2006 - A Piano in The Pyrenees

by Tony Hawks

  “You know, my biggest regret is that I didn’t worry a bit more. I had so many opportunities to be more uptight about things and I just didn’t take them. Oh, how I wish I had.”

  This was the general theme of the conversation as Brad and I waited in the airport terminal. After hearing the sad news I’d booked us both on the first available flight back to London. Ron was going to stay on and try to complete the work that we’d started, although I suspected that without company, and without Brad particularly, his work rate would decline considerably.

  “How do you feel?” I asked Brad, as he sipped his coffee.

  “It changes every few minutes,” he replied. “Sometimes I feel strong and then suddenly I feel so alone. Irish Mary summed it up when she popped over to say goodbye. “The world changes when your mum dies,” she said. And she was right.”

  We boarded the plane with a solemnity that belied the nature of the summer that had just passed. But the summer was over. With each passing day it had begun to feel like autumn was looming, and this bereavement somehow made the onset of winter seem more imminent.

  “Ron was amazing,” said Brad, looking down on tiny buildings and miniature vehicles, evidence of people below going about their daily business.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I told Ron what had happened a good couple of hours before you got up. We sat there, drinking tea and smoking his fags. He seemed to know when to ask questions and when to be quiet. At one point he sat in silence opposite me for twenty minutes, while my mind came to terms with the fact that I’d just joined the ‘loss of a parent club’.”

  I still longed to know how Ron had handled things when he’d first come upon the traumatised Brad. Had he coped much better than me?

  “What did Ron do when you told him?” I asked.

  “It was weird. When I struggled to get the words out, he laughed at first. Then, when he saw that something was wrong, he sat down and waited till I was ready. And when I finally spat it out—“My mum died last night”—he found five words that somehow seemed to do the trick.”

  “And they were?”

  “‘Best put the kettle on.’”

  §

  Ron himself flew back a week later. By his own admission he’d done virtually nothing during that time.

  “You only need to sort me out for a couple of half-days,” he said when we met up and I settled up what I owed him.

  My project in France seemed to have ground to a halt. For a while the house felt further south than ever. The family that had once happily occupied it had broken up, and the piano rested untouched beneath a thin layer of concrete dust.

  16

  Home Alone

  It was late October before I set foot back in the house. I’d had to spend some time in England securing some income, since my life in France only offered an expensive outlet for it. I made damn sure I visited my mother, too.

  “Does the house feel like it’s yours yet?” she’d asked, as we’d chatted over tea and biscuits.

  “Yes. It’s really beginning to feel like I belong.”

  “Well, don’t belong too much. Or I won’t get to see you any more.”

  §

  There was a light rain gently cascading down as I pulled the car into the drive and got out to admire the view.

  “Mmm, that’s good,” I said to myself.

  I drew in a deep breath. London was only a matter of hours behind me and yet it seemed a pleasingly long way away. I approached the front door, aware that something felt different about the place. It wasn’t just the cooler air, the silence that replaced the constant sound of jabbering crickets, or the autumnal reds and yellows of the leaves on the trees. Something else appeared not as I’d left it back in August, and I stood looking about me trying to fathom what it was. Then I saw it. The big green dumper bin. The big green dumper bin with my name on it. It was printed in big capital letters across its breadth.

  TONY HAWKS

  Now I felt like I belonged more than I ever had before. What better confirmation could one wish for? I had a green dumper bin inscribed with my name. Surely a sign that I had arrived in this society. I may not have been on the village committee, but clearly now it was only a question of time. My ‘bin status’ meant that I was finally more than just the Englishman who had bought the house in between Pierre and Bruno. I really belonged now, and I had a bespoke green dumper bin to prove it.

  When I opened the front door, still glowing from the welcome of the bin, I could smell that musty aroma again—the one that descends like a cloud over a property that’s been vacated for more than seven days. This time I was walking into the house alone. The purpose of my trip was twofold. In my bag was a screenplay that I thought I’d finished earlier in the year but which now required a further rewrite, according to the producers. The house seemed like just the spot to do it. This could be more than a place to practise the piano, it could be an ideal location to work.

  I wandered onto the balcony and surveyed the rolling hills beyond. They were about to be enveloped by swooping dark clouds. It wasn’t a nice day, and yet the view was fascinating. That was one of the things I liked about this place. You could really see the weather, not just feel it.

  I knew that the coming days were to be a real test for what this house meant to me. How would I cope living here alone? Up until now I’d always had the company of friends. Now there was just me and the distant echo of the cowbells. Would it be too quiet? Would I go stir crazy?

  The answer was not long in coming. Barely after I’d unpacked my bags I got my first caller. It was Michel saying that he’d seen my car outside and wanting to know if I would come and have dinner with him and his wife Christine in a couple of nights’ time. Half an hour after that Malcolm and Anne dropped in, followed shortly afterwards by Irish Mary. Rene the Mayor waved jovially from his car, and Pierre and I chatted over the fence. It all felt pretty uplifting. It was just a shame I didn’t have anybody to share it with. This time, not even Ron.

