2006 - A Piano in The Pyrenees (12 page)

“
Poulet
” said the deeply principled one, as the young waitress smiled back politely.

Actually it wasn’t just chickens who would be at the business end of my newfound philosophy. My hosts provided a menu that made me feel like some kind of born-again carnivore. After a slightly odd starter of peach stuffed with tuna, we were brought Bayonne ham and bread followed by venison stew and potatoes. Forgetting about my previous order for chicken, I assumed that this was the main course and wolfed down two helpings. Then the chicken arrived. Huge portions, again served with potatoes. I was already stuffed, but once again I felt the heavy force of peer pressure and bowed to it immediately. My stomach began to swell. A lettuce salad arrived next, followed by cheese and yet more bread. Then it was the turn of a vast tranche of strawberry tart, to be washed down with coffee and Armagnac. I undid the button at the top of my trousers and sat back in my chair. I needed to rest from what had seemed like some sort of new Olympic event. The Food Marathon or the 1500-metre Gluttony.

Fuelled by the aperitifs, the free-flowing wine and the brandy, many of the villagers were now on their feet, mixing and mingling. I noted with some apprehension that Rene was having a long chat with Jean-Claude. I wanted to go and join them to make sure that the conversation didn’t turn to the subject of my predilection for corks, but I was too bloated to move. When it came to socialising I would have to wait for people to come to me. And come to me they did. Soon I was introduced to Roger, a jovial fellow of about fifty with just the most infectious giggle. He swept from person to person, shaking hands, chuckling and generally demonstrating why the French had come up with the word ‘bonhomie’. Then there was Serges, a vast ruddy-complexioned man of Roger’s age who sported a broad, bulging moustache and who bellowed incomprehensibly at me in an extremely good-humoured manner. His mate Alain (also a big bloke but not so well endowed on the moustache front) came and joined in with him, laughing, joking and generally doing a lot of slapping me on the back. This backslapping was being administered a tad too heavy-handedly and it was beginning to hurt a bit, as well as making me feel slightly nauseous. I didn’t let on though, and grinned incessantly.↓

≡ It was probably a smarmy grin—a bit like the one Tony Blair does when an interviewer has him in a bit of a corner.

“Come and meet Andre,” said Malcolm, who was looking a little the worse for wear himself. “He’s one of the great village characters.”

I struggled, pensioner-like, from my chair and followed Malcolm, who gave me a brief character sketch of Andre as we crossed the hall.

“He’s about seventy-five and he’s lived in the village all his life. The trouble is, he can be quite difficult to understand because he has a strong local accent, and it’s made even worse by the fact that he quite often lapses into the Gascon dialect of Occitan.”

“Ah yes,” I said. “The Gascon dialect of Occitan. My grasp of that is a little rusty, partly because I never really paid too much attention to it at school.”

“It’s a kind of hybrid of French, Spanish and Andalucian.”

I knew more about this than I was letting on to Malcolm, having read about it only days before. Occitan had never been officially accorded the status of a distinct language but it was a product of the many centuries before the eventual establishment of Spain and France, when every valley was like a mini-republic with its own patois. Andre’s use of the language proved that he was a descendant of an era when someone who travelled more than twenty miles was considered an adventurer.

“Andre has never married,” said Malcolm. “And he’s got some great stories of his childhood when the Nazis had occupied the area.”

Malcolm had taken on a new role. He was becoming to me a little like a Greek chorus is to the audience, filling me in on all the significant details that weren’t immediately obvious from the action. With regard to Andre, in only a couple of minutes he had well and truly whetted my appetite. I couldn’t wait to meet this old man.

Andre was not a disappointment. We found him chatting to another elderly man who quickly moved off when we arrived. Andre was a small, balding man with an open face, grey moustache and unfeasibly white scalp. Malcolm later told me that this was because the only time he removed his beret was when he came to the village events. The rest of the time his monastic bald pate was spared any exposure to the elements or to the rest of the world. But for now, the contrast between sun-soaked deep-tan face and Persil snow-white skull was simply magnificent. It was strange too that I should meet Andre on the only day of the year when he looked like this. The next time our paths crossed I might struggle to recognise him.

