A Summer In Gascony Read online

  ‘They’ll be comfortable,’ he said. ‘This is what everyone wears here in summer.’

  The word espadrille comes from the old southern French dialect word espardillo, referring to the rope-soled canvas shoes originally worn in the Pyrenees for clambering over mountain pathways in fine weather.

  In the afternoon, Marie-Jeanne showed me round the Auberge. We walked along the gallery round the rear courtyard. The back walls were timber framed, in a vertical-lined structure, which Marie-Jeanne told me they call torchis et colombage. The dark brown wooden beams were infilled with sand-coloured plaster. In the courtyard below us, a big rectangular stone table stood on a raised gravel terrace. Marie-Jeanne enjoyed pointing out the flowers growing plentifully in wooden barrels and stone troughs: pelargoniums, fuchsias and marigolds. Climbing roses cascaded over the edge of the terrace. Crimson bougainvillea and multicoloured sweet peas trailed over a trellis set against the wall. The flowers created lively splashes of colour in a landscape that was otherwise shades of golden brown and green. The impression was rustic, a little disorderly, yet lovingly cared for. The windows to the rear of the old stable block gave commanding views over the picturesque valley of the river Gesse. The land immediately behind the building plunged down to a wheatfield far below, where an old shepherd’s hut jutted out from the edge of a wood.

  We walked out of the roofed gateway back onto the front drive. I looked down towards a very curious-looking construction, the like of which I’d never seen before. Standing beside the drive, it was a sort of open shed consisting of a wooden frame, several metres long and about a metre wide, with chicken-wire walls, a door at one end and a single-pitch tiled roof.

  ‘What’s that?’ I asked Marie-Jeanne.

  ‘It’s a séchoir,’ she told me. ‘They are used for air-drying maize. This one isn’t used any more, but come September, you’ll see other séchoirs in the village stacked full of yellow maize heads.’

  I stifled a yawn. I’d been travelling by train and boat for about thirty-six hours. Marie-Jeanne was sympathetic and suggested I go to have a rest in my room before dinner.

  In the evening, feeling revived, I met the rest of the family. Paul, the eldest son, was 22. He’d just finished his military service, which he was keen to point out he’d hated. Bruno, the middle son, was 18 and was hoping to go to agricultural college. We all sat down around the stone table on the terrace, where we would eat en plein air most evenings. We enjoyed a hearty meal of stewed lamb and rustic red wine.

  With everyone talking quickly in the southwest accent, I struggled to follow everything that was being said. I listened closely to try to hear the patterns. They pronounced the normally silent e that shouldn’t be said, and they also added a twangy g to words ending with a nasal vowel. As I listened, I noticed how the accent had an earthiness about it, and a lively, singsong quality.

  ‘Martaing, tu veux du paing et du vaing?’ Jacques-Henri asked me.

  ‘Huh?’ I asked, smiling awkwardly.

  He repeated the question. Then he offered me some bread to go with the stew and some more wine. I had to think for a moment. At last, the light dawned. What he was really saying was: ‘Martin, tu veux du pain et du vin?’ Martin, do you want some bread and wine?

  He laughed cheekily. I suspected he may have been playing up the accent to confuse the foreigner. Now at least I could understand what he was telling me when he said that tomorrow – demaing – he would show me around the farm, where I would be starting work.

  It was a good first evening. Despite the communication problems, I was made to feel at ease by the warm welcome, the easy-going manner of the family and Jacques-Henri’s sense of humour.

  My room was at the back of the Auberge. That first night, when all was quiet, I could hear the old building creaking gently as it breathed. I looked out of my small, high window, up towards the cloudless sky. There were no main roads nearby, no streetlamps, few dwellings and no large towns. The night was dark and the stars shone brightly in the heavens, as if some celestial hand had turned up the brightness. There seemed to be more stars than there was sky to hold them. I recognised the W form of the constellation Cassiopeia, shining more brilliantly than I’d ever seen it before. For the first time I experienced the distinctive night-time smell of the countryside in Gascony, a faint odour of burnt earth and sleeping animal.

