2006 - A Piano in The Pyrenees (20 page)

“I think it’s terrific that you’re in touch with your creative side,” I replied. “It’s just a shame that this has to happen when you’re at my place.”

The locals thought I was odd enough as it was. My love of cork, my predilection for making phone calls under bushes and my childish games had seen to that. I could have done without the ‘mad wood’ thing too.

“But the best part is,” continued Kevin, “delivery men will have no problem finding your house now. Just say it’s the house with the wood.”

In one sense, Kevin’s ‘exhibition’ had been my fault. I had complained that the house didn’t have a number. My address was simply my surname and the name of the village. Apparently this sufficed for ‘le Postman Patrice’. However, arranging deliveries from builders’ merchants had been something of a nightmare as I’d had to go through a long and detailed description of where the house was, often having to draw a little map. Why not just have a number? It was one of those French paradoxes. They love bureaucracy but they don’t want to give you a number. And of course if they had deigned to supply me with one, it would have needed to be sufficiently ‘official’, and I’d have ended up living at number G10976835RYV423.

So Kevin, in his own somewhat annoying way, had provided a solution to this particular problem. In future, when ordering tiles or cement, I’d have no problems.

“Turn left off the main road and mine is the house with the mad wood outside.”

Today’s outing was to the jazz festival at Marciac. France loves its festivals and fetes, and in the month of August there are hundreds of thousands of them. Marciac is one of the better known internationally, particularly among jazz aficionados. This quaint fortified town, founded as far back as the thirteenth century, has a population of only 1200 for most of the year, but when it’s festival time 100,000 visitors crop up from nowhere to drop in and lend an ear to what’s going down, man.

Today, three of those visitors were going to be Tony, Nic and Wood Boy. We’d booked no tickets for shows as we’d been told that the whole village becomes a centre for jazz musicians who play all day, giving free concerts in the square and at various bars and cafes. When we arrived the place was buzzing with people, most of whom were pretty cool looking. Jazz seems to attract fewer nerds than, say, heavy metal, although long hair still seems to be de rigueur. The streets were lined with stalls selling anything from sculptures to guitar strings. Every open space had been exploited for some commercial purpose, and a children’s playground had been transformed into a kind of food hall where marquees and canopies housed at least a dozen makeshift restaurants.

We sat down to a late lunch in the picturesque and historic square with its preserved medieval arcades, to be serenaded by three musicians from Toulouse who blended jazz and flamenco styles with surprising success. My feet were tapping so fast that I was beginning to sweat. Mind you, it was oppressively hot.

“I think a storm is brewing,” said Nic.

Fifteen minutes later her meteorological skills were confirmed as the clouds opened and God, or whoever does this kind of stuff, tipped a massive tank of water all over us. It was torrential, the kind of rain that has people reaching for anything to fend it off—newspapers, briefcases or shopping bags. Just a few seconds exposed to this kind of outburst and one is well and truly drenched.

The poor jazz⁄flamenco boys quickly packed up their gear and fled. Clearly the show must not go on—not when electrocution is a possibility. These lads never would have got jobs on the
Titanic
. Suddenly laid-back Marciac had been rudely disturbed. The oasis of calm that had seen dudes sitting back and sipping cocktails as the smooth music washed over them was transformed into a frenzy of activity. People were manically running for cover, scrabbling about for umbrellas or squeezing themselves under porches and shop-fronts. Anything to escape the overpowering wrath of the Pyrenean thunderstorm. August, I was soon to discover, is the month of unexpected and dramatic storms. The reason is quite simple: when the hot air from Spain drifts over the mountains, it collides with the cooler moist air of France, and then…er…well, God gets pissed off and gives us all a sudden storm.↓

≡ Sorry, this isn’t a geography textbook, so that’ll have to do.

The running torrents of water in the village streets told us that our day of jazz was over. We had a choice of huddling under a dripping canopy for four hours and then trying to get into an evening concert somewhere, or heading home. Since we were already damp and we were fast becoming wet, the discussion was short and the decision unanimous.

