemed that however hard we tried, however thoroughly we prepared, researched and planned, we would never understand the construction culture. There was an unwritten set of rules, an inbred understanding of just how much cheating was permissible, that was anathema to the Anglo-Saxon mind. A Frenchman in my position would just stick two fingers up at the bureaucratic planning process and get on with building his house, confident in the knowledge that if the worst came to the worst, he could probably bribe his way out of the problem. Instinctively, it felt wrong to build a house for which we didn't have the permission, but that was the Provençal way. Our viewing trips with Eric had encompassed many weird and wonderful houses; most had grown organically into sprawling abodes and not a single one of them was legal.

  'Trust me, it will be fine,' reassured Madame Roland, glancing at her watch. Unless she left soon the traffic into St Tropez would be hellish. The digger continued to carve out the second hole for the foundations.

  I looked at Tanya. After nearly a year and a half trying to get started she knew better than to be surprised. 'Shall we just get on with it?'

  More soil cascaded to the ground. A lorry laden with steel reinforcements for the foundations waited at the gates of the
chantier
. The driver was impatient to deposit his load and was revving his engine in frustration.

  I reached for Tanya's hand and gave it a squeeze. 'I think it's too late to do anything else.'

  Madame Roland smiled the smile of a woman whose holiday had just begun. Kissing each of us formally on both cheeks, she folded away the plans, and pulled herself into the cabin of the car. The expensive engine purred. Madame wound down the window and chilled air blasted into my face carrying with it a hint of peppermint. 'See you in September.' She grinned and headed off for a month-long love-in with Ambre Solaire.

  A small blue Citroën passed through the open gates of the building site. The car pulled to a halt opposite us, so that we had to step backwards as the driver's door opened. A grey-haired lady in her mid to late fifties stepped slowly out, using the door frame to take some of her weight. She wore a floral summer dress which her ample frame more than filled. Her hair was short and her mouth tight and small. Before she spoke it was possible to sense the anger in her demeanour, possibly from the way she'd nearly parked her car on our feet.

  'What do you think you are doing?'

  'We're building a house.'

  'I saw the sign, but why here? You've the whole field, why not in the corner over there? Plenty of shade, by far the best spot, yes – you should build there,' she said, starting to walk to a distant corner of the plot.