Copyright
First published in the United States in 2001 by
The Overlook Press, Peter Mayer Publishers, Inc.
New York, NY
141 Wooster Street
New York, NY 10012
www.overlookpress.com
For bulk and special sales, contact [email protected], or write us at the above address.
Copyright © 2001 by Carol Drinkwater
All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system now known or to be invented without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who wishes to quote brief passages in connection with a review written for inclusion in a magazine, newspaper, or broadcast.
ISBN 978-1-4683-0870-9
For Michel, who lives life through colors richly, A private story told out loud:
Je t’aime
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This book would have never existed with Michel. So it is to him that I first say thank you; for his encouragement, generosity and expansive love. Special thanks also to our families and friends who inhabit these pages.
At Ed Victor Ltd I give enormous thanks to my agent and friend, Sophie Hicks, to Maggie Phillips, Hitesh Shah and Grainne Fox, all of whom help smooth the bumps in the running of my professional life, and to old pals, Chris Brown and Bridget Anderson, who are always there in hours of need.
My profound gratitude to a great team at The Overlook Press; most especially to Tracy Carns for buying the book and for publishing it with such style and enthusiasm.
CONTENTS
COPYRIGHT
DEDICATION
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
PREFACE
ONE: WITH PASSION
TWO: WATER MUSIC
THREE: HOLIDAY BOARS AND HENRI
FOUR: TREASURE ISLANDS
FIVE: THE PURCHASE
SIX: A MELON AND LEATHER BOOTS
SEVEN: OUR DESERT PRINCE
EIGHT: FIRE!
NINE: TRACKING THE OLIVE
TEN: PRESSING THE OLIVE
ELEVEN: DARK DAYS
TWELVE: LOSS
THIRTEEN: RETURN
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Too much of a good thing can be wonderful.
—Mae West
Southwards into a sunburned otherwhere…
—W. H. Auden
PREFACE
The girls stare in dusty dismay.
“Is this the wonderful surprise, Papa?” asks Vanessa.
Michel nods.
Papa had promised them a villa with a swimming pool. Unfortunately, in his enthusiasm, Michel has omitted to mention that the pool is dry as a bone. Worse, not only is the pool’s interior cracked, chipping and devoid of one drop of water, its faded blue walls and a fair portion of the base are overgrown with thickly entwined skeins of ivy.
“I need a swim!” wails Clarisse.
“We’ll cut back the ivy tomorrow and fill it on Sunday, I promise.”
I overhear this pledge as I stagger past with armfuls of cardboard boxes laden with ancient and practically useless kitchenware exhumed from cluttered cupboards in my London flat. Michel’s promise is given casually but not without good intention, yet a doubt whispering in my ear tells me he may live to regret it—suppose we discover the pool leaks—but I choose not to voice this within earshot. In any case, my doubts are probably nothing more than the negativity born of a sleepless night.
We drove through most of the night to avoid the worst of the holidaymakers who throughout yesterday had jammed the main arterial roads to a standstill. At around eight-thirty in the evening we approached the outskirts of Lyon only to discover that the péage had become a holiday resort in itself. The delay to pass through it was announced as two hours. So the French, in true French fashion, were grabbing the opportunity to attack a spot of dinner, which, of course, delayed matters further.
It was a colorful and fascinating spectacle. A line of traffic many miles long was peppered with families and pets seated on camping stools alongside their cars (the less organized spread picnic blankets out on the motorway surface). All were eating three-course meals and drinking copious amounts of booze. Aside from our general frustration, I found it highly entertaining. Strolling several miles away, I witnessed vehicle owners offering dégustations of their regional wine to fellow travelers, morsels of succulent dishes whipped up at the roadside, wobbling and brightly colored desserts passed on spoons up and down the traffic line, snippets of advice on the fine-tuning of an otherwise well-known recipe and, to round it all off, hands of cards accompanied by after-dinner coffee followed, in one or two instances, by a glass of calvados. What a knack the French have for turning any event into an opportunity to relish the finer points of eating!