  EN FAMILLE

  THE NEXT MORNING WE HAD BREAKFAST IN THE SMALL FAMILY dining room. Breakfast was a sharp, busy time. The family didn’t speak much, concentrating instead on the sugary food and the strong black coffee. Conversation was limited to minimal statements about the work planned for the day, what jobs needed doing, who would go to the farm and who would stay at the Auberge. I couldn’t follow what they were talking about – not because of the accent, which by then I was beginning to tune my ear to, but because I had no idea about the work they did or how they ran their farm. All I could do was listen and hope that in time I would understand what was going on. The family didn’t pay any special attention to me, as if it were perfectly normal for me to be there.

  No sooner had we stacked the coffee bowls in the middle of the table and put the lids back on the jam and honey pots than it was time to go. Marie-Jeanne would clear the table. Jacques-Henri was taking me out to the farm to show me around. I was going to start work today: the welcome period was over.

  I was employed as a stagiaire, a temporary worker, a sort of trainee general dogsbody with a wide-ranging remit. I was given bed and board and a small allowance, living more or less as part of the family, in return for my work. I was the first stagiaire to arrive that summer and the family’s first ever English worker.

  ‘We’re expecting three more stagiaires to arrive in the next couple of weeks,’ Jacques-Henri told me. ‘Another Englishman, a French woman and a German woman. Two of each! We’re very traditional here: men do the heavy work outdoors, women do the lighter work indoors. You’ll be working at the Auberge some of the time, but you’ll be needed most at the farm.’

  The farm lay in a deeply secluded location, on a gently sloping hilltop to the east of the village, beyond the back of beyond. A couple of kilometres along the road from Péguilhan to the next village, where the road turned sharp left, a narrow track led straight ahead, along the ridge of a hill, for about a kilometre. The track passed a long, low, ramshackle barn, with crumbling rendered walls, then a smaller barn with a grain loft, before turning into a yard in front of the farmhouse, which was similar in appearance to the Auberge. Next to the house was a small pond, thick with duckweed. A couple of ducks paddled leisurely around, leaving behind them clear channels that slowly closed over as they passed.

  A banana tree stood in the centre of the yard. It impressed me with its giant, flat, bright green leaves, and I showed some surprise at seeing it there. Jacques-Henri glowered suspiciously. He didn’t know why I was surprised and was ready to take offence. His peasant pride was sensitive to whenever outsiders might be judging him or looking down on him. I told him that where I came from we couldn’t grow banana trees outdoors, and that like palm trees, they evoke luxury and the exotic. C’est l’exotique, quoi! He was pleased with this account and the moment of tension eased. He explained that the bananas on his tree ripened to yellow but remained small and hard, never growing longer than about ten centimetres. The climate of Gascony was hot enough for them to mature, but not wet enough for them to fill out.

  Jacques-Henri showed me some of the work that had to be done on the farm: watering the tomatoes, picking the vegetables, looking after the animals – feeding the cows and shepherding the sheep – and, later in the season, harvesting grain. It was a lot for me to take in at first. This was clearly going to be no holiday.

  ‘I only usually see sheep and cows from the window of a car or a train,’ I confessed.

  Jacques-Henri shook his head in disbelief, thinking that I had a lot to learn. He may have been wondering just what sort of townie he’d got here. I said I thought I could cope. He told m
e I had to adapt – il faut s’adapter!

  He set me to one of the simplest jobs on the farm: watering the tomatoes. The tomato plants stood on an inclined field near the farmhouse. Jacques-Henri pointed to the striped green hosepipe connected to a tap on the outside wall of the farmhouse.

  ‘Give them plenty of water,’ he said. ‘They’re always thirsty!’ Then having told me what to do, he left me to my own devices.

  I walked up and down the rows, dragging the hosepipe carefully between the plants. The pipe didn’t have a nozzle. I squeezed the open end between my thumb and forefinger, splattering water around the stems of several thirsty vines at once. I took off my new espadrilles so they wouldn’t get muddy. The field was on a slight incline, an advantage I exploited, creating channels with my bare feet, directing the water in rivulets around the stems of the tomato plants. This minimised the water loss and seemed to get the job done in a shorter time. I enjoyed feeling the cool water run over my feet. I squeezed the light brown mud with my toes, creating small pools that whirled around as the fresh water ran over the top. All the while I tried not to touch the plants. I loathe the smell of tomato leaves and I cannot connect the taste of a warm, fresh tomato with the pungent, catlike smell of its vine.

