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Chapter 2

Connecting with our French tradesmen

Spring brought a fresh quality to the air and we had arrived in time to enjoy it. The fields were still grey and leafless—green had not yet begun to transform the hillsides—but the buds were swelling and the days growing longer. The cicadas, or cigales as they are known in Provence, were months away from their raucous song. When the cats were apart a certain calm took over.

In the house the long campaign to remove wallpaper marched on. The last room on the ground floor would only give up its paper in inch-sized bits after tedious labour.

Within a couple of days we had settled into our routine, and it felt like we had never left. At the end of each day we celebrated our efforts with a glass of wine on the balcony. On particularly still nights we could hear the church bell in the village ringing out. It rang twice, in case someone didn’t hear it the first time. The cock down the hill crowed at dawn and whatever other time he felt like doing so.

We had telephoned several tradesmen and sooner or later they would appear to change the rhythm of our peaceful days. The farmers would bring out their equipment and drive up and down the hills preparing the vineyards and orchards for the growing season, and life would return after the winter interlude.

By the third day our jet lag had receded and the trades had begun to turn up at the front door—not always at the agreed-upon time or the right day, but at least we had the pleasure of knowing they were thinking of us.

The road winding past our house provided a means for getting to know the people who lived in the area. A small red Renault swung out of a driveway just up the hill and sped down the road in my direction. Out of normal courtesy I waved. The driver braked to a sudden stop in the middle of the road and jumped out of the car.

“Bonjour, bonjour! Vous êtes arrivés pour l’été?”

It was Faustin Buisson, an elderly man who in the past had waved at me but never stopped. So these few words were the first to pass between us. He had a small and wiry build topped with a balding head of sparse grey hair. He grinned broadly, exposing a gold canine in a row of crooked teeth and looked me straight in the eye while shaking my hand.

“Oui, nous sommes ici pour six mois maintenant,” I replied.

“Ça c’est bien,” he said enthusiastically, and then finished with, “À bientôt.”

As quickly as he had arrived, he jumped back in his car and sped away. I had seen Faustin coming and going the previous year. I knew nothing about him and I assumed he lived alone, as his manner was that of a solitary person. There was always a sense of scurrying in his movements. Each morning he drove to the village and then returned a little while later.

One day later that spring I met him at the village square and said hello to him, but he showed little interest. This confused me at first, then I thought that possibly I had received his one welcome for the summer.

In many of the villages in Provence the farmers, butchers, fishmongers, cheese makers and other merchants arrive at dawn to set up stands and sell their products in the weekly outdoor markets. The village squares, streets and narrow lanes turn into crowded shopping areas filled with noise and activity. This is also a social event where neighbours and acquaintances can greet each other and have a word or two.

Thursday is the day for the marché in Nyons and, as this was our first Thursday since returning, we started off early to take advantage of the best selection. Even though the village is within walking distance, we drove in order to avoid the uphill walk home carrying our heavy paniers stuffed with food.

Parking was difficult at any time, however with the market stalls occupying the square, vehicles were pressed off onto the narrow side streets and along the riverbank. Paniers in hand, we strolled into the square. Each week as the season progressed the fresh produce changed. Sometimes the plan for dinner would suddenly be altered as the produce we wanted was no longer in season or something new had arrived.

It was a joy to be back and take in the market for the first time again. The stalls and the people milling about create a kaleidoscope of colour and activity. We divided the morning into shopping together for the core ingredients and then separating to buy other things. Each square and street has its own smells: fresh fish in one aisle with water running constantly from the thawing ice on the fish, roasting chicken on spits in the next aisle. Leather goods, spices and incense all offered their own aromas.

I headed for the stall where a man was making paella, a saffron-flavoured dish of Spanish origin containing vegetables, rice, meat and seafood, while the shoppers waited and watched. Marie-Hélène went off to another square where fresh vegetables are sold and her favourite lady frequently has fresh rabbit. The plan was to meet at La Belle Epoque, have an espresso, read the International Herald Tribune and then drive home. I walked the stalls, past rows of clothing and sausage merchants. The boules courts were busy so I stopped and watched a few throws, listening to the click of one metal ball striking another. I walked to the tabac presse for the Herald Tribune and then headed for our rendezvous point.

As I walked up, Marie-Hélène was waiting in the shade of a plane tree. She gleefully waved her basket at me and then held it open to show me the contents. “I got everything we wanted. Madame had three lapin thighs and she sold me the best one, but the asparagus looked dreadful so I got some green beans instead. I bought a dozen farm eggs. Do you remember those deep yellow yolks we found so delicious? . . . How did you do?”

