Peter Mayle - A Good Year

Max continued to protest and Charlie continued to insist as one Calvados led to another. Unnoticed by them as they talked, the restaurant had become empty and quiet. Standing nearby, Calvados bottle at the ready, the sommelier concealed a yawn and longed for a cigarette. The sound of laughter came from the kitchen, and the waiters started stripping the cloths from the tables. The lovely Monica, now dressed in black leather and carrying a crash helmet, stopped at the table to pat Charlie on the head and wish the two friends good night.

At last, Max gave in, folding the check and putting it away with fuddled fingers. Then, with even more difficulty, he wrote out an IOU for ten thousand pounds on his napkin and stuffed it into Charlie’s top pocket.

Standing in the shower after his morning run, hot water beating down on a skull tenderized by alcohol, Max reviewed the changes that had occurred during the past twenty-four hours, and found them all good. Lucky, lucky bastard, he thought while he was getting dressed, and caught himself whistling the “Marseillaise” as he walked up to Knightsbridge for a cup of coffee.

The day was gray but dry, and he sat at one of the tables that had been placed on the pavement as part of London ’s effort, at least for the summer, to imitate the cafés of Paris. Around him, people were muttering into their cell phones, shuffling documents, and consulting their watches before going off to work. He felt an almost guilty thrill of pleasure that he was no longer one of them. All he had to do today was cash Charlie’s check, make an appointment with the notaire, and book his ticket.

The notaire first. It was eight-thirty in England, nine-thirty in France; the office should be open. He took out the letter from the Cabinet Auzet, now dappled with traces of Calvados, and smoothed it on the table, preparing himself for the ordeal of his first French conversation in years. It was just like riding a bicycle, he told himself as he fed the number into his phone. Once learned, never forgotten. Even so, he had a moment of hesitation when he heard a tinny female voice, blurred by static, utter a grudging “Allo?” In the French manner, she made it sound as if the call had come at a particularly inconvenient moment.

The voice, which identified itself as belonging to the secretary of Maître Auzet, lost some of its chill when Max explained that he was the nephew of Henry Skinner, and the inheritor of his property. After a number of pauses to allow for consultations with what Max assumed was the maître himself, an appointment was made for the following afternoon. He finished his coffee and went in search of a travel agent.

“Air France to Marseille?” The girl at the desk didn’t even bother to consult her computer. “Out of luck there, sir. Air France doesn’t fly direct to Marseille from London anymore. I could try British Airways.”

Max had developed a deep aversion to all airlines ever since one of them had lost his suitcase and wrongly accused him of having it improperly labeled. It had been returned some days later having been run over, still bearing marks of the tire that had flattened it. There had been neither apology nor reimbursement. If he hadn’t been so impatient to get to Provence, he’d have taken the train.

As it turned out, all direct flights were full anyway, and he had to settle for a short hop to Paris and a connection that would get him into Marseille around lunchtime. The ticket safely in his pocket, he stopped off at his bank, then spent the rest of the day dealing with domestic chores in preparation for what he was beginning to feel might be a prolonged absence from England.

That evening, packed and ready, he poured himself the last of the vodka and looked through his window at the gloom that had gathered to obscure any glimpse of a sunset. The sense of anticipation and excitement that had been with him all day intensified. Tomorrow he would see the sun and sleep in a foreign bed, perhaps his own foreign bed if there weren’t any problems taking possession of the house. Feeling slightly lightheaded at the possibility of a new life, he changed the message on his answering machine: “I’ve gone to France. Back in six months. Perhaps.”

Heathrow was as depressing and congested as ever, and the weather in Paris was overcast. It wasn’t until the Air France navette was south of Saint-Etienne that the sky cleared and Max could see mile after cloudless mile of postcard-blue sky. And then, as he walked out of Marignane airport to the car rental area, there was the glorious shock of heat. Taxi drivers in short sleeves and sunglasses loitered in the shade by their cars, eyeing the girls in their summer dresses. A light breeze carried a whiff of diesel, an evocative whiff that Max always associated with France, and every wrinkle of the limestone cliffs behind the airport was crisp and well defined in the brilliant clarity of the light. Artists’ light. His London clothes felt heavy and drab.

Driving in his baby Renault toward the Luberon, the scenery was at the same time fresh and yet familiar, reminding Max of the times when Uncle Henry had picked him up at the start of his summer visits. He turned off the N7 toward Rognes and followed the narrow road that twisted through groves of pine and oak, warm air coming through the open window, the sound of Patrick Bruel whispering “Parlez-moi d’amour” trickling like honey from the radio.

Thoughts of amour were pushed aside by an increasingly pressing need to relieve himself. Max pulled off the road, parked next to a dusty white Peugeot, and sought the comfort of a bush. He found the Peugeot’s driver already installed, and they nodded to one another, two men with the same urgent mission.

After a while, Max broke the silence. “Nice day,” he said. “Wonderful sunshine.”

“C’est normal.”

“Not where I come from.”

The man shrugged, zipped, lit a cigarette, and nodded once again before going back to his car, leaving Max to reflect on the insouciant French attitude to bodily functions. He couldn’t imagine the same episode taking place on the Kingston bypass back in England, where such activities-if carried out at all-would be conducted in an atmosphere of furtive embarrassment, with many a contorted and guilty glance over the shoulder, in dread of a passing police car and subsequent arrest for indecent exposure.

He took the bridge across the Durance, once a river, now shrunk by the early-summer drought to little more than a muddy stream, and entered the département of the Vaucluse. The Luberon was directly ahead-a series of low, rounded humps, softened by a coating of perennially green scrub oak, a cosy, photogenic range that had been disparagingly described as designer mountains. It was true that they were pretty from a distance. But, as Max remembered from boyhood explorations, the slopes were steeper and higher than they appeared, the rocks beneath the scrub oak were as sharp as coral, and the going was hard.

Turning off the main road, he followed the signs to Saint-Pons, and wondered if it had changed much in the years since he last saw it. He guessed not. It was on the wrong side of the Luberon to be considered chic, and, unlike the high-fashion villages-Gordes, Ménerbes, Bonnieux, Roussillon, Lacoste-Saint-Pons couldn’t claim the distinction of being a village perché, having been built on the plain and not on the top of a hill. Perhaps the lack of altitude had affected the disposition of the inhabitants, because the Saint-Ponnois were known in the region to be more friendly and hospitable than their neighbors to the north who spent their lives perched on crags, and who, several centuries ago, had spent many years at war with one another.