  I still had a long night ahead of me. I had no television for company, just the endless babble of French radio. No problem—there was the piano. Here was a perfect opportunity to practise. I sat down. I put my hands over the keys. But nope. I just wasn’t in the mood to play.

  Never mind. I could do some work. I got out my laptop and laid it on the table in front of me. I looked at my screenplay. Nope. I was in the wrong frame of mind for that, too. It was no good. There was nothing for it but to go out. I paced the balcony considering my options. Since a trip to the theatre, cinema multiplex or jazz club wasn’t really on, I opted for what has been the solace of the solitary male for centuries. A beer in a bar. And I knew exactly what bar it was going to be.

  I’d driven past the Bar des Sports on numerous occasions, and each time I had been impressed by the number of authentic-looking Frenchmen contained therein. At least 50 per cent wore berets, and the rest looked like extras from a film by Marcel Pagnol. This seemed to me to be where Bagnere’s bachelors hung out to discuss the day’s events and, perhaps towards the end of the evening, allow themselves the odd maudlin reflection on how love had passed them by. I hoped that I wouldn’t fit in too readily.

  I parked the car and approached the entrance to the busy bar with some apprehension. Tonight was going to be the first time I would enter it instead of just peering inside inquisitively. As I pushed open the bar’s glass door it felt like everyone present was dying to see who it was that was coming in. There seemed to be a strange enquiring twinkle in their eyes. They were looking at me in the same way that dogs look at people, with an odd mixture of hope and bewilderment. Heads weren’t turning as such, but I was conscious that at every table, eyes were straining in their sockets, anxious to see the stranger but without making any noticeable head movement. The noise level quickly dipped from raucous to hushed.

  I tried not to be self-conscious as I moved slowly to the bar, feeling a little like the bad guy in a scene from a Western. The square room was dott
ed with about eight tables and dominated by a large staircase at the back with a sign hanging over it pointing down to les toilettes. Further along the bar were men in grubby work clothes drinking brightly coloured spirits. Their drinks looked lethal. The barman, who was strong, greasy-haired and deeply tanned, cocked his head in preparation for my order.

  “Une biere, s’il vous plait ,” I said.

  The barman nodded and the murmurs increased in volume. It was almost as if each group at every table was discussing my choice of drink:

  “Did you hear that?”

  “He’s gone for a beer.”

  “I’d expected as much.”

  “What’s wrong with our wine?”

  The barman passed me my beer with a nod and I turned to see where I could sit. As I did so, I was confronted by a sea of staring faces, all quickly darting their eyes away in the vain hope of keeping up the pretence that I was of no interest. I sat at the only empty table in the place, took out my screenplay and began reading. Or rather, pretending to read. I was too fascinated by everything that was going on all around me to focus properly. And then it occurred to me how odd the music was. I don’t know why I hadn’t noticed it before because it was loud enough, but I guess my senses were preoccupied with absorbing the new environment. Weirdly, it was marching brass band music, and it seemed distincdy Germanic. It was music that wouldn’t have been out of place in a bar full of men in lederhosen. I strained my ears for the sound of an accordion somewhere in the musical mix, but there was nothing. This was all very un-French. I started to wonder if I’d walked in on the Bigourdian division of the ‘Third Reich Appreciation Society’.

  Suddenly a hush similar to the one that had greeted me upon my arrival descended over the room as a large bearded man emerged from the toilets downstairs and walked slowly to the bar. As he did so, the barman turned around, picked up a cassette and proceeded to change the music. French accordion now replaced the Germanic marching band and everything reverted to what you might expect in a French bar.

  What had just happened? I ruminated on the various possibilities as I slowly made headway through my beer. Was this man so important that he demanded theme music whenever he moved anywhere? No, that couldn’t be. I decided that it must have been that he suffered from a form of constipation meaning he could only go if his toilet visits were accompanied by the sounds of a loud Tyrolean marching band. The proprietor of this joint certainly took care of his regulars. (Or not so regulars, in this case.)

  Just as I was deciding whether to stay for a second beer, or call it a night before I was inducted into some strange cult, I was approached by one of the men who had been standing at the bar and indulging in the spirit-drinking session.

  “You? You are English?” he demanded.

  “Yes, I am.”

  “Ah bon. Do you want to buy a house? I have a house to sell in Montauban. You buy it?”

  “I have a house here already, thank you.”

  The man shrugged and moved off, and rejoined his pals wearing a kind of ‘well, I tried, didn’t I?” expression. I wondered how long it would take him to sell his property if this was his sole method of marketing it. Waiting till someone English came into the bar and then confronting them brusquely might save on agent’s commission, certainly, but it might require more than a healthy dollop of good luck too.

  Deciding that this might not necessarily be the place to make new and lasting friendships, I took a final swig of my beer and started to move towards the door. I was stopped by a firm hand on my shoulder, and I turned round to see an unambiguously drunk man before me, finger raised in anticipation of delivering something of great import.