  Jacques-Henri had made a point of leaving me on my own, but all the while he discreetly kept an eye on me from whatever he was doing.

  I must have passed the first test. Jacques-Henri didn’t say so, but in the car as we drove back to the Auberge for lunch he was much more matey. He had never been to England; in fact his one and only trip abroad had been over the mountains to Spain. He knew just three expressions in English: how do you do, gentleman-farmer and Duke of Wellington. The name Wellington was absurdly difficult for him to pronounce: Veh-leng-teng.

  Back at the Auberge, Jacques-Henri asked me if I wanted a crêpe.

  ‘Yes, I’d like a crêpe,’ I replied, politely. I was a little unsure where this was going.

  Three times he asked me the same, just to make sure.

  He then demonstrated for me that crêpe was a slang word for a slap in the face. He roared with laughter – at least he thought it was funny – and walked off chuckling to himself. I wouldn’t be caught out like that again.

  No matter what was happening, mealtimes were the focal point to which we would always return, three times a day, to sit together as a family. Marie-Jeanne would call us to table – tout le monde à table! We weren’t fooled by the kindly tone of her voice: there was clearly an iron will behind the velvet tones. Nobody disobeyed her. Mealtimes were a sort of family muster station, where we assembled to take stock of what was going on and to see how everyone was, before dispersing again to the wide range of daily tasks.

  It was back to the farm for the afternoon. Paul went off to tend to the sheep, Bruno to feed and water the cattle. Jacques-Henri and I dragged a big piece of agricultural machinery called a cultivateur out of the barn into the yard. He explained what it did: like a rotating plough, it attached to the back of the tractor and was used for breaking up the soil. The attachment mechanism had to be taken apart and cleaned. All I could do was watch and pass the tools as Jacques-Henri needed them. I didn’t know what all the tools and components were called, so he pointed and explained when I wasn’t sure. For me this was a completely new way of living and working and I was learning about farm work from first principles. If I hadn’t already spoken good French before I went to Gascony, I simply wouldn’t have been able to survive in this environment, where no one spoke English.

  Before returning to the Auberge for dinner, I was told to water the tomatoes again. This was my first full day and my second tomato-watering duty!

  Tomato watering would be one of my regular jobs. The plants were very heavily fruiting and needed copious amounts of water, so they had to be drenched twice a day, morning and evening. Occasionally I picked a tomato; they were good enough to eat like apples.

  At dinner, I saw not just the practical side of mealtimes – planning the day’s work and reporting what was going on – but also the deeper meaning of the family table. Sitting together, en famille, sharing their good country food, swapping stories, listening to the sounds of familiar voices, this was a ritual that affirmed the bonds holding the family together. Cazagnac was a local name. Family names and place names in southwest France ending with –ac are derived from the old dialect word for a domain. The family had farmed in the area for generations.

  Jacques-Henri rhapsodised over the pleasures of the table. He was most enthusiastic about the quality of the meat from the animals they reared on the farm. For him meat represented prosperity and wellbeing and was something to be shared. It was an insult to the host if a guest did not gladly accept the meat offered. He relished telling me how meat should be eaten to the bone, where the tastiest and most nutritious parts are to be found.

  ‘The meat on the bone is most savoureuse,’ he said, warming to his theme, tapping his lips with his fingers and thumb.

  Lamb was his favourite. When he was enjoying a good gigot of lamb he would hold the gigot with his fingers and hungrily pick off every last morsel of flesh.

  ‘Put down your knife and fork,’ he told me. ‘Pick up the lamb by the bone and get stuck in!’

  Over dinner, Jacques-Henri and Marie-Jeanne told me how they’d come to open the Auberge.

  ‘I inherited the place from my Uncle Guillaume, when he passed away ten years ago,’ Marie-Jeanne said. ‘It was in a sorry state! Cobwebs hung thick from the ceiling. The grandfather clock in the dining room had stopped years before, and a family of mice was nesting in the base. Uncle Guillaume had loved living here, but in his old age he’d let the place go.’