By the time the jam was unjammed, I observed families, who had become the firmest of buddies with other roadside families, exchanging addresses in the way some folks do when they’ve passed a week or two at the same resort.
Once through the city of Lyon, we kept traveling, stopping only for a brief nap in a roadside parking lot, where poor Michel had to grab some sleep with the girls’ dog, Pamela, attached to his ankle by her lead, to keep her from attempting an escape. And then on again before dawn, breakfasting outside Fréjus where half the local population was already gathered in bars, enjoying their first cognac of the day.
Now, having safely arrived after sixteen hours of such traveling, Pamela finally has been released from her confined space and is huffing at my side. Why has this infernal creature taken such a shine to me? “The dog needs a drink,” I call. No one pays me heed.
“So, we’ll have a pool in two days?” Again Vanessa, always the more exacting of the two girls. Michel nods and embraces both daughters, an arm wrapped around each. “Well, do you like it here? The house and all the grounds? I know it needs a lot of work, but the sun is shining, and it’s very hot…” The final phrase of his sentence melts away in the midday swelter while the girls stare up at him as though he had single-handedly created a galaxy of suns. After their initial disappointment, they seem happy enough, and I am relieved about that.
I find an outdoor tap alongside the garage and cast about for a saucer or bowl, anything in which to give this dribbling mutt liquid. I spy a bright yellow plastic utensil—it looks like the cup from an ancient thermos—encrusted with dirt, lying among the weeds at the foot of one of the cedar trees, and I hurry to fetch it. Pamela puffs and waddles along beside me. She seems about ready to collapse. I return to the tap.
By now, Michel and the girls are dragging the mattresses, twisted out of all recognition, from the trunk of the VW. Two single mattresses for four of us. In this heat. Were we insane?
“Where shall we put these?” he shouts across to me.
“You decide.” I am busily battling with the wretched tap, which is locked rigid. “Must be a while since anyone used this.” But no one is listening to me, not even Pamela. She has thrown herself at the mercy of shade. At the foot of twelve tall cedars which surround the parking area, there is cool loose earth. There, Pamela is lying on her side; a beached whale snoring contentedly.
I turn the tap so hard it almost comes away from the wall. A small green lizard darts out from a fissure in the facade and, sensing unwelcome visitors, slithers off into an otherwhere. Perspiration breaks out all over my face. I can feel my flush. I am giddy with the effort, and now I need the drink. Pamela, all but braying now, has long since forgotten her thirst.
Eventually, the tap begins to turn, making horrendous squeaking noises. “A drop of oil,” I mutter, beginning a mental to-do list which is destined to become longer than life. The a
ncient faucet turns and turns, but still no water flows. “This tap is not functioning properly, or…” But there is no one in sight to hear my concern. I decide to try another tap.
Upstairs, the villa is cool and insect-infested. The blinding, dry heat outside emphasizes the musty and crepuscular damp within. The odor reminds me of when I was a child: compulsory visits to elderly relatives living alone in unaired spaces.
The mosquito netting, curling away from the windows as though fighting to get out into the light, creates blocks of shadows and gives a somber, prisonlike feel to the main living room. Shafts of sunlight cut angular patterns on the floor’s terra-cotta tiles, spotlighting the years of gathering dust and moldering, miniature reptile life. Michel is standing with les filles, who are looking about them in horror and disgust.
“C’est dégueulasse, Papa!” I cannot avoid noticing Vanessa’s battle to keep her tears at bay.
“We’ll clean it up,” he encourages with dwindling enthusiasm.
“Before or after we’ve attacked the pool?” snaps one of them and stomps outside in a sulk.
“Chérie!”
“Michel?” I hardly dare begin, knowing this is a rotten moment to impart such drastic news.
“Oui? Go after your sister,” he instructs the remaining daughter.
