A House in the Sunflowers

by Ruth Silvestre

  Outside it was very dark. In the beam of my headlights the tractors swung their empty trailers out one behind the other into the narrow road. Slowly I drove behind them, illuminating the trundling convoy. Their one visible light was a revolving yellow lamp high up on a pole at the rear of the tractor seat and its hypnotic effect and my fatigue made it hard to stay awake as, followed by the occasional motorist impatient to overtake, we wound slowly homeward.

  At supper Grandpa was the liveliest I had seen him all summer. ‘It does me good a bit of exercise like that,’ he shouted. ‘A bit of twisting and turning and lifting. Otherwise I’m always bent forward.’ I wondered whether he would be stiff the following day, but the next morning I saw him in the distance, his gun over his shoulder, striding down across the field, the dogs at his heels.

  It was another glorious morning. Was October always like this? Probably not. One thing we have learned is that the weather here can be unpredictable but the sun is much stronger than in England and that is, after all, why we came. That morning there was a warm wind blowing from the south – le Vent d’Autan they call it here. After breakfast I took my chair round onto the south-facing terrace. It was Sunday and there was no sound apart from the sighing of the wind blowing across empty fields. Yet without moving my head I could see so many creatures. A cricket bent a blade of grass as it climbed, a lizard basked on a stone at my feet. A miner bee backed out of her perfectly cylindrical hole, tidying it before flying off in search of food. A swarm of newly hatched ants was being shepherded by what looked like six large winged prefects and small red and black insects ran up the stems of the hollyhocks and into the seed pods. A daddy-long-legs tottered across the grass on high heels and suddenly a tree frog called from the honeysuckle behind me.

  If only there were more birds like the thrushes and blackbirds that I see in my London garden. Here they shoot them all. The only birds that are safe are the tits, swallows, woodpeckers and buzzards, for they are inedible. Yet I once heard Grandpa discussing magpie soup which he had eaten as a child.

  ‘What about crow soup?’ someone asked.

  ‘Not bad,’ he replied, ‘but the skin is tough.’

  The children grimaced. ‘We were poor,’ he shouted, ‘we had to eat what there was.’

  Now he and Grandma are comfortable. State pensions are more generous here than in England and the old couple only work because they have always done so. Each year when we leave we wonder whether they will survive the winter. Grandma is particularly frail and her eyes are not good. When we first came she was always planting things for me in the garden; shrubs and bulbs and sprigs of broom that she dug up in the woods. Now she often just sits and dreams and her tiny feet shuffle when she walks.

  I left my chair and walked through the house to the other side. Standing under the wide porch I could see someone else with a gun emerging from the edge of the wood high up under the hill. There’s nothing left to shoot but they love to dress up and pretend and on a morning like this who could blame them? Tomorrow we would harvest the last of the grapes and then close the house, hand the keys to Raymond and leave for England.

  CHAPTER TWO

  It was late in the long, hot, dry summer of ’76 when we first found our house in the sun. Semi-derelict and quite overgrown, it had been on the market for three summers and no one had lived in it for eleven years. I like to think that it was waiting for us. My husband Mike and I are lizards. Normally workaholics, when the sun is strong and the air warm our only urgency is to bask. I once briefly contemplated marriage with a handsome, fair-skinned young man with whom I imagined myself in love until, on a day trip to the sea, he covered his splendid legs with a towel in case they burned and I knew that he was not for me.

  Each summer we would drive our two sons as far south as time and money would allow. We would all idly dream of buying a house in Italy or Spain even though we knew we could not afford it. It was not until we went to the south west of France where we discovered old houses, abandoned and not expensive – the French much preferring to build smart new villas – that we realised for the first time that our dream might just become reality. In Lot-et-Garonne we fell in love with a region of small undulating farms, medieval hill-top towns, their balconies crammed with flowers, incredibly cheap, gastronomic menus and simple, friendly people. Even then it was to take us five years to find what we wanted.

