AYearin Provence

Escape the cold with PETER MAYLE’S gloriously comic sun-kissed memoir

PETER MAYLE, who died last week aged 78, wrote the fabulous A Year In Provence, his comic account of moving to France. The instant bestseller was followed by two more — Toujours Provence and Encore Provence. To celebrate his brilliant wit, we are serialising his books all this week. Today, he recalls two unanticipated menaces: the Mistral wind and an unexpected, boorish British guest . . . JANUARY

SoMEWHAT to our surprise, we had done it. We had committed ourselves. We had bought a house in Provence, taken French lessons, said our goodbyes, shipped over our two dogs and become foreigners.

My wife Jennie and I had been here often as tourists, desperate for our annual ration of two or three weeks of true heat and sharp light. Always when we left, with peeling noses and regret, we promised ourselves that one day we would live here.

We had talked about it during the long grey winters and damp green summers, looked with an addict’s longing at photographs of village markets and vineyards, dreamed of being woken up by the sun slanting through the bedroom window.

In the end, it had happened quickly — almost impulsively — because of the house.

We saw it one afternoon and had mentally moved in by dinner.

It was set above the country road that runs through the two medieval hill villages of Menerbes and Bonnieux, at the end of a dirt track through cherry trees and vines. It was a

mas, or farmhouse, built from local stone which 200 years of wind and sun had weathered to a colour somewhere between pale honey and pale grey.

Everything about it was solid. The spiral staircase which rose from the wine cellar to the top floor was cut from massive slabs of stone. The walls, some of them a metre thick, were built to keep out the winds of the Mistral which, they say, can blow the ears off a donkey. Attached to the back of the house was an enclosed courtyard, and beyond that a bleached white stone swimming pool.

The Luberon mountains rise up immediately behind the house and run in deep folds for about 40 miles. Cedar, pines and scrub oak keep them perpetually green and provide cover for boar, rabbits and game birds. From the summit on a clear day, the view is of the Mediterranean — yet for most of the year it is possible to walk all day without seeing a car or a human being.

‘one is fortunate indeed to be in Provence,’ remarked a local, the proprietor of Le Simiane restaurant, as he wished us a Happy New Year after serving us a six-course lunch with pink champagne. With a flourish of one velvet-clad arm, he took in the village, the ruins of the Marquis de Sade’s chateau perched above, the view across to the mountains and the bright, clean sky.

FORTUNATE indeed, we thought. It was hard to associate the sunshine and dense blue sky outside with the first of January but, as everyone kept telling us, this was normal.

After all, we were in Provence. If this was winter, we wouldn’t be needing all the foulweather paraphernalia — boots, coats and inch-thick sweaters — we had brought from England. We drove home, warm and well-fed, making bets on how soon we could take the first swim of the year.

Meanwhile, 1,000 miles to the north, the wind that had started in Siberia was picking up speed for the final part of its journey. We had heard stories about the Mistral. It drove people, and animals, mad. It was an extenuating circumstance in crimes of violence.

It blew for 15 days on end, uprooting trees, overturning cars, smashing windows, tossing old ladies into the gutter, splintering telegraph poles, moaning through houses like a cold and baleful ghost, causing la grippe, domestic squabbles, absenteeism from work, toothache, migraine — in fact, every problem in Provence that couldn’t be blamed on the politicians.

Typical Gallic exaggeration, we thought. If they had to put up with the gales that come off the English Channel and bend the rain so that it hits you in the face almost horizontally, then they might know what a real wind was like.

And so we were poorly prepared when the first Mistral of the year came howling down the Rhone valley, turned left and smacked into the west side of the house with enough force to skim roof tiles into the swimming pool and rip a window that had been carelessly left open off its hinges.

The temperature dropped 20 degrees in 24 hours. It went to zero, then six below. Readings taken in Marseilles showed a wind speed of 180km (112mph) an hour. My wife was cooking in an overcoat. I was trying to type in gloves. We stopped talking about our first swim and thought wistfully about central heating.

