It appears that she would.
When we arrive back at the villa, once Lucky has been chained because Manuel refuses to get out of the car while the dog is at liberty, he asks immediately to be shown to his room.
“Room?” I retort, for it had never been my intention to take him in.
He lifts his beaten satchel in the air and swings it as though he intends to set up residence wherever it lands, or smash a window or two.
“I need a shower and then I’ll go to work,” he says, groaning.
I am uncertain what to do for the best. Should I just shove him in the car again and deliver him back to the corner shop? Should I release Lucky and hope that he runs off in terror, thus relieving me of the problem altogether? Or am I being hasty? I decide to humor him until I can speak to Madame on the phone. “Why not work now and shower later?” I suggest. He humphs, throws the satchel on the ground, kicks it, lights a cigarette and shrugs. “What do you want doing, then?”
I look around in desperation. Nothing that could break or get damaged, certainly not the preparation of the olive nets. “A bit of weeding” is my reply, and I point to the greater of the various flowerbeds. I unchain the dog when Manuel is not looking and leave them to it, making for my workroom where I can discuss the matter in privacy.
Searching for the number, I realize that although we have shopped there since our arrival here, participated in their Christmas raffles, bought numerous tickets for gallon-size chocolate Easter bunnies and generally been neighborly with this couple, I have never noted the name of the shop. It is the only one on a manicured private estate set in the hills to the rear of our home, but that does not help me. I have no way of finding it out. Short of going back there and leaving Manuel here alone, I can think of no other way of settling the situation. I have been careless in this arrangement, and I am grumpy with myself. And I have so much work of my own to be getting on with, I wail silently. Finally, I hurry downstairs intending to explain to him that I will be back in a few minutes, but he is not in the garden and I cannot find him anywhere.
“Manuel!” I call.
Lucky comes loping toward me, barking.
“Manuel!” There is no response. Eventually, I find him hovering like a specter in the darkness of our windowless garage which, with two cars as ancient as ours, never houses vehicles but is packed to the gills with gardening equipment and a beaten-up but useful fridge.
“What are you doing?” I ask rather crossly.
“Looking for a hoe,” he explains. I point out the switch for the electric light and hurtle off down the drive in the car, hastening along lanes to be there before the shop shuts at midday. This épicerie is one of those small family businesses that closes at noon and does not reopen until four in the afternoon. When I arrive it is closed. I bang on the door and call out. No one answers. I wander around back to the area with the woodshed and rap my fist against a glass door. Still no reply. It is only a few minutes after twelve, but the place is as silent as a deserted ship. Infuriated, I pile into the car and hurry back to the farm. Manuel is nowhere to be found. His satchel, which had been ditched on one of the terraces, has also gone. The only sign that tells me he was even here is the hoe, which I find in the flowerbed, slung carelessly across a cluster of now-wilting tiger lilies. No weeding to speak of has been achieved. I call his name several times and peer into the garage but do not find him. He must have disappeared, perhaps driven away by fear of the dog. Lucky is supine on one of the terraces, panting contentedly. Little Ella dozing, her head resting against her companion’s stomach. I return to my writing, mightily relieved. The incident has been settled with far less consequence than I had dreaded.
MICHEL IS IN PARIS, and I have been trying unsuccessfully to reach him by phone. Given the extreme nature of our crisis and my natural propensity to worry, I am concerned that something could be wrong. I telephone his office and ask his assistant where he is. She has no idea.
“When did you last see him?” I beg, eager to keep the alarm out of my voice and not panic his team.
“Yesterday morning” is her response.
“What, he hasn’t been at the office since… is everything all right?”
Isobel, a stable and well-balanced woman, cannot see what I am so concerned about. “He’s probably working from his studio,” she offers as an explanation. I have been ringing there; no reply. Michel has never installed an answering machine at the little studio where he sleeps when he is in Paris because he guards it as a private space. Endless hours of his days are spent on phones, and he has always claimed to need this oasis of peace. We speak so frequently during the course of the day that this has never been a problem before. However, I am unsettled and ring Isobel again to ask him to call me when he comes in. By evening, I have heard nothing and try his studio once more. Still no reply, and the office have not seen him all day. He has probably been at meetings elsewhere is Isobel’s latest explanation.
