The Olive Harvest (The Olive Series Book 3) Page 14

  Upset as I am by the sight of all our salads and tomatoes ransacked, I refuse his insistent plea and we set about replanting and straightening up what remains. Quashia digs up the garlic, braids the stalks into silver plaits and hands me the garlands to hang up in the summer kitchen. The bulbs are smaller than those on sale at the market or greengrocer’s. They could have done with another month in the soil, but they’ll still be good, which is more than can be said for the dozens of tomatoes squashed to a pulp and trodden into the soaked topsoil. We planted only fifteen seedlings this year because they always fruit so abundantly and this summer has been no exception: red, glistening tomatoes, plumply ripe from the Mediterranean sun. But now there are precious few left intact. Clambering about amongst them I inhale their piquant scent but not one cane remains undamaged.

  ‘Heavens above, look at this!’ Two baby rabbits, weenier than new-born chicks, are cowering fearfully behind the aubergine plants. Delighted by his find, Quashia displays the squabs, squeezing them tight between his blackened fingers.

  ‘Where have they come from? There’s no burrow.’

  ‘Those damned pigs have trampled over it. The mother must have fled and abandoned them.’

  They cannot be more than a day or two old and, sopping from their hosepipe shower, they look like nothing more than a couple of shreds of soggy newspaper.

  ‘They’ll never survive alone. We’ll have to rear them here and release them when they’re older,’ says Quashia.

  I hesitate, recalling Orpheus, our warbler, but the choice is to tend them or drown them, and that I cannot face. So dear Monsieur Q. spends the better part of the morning nailing chunks of wood together, constructing a hutch. While their new home is being assembled the duo of slithery grey balls are placed in a plastic lawnmower tray, out of reach of the dogs, where they tremble ceaselessly, as though battery-operated.

  Bon appétit, waves my faithful gardener as he descends to his cottage for lunch. ‘Michel should be making the decisions about guns, not you,’ he adds firmly but without malice.

  The following morning, Lucky pitches up outside the wide-open doors to my den with an elongated ebony stone in her mouth. She drops it triumphantly with a clunk, on to the terrace tiles. I rise to see what gem she has delivered me, thinking it could be charred driftwood from one of the recent fires, but it turns out to be a boar’s hoof, black, hirsute and solid with a cleft toe. I try to pick it up, to examine it, needing to be certain that this is a wild pig’s trotter, but my Alsatian refuses to be parted from her prize. The instant I bend and reach for it, she whips it up again and scoots off to the far end of the patio, clasping the foot tight between her slavering jaws. It is a trophy, her loot, and she is proud of it. But from where have you snaffled it, Lucky? Somewhere close by, no doubt.

  On my way out later, I spy a dog in our lower groves. He is a rather attractive beige wiry fellow, medium-bodied and the colour of a llama but a stranger to our neighbourhood. How has he infiltrated our grounds? He runs and hides behind an olive trunk when he sees me speculating about him. If he’s a hungry stray, might he be responsible for the damage to our vegetable garden? I hope so.

  My route to the farming co-operative takes me by the lovely manor house with its public park. The grassland that was cordoned off to protect the neighbourhood against gypsies is now stationed with fire engines, in convoys of twos and threes. Sitting atop each one, perched on the gleaming metallic-red carriages, are its navy-clad crews; strapping fit, brown as hazelnuts, playing cards in the baking sun, awaiting a call to duty.

  Pausing at my favourite bakery, now doing a roaring trade serving ice creams and refreshments to droves of passing tourists, I join the long line, envying families bunched up together in the sunshine, guzzling cones, laughing and fooling, glowing from days at the beach. From the café radio, I learn that in the areas burned out last month, the incendiary investigations have found proof of arson; tyre tracks from one and the same car spinning from the sources of fires in several different locations. Nine fires started within hours of one another. In areas where the worst damage has been wreaked, Molotov cocktails and the remains of yacht distress signals have been dug out of the ashes and debris. To protect against further assaults, preventive measures will be put in place: forests and parks will be closed to the public, in high season, allowing access to no one except rangers; there will be harsher prison sentences for offenders and the burned-out areas will be replanted with less flammable flora such as olive trees, vineyards and other vegetation with a naturally high water content. Queuing, listening to the news, I observe the florid-faced Lautrec woman serving at the counter with her dyed-red hair and flashing fingernails. She is in heated debate with a handsome young fireman who is stocking up with cans of Coke. Even as the tourist season continues to flourish, amongst the locals other moods are taking hold. This proud southern coastland, rich in flora and fauna, its landscapes painted by many of the greatest artists of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, renowned for its spectacular plays of colour, has been rendered sepia, decolorised or razed to lifelessness. Outrage and desolation fuel exchanges as well as a growing mistrust, frequently present beneath the surface, towards those who are not from these parts. It stokes the fires of racism.

