by John Dummer
6
BERETS AND LOST SOULS
We were really upset for Serge. It was awful to see him brought so low. But although I felt sorry for him I was also pleased to have him back. I had missed him, and now I was looking forward to meeting up at the old markets, hanging out and having a laugh together. There was no getting away from it; there was never a dull moment when he was around. It would take my mind off other things, like the house move we were going to have to make.
Helen had reservations about the pair of us getting together again. 'Just think before you go along with any of his harebrained schemes this time,' she said.
'I'm not a novice brocanteur any more,' I assured her. 'Trust me – I know what I'm doing. I won't let him lead me astray again.'
'I'll believe that when I see it,' she said.
Helen was throwing herself into house-hunting with a vengeance. She was going out looking at houses on her own, while I always found something important to do so I was never available, hoping it might stop the whole process and we could stay put. She got in touch with banks and brokers who might give us a prêt relais (bridging loan) so we could buy a house if we found one we liked and have time to sell ours. She put our house up for sale with every estate agent she could. Everyone who came to view our house was enchanted by it, but as soon as they heard a lotissement was going to be built on the adjoining field they never came back for a second look. I was secretly pleased and worried sick at the same time. So when I saw Serge at Anglet market, just outside Bayonne, and he told me he had been tipped off about a special private auction of the contents of a maison de retraite (retirement home) outside Lourdes I thought it would be the perfect distraction for us both and give me and Helen a break from all the stress.
'You should both come along,' said Serge. 'It's not been advertised and none of the big Bordeaux or Toulouse dealers will be there. Could be a good one.'
Lourdes! I was already thinking about visiting the museum of berets which is in the little village of Nay, not far from the town. If we went to the sale, I could nip in. I had wanted to visit since passing it on our first trip to Lourdes. Why should we English find a museum of berets so amusing? My French friends don't find it at all funny. I mentioned it to Serge but he was unfazed. 'Ah yes, Johnny, the Musée du Béret, very interesting.'
'Very interesting? What could be interesting about a museum of berets to you? I've never seen you wearing one,' I said.
'No, but it's a symbol of La France. We may not all wear one but every Frenchman loves the beret. It's like you English and your chapeau melon.'
'We don't all love bowler hats,' I said. 'In fact, to people of my age – the post-war baby boomers who became the sixties generation – the bowler hat is a boring symbol of conformity and lack of imagination. You seldom see a bowler hat in England any more.'
Serge looked confused. He couldn't really grasp this.
'Well, it's just a few local dealers and us who'll be there, so keep it under your beret,' he said, chuckling at his own joke.
To the French the bowler hat represents all things British and they find it very funny for some reason. He couldn't comprehend that we might view the beret in a similar way. Also, the French have little museums all over the place. Apart from the Musée du Béret there is also the Musée du Pruneau (the plum museum) in the Lot. That's another unmissable day out. Forget Alton Towers or Disneyland, take the kids to the plum museum – they'll love it!
Helen's friend Karen bought a holiday home in the Lot and was taken out for a special treat by her agricole neighbours to a melon festival. She said it was the longest and most boring day she had ever spent in her life and she kept thinking to herself: 'I'll never get this time back – ever.' But her neighbours were engrossed. She couldn't believe the thrill they got from expounding the virtues of the many different types of melon. Tomato festivals are also a popular attraction all over France every year. And yes, there are even quite a few tomato museums.
Could it be that the English in their urbanised society are simply overstimulated? We use the word 'boring' to describe so many simple pursuits from which the French derive great pleasure. Mention champignons (mushrooms) to anyone French and watch their eyes light up. They love nothing better than to discuss the various merits of cèpes, bolets, girolles, how and where to find them, and the best recipes for cooking and serving them. There are several large societies for mushroom identification and gathering. Foraging for mushrooms is a national pastime. They are surprised when we show no interest in joining them.
And what are the things in combination that typically identify a Frenchman to the rest of the world? A beret, a bottle of wine, a baguette? In the eyes of the American jazzmen of the forties and the beat generation of the sixties the beret was considered both hip and cool. Two of my heroes, bebop jazzman Dizzy Gillespie and pianist Thelonious Monk, sported berets, as did Pablo Picasso, Che Guevara and all of the Black Panther movement. In the punk era Captain Sensible of The Damned was seldom seen without his bright red beret. My Uncle Den, who was a veteran of the parachute regiment and was dropped behind enemy lines in France during World War Two, always wore his red beret too, right up until he died in his eighties. The Nazis couldn't kill him but a superbug did when he was briefly hospitalised after falling over at home.
I had toyed with the idea of wearing a beret myself when I found one in an old armoire I was restoring. I thought I looked quite good in it. Wearing it at a jaunty angle I imagined myself as a hipster from Jack Kerouac's On the Road. But Helen, when she'd stopped laughing, said I looked 'a right twat' and gave me an affectionate kiss. So that was that, then. A beret wasn't for me. But when Serge, Helen and I arrived for the sale the following week I decided to visit the Musée du Béret anyway.
