2006 - A Piano in The Pyrenees (11 page)

“Tiring, but fun,” she said, looking a little fatigued.

“Yes, well, it’s a long way,” I said, finally clearing up any ambiguity on the matter.

“Today will be long too,” said Anne with a smile.

“Yes, but with less walking.”

§

Today was the day of the village lunch. In fact, it was more than just the village lunch—it was both the village lunch and the village dinner. Tradition demanded that the village ate together as one on at least one day of the year, and owing to the constraints of farming and life in general, not everyone could make lunch and not everyone could make dinner. The solution was to have two meals on the same day, running consecutively. Furthermore, those who were free to attend both were strongly encouraged to do so. Since I fell into this latter category, this now meant that I was faced with a long day of eating and drinking. I was better prepared for this than I was the 37-kilometre hike.

In terms of being accepted in these parts, I knew that this might be a make-or-break day. A short and somewhat unimpressive exchange with the mayor aside, the previous day hadn’t exactly been an overwhelming success with regard to getting to know the villagers. Today was a great opportunity to put that right, given that it was an event specifically designed to bring people together. I for one had every intention of cooperating with that process.

As is often the case for events to which one is looking forward, I was ready to leave much too early, finding myself waiting in my linen suit on Malcolm and Anne’s patio. I drifted in and out of reverie, soothed by the greens of the rolling foothills and the distant grey peaks. I felt content. I guess I’d rather have been about to go to the village dinner as part of a couple—Tony and his lovely wife—but that was not to be, and I was happy to pitch up with Malcolm and Anne as the solitary eccentric Englishman, and have the rest make of me what they would.

“You’re not going like that, are you?” said Malcolm as he wandered onto the patio in jeans and T-shirt.

“I was going to, yes,” I replied. “Is it a bit too smart?”

“Well, it’s up to you, but as you can see we don’t dress up for this.”

Almost on cue, Anne appeared looking neat and tidy, but still distinctly informal.

“I think I’ll go and slip into something more comfortable,” I said.

Malcolm and Anne knew the form for these things as well as anyone. Apart from having been to about fifteen in a row, they were also on the village social committee. If I wanted to learn how to become a part of the local community, then I could do worse than have Malcolm and Anne as my teachers. They had done an incredible job. They had made it their business to get to know absolutely everyone in the village, they organised events, and poor old Malcolm, who had left Britain to escape a life of accountancy, had ended up as honorary treasurer of the social committee.

It was only a twenty-minute walk to the village hall, but I was glad I’d ditched the suit. Malcolm and Anne lived halfway up one side of the valley, and our destination was at the top of the other. The inclines were surprisingly steep and I’d broken into a sweat by the time we were making our final approaches. I could see the village hall ahead, a modern building with big glass windows, a disproportionately large edifice for somewhere with just over a hundred people.

“How come we’ve got a building that big?” I asked. “Given that the village doesn’t even have a shop or a bar.”

“It’s just the French system,” said Anne. “All villages have to have village halls.”

“It started as a bureaucratic thing,” said Malcolm. “But now it’s a tradition, I guess. Ours is especially good though. It’s better than the ones in all the surrounding villages.”

As we entered the building there was a little reception committee of three or four men lined up to greet us. They too were dressed informally but most were wearing neatly ironed collared shirts, which made them slightly resemble kids who’d been made to dress smartly by their mums for their birthday parties. At the head of this group was Rene the mayor. I felt myself gulp. Just how much had my behaviour offended him the previous day?

I approached him cautiously, and to my immense relief he greeted me warmly with a vigorous handshake and ushered me on to several others who did the same. Perhaps he liked jokes about shagging bulls after all. He even went as far as to pat me on the back before pointing me in the direction of a huge table full of bottles, behind which three young ladies stood in anticipation.

“
Aperitif?
” one of them asked.

“
Oui, merci
,” I replied. “
Un Ricard
.”

I’m not quite sure why I ordered a Ricard, it’s an aniseed drink a bit like Greek ouzo and I don’t even like it very much, but everyone around me seemed to have one, so rather spinelessly I bowed to peer pressure.