  Each holiday we would point the car south west from Calais. The search was on and it filled a need in me for something to absorb me completely. Ever since I had finished playing at the Piccadilly Theatre in ‘Man of La Mancha’ I had felt a great restlessness. Musical roles like Dulcinea in the story of Don Quixote are once in a lifetime and I had been incredibly lucky to get it – and even luckier to repeat it the following summer playing opposite Richard Kiley who had created the role on Broadway. The notices made my agent happy.

  It was a special show. The distinguished critic of the New York Times, Brooks Atkinson wrote: ‘In the final scene Dulcinea and Don Quixote are not figures of fun but enlightened human beings who know something private but beautiful that is outside the range of ordinary experience.’ Small wonder that I found the world of cabaret and one-nighters to which I had returned less than satisfying.

  Looking for our house in the sun became almost an obsession and in the next five years we must have seen scores of houses. We looked at complete ruins, converted or unconverted barns, neatly restored villas, even shacks made of wattle and daub which looked as though a high wind would blow them away, but we found nothing that was exactly right. And of course each year when we returned our slowly growing savings were outstripped by rising prices. Would we ever find the right house in the right location at a price we could afford?

  That summer we had almost been persuaded by an English entrepreneur, living in the south west, to buy a huge barn that he had found and to let him supervise the conversion. Still undecided we went to have another look. The interior was huge. The walls of beautiful, honey-coloured stone were a metre thick and the original wooden stalls still full of hay. However, one wall needed to come down and be completely rebuilt, it was too close to the road and the distant view was marred by a giant pylon. But it was, not surprisingly, very cheap and our holiday was almost over. Could we bear to go home once more disappointed? That night we lay awake.

  ‘Is that what we’ve really been looking for?’ asked Mike.

  ‘No.’ I had to admit it. And that was that.

  We decided to forget the wretched barn and spend just one more day searching. We had gradually established priorities and the first had to be the one thing which we could not change – the location. Next morning at an agency that we had not tried before we explained, as best we could, what it was that we were looking for. The agent, a plump, dishevelled blonde, seemed sympathetic and armed with her list of three possibilities we set off yet again. The first house turned out to be a sagging wooden cabin in a gloomy valley. We did not even stop. So much for her understanding. It was no good, we might as well start thinking about going back to England. Even the intrepid Matthew was getting fed up with all this fruitless house-hunting.

  It was midday. We looked at the second name on the list and consulted our, by now, dog-eared map. The owner, a M. Bertrand, lived in a farm on the edge of a village about six kilometres away. We might as well just go and look. We could, perhaps, eat our picnic in the village square and buy a drink at the café. As we approached the village – hardly even that: a shop, a church, two petrol pumps with an urn of oleanders on either side and a telephone box under a tree – nothing moved. It appeared deserted. We climbed out of the van into the midday heat and looked about us. The stillness was broken by the creak of a gate and turning we saw a very small, very old woman in a dark speckled pinafore and carpet slippers coming silently towards us. Did she by any chance know M. Bertrand, the farmer, we asked her? She smiled, raising her thin eyebrows.

  ‘Mais, bien sûr Monsieur,’ she whispered, pointing down the road ahead. We
did not know then of course, that she had known him for forty years and others in the village for twice as long.

  Several tethered dogs barked wildly as we drove into the farmyard. The house was quite imposing and the garden ablaze with asters and zinnias. A boy about the same age as Matthew came out of a side door. He had long brown legs, a smiling intelligent face and he explained that his father was ‘en train de manger’. We apologised for we knew, even then, that there could hardly be a greater crime than interrupting a Frenchman’s meal, especially at midday.

  ‘We’ll come back later,’ we said, but at that moment M. Bertrand himself appeared, wiping his greasy chin with the back of his hand. He was small but sturdy, dark-eyed, his sunburnt feet in dusty espadrilles. We apologised for disturbing him but he shook his head and smiled. It was nothing. Yes, he did have a house for sale, he would be glad to show it to us. He climbed onto a small motorcycle. We protested. It was always slightly embarrassing to have to explain to any vendor that their house was really very charming but not exactly what was required – and to have to do so after dragging this poor man from his meal!

