A Year in Provence(20)
A job like this is never done in Provence simply on the basis of a phone call and a verbal explanation. There has to be a preliminary visit of inspection—to walk around the problem, to nod knowingly, to have a drink or two, and then to make another rendezvous. It is a kind of limbering-up exercise, only to be skipped in cases of real emergency.
On the evening Bernard arrived to look at the pool, I was scrubbing at the garland of green fur that had developed just above the water line, and he watched me for a few moments before squatting down on his haunches and wagging a finger under my nose. Somehow I knew what his first word would be.
“Non,” he said, “you mustn’t scrub it. You must treat it. I will bring a product.” We abandoned the green fur and went indoors for a drink, and Bernard explained why he hadn’t been able to come earlier. He had been suffering from toothache, but couldn’t find a local dentist who was prepared to treat him, because of his strange affliction: he bites dentists. He can’t stop himself. It is an incurable reflex. The moment he feels an exploratory finger in his mouth—tak!—he bites. He had so far bitten the only dentist in Bonnieux, and four dentists in Cavaillon, and had been obliged to go to Avignon, where he was unknown in dental circles. Fortunately, he had found a dentist who fought back with anesthetic, knocking Bernard out completely while the repair work was done. The dentist told him afterwards that he had a mouthful of eighteenth-century teeth.
Eighteenth century or not, they looked very white and healthy against Bernard’s black beard as he laughed and talked. He was a man of great charm and, although born and raised in Provence, not at all a country bumpkin. He drank scotch, the older the better, rather than pastis, and had married a girl from Paris whom we suspected of having a hand in the contents of his wardrobe. Not for him the canvas boots and the old blue trousers and frayed and faded shirts that we were used to seeing; Bernard was dapper, from his soft leather shoes to his large assortment of designer sunglasses. We wondered what kind of ensemble he would wear for the work of chlorinating and barnacle-scraping that was needed before the pool was ready for human occupation.
The day of the spring clean arrived, and Bernard bounded up the steps in sunglasses, gray flannels, and blazer, twirling an umbrella in case the rain promised by the weather forecast should come our way. Following him with some difficulty was the secret of his continued elegance, a small, scruffy man weighed down with tubs of chlorine, brushes, and a suction pump. This was Gaston, who was actually going to do the job under Bernard’s supervision.
Later that morning, I went out to see how they were getting on. A fine drizzle had set in, and the sodden Gaston was wrestling with the serpentine coils of the suction hose while Bernard, blazer slung nonchalantly around his shoulders, was directing operations from the shelter of his umbrella. There, I thought, is a man who understands how to delegate. If anyone could help us move our stone table into the courtyard, surely it was Bernard. I took him away from his duties at the poolside and we went to study the situation.
The table looked bigger, heavier and more permanently settled in its garnish of weeds than ever, but Bernard was not discouraged. “C’est pas méchant,” he said, “I know a man who could do it in half an hour.” I imagined a sweating giant heaving the great slabs around as a change from winning tug-of-war contests with teams of horses, but it was more prosaic than that. Bernard’s man had just acquired a machine called un bob, a scaled-down version of a fork-lift truck, narrow enough to pass through the courtyard doorway. Voilà! It sounded easy.
The owner of le bob was telephoned and arrived within half an hour, eager to put his new machine into active service. He measured the width of the doorway and assessed the weight of the table. No problem; le bob could do it. There was a small adjustment to be made here and there, but a mason could take care of that. It was merely a question of removing the lintel over the doorway—just for five minutes—to provide sufficient height for the load to pass through. I looked at the lintel. It was another piece of stone, four feet wide, nine inches thick, and deeply embedded in the side of the house. It was major demolition, even to my inexpert eye. The table stayed where it was.
The wretched thing had become a daily frustration. Here we were with hot weather and the outdoor eating season just around the corner—the days we had dreamed about back in England and through the winter—and we had nowhere to put a bowl of olives, let alone a five-course lunch. We seriously considered calling Pierrot at the quarry and asking for an introduction to the Carcassonne rugby team, and then Providence arrived with a screech of brakes and a dusty cocker spaniel.