And then one morning, with the sound of branches snapping, the frozen pipes burst, one after the other.

They hung off the wall, swollen and stopped up with ice, and Monsieur Menicucci the plumber studied them with a professional eye. ‘ Oh la la,’ he said. ‘ Oh la la.’ He turned to his young apprentice, whom he invariably addressed as

jeune homme or jeune. ‘You see what we have here, jeune. Naked pipes. No insulation. Cote d’Azur plumbing. In Cannes, in Nice, it would do, but here . . . ’ He made a clucking sound of disapproval and wagged his finger under jeune’s nose to underline the difference between the soft winters of the coast and the biting cold in which we were now standing.

FEBRUARY

THOUGH Provence was by now under a blanket of snow, we dreamed of summer and started to make plans for turning the enclosed courtyard at the back of the house into an open-air living room.

There was already a barbecue and a bar, but what it lacked was a permanent table. As we stood in six inches of snow, we tried to picture lunchtime in mid-August, and traced a square on the flagstones, 5ft by 5ft — large enough to seat eight bronzed and barefooted people, with plenty of room in the middle for giant bowls of salad, pates and cheese, cold roasted peppers, olive bread and chilled bottles of wine.

The top of this square table, we decided, would be a single slab of stone.

Stone in Provence was cheap — cheaper than linoleum. A local mason designed our table top, charged us 1,000 francs (about £135) and delivered it a few days later, propping it up in a snowdrift behind the garage while I was out.

It was five feet across and five inches thick, with a massive base in the form of a cross. It weighed about 700lb. It was no more than 15 yards from where I wanted it — but it might as well have been 50 miles.

We tried to work out how many people would be needed to manhandle it into the courtyard. Six? Eight? It would have to be balanced on its side to pass through the doorway.

We had visions of crushed toes and multiple hernias, and belatedly understood why the previous owner of the house had put a light,

folding table in the place we had chosen for our monument.

As it turned out, a source of help was not long in coming. Weeks before, we had decided to rebuild the kitchen, but for one reason or another it remained untouched.

Delays had been caused by the plasterer going skiing, by the bricklayer breaking his arm playing football on a motorbike, by the winter torpor of local suppliers.

One morning, between dawn and daylight, the builders arrived with a deafening clatter in a truck spiked with scaffolding. The door opened and a cocker spaniel jumped out, followed by three men.

There was an unexpected whiff of aftershave as the bricklayer mangled my fingers and introduced the team: Didier, his lieutenant Eric, and the junior, a massive young man named Claude.

The dog, Penelope, declared the site open by relieving herself copiously in front of the house, and battle commenced.

We had never seen builders work like this. Everything was done on the double: scaffolding was erected and a ramp of planks was built before the sun was fully up. The kitchen window and sink disappeared minutes later and by ten o’clock we were standing in a fine layer of preliminary rubble.

It was startling to see and hear the joyful ferocity with which the three stonemasons pulverised everything within sledgehammer range. They thumped and whistled and sang and swore, and at lunchtime they demolished, with the same vigour, plastic hampers filled with chickens and sausage and

choucroute and salads and loaves of bread, with proper crockery and cutlery.

None of them drank alcohol, to our relief. A tipsy mason in charge of a 40lb hammer was a frightening thought. They were dangerous enough sober. Pandemonium resumed after lunch and continued until nearly seven without a break. I asked Didier if he regularly worked a ten-hour day. Only in the winter, he said: in the summer it was 12 or 13 hours, six days a week.

He was amused to hear about the English timetable of a late start and an early finish, with multiple tea breaks, and asked if I knew any English builders who would like to work with him, just for the experience. I couldn’t imagine a rush of volunteers.

Life changed. If we got up at 6.30am we could have breakfast in peace. Any later and the sound effects from the kitchen made conversation impossible.