Five miles out of Marciac, the mountains became visible on the horizon and we were treated to the most amazing natural sound and light show. As dark clouds hung over us, and with a sense of apocalyptic foreboding, we witnessed an unforgettable electric storm. The sky was intermittently illuminated by jagged white bolts flashing from cloud to earth like a dagger plunging into a victim’s heart. Seconds after each one of these explosions of light, the boom of a deafening thunderclap caused us physically to shudder. Each event was followed by our own individual exclamation of wonder (“Wow! Did you see that?” being favourite) and we felt privileged to have such a front row seat for this awesome virtuoso display.

“That one seemed pretty close!” said Nic, after we’d all ‘wowed’ a truly ‘wowable’ lightning bolt. “Do you think we could get hit by one?”

“It’s possible,” said Kev. “But we’d need to be very unlucky.”

“What’s going on when there’s a bolt of lightning?” I asked. “I mean, what actually causes it? And what is it, exactly?”

There was a long pause as each of us tried to recall what we’d been taught many years before. I hauled my mind back to that drab Tuesday afternoon in 1976 when Mr Baxter had taught us all about thunder and lightning. That Tuesday afternoon when I’d not been concentrating properly because far more interesting things were happening outside the window as the headmaster was frogmarching Sally Renn and Mark Fincham to his office.

“I honestly don’t know the physics of what’s going on,” said Kevin. “Awful, isn’t it?”

“I know it’s electrical,” said Nic.

“All I can remember,” I added, “is that the lightning comes first, because light travels faster than sound.”

The townies were pooling their information. They would not be ready to lecture on this subject any time soon.

“We must ask someone,” I said. “We can’t have this going on all around us and not know what it is.”

“We’ll look it up when we get back,” said Kevin, who was not fully cognisant of the number of reference books there were at the house.↓

≡ 0.

It was nightfall before we made it home, and we were greeted by good news and bad news.

The good news: the house had not been struck by lightning.

The bad news: neither had any of Kevin’s pieces of wood.

Immediately we headed for the balcony, drinks in hand, eager to watch the rest of the electrical performance play itself out across the mountains. Up until now I’d always experienced weather. I’d never seen it before. Because that’s—what we were doing—we were watching the weather. And great fun it was too.

“It’s no wonder ancient civilisations believed in an angry God,” I said. “Thunder and lightning don’t really suggest that He’s a benign deity.”

“I guess we all have our off days,” remarked Kevin, not exactly taking the bait for a deep and meaningful conversation.

§

The next day, God was in a better mood. Whoever had pissed Him off must have apologised because the air was clear, the sky was blue and the sun was out. We decided that it was a beautiful morning for a long, leisurely walk around the village.

“How long does it take?” asked Nic.

“About forty-five minutes if you don’t bump into anybody,” I replied. “But I somehow doubt we’ll manage that.”

The old lady at the former sawmill was first. As we walked towards the mill she greeted us with a ‘
bonjour
and then immediately told us she was ninety-three. Younger women, I’ve noticed, tend to be less forthcoming with their age. Presumably there’s a point one reaches in life where being old becomes something to boast about. I wonder if I’m there yet?

“Hello, I’m Tony—I’m forty-four.”

It could be a way to disarm people when you first meet them.

The sawmill lady at ninety-three looked fitter and healthier than many seventy-year-old women I’d seen in Britain. The hardy country life might not involve much yoga but it delivered in other ways, certainly if this woman was anything to go by. The lady was in chatty mood and she told us how this was still actually a working mill, and she even took the time to lead us into the barn in order to turn it on for a few minutes. A series of wooden pulleys and levers kicked into action. There wasn’t a hint of modern technology in sight. She told us that they’d had a flood here in 1973 that had destroyed the sawmill, but that they’d worked like dogs to rebuild it. Then, like a bolt from the blue, her husband had died the following year. Suddenly, in the wrinkles and folds of her ninety-three-year-old face, I could see the lines of pain.

“You just don’t know what life is going to chuck at you,” said Nic as we climbed the hill on the other side of the valley, tucking her arm into Kevin’s and snuggling into his shoulder.

I agreed, and dropped back a couple of paces, allowing the affectionate couple to lead the way.

“It’s not fair,” added Nic.