“You don’t think you should go to the studio and break the door down?” I suggest. Clearly, she considers me preposterous. “I work for him,” she replies tartly. “I am not in the habit of beating down my boss’s door.”
“No, no, of course not. Sorry to have troubled you.” I replace the receiver, but I know that if all were well, I would have heard from Michel. Something must have happened. If he had been obliged to go away on short notice, he would definitely have telephoned. So what is the problem, and how am I going to reach him?
I am sitting on the terrace, tormented by worry, trying to take heart from the wintry sunset, when unexpectedly René appears. I am overwhelmingly grateful to see him. As is frequently the case, he has come with a little offering, a jar of fig jam, brown and slippery as a seal, made from our own freshly picked figs. From the eight trees on the property, Quashia and I gathered more than a thousand kilos of fruit during late September and early October before he left.
I thank my silver-haired friend and offer him a glass of beer, trying to disguise my present level of anguish. I am in a fix. Quashia has gone, I have no one to look after the dogs and I am thinking, broke or not, that I must go to Paris.
“Wine or beer, whichever is easiest,” he says, and settles himself contentedly at the garden table on the upper terrace to enjoy a drink. He likes to do this, René. He has a key to the gate and will occasionally drop by to while away an hour, discourse a little, recount a tale or two and take pleasure from the burnt-orange sunset.
I head down to the fridge in the garage to collect us a beer and a bottle of rosé. To my amazement, the fridge is bare but for a bottle or two of wine; certainly, empty of all beer. Puzzled, I pull out the sole remaining bottle of rosé. I know I am stressed, but I definitely remember buying a case of beer at a local supermarket the previous evening after leaving the épicerie, which was out of stock. Given my present stress level, it is possible I have forgotten it somewhere. I try to recollect. The trunk of the car, perhaps? And then my thoughts fall to Manuel, who, with all my concerns about Michel’s unexplained disappearance, had gone completely out of mind. The blighter must have made off with all the Stella Artois! I return apologetically to René with wine and a dish of our own olives.
“You look tired,” he remarks. “Did you remember to send in that form?”
“What form?”
“For the olives.”
Ah, yes, that form. Yes, I reassure him I filled it in, signed it and posted it on to Michel for signing and forwarding to Brussels. It is dealt with.
We raise our glasses and offer the usual French “à la tienne,” and sip our drinks.
I am about to ask for his help, to feed the dogs and hold the fort for a few days while I fly to Paris, when a strident trumpeting interrupts me. Amazed, we both turn toward the second plot from where the sound has emanated. “It’s a wild boar,” I croak.
René shakes his head. “I don’t think so.”
“What could it be, then?”
“We better take a look.”
Leav
ing our drinks on the table, we set off into a wilderness of grass, brambles and weeds. Due to lack of resources, the second plot has, during the autumn and the earlier torrential rains, transformed back into a gentler version of the wilderness it was when we first discovered the place. It is a sad spectacle. Lucky and Ella trot at our heels. Lucky is barking wildly, but the peculiar bleating or calling has stopped, and we cannot trace it. René suggests that it may be a distressed animal, trapped.
“In what?” I ask a mite defensively. I am totally opposed to hunting, and when this portion of land was first cut back, I personally saw to it that every hunting trap still buried beneath herbage was ripped out and burned or, if fabricated out of some lethal metal, slung in the trash cans.
It is not too long before we come upon the source of the bellowing. Manuel, though not a single drop of Latin blood runs through his knavish veins, is spread-eagled on the ground, dead to the world beneath our spreading bay tree. Head pillowed on his satchel, he is snoring contentedly. All around him like a spray of stars are our emptied beer bottles.
“Diable.” René grins. “Who is he?”
