Olive Farm

by Carol Drinkwater

  Since breakfast on our hidden terrace, which is where Michel first spotted them descending one of the dry stone walls, making their way across the terrace and into the house, they have preoccupied us. They have exited the house now, having crossed the main living room—leaving a clean trail in the dust of untouched rooms—traveled the length of the top terrace down one of the pillars, and are now tramping, at swimming pool level, toward the uncut bracken. Intrepid travelers! Will they get lost in the thicket? Or will they see it for the wilderness that it is, turn around and return to us? The distance they have traveled since this morning—it is now siesta time, baking hot, and I am alone because the others have disappeared to nap—is considerable. They put me in mind of a small train puffing away, heading for the great unknown. A tractor crossing Russia en route for Siberia. I see they have reached the uncut terrain and, without a moment’s hesitation, have disappeared into it. Bonne chance!

  I am very taken with the butterflies here. They are numerous and of many different colors and species. In a few weeks’ time, I will look closely into the eye of each circling butterfly and inquire of it: were you one of the visiting caterpillars who left an autograph in our dust?

  I HAVE WOUND DOWN to a pace that is almost slow motion. I am watching time elapse. It is a delicious exercise which allows me to focus on details that in my ordinary life, my real life, I would not give seconds to.

  The bucket that was used to flush the toilets when we had no water is now in the upstairs kitchen. Well, barely a kitchen; it comprises an aluminum sink which is part of a unit containing probably the first dishwasher ever built (now nonfunctional), an electric kettle which must predate the LEB, and a musty, woodworm-riddled cupboard. I have positioned the bucket beneath those three dratted holes which stare at me every time I go in there, the three Cyclops who made thunderbolts. We have been forced to accept that, for this summer at least, this is the most effective solution for the leaking roof. Fortunately, since that monumental downpour, not one drop of rain has fallen. Still, it is amazing to me how much time I can fritter away beneath three minuscule holes, watching them with a malevolent gaze.

  Wandering through the dilapidated rooms, basking in the cool generated by the meter-deep stone walls which comprise the husk of the house, I step out onto the upper front terrace and am hit by a blanket of heat and sunshine. I subside into a chair and listen. There are small birds here that flit in and out of the bushes. Occasionally, when they start to sing, I charge indoors, mistakenly thinking the phone is ringing—it’s my agent!—and then remind myself we have no phone.

  There is so much I should be doing: attacking my novel, washing down walls, scraping encrusted dirt out of wooden window frames, worrying about Madame B. and whether this deal will ever go through or whether I—we—are living a summer’s fantasy leading us right into the mouth of financial disaster. Instead I do nothing except sit, listen and contemplate.

  Evening comes and I rise to feed Pamela her food. The bowl is kept alongside the garage near the stone-walled stables, well away from our kitchen or food supplies. She woofs down the offering in two gulps, then glowers at me. I have underestimated the force of Pamela’s attachment to food—it is her raison d’être—but I hearten myself with the fact that she is looking slimmer. Until yesterday evening, she has spent every day lying slumped and panting in the shade as though gasping her last. When Michel descended the drive to put the dustbins out, she actually trudged along after him. Thank heavens, she is growing active.

  OUR HOUSE IS NAMED Appassionata, yet there are no passion flowers anywhere to be found. None that we have unearthed, that is. Perhaps we will discover a plant or two languishing beneath all the unruly growth. I drive to a local nursery to purchase one, as well as a twenty-kilo sack of terreau universel. My eye is tempted by a small pomegranate tree, meters of curly tumbling geraniums and dozens of richly colored roses, not to mention bananas and lemons and palms. Oh, the list is endless, but I must exercise restraint. I love nurseries, les pépinières—which coincidentally is the same noun used to describe a school for young actors—I love the lushness and the damp tropical scents, the splash of sharply colored, exotic blossoms, the regulated coolness. I love, now more than ever, that steady drizzle of hoses discreetly orchestrating the silent, lusty growth. I happily pass the hours I should be spending hacking back the sinuous streams of weeds playing truant at the nursery.