One morning when the drills and hammers were in full song, I could see my wife’s lips move but no words were reaching me.

Eventually she passed me a note: ‘ Drink your coffee before it gets dirty.’

Didier — half man, half forklift truck — was somehow able to run up the bouncing ramp pushing a wheelbarrow of wet cement, a cigarette in one side of his mouth and breath enough to whistle out of the other. As the kitchen took shape, the follow- up squad arrived: Ramon the plasterer with his plaster- covered radio, Mastorino the painter, Trufelli the tile-layer, Zanchi the carpenter.

It occurred to us that, if this energy could be channelled for an hour or so, we had enough bodies and biceps to shift the stone table into the courtyard.

When I suggested this, there was instant co- operation: 12 hands grasped the slab and 12 arms strained to lift it.

There was not the slightest movement. Teeth were sucked thoughtfully and everyone walked round the table looking at it until the plumber, Menicucci, put his finger on the problem.

‘The stone is porous,’ he said. ‘It is filled with water like a sponge. The water has frozen, the stone has frozen, the ground has frozen. Voila! It is immovable. You must wait until it has thawed.’

MARCH

THE almond tree was in tentative blossom. The days were longer, often ending with magnificent evenings of corrugated pink skies. And following some primeval springtime urge, the builders had migrated, leaving us with some token sacks of plaster and piles of sand as proof of their intention to come back . . . one day.

In Provence, the universal phenomenon of the vanishing builder has its own clearly defined seasons. Three times a year, at Easter, August and Christmas, the city owners of holiday homes escape the metropolis to come down for a few days or weeks of the simple country life.

Invariably, they think of something that is crucial to the success of their holiday: a set of Courreges bidets, a searchlight for the swimming pool, a re-tiled terrace, a new roof for the servants’ quarters. In panic, they telephone the local builders and craftsmen: ‘Get it

done! It must be done before we arrive!’ Implicit in these urgent instructions is the understanding that generous payments will be forthcoming if the work is done at once. This is too tempting to be ignored.

Un petit quart d’heure means not a quarter of an hour but some time today. Demain is not tomorrow but some time this week. And, the most elastic time segment of all, une

quinzaine can mean three weeks, two months or next year, but never, ever does it mean 15 days.

APRIL

THE voice on the telephone didn’t sound like anyone I knew, and it wasn’t — not a friend, nor even the friend of a friend, but the acquaintance of an acquaintance. He introduced himself as Tony.

‘Looking for a house down there,’ he said in the clipped, time-ismoney voice of a busy executive. ‘Thought you could give me a hand. Want to get in before the Easter rush and the Frogs put up the prices.’

I offered to give him the names of some property agents. ‘Bit of a problem there,’ he said. ‘Don’t speak the language. Order a meal, of course, but that’s about it.’

I offered to give him the name of a bilingual agent, but that wouldn’t do. He seemed to be expecting me to offer my services, and before I could say something to terminate this budding relationship, the chance was denied me.

‘Must go. Can’t chat all night. Plenty of time for that when I get down next week.’ And then those awful words which put an end to any hopes of hiding: ‘Don’t worry. I’ve got your address. I’ll find you.’

And so, on one of those mornings when the early mist hung in wet sheets along the valley under a band of bright blue sky, we came home from walking to find a

stranger by the swimming pool. Our dogs pranced around him, pretending to be fierce.

‘Dogs all right, are they?’ he called. ‘Not rabid or anything?’ I recognised the voice: Tony, the acquaintance of my acquaintance. He was large and prosperously padded round the waistline, with tinted glasses, carefully tousled hair and the pale-coloured casual clothes that English visitors wear in Provence regardless of the weather.

He sat down and produced a bulging Filofax, a gold pen, a packet of duty-free Cartier cigarettes and a gold lighter. His watch was also gold. I was sure that gold medallions nestled in his chest hair. He told us he was in advertising, and that he was now ready to devote his energies, and ours, to the purchase of property.