  “Moi, j’suis couvreur” he said. “Vous avez b’soin d’un couvreur chez vous?”

  This translates as: “Me, I’m a roofer. Do you need a roofer at your gaff?”

  I tried to think of a way of letting him down gently.

  “Non, merci ,” I said, just before I closed the door to the bar behind me.

  OK, so I failed on the ‘letting him down gently’ front.

  As I drove home I began to worry whether I could ever fully assimilate myself into this society. OK, perhaps the Bar des Sports hadn’t been the best choice that I could have made for the evening, but the truth was that there weren’t that many options. Most of the other places I’d regularly driven past had always been empty by 9pm. And what if I did manage to make the acquaintance of a few of the locals? What would we talk about? I wasn’t great on chatting about crop rotation, pigeon shooting, or the best way to slaughter a pig.

  Perhaps that was why Roger had been so insistent that I should find myself une petite Anglaise. Maybe I’d have to call him’wise old Roger’ from now on.

  §

  In the morning the house performed well in its new role as ‘workplace’. By setting up my laptop close to the window, lifting my head offered me a glimpse of the mountains, and so whenever the creative muse drifted beyond reach, I was able to look out of the window and receive an inspirational tonic from the beauty that lay on the horizon.

  The cooler weather and the absence of Ron meant that une sieste was no longer a temptation after lunch. Instead I decided I would take some exercise. In fact, in preparation for the arrival of my own swimming pool (surely to be completed some time in the next decade), I chose the option of a dip in the local baths. By and large I have noticed that French towns are well served with sporting facilities, and Bagneres-de-Bigorre is no exception. Every time I drove into town I passed the big municipal swimming pool on my left-hand side, and today was the day when I would profit from the healthy exercise that it offered within.

  I am used to swimming pools being places where notices abound telling you what not to do, usually in a needlessly authoritarian manner. I can remember having been to pools in Britain and been confronted with an array of officious signs:

  NO DIVING

  NO RUNNING

  NO BOMBING

  NO DUCKING

  NO PETTING

  The only one missing is the one that says:

  NO ENJOYING YOURSELVES.

  Having changed into my swimming shorts and passed under the compulsory shower (always an irritation that, as it denies you the treat of your plunge into the pool being your first taste of the refreshing water), I made my way over to the deep end and started to contemplate whether I should dive in or not. I couldn’t see any NO DIVING signs, and even if there was one around somewhere I could claim that I hadn’t understood it if I was soundly admonished by the humourless and bored lifeguard. (Lifeguards are like this the world over. It’s mandatory.)

  Just as I was about to arch my body into a beautiful dive, a piercing whistle penetrated the atmosphere and I looked up to see two lifeguard types rushing towards me as if I was some kind of terrorist.

  “Non! Non! Non, non, non, non!” one of them shouted.

  A confused conversation followed in which I tried to figure out what on earth I could be doing to cause such excitement. There was a lot of animated pointing going on, firstly at my swimming shorts and then at their own swimwear. They were wearing those ridiculously skimpy tight trunks traditionally worn by men on beaches who believe they are irresistible to women, and who try to chat up every female they see. The pointing continued but I still couldn’t understand what message these two men were trying to communicate. Did they want me to swap costumes with them?Were these men representatives of an ofishoot of the Bigourdian Third Reich Appreciation Society explaining another of their rituals? Or had everyone gone slightly mad in this part of the world since I’d last been over?

  “Il est interdit!” said the taller of the two men, pointing to my surf shorts.

  Interdit meant ‘forbidden’. Surely they couldn’t be telling me that my choice of swimwear was illegal. We weren’t in some kind of rogue police state overseen by an eccentric dictator—we were in Bagneres-de-Bigorre. Surely it wasn’t compulsory for male swimmers to wear the obscene skimpy trunks being modelled by the two m
en before me?

  “Il fautles changer ,” said the second man.

  But it was true. They were actually insisting that unless I changed there would be no swim for me. For some reason (which escapes me to this day), in the swimming pool in Bagneres you have to wear skimpy trunks. Nothing else is permitted. No disgusting swimming shorts like the ones I was wearing—never mind that they’d been specifically made for swimming. This was the rule and the French like their rules, and they are extremely good at making sure they’re observed. There is no French translation for the sentence: “Well, you’re here now, you may as well have a swim—but don’t forget to wear the right trunks next time.”

  Unbelievably, I had to leave the pool. In fact, I was chaperoned out like some kind of criminal. My offence had been to wear a swimsuit that didn’t reveal my tackle to the small children who were dotted around the pool. I’d been well out of order. It was clear that if I wanted to swim here I would have to go out and purchase some skimpy pervy trunks, the likes of which would possibly be considered too risque for public pools in England. Oh well—vive la difference.

  Rather chastened by this experience, I returned home and opted for a form of exercise less likely to cause such controversy. A walk around the village. It was something I’d meant to do a lot more than I had, and despite the fact that it sounded like a rather la⁄y Sunday afternoon activity, the gradients involved made it a legitimate aerobic exercise, provided you kept up a decent pace.