I turned, large glass of white poison in my hand, and surveyed the room. It was short on people since we were evidently some of the first to arrive. The decor was bordering on non-existent. A red polished floor glistened, over which two long lines of tables had been set in preparation for the meal. Behind them was a pair of huge sliding doors opening onto a patio with the now routine splendid views of the surrounding beauty. The walls had been left undecorated—just the unplastered building blocks, grey and rather austere. Behind the table of drinks there was a large elevated stage, at the back of which was a huge mural of a Caribbean scene—a beautiful bay surrounded by palm trees. Later I was to learn that this was a survivor from the first event that ever took place here, the wedding of a local couple who’d no doubt booked their honeymoon in this far-off beauty spot. Now, fifteen years on, it still survived as the only bit of decoration in the building, no doubt destined for at least another decade as the village’s meagre nod to ornamentation.

Soon there was a flurry of activity accompanying a glut of new arrivals. Just how much the French like kissing now became abundantly clear. Everyone was at it. There was a flurry of ‘double pecks’ landing on every available cheek—well, every available cheek above the waist. Soon the hall was a noisy place, as friends and neighbours began to catch up with the latest news and gossip. The place bustled. White hair, thinning hair, brunette mops of tousled hair and little girls’ pigtails all took their turns in occasionally bobbing above or in between the sea of bodies. It seemed like every hairdo that had ever adorned a hairdresser’s window was on show, maybe because this wasn’t just a glimpse of a rural community, but a snapshot of one that had undergone a steady settlement by the odd professional, or Parisian, or, more recently, Brit. Each, of course, with their own peculiar approach to styling their locks.

In no time I too was thrust into a whirlwind of introductions, largely orchestrated by Malcolm and Anne, but also by my new friend the mayor, who evidently approved of
transhumance
-avoiding winos. Along with every new name came an explanation of who everyone was, what they did and where they lived, and soon my mind was reeling from all this new information. I was relieved when we were called to the table.

“Where do we sit?” I quickly called out to Malcolm.

“Anywhere you like,” he hastily replied, before being grabbed by a burly man with a broad bushy moustache. “You’ll be all right, won’t you?” he said, adding over his shoulder as he was led away to the far end of one of the tables, “Just sit anywhere.”

“Of course.”

The words momentarily echoed in my head: “Just sit anywhere.” Suddenly it felt like I was boarding the plane that had brought me here—one of the budget flights that had long since dispensed with anything as passe as a seat number. It’s preferable, it seems, to have an initial scrum amongst the passengers who are desperate to have the best choice of the almost identical seats. It also works very well for the sloths like me who amble onto the plane last of all, having relaxed and read during the twenty minutes that it’s taken the seat enthusiasts to board. The sloth figure can then choose whose flight to spoil by selecting a victim and sitting next to them, just when they thought they were going to have the entire journey blessed with lots of elbow room and air space. Sometimes you can hear their sigh of disappointment as you lower yourself into the adjacent seat. Oh, the joy of it all.

Just as I was surveying the steadily filling tables and deciding whose elbow room I might hamper here, I felt a tap on my back.

“Hello, I’m Mary,” said a voice, and I turned to see a lady smiling at me. She looked positively Irish, I thought.

“I’m from Ireland,” she continued.

God, I was good. There was something about how white she was. She was Irish white.

“Hello, I’m Tony.”

“Yes, I know. You’ve met my son.”

“Really?”

“Yes, come and sit over here.”

And with those words, the short-lived dilemma of where to sit was over.

As we sat down, the dark-haired and sixty-something Mary explained in her gentle Irish brogue that she lived for half of the year in the house two down from where I was about to move. She was a widow who now supported herself by playing the piano in a hotel in nearby Lourdes, mostly for Irish pilgrims who liked a bit of a sing-song after a hard day’s mass and genuflection.

“I play the piano too,” I said enthusiastically. “In fact, one of the reasons for buying the house here is so that I can dedicate myself to practising it.”

“Oh I wish you luck with that. My practising days are long gone.”

“You said that I’ve met your son?”

“Yes, at the Albert Hall in London.”