We began chatting and at first his accent seemed impenetrable, but slowly I began to pick out more and more of what he was saying. It was small talk at first, discussing the meal, where I was going to live and how nice it was to have mountains all around us. Then, in something of a stylish non sequitur, I asked him what he remembered of life here under the German invasion. To his credit, Andre reacted as if this had been the natural topic to move onto after having just covered the loveliness of the mountains. He told me that he had been thirteen when it had all happened but that he could remember it as if it was yesterday. I said that I would love to come round to see him and hear some of these stories and he replied that I was most welcome but that he didn’t have any milk in. This rather threw me. I know that I’d kicked off the stylish non sequiturs, but I hadn’t expected him to follow suit with such aplomb. Or perhaps I’d misunderstood.

“
Pardon?
” I queried.

“
Je n’ai pas de lait
.”

No, I wasn’t mistaken. He was telling me that he didn’t have any milk in.

And then it dawned on me. Andre thought that I wanted to go round to his house right now to hear these stories and he wanted to let me know that we couldn’t have coffee because he didn’t have all the requisite ingredients in.

“
Non, pas immediatement
,” I explained. “
Une autre fois
”.

Andre looked relieved that this could be done at another time. A time when he could have a decent supply of milk in. A time when there wasn’t a party going on, which now seemed to be getting into full swing.

“
Une biere, Tony?
” said a voice, accompanied by a hearty slap on the back.

This was clearly the trademark of Alain, who, when I turned round, was standing there holding out a bottle of beer. To be honest, I wasn’t sure whether a beer was altogether a good idea. After all, I’d already consumed a good deal of Ricard, red wine and brandy, but Alain had gone to the trouble so it probably would have been rude not to. I took the bottle and was instantly ushered over to a table where cards were being played.

“
C’est belote
,” announced Alain. “
Allez jouer!
”

Now I definitely wasn’t sure about this. Learning a new game of cards is hard enough, but when you add the fact that the rules will be explained in a foreign language, you hardly know what any of the cards are called, and you’ve drunk and eaten yourself into a state where all you’re good for is a bit of a lie-down—then it’s something best avoided.

“
Non merci
,” I replied.

“Mai’s
oui!
” insisted Alain, who then slapped me on the back.

It was starting to feel like this backslapping leant more towards coercion than camaraderie. I was manhandled into a chair alongside a gentle white-haired lady and opposite Serges—he of the bulbous moustache. Beside him was Christine, the young waitress who had offered me the Hobson’s choice of
porc ou poulet
. After vociferous introductions from Alain I learned that the old lady was Marie, mother of’bonhomie’ Roger, and that Christine was the daughter of the deputy mayor.

“
Bonne chance!
” said Alain, inevitably providing me with a slap on the back as his parting shot.

And I needed it. Things didn’t get off to a good start when Christine explained that we were only going to use thirty-two cards. In my addled state I felt that this was unreasonable. Why not use the whole pack? We had them, and they were ours. It seemed silly not to take advantage. However, I showed great restraint and said nothing as Christine continued her short resume of the rules.

I now discovered that listening to the rules of cards is just like listening to directions. You only concentrate for the beginning bit and then you allow yourself to get distracted by different features of the information provider. Their hair, their mannerisms and, in this case, their eyes. Christine had lovely eyes.

“
Tu as tout compris?
” she asked, when she’d finished.

“Oui,” I replied.

This was a downright lie. Of course I hadn’t understood everything. I had only the faintest grasp of what had just been said, but Christine didn’t need to know that, and neither did anyone else.

They only needed to wait a matter of seconds before they found out, though. I led a high card and everybody immediately said, “
Non, non!
” I led a much lower one and everyone still said, “
Non
” Confused, I led the seven of hearts, and despite a few tuts, this seemed to be accepted. This clearly wasn’t the best of leads, but at least it fell within the parameters of the rules.