“He was meant to be your assistant for the olive harvest.” I laugh and swiftly recount the story of Manuel.
We lift him between us and haul him, dragging him by his heels through the grassy earth, the entire length of the garden to René’s Renault shooting brake, where we dump him in the open trunk. His breath is like dragon’s fire.
“Let’s finish that bottle,” suggests René, giggling. “We’ve earned it, and then we’ll return him to his woodshed.” This is exactly what we do. During the entire exercise, Manuel never once so much as stirs.
During our little excursion to the épicerie, René agrees to hold the fort for me as of the morrow, assuring me that I am not to worry. He delivers me back to the gate. I thank him and begin my climb up the hill. As I do, he calls after me, “Do you want me to look for someone to help with the olives?”
“I’ll let you know tomorrow,” I answer, too whacked to think about it now.
Up at the house, the telephone is ringing. It is Isobel to say that Michel has been taken ill. I knew it. The dogs have been fed for this evening. I phone René, who is walking in his door, to let him know that I am leaving for the airport and intend to catch the last plane to Paris. I promise to be back as soon as I can.
PARIS IS DAMP AND WINTRY. Streetlights refract and rainbow in the rain. By the time I arrive at the studio, it is after eleven and Michel is in bed, doubled up in pain.
I am shocked by the sight of him but fight back my desire to quiz him about his sickness. I learn that he was taken ill the morning before, during a meeting with his lawyer. His lawyer called in a doctor, friend and specialist, who has taken some tests, sent him home to rest and promised to call again in a day or two, as soon as he has news.
“Why didn’t you phone me?” I manage.
“I didn’t want to worry you.”
I refrain from mentioning that the silence over the past forty hours has nearly driven me around the bend. Instead, I slip into bed beside him, wrap my arms around him and we try to sleep.
The specialist phones at what seems first light. In fact, it’s the lowering gray skies. He wants Michel at his clinic before the end of the morning. I feel everything within me tighten.
“Did he say why?”
Michel shakes his head. I insist on going with him, which at first he refuses, but I am adamant. Michel is not a man to ease up on his workload. On the few occasions I have seen him ailing with a common cold or minor health problem, he has ignored it. He refuses to accept or even acknowledge any form of physical incapacity. This is not going to be easy for him. Nor is it for me: I hate hospitals, I am the world’s greatest coward when it comes to blood and I can barely stomach the sulphurous and alkaline aromas of unguents, tinctures and disinfectants. Those long, narrow corridors give me the shakes. Supine bodies on trolleys bring nausea and fear to my senses. But I want to be there. I refuse to sit around at the studio all day, chewing my nails.
Even though Michel is insisting on taking the Métro because a taxi is beyond our means, we take a taxi because I insist more vociferously and he is too weak to argue.
The doctor is a youngish, handsome man with a warm reassuring manner. He leads us through to his office and informs Michel that he wants to begin a series of tests right away. Michel is in so much pain—stomach cramps—that he can barely speak. There are many French words, medical terms, that pass me by. I have a dozen questions I want answered but say almost nothing. Michel is led away, and I am left alone in the office.
It is not even six months since I sat at my father’s bedside. The images return and I try to drive them away, for they are too terrifying. I stand up and begin to pace, incapable of staying still. I open the door and peer out along a narrow corridor where figures in white flit in and out of opening and closing doors. Many are wearing face masks, carrying clipboards. I have no idea where Michel has been taken. Suddenly, the foreignness of everything hits me, and I begin to shake.
I love this man with every fiber of my being. I could not bear to lose him. Suddenly, I am tormented by pictures of my father, his deathbed and the funeral service. My fear is getting a grip. I must hold this together, I am thinking. And then the doctor returns. To give me an update, put me in the picture.