I rummaged in my own panier to show her the hot container of paella and two packages of sliced meats. “I got everything, and luckily I ran into our gardener, François, who says he’ll be over tomorrow.”

The next day François arrived. We heard his truck rumbling up the road and stopping in the driveway at seven in the morning. We leapt out of bed and dressed quickly to save ourselves from looking like lazy Canadians. He was as reliable as clockwork, and when he said that he would be there chaque vendredi, it was the case. Work for him started early and continued after a brief lunch until five or six. For some unknown reason François called me by my middle name, James, so for him I was “Jeem.” . . .

At the end of April we were anxious to start work on our guest suite. The workers had all been contacted in the weeks before we left for France and had promised that they were available to start the moment we arrived. Everything was a go.

However, we hadn’t counted on the month of May. In France some months seemed to have more holidays than work days. So May is either the best month or the worst month, depending on whether you are a worker or an owner trying to get some work done. There is Labour Day, Victory Day, Ascension, Pentecost, Whit Monday and more. Sometimes two such events fall on the same day or on a weekend, thereby cheating the workers out of a day off. This hardly presents a problem, for if a holiday happens to fall on a Tuesday or Thursday, many of the workers take the Monday or the Friday off as well. This is known as a pont, or bridge. It was very logically pointed out to us that it would be foolish to break up a holiday with one day of work. We began to realize that May could easily be viewed as a month off, interspersed with a few days of work.

Quite apart from the holidays, there was a peculiar loose sense of time for some of the provençal tradesmen that we got to know. Was it safe to leave the house in case that day a tradesman happened to show up, even though for the last three days he had failed to do so?

We created strategies to hold onto the workers until a project was completed. The young man who installed the kitchen cabinets was offered an apéritif and dinner so that he would work to finish the job before he got away that evening.

The mason had said that he would arrive at our place at dawn on Monday, hadn’t he? So by noon on Wednesday I called his wife and said that probably with my poor grasp of French I hadn’t understood him properly, and could she possibly ask him to call to set another day to start the work. We didn’t receive a return call, but the next morning the doorbell rang, and with some curiosity about who was there so early in the morning I opened the door to find the mason standing in front of me.

“Bonjour, Albin,” I cried with some delight, while a measure of surprise must have shown on my face. The custom in Provence, even if two people pass each other on the street for the third time in a day, is to shake hands. If one person is lax about extending his hand it would likely be taken as almost an insult or that one was angry with the other. Albin’s hand had been half-extended while he watched to see what I would do. I reached out and vigorously shook his hand. This ritual demanded looking each other squarely in the eyes at the same time. I could see him visibly relax and then smile.

“Entrez, entrez . . . Marie-Hélène, Albin is here and I’ve invited him in!”

Down the stairs to the front door she came almost at a run.

“Albin, je suis ravie de vous voir,” she enthused.

He obviously missed the irony in the greeting as he glowed with pleasure and stepped inside. I noticed Tabitha slip past our legs and out the door, only to stop when she saw Myrtille sleeping on the flagstones warming in the morning sun. She quickly changed directions and headed off behind the house.

After exchanging all the necessary pleasantries with Albin, we got down to business. There were several hundred floor tiles that had to be returned to the magasin de bricolage, the equivalent to a lumber yard in Canada. Albin had delivered a load of tiles last fall that I had later unwrapped to discover they weren’t the ones we had ordered. I put on some work gloves and pitched in to help load his truck. Albin stacked them one on top of another onto wood pallets in the middle of his truck bed.

“Albin, ce n’est pas possible. Elles glissent et tombent,” I said, making a sliding motion with my hands to indicate the tiles were piled too high and would fall as soon as the truck was set in motion.

“Pas de problème.” he responded casually, smiling at me.

I couldn’t see why he thought loose stacks of tiles would be safe to move, but reluctantly accepted that he knew what he was doing—after all, this was what he did for a living. We finished loading the truck and hopped into the cab. As we began to pull out of the driveway a loud crashing noise erupted behind us. I looked at Albin, who eased the truck to a stop with his mouth hanging open.

“Merde!”

Turning to look back, I saw the tiles spread across the truck bed. Albin climbed up and began to restack them, the broken ones on the bottom, the whole ones on top, arranging them more evenly and wrapping them loosely with plastic in an attempt to prevent further sliding. We started off again, this time very slowly. Fortunately the magasin de bricolage was less than a kilometre away and we arrived without further incident. Albin waved at one of the yardmen to come over with a loader and move the pallets into the storage shed. We walked into the office where he had the salesman credit his account. He had forgotten about the broken tiles.

Albin didn’t stay at the house to do any work that day, nor did we see him for another week. After all, this was the month of May.