The game continued with me doing my best to look plausibly absorbed, but I was not someone who was gaining knowledge with each passing hand. All I could fathom was that we were playing some kind of whist hybrid, seemingly tailored for the express purpose of confusing the English.

One of the requirements of the game was that I had to shout ‘
Valet tournant!
” every time a jack was turned over. I did this obediently and with a great sense of purpose, totally oblivious to its significance. Occasionally I was urged to take a jack, at which point I had to shout ‘
Valet prenant!
” Secretly I hoped that the gusto and enthusiasm with which I performed these pronouncements would more than make up for the pig’s ear that I was making of everything else.

I’m not sure that it did. We played three games. In the first I was paired with Christine, in the second with Serges and in the third with Marie. I lost all three of them. I hate it when you get a run of bad luck like that.

I felt a slap on my back. Inevitably it was Alain, offering me another beer and asking me if I’d like to come and see his swimming pool. It was an odd request, but he announced that since I was English I’d certainly be wanting to put a pool in at my house. Splendidly bold presumption, I thought.

“My…swimming pool…is…very good!” he announced. “Only two minutes from here. Come!”

And with those words he began lifting me from my chair. He then led me by the arm out of the village hall. Had I not known that he lived with his girlfriend, I might have been less relaxed than I was. “Relaxed’ is of course a euphemism for wobbly on the feet, and we were both very relaxed. The short walk to his house was made hazardous by the fact that we had to avoid sober people who were arriving for the evening leg of this epic feast. No doubt Alain and I cut impressive figures as we meandered erratically past them offering up slurred ‘
bonsoirs
”.

“The new boy seems to be settling in just fine,” they might well have observed as we crossed.

Alain’s pool completely dominated his back garden. There was barely room for anything else. He extended his arm proudly towards it, almost as if he was inviting me to dive in fully clothed. I opted for a compliment instead.

“It’s very good,” I said. “Very good indeed.”

And it was. It was good. Everything about it was good. But if only I could have thought of something else to add. All the possibilities that sprang to mind would have seemed like I was taking the piss:

“It’s a very nice blue.”

“The water’s shimmering nicely in the evening sun.”

“Good shape. Rectangular is good.”

“The filtration system seems to be chugging along nicely.”

“Nice ladder.”

As I looked at Alain’s fine blue rectangular pool with its water shimmering in the evening sun, filtration system chugging along nicely and its nice ladder, I began to wonder if a pool was something that I should consider. I’d always assumed that owning a swimming pool would be too much bother. All that business people have to go through with niters, chlorine, covers and leaf removal. It never seems to me to be outweighed by the enjoyment attained from the actual time they spend swimming in it. But right now, relaxed as I was, I was tempted.

“I think I ought to get one,” I announced drunkenly, as if it was as easy as buying a shirt.

“
Une bonne idee
,” confirmed Alain, before leading me back to the village hall.

There was something of a throng of new people gathered inside the door as we stepped back into the hall. Rene the Mayor welcomed us like newcomers, as did his smartly shirted posse. They seemed to have forgotten that they’d already greeted us thus some hours before. Or maybe they were just on ‘greeting auto-pilot’. Suddenly, and with some horror, I realised that I was still only halfway through the day’s social proceedings and that I would now be required to consume another meal, even before I’d had time to digest the first. And it wasn’t just food with which I’d have to contend—there’d be more drink too.

“
Un aperitif, monsieur?
” asked a volunteer waitress I’d not seen before.

“
Oui, un Ricard
,” I replied.

Well, if a thing’s worth doing, it’s worth doing properly.

I have to confess to not remembering a great deal about the second gargantuan repast of the day. What I do recall is that whilst my stomach bulged unattractively, Jean-Claude, the owner of the house I was buying, stood up and made a speech saying goodbye to everyone in the village. Towards the end he welcomed me,
le nouveau Anglais
, and led everyone in a warm round of applause. I think I may have welled up a bit. I felt like grabbing each and every one of them and slobbering and slurring ‘I bloody love you’ into their ears at too high a volume, just like the street wino that I was getting ever closer to resembling.