  ‘The outbuildings were in a worse state than the main house,’ added Jacques-Henri. ‘The back field was overgrown with teasels and thistles. Dieu vivant! You can imagine how shameful this looked to a farmer like me.’

  ‘We were very fortunate,’ Marie-Jeanne went on. ‘Although it was neglected, we could see the potential. We didn’t do much at first, Nicolas was young and we were very busy.’

  ‘We worked on the building through several consecutive winters, when things were slack at the farm,’ Jacques-Henri explained.

  ‘We had the grandfather clock repaired,’ added Marie-Jeanne. ‘The clockmaker said it was a real objet de famille.’

  ‘Bit by bit, things started to take shape,’ Jacques-Henri continued. ‘The most important moment for us was when we put up the welcome sign by the drive: BIENVENU À L’AUBERGE. Our first guests arrived soon afterwards. That was last spring. Et nous voilà maintenant!’ And now here we are.

  They had spotted the potential of combining the convenience of an inn, situated close to the village, with the produce of their own farm. The Auberge and the farm formed an almost self-sufficient unit: the produce of the farm supplied the Auberge, any surplus was sold, and the income from both supported the whole system. The family worked well as a team. The fact that they were now employing stagiaires for the summer showed that the business was becoming a success.

  The Auberge was enjoying a new lease of life thanks to their efforts. It showed visitors modern life in the country and the memory of farming life as it used to be. It was not just about making a living, it was also about maintaining a way of life. The farm could barely pay for itself on its own, and the extra income from the Auberge was necessary to maintain the family. There were three sons growing up, who would one day want to start families of their own. Opening the Auberge, although perhaps risky, would hopefully ensure that all the land stayed in the family. As Jacques-Henri had already told me, il faut s’adapter, and adapting to economic necessity was just what this family had learned to do.

  The word auberge comes from the old dialect word alberga, meaning lodging. Auberges, or country inns, were opened first by abbeys in the Middle Ages. Many were set up along the pilgrim routes through southern France. Guests shared their table and accommodation with other travellers. Nowadays, communal eating and sle
eping are no longer expected of visitors, but a good auberge should retain something of the original simplicity and should serve hearty country food.

  The Cazagnac family Auberge catered for different appetites, from a simple assiette gasconne of salad topped with cold meat in the form of jambon de bayonne and gésiers de canard, to more convivial feasts of grilled duck breast, stuffed shoulder of lamb and cassoulet. Bed-and-breakfast accommodation was offered in chambres d’hôte. The rooms had beamed ceilings, beam and plaster walls and well-worn oak floorboards. Old-fashioned candlewick bedspreads covered the wide, rickety beds. Citrus and clove-scented pomanders hung from the keys in the doors of the big old wardrobes. There were no televisions or radios; in fact, there was little sign at all of the outside world. The rooms were individually named: Charme, Chouette, Treille… Charm, Owl, Vine. An antique wooden cot stood on the landing and was carried into the room for the very youngest guests.

  The old stable block and hayloft around the rear of the courtyard had been renovated, the upstairs converted into five gîtes and the downstairs into a function room for wedding receptions and country feasts. The refurbishment was nearly complete. The builders had done most of the work, and all that was left was some decorating and finishing off. Three gîtes were in a fit state to be let out, and Jacques-Henri hoped the other two would be ready by the end of the summer.

  The Auberge gave visitors a feeling of being deep in the countryside and was a haven for people seeking peace and seclusion. Some visitors had special reasons for coming to an extremely out-of-the-way place, where they wouldn’t be seen. One afternoon, a few days after I arrived, two Dutch couples rolled up in a big black BMW. The car looked menacing, and sounded it too, as its wide tyres crunched the gravel. The occupants were of a certain age and looked very serious. Appearances were deceiving: it turned out they were naturists. Jacques-Henri warned me discreetly when they were out in the far field, as he put it à poile, sunbathing and frolicking in the altogether, so fortunately I never saw them au naturel with my own eyes!