“You know,” I said to Marie-Hélène over lunch on the balcony, “I think I’m beginning to understand why we’ve had so much trouble with Albin’s work,” and I related the whole story to her.

We began to realize the drawbacks of owning a house so far away that travelling there was an event in itself. If the job was left with the tradesmen to do in our absence, they inevitably did it as they saw fit, regardless of our instructions.

In our second week the Thursday market was on, so we left the maçon and his crew with specific instructions as to where to open a doorway through a stone wall, and then went to the village to shop that morning. When we returned home, they had marked out with chalk a completely different location on the wall and were getting out hammers and drills to start in. After redirecting their efforts back to where I wanted the door, I asked why they had decided to move it. Apparently they had looked at the wall and thought they had a better idea.

As this was not the first time something like this had occurred—spikes were driven into the exterior stucco while we were in Canada—we put a stop to all work unless we were present to keep a close eye on the progress. This was a sensitive matter, for if they felt they were being watched too closely they would think we didn’t trust them—which in fact was true. And if we weren’t nearby, they reverted to their own decisions despite all instructions to the contrary. I learned to be very precise about what we wanted, both verbally and with gestures, lots of pointing, and even sketches on paper. Then I’d walk away to do some gardening and just happen to be walking by on the way to find a garden tool. I could look in and congratulate them on their work so far. This strategy seemed to be a successful balance of presence yet distance. Often my very passing at a critical moment resulted in their consulting me on the next decision they were about to make. This turned the work into a joint project with us all putting our two cents’ worth in and reaching a consensus before proceeding. It certainly prevented returning to find a hole in the wrong place.

The electrician arrived Tuesday and began installing wiring. Then, at the end of the second day, I saw him putting his tools into his case, so with some concern I asked if he would be back the next day. He reassured me that yes, he would be back, normalement. For a moment I felt relieved, and then with growing alarm I began to think about what he had actually said. He’d said, “Yes, I will be back the next day—” So far so good. But then he had added “normalement.” Slowly I realized what this little addition to the sentence really meant. It meant, “Normally I would be back, but . . .” I had come across that word before. As the French are reluctant to say no, instead they say “yes, normally”—which means “no, definitely.”

I smiled at the electrician as he lifted his tool case and headed toward the door, knowing that I had lost him for an indefinite length of time. I wanted to say something more, but I bit my tongue instead.

No one came the next day and it was mid-May. “Let’s risk it and drive to Avignon on Monday. Probably no one will turn up and we can at least buy the fixtures.”

We needed some bathroom fixtures and decided Leroy Merlin in Le Pontet just north of Avignon was the best place to buy them. Really we just wanted a day’s outing.

In sunny weather the drive south toward Avignon is a delight. Along the narrow and winding D538 from Nyons to Mirabel-aux-Baronnies, crumbling stone structures dot the orchards that cover the rolling hillsides. Between Mirabel and Vaison-la-Romaine, vineyards become more prevalent and signs appear indicating dégustation for anyone who wants to stop. We had stopped and sampled from time to time; however, we felt awkward taking the wives or vignerons away from their work to open bottles for us to taste and then not buy their wine. As a result, we already had a sufficient number of ‘guilt’ wines that wouldn’t cellar long. So we brought them out for unannounced guests before the contents turned to vinegar.

The hills become steeper between Vaison and Le Barroux as the D938 winds along a narrow valley. Then it abruptly descends to the broad fertile plain of the Rhône Valley, where the road straightens and the frustrated provençal drivers who have been bottled up behind us in the earlier curves pass at dangerous speeds and disappear in the distance.

Carpentras has no exterior ring road, so all drivers going through have to suffer the congested streets. Then, reaching the south edge of the city and the arrow-straight D942 highway, we dashed to Avignon.

We took the exit ramp at Le Pontet, a suburb on the north side of Avignon, and did our shopping. The drive took less than an hour. We had talked very little on the way as we were preoccupied taking in the scenery for the first time this year.

“We should be able to make it into Avignon for lunch. Do you want to try La Cour du Louvre in town or go to Le Bercail across the river?” Marie-Hélène asked.

“Le Bercail. . . . It’s sunny and warm, so we can eat on the terrace by the water,” I answered.

Le Bercail is known for its stunning location on an island looking across the Rhône River at Avignon. We arrived to see the bright red parasols that shade the diners spread along the riverbank. A canal boat with a husband-and-wife team and a child playing on deck chugged by as we ordered lunch.

“Bon appétit,” we said, and touched glasses. Our conversation turned to the fish and ducks swimming in the river just below us.

