Peter Mayle - A Year In Provence

We studied the techniques of the professionals who played every day next to the church at Bonnieux-men who could drop a boule on your toe from twenty feet away-and came home to practice what we had seen. The true aces, we noticed, bent their knees in a crouch and held the boule with the fingers curled around and the palm facing downward, so that when the boule was thrown, friction from the fingers provided backspin. And there were the lesser elements of style-the grunts and encouragements that helped every throw on its way, and the shrugs and muttered oaths when it landed short or long. We soon became experts in everything except accuracy.

There were two basic types of delivery: the low, rolling throw that skittered along the ground, or the high-trajectory drop shot, aimed to knock the opponent's boule off the court. The precision of some of the players we watched was remarkable, and for all our crouching and grunting it would take years of applied effort before we would be welcomed to a serious court like the one in Bonnieux.

Boules is an essentially simple game, which a beginner can enjoy from the first throw. A small wooden ball, the cochonnet, is tossed up the court. Each player has three boules, identified by different patterns etched into the steel, and at the end of the round the closest to the cochonnet is the winner. There are different systems of scoring, and all kinds of local bylaws and variations. These, if carefully planned, can be of great advantage to the home team.

We were playing on our own court that evening, and the game was therefore subject to Lubéron Rules:

1. Anyone playing without a drink is disqualified.

2. Incentive cheating is permitted.

3. Disputes concerning the distance from the cochonnet are mandatory. Nobody's word is final.

4. Play stops when darkness falls unless there is no clear winner, in which case blind man's boules are played until there is a torchlight decision or the cochonnet is lost.

We had gone to some trouble to construct a court with deceptive slopes and shallow hollows to baffle visitors, and had roughened the playing surface so that our luck would have a sporting chance against superior skill. We were quietly confident, and I had the added advantage of being in charge of the pastis; any signs of consistent accuracy from the visiting team would be countered by bigger drinks, and I knew from personal experience what big drinks did to one's aim.

Our opponents included a girl of sixteen who had never played before, but the other three had at least six weeks of practice between them, and were not to be treated lightly. As we inspected the playing surface, they made disparaging comments about its lack of regularity, complained about the angle of the setting sun, and made a formal request for dogs to be banned from the court. The old stone roller was trundled up and down to humor them. Moistened fingers were held in the air to gauge the strength of the breeze, and play commenced.

There is a distinct, if slow, rhythm to the game. A throw is made, and play stops while the next to throw strolls up for a closer look and tries to decide whether to bomb or whether to attempt a low, creeping delivery that will sidle round the other boules to kiss the cochonnet. A contemplative sip of pastis is taken, the knees are flexed, the boule loops through the air, thuds to earth, and rolls with a soft crunching sound to its resting place. There are no hurried movements and almost no sporting injuries. (One exception being Bennett, who had scored a broken roof tile and self-inflicted concussion of the toe during his first and last game.)

Intrigue and gamesmanship make up for the lack of athletic drama, and the players that evening behaved abominably. Boules were moved by stealth, with accidental nudges of the foot. Players poised to throw were distracted by comments on their stance, offers of more pastis, accusations of stepping over the throwing line, warnings of dogs crossing the court, sightings of imaginary grass snakes, and conflicting bad advice from every side. There were no clear winners at halftime, when we stopped to watch the sunset.

To the west of the house, the sun was centered in the V made by two mountain peaks in a spectacular display of natural symmetry. Within five minutes it was over, and we played on in the crépuscule, the French word that makes twilight sound like a skin complaint. Measuring distances from the cochonnet became more difficult and more contentious, and we were about to agree on a dishonorable draw when the young girl whose first game it was put three boules in a nine-inch group. Foul play and alcohol had been defeated by youth and fruit juice.

We ate out in the courtyard, the flagstones sun-warm under our bare feet, the candlelight flickering on red wine and brown faces. Our friends had rented their house to an English family for August, and they were going to spend the month in Paris on the proceeds. According to them, all the Parisians would be down in Provence, together with untold thousands of English, Germans, Swiss, and Belgians. Roads would be jammed; markets and restaurants impossibly full. Quiet villages would become noisy, and everyone without exception would be in a filthy humor. We had been warned.

We had indeed. We had heard it all before. But July had been far less terrible than predicted, and we were sure that August could be dealt with very easily. We would unplug the phone, lie down by the pool, and listen, whether we liked it or not, to the concerto for jackhammer and blowtorch, conducted by Maestro Menicucci.

"THERE IS a strong rumor," said Menicucci, "that Brigitte Bardot has bought a house in Roussillon." He put his spanner down on the wall and moved closer so that there was no chance of jeune overhearing any more of Miss Bardot's personal plans.

"She intends to leave Saint-Tropez." Menicucci's finger was poised to tap me on the chest. "And I don't blame her. Do you know"-tap, tap, tap went the finger-"that at any given moment during any day in the month of August there are five thousand people making pipi in the sea?"

He shook his head at the unsanitary horror of it all. "Who would be a fish?"

We stood in the sun sympathizing with the plight of any marine life unfortunate enough to be resident in Saint-Tropez while jeune toiled up the steps carrying a cast-iron radiator, a garland of copper piping slung around his shoulders, his Yale University T-shirt dark with sweat. Menicucci had made a significant sartorial concession to the heat, and had discarded his usual heavy corduroy trousers in favor of a pair of brown shorts that matched his canvas boots.

It was the opening day of les grands travaux, and the area in front of the house resembled a scrapyard. Piled around an oily workbench of great antiquity were some of the elements of our central heating system-boxes of brass joints, valves, soldering guns, gas canisters, hacksaws, radiators, drilling bits, washers and spanners, and cans of what looked like black treacle. This was only the first delivery; the water tank, the fuel tank, the boiler, and the burner were still to come.

Menicucci took me on a guided tour of the components, emphasizing their quality. "C'est pas de la merde, ça." He then pointed out which walls he was going to burrow through, and full realization of the weeks of dust and chaos ahead sunk in. I almost wished I could spend August in Saint-Tropez with the half-million incontinent holidaymakers already there.