  On my way home, I stop in the village to pick up fresh salad. I park, cross the street alongside the square, where half a dozen old men wearing hats and shades and looking like rejects from the mafia are playing boules, and make for the crémerie fromagerie. Here I buy two crottins of goat cheese, two spit-roasted organic chickens seasoned with herbs and creamy toasted garlic cloves for our supper on the terrace.

  As I am leaving, a farmer arrives. He has aroused my curiosity on several previous occasions, because, in the rear of his Citroen van, which looks as though it is held together by elastic bands, is a motley collection of farmyard animals. The animals honk and screech, but even though he leaves the van’s rear door swinging open, they never attempt an escape. I hang back to observe him. Always the same routine. He unloads three wooden boxes of small plastic pots brimming with golden olive oil, seasoned with Provençal herbs. Swimming in the center of each pot are generous nuggets of goat cheese. Then come the hams, usually ten, substantial cuts, wrapped in light muslin cloth. Each is carefully weighed as it passes over the counter. The bearded, keen-eyed owner of this modern-day dairy and this farmer do their business in front of waiting customers, including whoever was in the process of being served. Thick wads of cash pass from the till into the pocket of the farmer, and off he goes with his jaunty gait, Wellingtons slapping against the pavement even in this heat. He resembles a living scarecrow.

  Why does he travel with his animals? I saw him the first time, with two white goats, four ducks, chickens and honking geese, all wedged tightly together, the fowl shuffling in and around goat legs. I assumed they were on their way to be slaughtered or sold, but obviously not. They are his road companions and seem perfectly content to travel with him squashed up against one another. If the pigs have not become hams, would he be traveling with them? The owner of the crémerie is his regular customer, so there must be more pigs back at home, or how would he continue to supply the jambon? Later, I learn that the hams are not his. He transports and sells them for a neighboring farmer. The favor covers the cost of his gas. His own lean income is earned from the goat cheese and his traveling circus of fowl.

  Back at the house, I deposit the food on the makeshift table in the downstairs kitchen. Alas, in my excitement to get back to the car and unsack the thick dark earth for the planting of my tender climber, I forget to shut the door. When I pass by a mere ten minutes later, I find the two bags which had contained the chickens in tatters on the floor. Even the cheese has disappeared. A brief scout around the garden leads me to Pamela, snoring beneath the cypress trees, surrounded by crunched bones and an army of ants who have already begun to pick dry the skeletal remains. Preferring not to whack an animal, particularly one that is not mine, I take myself back down to the village to buy another pair of chickens and two more of the goat cheese “droppings.” The young couple who own the crémerie stare at me in wonder as I request precisely what I bought a mere half an hour earlier. “Unexpected guests,” I mutter, feeling too foolish to admit that the dog ate our dinner.

  THE PALE RAYS OF the late-afternoon sun are lengthening. The hysteric chirring of the cicadas’ song grows less strident. The day is slipping into dusky stillness. Evening is falling. Vanessa is lighting anti-mosquito candles as well as my oil lamp. Spaced out on the balustraded terrace, they create golden balls of light. With glasses of chilled Bandol rosé in hand, Michel and I ceremoniously plant the climber on a mezzanine terrace close to the front door. A tender young passionflower; our first purchase for the garden; the perfect offering. Clarisse waters it abundantly. Vanessa takes the shot with Michel’s came
ra.

  Our first summer will be at an end soon, but these are the moments that will live on perpetually. I will return to them again and again in the safe harbor of memory. Consummate happiness. I stand back, absorbing the image of Michel with his adolescent girls, and I wonder silently what the unknown future holds for us.

  I WAS NOT PREPARED for this. When it comes to the refueling of Pamela’s stomach, a revitalized and cunning beast has been awakened. Docile Pamela, who identifies me as the enemy, the appropriator of her food, has declared war. The following morning, I find that the trash cans, ours as well as those belonging to the other two houses situated on the easterly quarter of our hill, have been raided. Half-chewed sticks of stale baguette, empty food packages, and the rest of the mishmash found in any family’s trash trail along the lane. I spend twenty minutes gathering up the garbage and chucking it all back into our trash cans. A note from one of the neighbors attached to one of our lids politely requests that we keep the animal chained if it cannot keep its head out of les poubelles. Mortified, I admit defeat and write a note of apology to the unknown neighbors, which I slip into their mailbox. It will not happen again, I assure them.