I attempted without much success to warn him that buying a house in Provence is not without its complications. Busy and efficient people from cities, used to firm decisions and quicklystruck deals, often give up after months of serpentine negotiations that have led nowhere.

The first of many surprises, always greeted with alarm and disbelief, is that all property costs more than its advertised price. This is because the French government takes a cut of about 8 per cent on all transactions — and thus has established a ritual of respectable cheating which has the double attractions, so dear to every French heart, of saving money and screwing the government.

This is the two-price purchase, and a typical example would work as follows: Monsieur Rivarel, a businessman in Aix, wishes to sell an old country house that he inherited. He wants a million francs. As it is not his principal residence, he will be liable for tax on the proceeds of the sale, a thought which causes him great distress. He therefore decides that the official, recorded price — the

prix declare — will be 600,000 francs, and he will grit his teeth and pay tax on that.

HIsconsolation is that the balance of 400,000 francs will be paid in cash, under the table. Official fees and charges will be based on the lower, declared price. Voila! Everyone is happy.

The practical aspects of this arrangement call for a sense of timing and great delicacy on the part of the lawyer, or notaire, when the moment comes to sign the act of sale. All the interested parties — the buyer, the seller and the property agent — are gathered in the notaire’s office, and the act of sale is read aloud, line by interminable line.

The price marked on the contract is 600,000 francs. The 400,000 in cash which the buyer has brought along has to be passed to the seller, but it would be highly improper if this were to happen in front of the notaire.

Consequently, he feels a pressing need to go to the lavatory, where he stays until the cash has been counted and changed hands. It has been said, rather unkindly, that the two basic requirements for a rural notaire are a blind eye and a diplomatic bladder.

There are other difficulties. A peasant selling his farmhouse may set a price which he thinks is absurdly high, and which will keep him in drink and lottery tickets for the rest of his days. A buyer comes along and agrees the inflated price. The peasant immediately suspects trickery. It’s too easy. The price must be too low. He withdraws the house from the market for six months before trying again at a higher figure.

And then there are the trifling inconveniences that are mentioned casually at the last minute: an outbuilding that has been lost to a neighbour in a card game; an ancient right of way which technically permits the passage of herds of goats through the kitchen twice a year; a dispute over well water that has been bitter and unresolved since 1958; the venerable sitting tenant who is ‘ bound to die’ before next spring.

Tony was, by his own modest admission, a shrewd and resourceful negotiator. He had ‘played hardball’ with the ‘big boys on Madison Avenue’, and it would take more than bureaucracy or a French peasant to get the better of him, he said.

I took him to meet a property agent, who sat us down with two thick files of property details and photographs.

SHEspoke no English. since direct communication was impossible, Tony behaved as if she wasn’t there. It was a particularly arrogant form of bad manners, made worse by the assumption that even the most derogatory language can be used without the risk of it being understood.

And so I passed an embarrassing half-hour as Tony flicked through the files, muttering ‘F*** me!’ and ‘They must be joking’ at intervals while I made feeble attempts to translate his comments into some nonsense about his being impressed by the prices. At lunch, I told Tony that I wouldn’t be joining him that afternoon. He was surprised that I had anything better to do, but ordered a second bottle of wine and told me that money was an international language: he didn’t anticipate having any difficulties.

Unfortunately, when the bill arrived he discovered that neither his gold American Express card nor the wad of traveller’s cheques that he hadn’t had time to change were of any interest to the restaurant’s proprietor. I paid and made some remark about the international language. Tony was not amused.

I left him with mixed feelings of relief and guilt. Boors are always unpleasant, but when you’re in a foreign country and they are of your own nationality you feel some kind of vague responsibility. The next day, I called the agent to apologise.

‘Don’t worry,’ she said. ‘Parisians are often just as bad. At least I didn’t understand what he was saying.’