We gazed across the river toward the towering walls that surround the old city of Avignon. In 1309 Pope Clement V, fearing the violence and chaos in Rome, moved the Papal Curia to Avignon and began construction of the Pope’s Palace, which grew to cover an area of over 11,000 square metres and still dominates the skyline. Our view included the Pont d’Avignon, which now extends just halfway across the river, and its small chapel midway on the remaining part of the bridge. The 900-metre stone pont, built between 1171 and 1185, was constructed because of the divine inspiration of a shepherd boy. But unstable soil in the river bed led to numerous collapses, and finally the catastrophic flood of 1668 swept away too much of the structure for it to be worthwhile rebuilding. The shepherd was beatified Saint Bénézet for his vision, and the bridge inspired the song known around the world as “Sur le pont d’Avignon.”

We returned home that afternoon to find a rumpled piece of paper stuck in the door stating that the mason had been there but couldn’t get into the house to do any work. The tradesmen just assume there will always be someone there to let them in.

Marie-Hélène said, “Oh well, it was a nice day anyway.”

I had a sick feeling that they had left to start a new project somewhere that someone else had been waiting on, and that we wouldn’t see them again until that project was finished in a week or a month, or possibly longer.

• • •

Our projects kept us from pursuing the things that we had come to Provence to do. We had bought bicycles to get out into the countryside, not in a car but in the plein air, as the French call it. Except for a couple of outings when we first got them, they had remained in the garage. We assured ourselves we would have time to put them to use. Today, as a break from our work, and because no trades were there, we decided to do just that.

I got the bicycles out and pumped up the tires. We lacked the smart cycling outfits that we saw on the main roads almost daily, but we had shorts, runners and T-shirts and that would have to do. We also had something few Frenchmen seemed to wear—helmets.

The hill behind our house offered excellent riding. The back roads that ramble through the hills have almost no traffic except for the comings and goings of a few farmers. We planned a ride some fourteen kilometres over the hilltop to Vinsobres, lunch there and a return at our leisure. The first part of the ride was a steep section to the crest of the hill. This was the hardest part and it left us puffing.

“I need to rest,” Marie-Hélène said, climbing off her bicycle.

“So do I,” I said, gasping.

We sat on the ground next to a vineyard for several minutes while we recovered our breath.

“How do these vines grow here?” Marie-Hélène asked. “There’s just rock and no soil.”

I looked around to see vines growing out of a surface covered in stones. No soil was visible.

“Well, there is soil underneath. The ploughs just pull the stones to the surface.”

The first few leaves of spring had recently appeared on the vines, and small clusters of buds showed where the grape clusters would follow.

We wiped our brows, climbed back on our bicycles and settled down to the easier ride ahead. From here the road followed the contours of the land. We sped down the ravines to cross small bridges and struggled up the other side of each succeeding knoll. The hilltop has largely been turned into vineyards and orchards, with some undeveloped wild forest. We stopped from time to time on the crest of a hill to take in the stunning vistas south toward Mirabel-aux-Baronnies with Mount Ventoux in the distance, and then north into a small, heavily cultivated valley with stone farmhouses dotting the hillside. Animals are a part of life in this corner of the world. Cats, dogs, chickens, rabbits, donkeys and goats were visible in the farmyards.

We timed the ride so that we would arrive for lunch. What we hadn’t considered was the weather, which looked sunny when we started off but rapidly began to change to clusters of fast-moving clouds. In the distance we could make out patches of rain. We had pretty well made it to Vinsobres when one of the clouds opened up overhead and soaked us through.

By the time we descended to the village and rode up to the restaurant we had dried a bit in the sun, but the owner took a long look at us standing at the doorway dripping onto his floor.

“Sacrebleu!” he muttered under his breath, and then to us, “Restez-là, s’il vous plaît.” Off to the kitchen he went, returning with two towels.

We wiped ourselves down as best we could and then he seated us in the warm sun on the patio. We had tried this restaurant on an earlier occasion but found it closed. The couple who operated it had been away on their honeymoon. Today they were both here, she serving the tables, he seating people. However, they took time to talk affectionately to each other, and catch each other’s eye as they worked.

“He keeps patting her butt,” I said.

“Stop that,” Marie-Hélène said in a lowered voice.

“I’m not the one—”

“Gordon!” she glared at me.

“But . . .”

“But nothing!”

Our lunch arrived just then. Mine was a delicious chicken thigh with crackling skin, served with a purée of potatoes, and Marie-Hélène had a lettuce-and-sliced-tomato salad with large shavings of parmesan over the top. A small bottle of truffle-infused olive oil came with it. As we were in a well-known wine village, we ordered a demi-carafe of Vinsobre wine.

On the ride back to our house we managed to dodge any showers and enjoyed coasting down the steep hill that had given us so much work at the start.