I left Helen at the sale while I nipped across to Nay to visit the museum.
'I can't think of anything more boring than a beret museum,' had been Helen's comment. In the event she was right; it wasn't as heart-stoppingly exciting as I had expected. But it was interesting to learn about the history of berets and all the different types. One model that has always fascinated me is the huge floppy sort much favoured by Basques. It can sometimes look like a bit of a joke. I'd even seen young French people burst into fits of uncontrollable laughter on being confronted with some old boy wearing one. I hadn't realised that these caricature berets were le béret chasseur (hunter's beret) or possibly le béret extra large (extra big beret) – ideal for keeping the head dry in a rainstorm when you're hunting, or in the case of le béret extra large, if you've got a big head.
I drove back to Lourdes. The last time I'd been here was when we visited St Bernadette's grotto and Robespierre, Serge's dog, was amazingly healed by the holy water.
The maison de retraite was a whitewashed building set in beautiful rambling grounds on the outskirts of the town. There appears to be a strangely sanctified atmosphere enveloping the town of Lourdes. I am not fond of organised religion but here there is a feeling of calm and tranquillity. As I wandered among the trees and flowering shrubs I could hear the auction going on in the house through an open window. Outside in the garden it was calm and peaceful. What an ideal setting for a retirement home, I thought, and what a shame it is closing down.
I was admiring a particularly beautiful magnolia tree, magnificent in full bloom, when in the distance I saw Lord Snooty striding across the garden towards me. Oh no! He'd seen me and it was too late to hide. I tried to remember Snooty's real name. I had noticed of late that my memory wasn't what it was. I'd put it down to an excessive intake of alcohol in my youth which had destroyed the brain cells. This always puts me in mind of the Lewis Carroll parody verse, 'You Are Old Father William', from Alice In Wonderland:
'"In my youth," Father William replied to his son,
"I feared it might injure the brain;
But now I am perfectly sure I have none,
Why, I do it again and again."'
The last time I'd seen Snooty was at Soumoulou when he
'd upset Thibaut with his racist remarks about the French. It suddenly came back to me... Algie! That was his name.
He came over and greeted me like a long-lost pal. I got the impression he had decided I was a proper public-school-educated Englishman and a natural ally.
'Great to see you, old chap,' he enthused. 'How are you?'
'Good, thanks, Algie,' I said. 'How's it going with you, Algie, all right?' I enjoyed saying the name. The only Algies I'd heard of were in Rupert the Bear or P. G. Wodehouse books.
'Don't blame you staying out here,' he said. 'Crap is going for silly money. I'm going to bugger off soon, there's nothing of any real quality here for me.'
'Helen, my wife, is in there buying,' I explained. 'I'm just waiting for the sale to finish to pick up what she's bought.'
'She's that attractive redhead, isn't she? Reg told me she was your wife. She's outbid me on a couple of pieces I wanted. Maybe we Brits can come to some arrangement between the three of us.'
'Maybe,' I said. But I was thinking 'not likely'. There was no way we were going to try to ring sales, and especially not with him.
As I approached the building I saw a familiar figure in tracksuit and trainers leaning against the front door smoking a roll-up. It was Gerard, a gitan (gypsy) friend I hadn't seen for ages. He and his wife Josette drove around in a removals van with a huge Basque flag painted on the side and had a mobile home parked on a few hectares of land in the nearby foothills of the Pyrenees where they kept goats, chickens and a couple of ponies. But I'd heard they had hit hard times.
'Eh, Johnny.' He seized my hand and wrung it, smiling through his craggy broken teeth.
'How are you?' I asked.
'You know, things aren't so good, Johnny. You heard we had to sell our place?'
'I didn't know that,' I said.
'Yes, it broke our hearts. It was really tough. We had to get rid of our ponies – that was the hardest part. I've bought a second-hand caravan and we're back to travelling around between gitan sites, working the markets.'
I sympathised with him. I knew how much his land had meant to him.
'How has Josette taken it?' I asked.
'Not good, Johnny. She's inside, bidding. She'd like to see you, I'm sure.'
'I'll go and say hello,' I said.
'She's bidding for dolls.' He shrugged, like he couldn't see the attraction.
'There are some nice ones, are there?' I asked.
'Dolls?' he said, shrugging again. 'Our mobile home was full of them and now you can't move in the caravan for dolls as it's even smaller. Our kids are grown up with families of their own, but Josette's always after more dolls. When we were up against it I begged her to sell off some of them as they're worth money, but she wouldn't hear of it – they're like babies to her. There's barely any space left for me to sit down without squashing one.'
I sympathised with him. I'm not a great doll lover myself – I find them a bit creepy – but I was aware of the power they exerted over some people, especially obsessive doll collectors. Helen had begun buying them in auctions and they seemed to sell well. Also, I was remembering a little wooden devil Gerard had once given me, and how unsettling that had been.