“I’ve got a sneaking suspicion…”
“What?” He looks frazzled and ready to give up. The drive from Paris has been interminable, in a baking car packed to the gills with luggage and livestock (Pamela!), on roads frying with exhaust fumes and August weather. None of us has slept properly. Nerves are frayed. Even the insistent chirring of the cicadas, a sound I usually find romantic and exotic, is enough to make me want to scream.
Suddenly, I see all of this from the children’s point of view. This is their summer holiday. I am not their mother. They barely know me. It has been a while since they have spent time with their father, and the location he has brought them to belongs (or will belong) to him and this other woman who is not even fluent in their mother tongue. On top of which, the villa is uninhabitable and looks beyond repair.
“The girls are disappointed,” he confides, and I hear the weariness and regret in his voice as I force myself not to feel like the outsider.
“Michel, I know this is not a good moment, but…”
“Perhaps it was a mistake to bring them here. It was our dream, after all.”
Was, I find myself thinking, but I refrain—just about—from voicing it.
“There’s no water.”
“What?”
“No water.”
“Well, you haven’t turned on the main!” he snaps and, calling after his daughters, follows them out onto the terrace.
WHEN THE GIRLS are less upset and Michel is less harassed, he goes to switch on the main water supply, but there is no still no water. He wanders off in silence to pour a glass of wine and figure it out. I leave him to it and continue unloading the car.
“The water must be fed from an external tank that has dried up,” he says, returning after a while.
“Fed from where?”
“Not sure. Once I find the tank, I’ll be able to tell you. Madame B. said something about a well. I thought she was referring to a secondary source, but perhaps not. Girls all right?”
I nod. “They’ve gone investigating.”
“Good.”
We take a moment to look into each other. These last couple of days have been hectic, leaving no room for us. Then I bustle about the living room with a broom, trying to lift at least the top layers of dirt off the earthenware tommette tiles, fearing he’ll read my hurt. I don’t want to discuss it, knowing it will pass because it’s too stupid. We are all tired and unsettled. But he comes after me, reminds me he loves me and hurries away.
ALL MY LIFE, I HAVE dreamed of acquiring a crumbling, shabby-chic house overlooking the sea, and renovating it. In my mind’s eye, I have pictured a corner of paradise where friends can gather to swim, relax, debate, talk business if they care to, eat fresh fruits picked directly from the garden, prepare great steaming plates of food served from an al fresco kitchen and dished up onto candlelit tables the length of railway sleepers. In this land of liquor and honey, guests would eat heartily, drink gallons of home-produced wine, chill out to great jazz and while away star-spangled hours till dawn. I envisage a haven where city manners and constraints can be cast off, where artists, travelers, children, lovers and extended family can intermingle and find contentment. Among all of these altruistically gregarious and bohemian activities, I’d slip away unnoticed to a cool stone room of my own, lined head to foot with books, sprawling maps and dictionaries, switch on my computer and settle down peacefully to write.
But who has not idled away a wet winter afternoon or two with such a dream?
CHAPTER ONE
WITH PASSION
four months earlier
“Shall we look inside?” suggests Michel, climbing the stairway to the main entrance, which is situated on the northwest side of the upper terrace. The estate agent, Monsieur Charpy (pronounced “Sharpee”), confesses that he does not have a key.
“No key?”
It is only now that he owns up to the fact that he is not actually representing the property. But, he swiftly assures us, if we are genuinely interested, he will be able to “faire le nécessaire.”
I am in the south of France, gazing at the not-so-distant Mediterranean, falling in love with an abandoned olive farm. The property, once stylish and now little better than a ruin, is for sale with ten acres of land.
Once upon a time, Charpy tell us, it was a residence of haut standing, which owned land as far as the eye could see in every direction. He swings his arms this way and that. I stare at him incredulously. He shrugs. Well, certainly that valley in front of us and the woods to the right but, hélas—he shrugs again—most of the terrain was sold off.