A couple of years previously I’d been invited to do an opening set of stand-up comedy for the Corrs at their London concert in aid of the Prince’s Trust. It had been the largest audience I had ever played to, and I had been most relieved that the audience had found me amusing. Dying a death in front of three thousand people might have been too much for a performer’s fragile ego to bear. So whilst the Corrs were doing their bit, I watched from the side of the stage and celebrated my ‘success’ by drinking some lovely wine. It kept flowing throughout the Corrs’ performance and continued to flow freely at the after-show party I happily attended, secretly hoping to meet and end up snogging one of the band’s three beautiful sisters. Needless to say, I didn’t. Instead I spoke nonsense to a lot of considerably less pretty blokes, one of whom happened to be Mary’s son, who it turns out plays guitar in the Corrs backing band.

“I’m afraid I have absolutely no recollection of meeting him,” I said. “I was far too pissed.”

Mary gave the traditional Irish response to this, and looked impressed.

“Never mind—you’ll meet again soon, I’m sure.”

“
Bonjour, monsieur, vous etes le nouveau Anglais, n’est-ce pas?
”

I looked up to see a lady in her late sixties or early seventies, beaming broadly from ear to ear. I stood up to greet her, which was enough in itself to cause her to shriek with delight. I absolutely towered over her.

“
Je suis Tony
” I said, looking down on her as politely as I could.

“
Et moi je suis Odette
”

Odette chatted away to me merrily, almost as if we were long-lost friends. Malcolm and Anne had told her about me, she said. They’d said I was very nice. Any friend of theirs was a friend of hers, she added. Did I have any children? No? Odette shook her head. She, as she proudly pointed out, was a great grandmother. To a man in his forties who had yet to father a single child, this was an impressive feat. I knew there wasn’t much to do in the evenings around here but I hadn’t realised that French television was quite so bad.

Then it occurred to me. Maybe this was one of the reasons why I was still single. I had too much to do. People in these parts get married young. Why? Because there’s nothing else to do. It simply cannot be that God looks particularly kindly upon French villages and conveniently puts all their soulmates in the same area. No—far more likely that people got married out of boredom. Could it be that I just hadn’t been bored enough in my life so far?

I felt a tap on my shoulder and I turned to see a pretty blonde girl with her hands full of empty carafes of wine. One of the wait-ressing volunteer force.

“
Porc ou poulet?
” she asked.

Pork or chicken? Was this a question about my preference for the main course or the opening gambit of a traditional local word game? Either way, I got the answer wrong.

“
Avez-vous quelque chose sans viande?
”

The girl looked at me like I was utterly mad. Had she heard me correctly? Was I really asking if they had anything without meat?

“
Pardon?
” she said.

“
Avez-vous quelque chose sans viande?
” I repeated.

The girl tipped her head to one side and gave me a moment to demonstrate that I’d been joking. France is not a great place for the non-meat eater. Years before I’d been on holiday here with friends, one of whom was a vegetarian. When we’d asked if they had anything without meat, the waiter had replied, “Is ham OK?”

“
Porc ou poulet?
” the waitress asked again, this time with a hint of impatience.

I felt the presence of the French couple to my left, and the long table of villagers who stretched beyond them, all of whom seemed now to be eyeing me with suspicion.

I am a man of some considerable principle. A couple of years back, whilst attempting to win the affections of a girl who was a vegetarian, I had renounced meat. My reasons had been two-fold. Firstly, I was sick and tired of the way animals were kept cooped up in a factory environment just so that we could eat cheap meat, and, secondly, I wanted to impress the girl in question. I will leave you to decide which of these two issues contributed most to my decision.

To my credit, long after the girl and I had split up, I continued to shun the meat option, but I was now in a difficult position as I found myself under considerable pressure to opt for either
porc
or
poulet
. How odd did I want my new neighbours to think me? I’d already turned up on my own without a wife or any sign of a woman in tow. What would they think if I now added to that the fact that I didn’t eat meat? Surely I’d just get sent to Rheims, or wherever the French equivalent of Coventry is. No, I didn’t want that—and besides, hadn’t I only the previous day seen just how well the cows were cared for around here?VIP treatment. Personal escorts to mountain pastures. And then there were all those chickens I’d seen outside farm buildings wandering aimlessly about in the roads. These weren’t factory chickens, these were happy, proud, fulfilled little creatures, as ready to face their destiny as any living thing could be. A destiny that would involve being eaten by me, in about five minutes’ time.