“I am zo zorree zat I kennot zpeek Engleesh.” He smiles. I nod without regarding him because I am ashamed of my desire to weep, because I am terribly afraid and because I feel I am about the most useless partner. If this were a film, if I were playing a role, I would be bearing up: a mountain of controlled energy, stalwart, docile; the rock upon which our relationship is built. Or at the other extreme, roles I am frequently offered these days, the alcoholic who can’t hold anything together. As it is, I am neither. Just ordinary and insignificant, lost in the labyrinthine world of another language and a situation over which I have no control and can see no signposts to guide me forward.
The doctor begins to explain to me what they are testing Michel for, but the words are long and incomprehensible and I cannot follow until I recognize one and lock on to it as though I have been slugged—cancer.
Have I understood correctly? These days, most of the time, I move between French and English almost as easily as changing my clothes, but there are occasions like now when I panic and the language becomes scrambled. It is as though I am on the outside looking in, a moth fluttering beyond glass intent on reaching the light. Desperate to be sure, I repeat the word once, and then again.
“This is difficult for you, n’est-ce pas?”
I nod.
“What I am trying to tell you is that we do not think there is a cancer but we must test, non? Come with me.”
He leads me down one corridor after another to a vending machine where coffees, teas and various other beverages are on offer. Pulling out a five-franc coin, he asks me how I take my coffee. I cannot remember! So he orders me an express. At that very same moment, an aluminum trolley rolling on big black wheels appears from behind a swing door followed by a young, bleached-blonde girl, thin as a wisp, who offers me a choice of croissants, chocolat au pain or baguette sandwiches: jambon or fromage. The doctor sits with me, and we eat breakfast together. And then he leads me to a quiet corner, rests a kind hand on my shoulder and hurries off to work.
The day passes long and slow.
When I am too drained to pray any more, I cheer myself with lists of heavenly moments to keep me company:
Late warm evenings, returning home in evening dress, after film and dinner at the Cannes Festival, to the song of nightingales lyrical beneath a blanket of stars. Dancing to their music on the terrace, arms wrapped tightly around each other, my head on Michel’s white silk jacket.
Summer Sundays on our own, floating together naked in the pool, in the world’s largest azure-blue rubber ring—a birthday present from me to Michel—water trickling through our fingers and toes. Heat baking our backs, circling
on a cushion of bliss. The taste of chlorine on our lips. White flesh where watches and rings have hidden it from the sun.
Cool white linen sheets bearing the weight of sunburned flesh.
The notes we have secreted in each other’s luggage when we were separating, if only for a few days.
Lines from songs we have sung to each other:
“You taste so sweet, I could drink a case of you.”
and
“… when you need someone to love
Don’t go to strangers
Lover come to me.”
Airport good-byes and then crushing kisses at the week’s end which say how much we missed each other.
How Michel paints every mundane article in striking colors, even the hose rollers—all of them inspired contrasts. Picasso, when he lived close by our farm, was unhappy about an electricity pylon that blighted the view. (We have one, too!) The EDF refused to remove it, so he painted it a rainbow of colors.
A DOOR OPENS. BY NOW it is early evening. The doctor returns. I leap to my feet, piercing his expression in the hope of gleaning news. He does not speak directly, and I fear the worst. My stomach is churning.
“How is he? Where is he?”
“He’s five minutes behind me, getting dressed.”
All has been discovered. Michel is suffering from a mild form, early stages of, diverticulitis, probably caused and certainly aggravated by stress. The doctor is confident that it can be treated with plenty of rest, no work, an extremely strict diet, no wine and nothing that will aggravate Michel’s nervous system. If, after all that has been tried, the condition has not been resolved, then an operation may be required. The best of the news is that Michel does not have to be kept; he can come home now.
During our return journey to the studio, he does not even question the choice of a taxi. He is silent, exhausted by tubes and machines.
Over dinner—a chicken bouillon and Evian—we discuss our predicament. With his usual brand of tenacity, which in this particular situation I would describe as stubbornness, Michel suggests that he will rest over the weekend and go back to work on Monday. I will not hear of it, and we begin to bicker until a stomach cramp reminds us both that he must be kept calm.
Olive Farm Page 30