  ‘If you’ll just tell us how to get there,’ we pleaded, ‘we’ll go and look and then, if we are interested, we’ll call back.’

  He smiled at us, shaking his head.

  ‘Impossible,’ he said. ‘You’d never find it.’

  It was at that moment that we had our first stirrings of excitement.

  ‘Is it well situated?’ asked Mike.

  ‘Better than here,’ he yelled over the sudden roar of the bike and away he careered down the drive. We followed.

  Two hundred yards along the winding, narrow road he suddenly disappeared from view as he turned to the right up a rough track and we turned, bumping and swaying behind him. The track swung left, climbing and narrowing through dry, head-high maize. At the far end of this tunnel we could just glimpse two ruined walls and a great heap of stones. Our hearts sank. Was that it? The farmer, no doubt realising what we were thinking, turned and, pointing at the ruin, shook his head, the bike lurching wildly. Another turn, this time to the right, past a dried-up pond and a large barn and as he stopped, we saw our house for the first time.

  The engines switched off, the sudden stillness was overwhelming as we climbed down into the dry, bleached grass. As our ears adjusted we became aware of the papery rustling of the maize and the shrilling of crickets in the dry, sweet air. It was very hot although the sun was obscured by thin cloud and as we walked toward the house we all spoke quietly as though someone were asleep.

  It was a long, low building and, from what seemed to be the front, which I now know is the back, it appeared featureless. The end section on the right seemed to be an afterthought, having been roofed in different tiles from the ancient Roman ones which slithered down the remainder of the roof.

  ‘That part is not so old,’ said M. Bertrand. ‘Not quite a hundred years I think.’

  ‘And the rest?’ I enquired.

  He shrugged. ‘Two hundred, three hundred, perhaps more. Who knows?’ He led us round the side of the house where a long-neglected vine had interwoven with a japonica bush. It had climbed higher than the roof and then twisted over to form a long, shady, ragged tunnel full of spiders’ webs.

  The real front of the house now came into view. The nearest corner was almost hidden by what had probably once been a neat box hedge but was now a tall, straggling screen of trees. Beyond this the roof sloped steeply down to form a wide porch. Behind two low iron gates of uneven width we could see a stone well, an ancient front door and a collection of cobwebbed clutter; lengths of string and wire posts and broomhandles and cracked clay pots. M. Bertrand shooed away the cows which grazed right up to the porch and taking out a huge key on a tattered shred of dark red cloth, he unlocked the door.

  Stepping into that cool, dark interior was the strangest experience for the furniture was still there, layered with dust and cobwebs as if in a fairy tale; yet even after all those years of neglect I still felt the strong sense of its having been loved and cared for. M. Bertrand pushed the shutters open and the fierce light flooded in through the grimy glass showing more clearly the long table, rickety chairs, and a sideboard, dark and massive with an old lady’s straw hat lying on the top. I picked it up and slowly put it on and I knew then that this was the house I wanted. Something about continuity; impossible to explain.

  In this main room, to the side of the one small, deep-set window were two tiny wood-burning stoves. Their sooty chimney pipes crossed the greasy wall to join the main chimney breast of the wide, open fireplace, the hearth a simple iron plate on the floor. An opening to the left led to the newer part of the house which consisted of two quite large rooms opening off this main room. M. Bertrand opened one door then another.

  ‘Attention!’ he shouted as we began to follow him. We soon saw why. Unlike the first room which had a cement floor, these were wooden but, alas, now almost entirely eaten away. As he swung the shutter open I shrieked as an outraged bat flew from its home between the joists, skimming my face as it hurtled out of doors.