  When I pull up at the co-opérative a shipment of shiny blue tractors is being unloaded. I pause to admire them. Even if we could afford one, the tyres would never grip on our stony inclines. Alexandre catches sight of me and calls from out of the late-morning shade of his shed. ‘Bonjour, Carol, I see your face has healed. Now you are as beautiful as a beating heart.’

  I am taken aback by the poetry in his remark and hide my awkwardness by striding determinedly to the cash desk to order the fencing Quashia and I require for the reinforcement of the ruined enclosure. Moments later, Alexandre is at my side. ‘Want me to load the poles and all those metres of grillage into your car?’

  I nod, handing over the cash for my purchases.

  ‘Alexandre, have you nicked my Bible?’ barks the none-too-charming assistant.

  ‘What need do I have of it, Yvette?’ And as he slides out into the sun, she shakes her head, tut-tutting as though dealing with an adolescent.

  I find the accused in the hangar where the variously coloured rolls of olive nets are stored, collecting the thick wooden pickets for the boot of Michel’s Mercedes.

  ‘Building a new fence? You’ve lost weight. You look a little downhearted.’

  ‘I’m fine,’ I reply tightly, moving to lend a hand with the materials before he ushers me away.

  ‘I can do this. Enjoy your ice cream?’ He grins. ‘It’s melted down the front of your top.’

  I rub at my T-shirt, embarrassed.

  ‘I promise to make you laugh for five minutes each time you come here. Where’s the fence to go? Round your heart?’

  ‘The wild boars have wrecked the vegetable beds.’

  ‘I could rid your property of the problem in no time. I’ll drop by and tag their principal drailles.’

  I don’t recognise that word. ‘Draille, what is that?’

  Alexandre wipes the sweat from his brow with the back of his hand. He explains that boars will always repeat their routes. Draille is their path of entry on to the land. It is born of the old Provençal words draia and dralha, originating from the idea of cutting a footpath, a walkway, through cornfields. ‘So a draille is also the word for the track followed by sheep during transhumance, their seasonal relocation to their winter or summer pastures.’

  ‘Do you speak Provençal?’ I interrupt.

  His eyes light up and he swaggers, tossing his head back proudly, well gingered to have scored. ‘When I was a kid, I did. My father, who’s passed away now, was fluent. Want me to teach you?’

  He sees that I am drawn. This spurs him on.

  ‘So in French draille is the path, le chemin. Once I identify their routes, I will be able to pinpoint precisely where I must lay food for them: corn, dried bread, fruit – une bonne salade! The
y are creatures of habit. They’ll return at the same time each night, and I’ll be ready for them!’ He concludes with a flourish.

  Judging by the nocturnal explosions of dog barking, his theory sounds accurate.

  ‘Usually, it is somewhere around ten o’clock,’ I confirm.

  ‘That’s in summer,’ he warns. ‘In winter they will arrive earlier.’

  ‘But I understood from Jacques that they stay away from the coast in summer.’

  ‘The sangliers have a nose for when you’ve watered the olive trees. They will descend from higher ground to snout about the damp earth at the base of the trunks, foraging for underground shoots and bulbs. They will travel up to fifty kilometres a night in their search for fodder.’

  He offers to lay the trap and then come by after the first night to see if they have taken the bait. If they have, he will lay out another meal at the same spot for the following evening. This will be repeated for three days and, assuming the family or small herd is tricked each night by the bluff, on the fourth he will bring his gun. ‘But,’ he emphasises, ‘it needs to be a spot far from any residence where there is absolutely no accident risk.’

  If the cage traps a youngster, this hunter promises to take it away, raise it and then release it in the mountains. A hefty male will be shot on the spot, as would a 60-kilo or larger female, an older sow. A younger mother will be trapped and delivered to the mountains where she will be released to breed again. If an animal is shot, Alexandre will leave the carcass in our garage overnight and return to strip and carve it up the following day.

  ‘If you want to experiment with the idea of a baited trap, then I’ll guide you. Just let me know when you’re planning to water the olives again.’

  The car is now loaded. I thank him for his explanation and assure him that I will consider it.

  He looks me over, smiling, weighing me up.

  ‘I can see you don’t approve. Oh, one more thing,’ he adds.

  I fire up the engine and throw the gearbox into first. Through the open window, Alexandre leans in close. ‘You have chocolate ice cream all round your mouth.’

  The dog I spotted earlier is still with us. I caught Quashia throwing sticks at him to shoo him away, but he still hangs about the farm skulking behind the gnarled trunks of the centuries-old oliviers, peering out from one side or the other, playing peek-a-boo, fascinated by our comings and goings, though he refuses to approach. I have been trying to draw close all afternoon and when I think I am getting the sense of the game, he snaps or whines forlornly, always keeping his distance. I cannot see a collar so I conclude he is a stray. Quashia thinks he sneaks in through one of the boars’ entry points.