  Indeed, the problem will not arise again, for the girls are departing, and with them goes fat Pamela. What a hullabaloo of semi-packed bags, broken zippers, lost combs, whirring hair dryers, newly acquired swimwear, presents for Maman which are très fragile, as well as the calming of a most unsettled dog who, poor unsuspecting beast, will be obliged to travel in a miserable airline cage. The frenzied activity keeps my sadness at bay. And when everything is finally arranged, albeit in a chaotic sort of way, Michel and I drive them to the airport and see them off. This journey to the Nice airport is to be the first of many. From here on, my life will be governed by trips to and from, welcome kisses and aching au revoirs. Today is the first wrench.

  Vanessa and Clarisse. I have grown to love them, and I so long for them to feel the same. I hope that these weeks, this glorious summer, have brought us closer. I want them to care for me not as a surrogate mother but as a friend, as kin. Nothing is said, no parting emotion declared, but they step forward shyly to hug me, then stagger off with their numerous bags, trailing towels and sneakers through passport control, waving back and blowing kisses at their beloved papa and maybe one to his new lady.

  This departure is the first nudge that the summer holidays are drawing to a close. In another week, Michel will also return to Paris. I have no acting job awaiting me, so I have decided to stay on, to get to grips with my novel and because I cannot bear to tear myself away. Michel will fly down to spend the weekends with me.

  We pass our final week together at our desks, slowly preparing ourselves, for what the French call la rentrée—the return after the summer break. Michel’s desk is a wobbly wooden table picked up at one of the many brocantes off the route national 7, near Antibes. He has placed it in the shade beneath the magnolia grandiflora. I have learned that these trees were originally from the southern states of America. They were discovered by the French botanist Plumier, who had been commanded by Louis XIV to seek out exotic plants for the royal gardens. The earliest examples were brought to France in the first half of the eighteenth century. They were named after Pierre Magnol, who was director of the botanical gardens in Montpellier.

  Unlike Michel, I cannot concentrate in a blanket of heat and prefer to bury myself indoors. I choose one of the rooms that we have not yet touched save for washing the floors and airing. I have secretly bagged it for my workspace—I hate the word office—because it is bright but not too sunny. It has windows to the front which overlook the driveway and the angle of cypress trees. If I lean to my left, I can even glimpse the shallow end of the pool, now brimming with clear water. And to the rear, its French doors open onto the terrace where we breakfast. Beyond, I see roughly hewn stone steps ascend the pine forest to the brow of the hill and our famous water bassin. Here, in this room, I set up a trestle table and store my laptop, reference books, scribbled notes for my story, maps, research literature and all my other papers. After each working bout, to keep dust and falling plaster at bay, I wrap everything in a sheet. When Michel has left, I will strip the walls and whitewash them, rid the room of its hideous pink flowery paper. There is a good feeling about this space; I can lose myself in my own world here. And because it has views in both directions, I don’t feel claustrophobic. The only disturbance is an occasional rustling sound which I cannot trace or identify. It seems to be coming from a boxed-in pelmet, which probably once stored a rolling blind above the front windows, but whenever I call Michel in to listen, the noise mysteriously ceases.

  DURING AN AFTERNOON break from work, I take a stroll in the valley beyond our land, where I encounter a most extraordinary person who puts me in mind of a minotaur or Goliath. He introduces himself as our neighbor Jean-Claude. Oh, dear. He is the one who wrote the note complaining about Pamela. I smile sweetly. We wouldn’t want to get on the wrong side of this fellow. He is built like an ox. He has a wiry black beard and hair tied back in a ponytail which falls to his nonexistent waist. He is wearing nothing except bizarrely cut red poplin shorts and calf-length black Wellingtons, and he carries two empty buckets, one in each hand like a milkmaid. I have barely given our names when he booms at me: “Which water plan are you on?” I have absolutely no idea and refrain from admitting that I was not even aware there was a choice.

  “Inquire of your husband, please, and let me know.”