“When?”
“Years ago.”
I wonder why nothing else has been constructed. The villa still stands alone on its hillside, and the magnificent terraced olive groves Charpy promised us have become a jungle of hungry weeds.
“An olive farm with vineyard and swimming pool,” he insists.
We stare at the pool. It looks like an oversize, discarded sink. Dotted here and there are various blossoming fruit trees and some very fine Italian cedars, but there’s no sign of any vineyard. There are two cottages included in the purchase price: the gatekeeper’s house, at the very foot of the hill, is firmly locked and shuttered, but even from the outside, it is plain that it needs major restoration; the other, where the gardener or vine tender would have resided, has been swallowed up beneath rampant growth. As far as we can tell, for we cannot get within two hundred meters of it, all that remains is one jagged stone wall.
“The villa was built in 1904 and was used as a summer residence by a wealthy Italian family. They called it Appassionata.” I smile. Appassionata is a musical term, meaning with passion.
“Pied dans l’eau,” continues Charpy.
Yes, it is ten minutes by car to the sea. From the numerous terraces, the bay of Cannes is within tantalizingly easy reach, while the two islands of Lérins lie in the water like lizards sleeping in the sun.
To the rear of the house is a pine forest. Most of the other shrubs and trees are unknown to me—those that are not dead, that is. Michel asks whether it was drought that killed off the little orange grove and the almond tree, now an inverted broomstick of dead twigs in front of a tumbledown garage.
“Je crois pas,” says Monsieur Charpy. “They caught cold. Our last winter was harsh. It broke records.” He stares glumly at four bougainvillea bushes which once straddled the front pillars of the house. Now they are lying across the veranda like drunks in a stupor. “Aussi, the place has been empty for four years. Before that, it was rented to a foreign woman who bred dogs. Évidemment, she cared nothing for her surroundings.”
The years of neglect aided by the recent freak w
eather have certainly put pay to Appassionata’s former glory. Still, I am drawn to its faded elegance. It remains graceful. There is beauty here. And history. Even the gnarled olive trees look as though they have stood witness on this hillside for a thousand years.
“The propriétaire will be glad to get rid of the place. I can arrange a good price.” Charpy makes the offer disdainfully. To his way of thinking, paying any sum for such dereliction would be scandalous.
I close my eyes and picture us in future summers strolling paths we discover beneath this jungle of vegetation. Michel, at my side, is surveying the facade. The baked vanilla-colored paint flakes at the touch. “Why don’t we try to find a way in?” he says, and disappears on a lap of the house, tapping at windows, rattling doors.
Charpy, ruffled, sets off after him. I hang back, smiling. Michel and I have known each other only a few months, but already I have learned that he is not one to be defeated by such a minor detail as the lack of a key.
The land is not fenced. There is no gate; the boundaries are not staked. There is nothing to secure the property, to keep hunters or trespassers at bay. There are broken windows everywhere.
“Come and look here,” Michel calls from around the back. He, with his more practiced eye, points out the remains of a makeshift vegetable garden. “Squatters. Been and gone in the not too distant past. The locks on all three doors have been forced. It should be relatively easy to get in. Monsieur Charpy, s’il vous plaît.”
Once inside, we are moving through a sea of cobwebs. A deep musty stench takes our breath away. Walls hang with perished wiring. The rooms are high-ceilinged, sonorous spaces. Strips of wallpaper curl to the floor like weeping silhouettes. Tiny shriveled reptiles crunch underfoot. Such decay. We tread slowly, pausing, turning this way and that, drinking the place in. Rip away all the curling, rusted mosquito netting fixed across the windows, and the rooms would be blissfully light. They are well proportioned, nothing elaborate. Corridors, hidden corners, huge rust-stained baths in cavernous bathrooms. In the main salon, there is a generous oak-beamed fireplace. There is an ambience. Chaleur.
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