'Coming in?' he asked, pinching out his roll-up. He pulled out an old tobacco tin and stowed the stub away for future use. He was a proud man and I felt my heart go out to him. He and Josette had chosen to settle down – never an easy decision for people from a gitan background – and through no fault of their own it hadn't worked out. Now they were having to readjust and be drawn back to their old way of life. I hoped it worked out for them. We went in together and stood at the back of a small throng of dealers and private buyers in the hall. I felt an elbow in my ribs and turned to see Reg's grinning face.
'Blimey, you and your missus get about. You're a long way from your stomping grounds, aren't you?'
'Serge tipped me off about this one,' I said. 'He assured me there wouldn't be many dealers here.'
'He gives you some good tips doesn't he, old Sergey? Yeah, well the Bordeaux and Toulouse mob are all here, they never miss out. I saw old Snooty earlier. I wouldn't have thought it was his scene. I'll tell you what, though – if he wants a load of old antique bedpans, he's come to the right place.' He snorted with laughter.
'You haven't seen Serge, have you?' I asked.
'He was around earlier, but Diddy, that son of his, is up front bidding like there's no tomorrow. Hope it's not Serge's dosh he's spending, 'cos he hasn't a clue what he's doing.'
'Diddy's here bidding without Serge?' I was surprised.
Helen was pushing her way back through the crowd. She gave me a wave, excusing herself to the other dealers as she shoved past. She grabbed me and gave me a hug.
'Have we got any money left?' I said.
'It's not been cheap but I've got some good stuff – you wait till you see it. They're going to auction off the dining room furniture next. There's a massive oak table in there that we couldn't move with the help of ten men, let alone store it anywhere – it must weigh a ton.'
'Don't buy that then,' I said. 'I haven't got a hernia yet, touch wood, but my back's not what it used to be.'
'Don't worry, I won't,' she reassured me, smiling.
I was tempted to remind her of the huge corn hopper she bought on a whim in a farm sale in England when we first started out in antiques. It weighed a ton and there was no way I could shift the damn thing. In the end I had to leave it there in the middle of the field. But the last time I'd mentioned it she got very annoyed, so I thought it best not to bring it up again. It was a bit of a cheap shot.
We tagged along behind as the crowd moved into the dining room and then, once the furniture was sold off, followed everyone downstairs into the basement for the wine and kitchenalia. As we squeezed down the narrow stairwell I spotted Reg and Algie squashed together, following the flow. Reg made a remark I couldn't quite catch and Algie gave a horsey laugh. He hadn't 'buggered off' then.
The shift to downstairs had livened everyone up and there was a buzz of conversation as the young, fresh-faced auctioneer restarted the proceedings. He was acting like a head prefect at school, shouting out orders in the face of total anarchy. The auction had degenerated into an excuse for everyone to have a light hearted chat and enjoy themselves, and the more he tried to reassert his authority the less it was heeded.
Gerard was just ahead of us with Josette, who was clutching an antique doll under one arm. She saw me and came over to give me and Helen kisses on both cheeks. She was evidently enjoying herself and I got a whiff of heady perfume as she turned back and carried on gossiping with an old gitan woman with a blue rinse and gold earrings. Gerard squeezed between me and Helen. 'That's Josette's mother,' he confided. 'She's over eighty. She's a live one, she is; she insists on coming everywhere with us and loves sales.'
The auctioneer was getting hoarse, shouting for calm. His face was red and he was losing it. 'Quiet!' he yelled above the hubbub. 'I can't carry on with all this noise! Shut up!'
There was a brief lull in the conversation, and then the commotion started up again, even louder than before.
This time his temper exploded. 'If you don't shut up, next time any of you have guests I'll come over to your houses and dance on the table shouting!'
There was total silence for a moment, suddenly broken by a small, frail voice.
'And will you be wearing a thong?' It was Josette's mother.
There was a roar of laughter, complete pandemonium. Any possibility of the auctioneer regaining control had gone. Dealers reached over to pat Josette's mother on the back. The women were hysterical, shouting at the auctioneer and describing to each other how they imagined he would look in a thong.
Helen was laughing, too. She squeezed my hand. 'We can go upstairs now and pick up some of the stuff we've bought. It's OK, there's nothing down here we want anyway.'
We worked our way through the raucous crowd, up the back stairs and onwards up a wide, winding staircase to
the first floor. This maison de retraite was magnificent. There were long halls with high windows at each end overlooking the gardens. Running off the passages were tastefully decorated bedrooms and small dormitories. I couldn't understand how such a pleasant old people's home could be closed down like this. It seemed almost sacrilegious.
Helen led me through to a small dormitory. 'I've bought this bed in here.' She pointed to a bed with chevets (pot cupboards – sometimes referred to as 'bedside tables' by antique dealers).
'I'll dismantle the bed then, shall I?' I said. As luck would have it I'd brought my special little tool with me for unscrewing the bolts on these ancient beds, and I set to it on my hands and knees.
'I'm going downstairs,' said Helen. 'You'll be all right here?'
'I'll be fine,' I assured her, grunting as I tried to shift a stiff bolt. I managed to disassemble the bed and started off along the corridor carrying the large wooden headboard, intending to load it into our van.