  This I dutifully promise to do, and content with my reply, he suggests that Michel and I walk over to have an apéro with him and his wife, Odile, at seven o’clock. I agree. I am curious.

  “Bring your water bill with you,” he yells after me as I set off along the honeysuckle-scented track.

  Buried away for another hour or two with my work before our apéro, I take time out to look up olive in the Oxford English Dictionary and am amazed to learn how many different varieties of olive trees exist. An evergreen tree, Olea Europaea, especially the cultivated variety O. Sativa, with narrow entire leaves, green above and hoary beneath, and auxillary clusters of small whitish four-cleft flowers; cultivated in the Mediterranean countries and other warm regions for its fruit and the oil thence obtained.

  Extended to the whole genus Olea; also applied, with qualifying words, to various trees and shrubs allied to common olive, or resembling it in appearance or in furnishing oil.

  American Olive, Bastard or Mock Olive, Black Olive, California Olive, Chinese Olive, Holly-leaved Olive, Negro’s Olive, Spurge Olive, Sweet-scented Olive, White Olive, Wild Olive (the wild variety of the common olive).

  The fruit or berry of OLEA SATIVA is a small oval drupe and bluish-black when ripe, with a bitter pulp abounding in oil, and hard stone. It is valuable as a source of oil, and also eaten pickled in an unripe state. The dictionary also suggests that the blacker the olive, the more ripe it is. I assume that our trees are of the O. Sativa variety, but I will need to confirm this. Where can one seek out the White Olive or Holly-leaved Olive or, indeed, any of the others listed above? If planted, would they survive on our olive farm? What fruit, if any, would they produce? Personally, I find hoary too cold an adjective to describe that deliciously sensual, mother-of-pearl tone of the underleaf.

  AT THE DESIGNATED hour for drinks, Michel and I stroll along the lane hand in hand. Tall cypress trees guard the route like inscrutable centurion soldiers, while husky-toned insects scratch into the evening calm. Michel is leaving for Paris in the morning, and I am feeling blue. Outside the gate of the stately stone house whose sign reads Le Verger, we pull on the bell chain. Inside my bag, I have tucked our best bottle of Bordeaux. It is intended as a peace offering; I feel sure this man will have words about our badly behaved dog. Within seconds, a thickset rottweiler with a head as broad and round as a tire hurls himself against the iron gate. Thud, thud. He growls and barks like a hound at the gates of hell. We retreat a step.

  A deep-throated roar sounds from a terrace beyond
the swimming pool. Instantly, the dog retreats like a chastised puppy and disappears behind a camper parked in the driveway. The gates open, and we crunch across the graveled parking area, past several rather magnificent agave cacti, one of which has sprouted a gigantic spear with yellow flowers. The camper where the dog is still lurking is equaled in rustiness only by Di Fazio’s old bus. Jean-Claude appears and beckons us to the lower level of the house. The monster dog rises and stalks us terrifyingly. Fearing for our safety, we glance back every few steps.

  Jean-Claude, shadowed by a pimply adolescent, hails us inside. The young man introduced to us as their son, Marcel, nods and retreats hurriedly as though even this amount of human contact has all but shriveled him. We are now standing in a somber but spacious kitchen all decked out in dark ivy-green wood with rather elaborate metal fixtures.

  “Three hundred thousand francs,” Jean-Claude announces proudly, following this astronomical figure with the name of the firm responsible for what I can only describe as a monstrosity. No doubt it is meant to impress, but the name means nothing to me. A woman scurries into the room, cigarette in hand.

  “Ma femme, Odile,” he booms. Odile has hair as long and unkempt as Jean-Claude’s, but unlike her husband she is dressed in a curious outfit made up of floaty bohemian bits of cloth and masses of expensive, if, to my taste, rather ostentatious gold jewelry. She is exceptionally slender and very effusive.

  “Ah, les jeunes,” she cries with a throaty laugh and hurries over to kiss us both numerous times. I am surprised by the greeting, because I cannot believe she is a day older than either of us. Jean-Claude tells her that he was showing us the kitchen. She holds up her hands as though profoundly apologetic for having interrupted a scenario of such gravitas.