As I walked alone, I had to concede that she had a point.

I was rather pleased when we bumped into Andre on our walk. I was growing rather fond of him. We saw his diminutive figure as we reached the brow of the hill. He had a stick in his hand and two dogs were running about his ankles. Presumably he had just deposited his six cows in some field somewhere and this had freed him up for chatting, which was something he clearly loved to do. I guess cows, even if you have six of them, don’t provide much in the way of interesting conversation. Even I, with my far from fluent French, could do better. I introduced Kevin and Nic and he shook their hands and welcomed them to the village, asking a string of questions about who they were and what they were doing here. He then beckoned us into his yard, much as he had done with me when he’d shown me his Mobylette.

A guided tour followed. The reason for this remains a mystery, but the tour guide was charming and we were afforded a further fascinating glimpse of life without technology. Apart from the Mobylette, everything Andre showed us appeared to be about a hundred years old and made of wood. (No wonder Kevin looked to be enjoying himself so much.) Andre had no need for modern gadgetry. He hadn’t signed up for the rat race. What did he need to do things at breakneck speed for? He had all day. He had all week. He had all year. Andre didn’t need huge profits. He wasn’t planning on buying a new Volvo, and he didn’t go on holiday. Holiday? What did he need a holiday for? The word ‘stress’ wasn’t in his vocabulary.

Just as Andre was opening a barn door and showing us some new farming paraphernalia, Kevin surprised us all with his next remark.

“Andre,” he said. “Do you know how lightning works?”

Nic and I looked at each other in surprise. When we’d all discussed the possibility of asking someone about this, we’d thought there’d been tacit understanding that we might run it by a university professor or such-like. Not a semi-retired rural farmer in his late seventies. To his credit, Andre was not remotely vexed by the question. Instead, he closed the barn door, turned to face us and launched into a short speech.

The truth, he explained, was that no one really knew how lightning worked. He maintained that this was not the only area where humans were deficient in the knowledge department. When people saw mushrooms in the ground, the fungi were always at a reasonable size, and consequently no one could be exactly sure how they grew. No one actually saw them growing. He held that the same theory could be applied to lightning. It was there sure enough, but nobody knew how it worked.

This was quite brilliant. Clearly, just like us, Andre didn’t have a clue about the science behind a lightning bolt, but the great thing was he knew that he didn’t need to know. Besides, he was confident in the fact that no one else knew anyway. I was determined to embrace this new approach, at least in the short term. Every time I came across something that baffled me, instead of fretting until I received an explanation, I could relax in the knowledge that ‘no one really knows’. Good old Andre had confirmed something for me that I’d strongly suspected all along. All these scientists, physicists and medics who tell you stuff—they don’t really know, you know. Why not? Because ‘no one really knows’. Good old Andre. He was cool. And he had a new follower of ‘Andre-ism’—the philosophy for the twenty-first century.

§

When we got back to the house I received a phone call from Fabrice, the salesman from the swimming pool shop. He said that he’d just looked at the address on my invoice and noticed a coincidence. His girlfriend’s father owned a plot of land in the same village—and they were due to make a visit later that day. Instantly I invited them round for afternoon tea—an offer that seemed to amuse Fabrice, probably because of its Englishness.

“
C’est la maison avec le bois dehors
,” I said.

“
Comment?
” replied a confused Fabrice.

“
Avec le bois fou dehors
”

“
Ah
” said Fabrice, clearly still not sure if I was using the right French words.

“There!” said Kevin, as I hung up. “How useful is that wood?”

“Very,” I replied, noting that Kevin seemed to take pleasure in his art in a different way to many artists.

Kevin and Nic were out on a romantic afternoon walk when Fabrice phoned again for confirmation of where I lived. Presumably he’d thought I’d used the wrong words when I’d talked about ‘mad wood’. I confirmed that I had meant what I’d said and enquired as to how long he thought he’d be.

“
Cinq minutes
,” he replied.

Good—this was just enough time for me to tidy up the front of the house, which had become something of a depository for empty tile boxes and general building debris. As I arranged it all into one neat-ish pile, instead of four untidy ones, I felt the need for a wee.