  Mike, always more practical than I, was looking very doubtful. ‘It’ll all have to be completely re-done,’ he muttered as we went back into the main room and looked up at the ceiling, where there were several large holes giving glimpses of the sky. Green trails of lichen on the corner wall showed where the rain had trickled in over the years. My heart sank. The specification had indeed said ‘INTERIEUR A RESTORER’ but…

  Another two doors led off to the right, the first into a corridor about nine feet wide. There were ominous holes in the beaten earth floor which was strewn with broken rabbit hutches, wire cages, dozens of empty bottles, and everywhere cobwebs on the cobwebs, layered with dust like thick muslin. Matthew, always ahead, had already found a mouldering, uneven staircase at the far end lit by a very small window. Above this was another, even older window with no frame or glass, just a hand-carved stone opening, closed by a crude, heavy oak shutter which, when we opened it inwards, showered us with dust but revealed wonderful old nails with which it was studded. There was enough light for us to gingerly ascend into the attic or grenier which ran the whole length of the house. It was not in as bad a state as we had expected and was full of old farm implements, piles of corn husks, old boxes and even what looked like another ancient sideboard in the far corner.

  Downstairs once more in the main room we opened the second door on the right and found a small room with an unusually low, tongued and grooved pine ceiling and a glass door which led outside. M. Bertrand explained that this room was the newest addition. It had been built inside the main structure for the old lady who had lived there with her son, because it was south facing and so warmer in the winter.

  ‘How old was she?’ I asked.

  ‘Ninety-two when she died,’ he answered, ‘and her son almost seventy.’

  The last area M. Bertrand showed us was the huge outhouse or chai which was, he told us, a store for wine, north facing but not like a cave, which is below ground. We went in through a wide oak door at one side of the porch. About eighteen feet high nearest to the house, it sloped steeply down to barely five feet at the far end. ‘Brilliant!’ breathed Matthew as we stepped inside. Not only dust and cobwebs here but also an eleven years’ old collection of dead leaves from the two overhanging ash trees. Along the lowest wall, raised on two heavy beams were a dozen large oak barrels and several smaller ones, there was a pair of ancient scales with weights; a weird, wooden, wheelbarrow-like machine which was, we learned, for winnowing the wheat and another for stripping the corn from the cob; benches, baskets, lanterns, boxes, besoms and yet more bottles.

  We wanted to talk about the house. Mike explained to M. Bertrand that we had a picnic with us in our camping van. Might we eat it there by the house? We were sure that he too might like to finish his own meal. We were very interested. (Very interested? I was besotted!) We would stay there until he returned.

  His reaction surprised us. His
face fell. He pushed his straw hat back off his brown forehead to show the white strip beneath. He shrugged and blushed, shifting his brown feet in the dust. What could be the problem? Eventually he explained that the previous summer he had done precisely that with another group of people. On his return they had already left, taking with them the old brass lamp which had hung above the table. What could we say? We suggested he lock the house but he suddenly smiled, shook our hands and disappeared in a cloud of smoke.

  Once more the silence descended as we gazed at the neglected house. Many of the ancient tiles had slipped and staggered down the steep slope of the roof giving it a drunken look. The plaster on the thick walls was stained and crumbling, the shutters falling to pieces and holes in the ceiling – but how I wanted it.

  I handed out the bread, cheese and fruit and Mike uncorked the wine. Too excited to sit down, we circled the house again, picnic in hand. Matthew discovered two small outhouses that looked as though they might have been pigsties and another with a curiously high, narrow double door and a copper set into the end wall. There was also a second porch closed in with ugly galvanised doors on the west side which faced the barn. There was no mention of the barn on the specification so we assumed that the farmer used it and it was indeed full of hay. How much land would be ours? It said 2000 square metres but as we were surrounded by fields, it did not seem too important. The pale cows watched us, standing in a line. Mike poured himself another glass. Might this be the moment to try to explain how I felt? Before I had time to say anything Matthew came hurtling back again.