  Later, when the sun has slipped westwards round the hill, my mainstay and I set about the fence reparations.

  ‘I think we should keep that dog,’ I suggest as we work. ‘He’ll help fend off the sangliers.’

  ‘We won’t catch him. If Michel were here, we’d round him up.’

  It is hard for me to see Quashia suffering from the lack of Michel’s company. He misses his guidance and friendship and enquires after him repeatedly and his labours require the assistance of muscle and brawn in which I am deficient. I do my utmost but I disappoint him. We drive stakes into the ground, stretch green wires between the wooden markers and make ourselves a brand-new, secured enclosure. Evening is upon us when we close in the last picket and the dogs are pacing to be fed. I am rather chuffed with our efforts but Quashia dismisses them as flimsy. ‘This won’t solve our problem. The pigs will eventually destroy everything, including the olive trees, if action is not taken. We must drive them off the land. If Michel were here, he’d agree.’ He kisses me goodnight and sets off down the hill and I am left feeling inadequate and perturbed by his mood.

  ‘I may have a remedy,’ I call after him. I have been mulling over Alexandre’s offer, wondering if he could be persuaded to trap the boars and release them elsewhere. Or would they just return, seeking out their habitual drailles?

  ‘Nah, you won’t solve the problem; you’re too soft,’ is Quashia’s parting shot.

  Sitting on the terrace, staring at the stars, a solitary glass of wine at my side, stroking the three companions at my feet, plagued by doubts about my ability to run this place alone, I am suddenly aware that Ella’s eyes are encircled with ticks. Their puffy grey skins, engorged with blood, resemble tiny plasticine bubbles. I hate them. They suck the animals’ strength, leaving them lethargic and irritated. I must help her. A deep breath and I tweezer the suckers away by pinching each one between my fingers, then twisting and yanking it. The fatter they are, the more feasted and the harder it is to loosen them. It tears her flesh and she moans, resisting me. Once they are released I fling them on the ground and, before they can insect-scurry away on minuscule red legs beneath plastic shells, I squash them mercilessly beneath the sole of my shoe. Ella’s blood squirts across the marble floor and she licks at it energetically as if to recapture it. Ugh. Horrid blood clots with legs. I down my wine, wash my hands vigorously and fall into bed, depressed.

  The following morning Quashia discovers ticks folded into Bassett’s long floppy ears and around his genitals. He calls me to fetch a bottle of alcohol and a roll of cotton wool out of the medicine chest. It helps lessen their grip, he explains. I hadn’t known that. Bassie cocks one of his hind legs, buries his muzzle into his soft-belly flesh and tears at his stomach, digging and slurping in a frenzied attempt to free himself of the itchy suckers. I turn him over on his back and ease his legs apart to help him, but he twists and growls and won’t let me near his exposed private parts. My little hunting hound is cross with me. His eyes glower at me, clouded with jealousy. He rises and stalks off, waiting for me to enter the laundry room to feed the rabbits, determined that when my concentration is elsewhere, he will bag them or find another way to punish me.

  ‘You’ll have to do it, I’m afraid,’ I tell Quashia. ‘He won’t let me near him.’

  ‘If you condone killing insects, why can’t we finish off the boars? This is a farm, Carol, it requires such decisions. In the meantime, you had better get to the garden centre and buy these mutts some collars.’

  On my way out, I find a yellow leaflet posted in our letterbox by the local council. Due to the extensive damage caused by the boars, it announces, we are to be offered the services of two top marksmen, professional hunters, for the purpose of ridding our grounds of the rampagers. Also included in this morning’s mail is the latest edition of our splendid agricultural gazette. The boars are growing so numerous, it reports, along the inhabited coastal areas and are causing such extensive damage within this Alpes-Maritimes département that a revised date for the hunting of les sangliers has been scheduled. Chase will be legal as of 17 August. This is a month ahead of all other game. The change of policy has been agreed upon under the strictest conditions: there is to be no pursuit by night or within 500 metres of habitation, and it can only be exercised with a hunter’s licence. The season for all other game in the southern Alps will open mid-September. This notification deeply concerns me. Will the day arrive when a bylaw obliges us to exterminate the trespassing beasts just as we are obliged to cut back our land?

  I find Alexandre at work in his hangar and am stepping forward to shake his hand when my attention is drawn to an old-fashioned triangular wooden fruit-tree ladder attached to the wall high above his head, beyond the stacked chicken feed and sacks of manure. ‘I have been looking for one of those for a long time. People rarely use them these days, but they are lovely and rather romantic, don’t you think? Is it for sale or simply for display?’

  He laughs loudly but not unkindly. ‘Romantic? Well, yes, I could picture you on the top rung and me on the ground, holding it steady for you. That would be a romantic ladder indeed. It’s not for sale, but if you want it, Jacques’ll deliver it next time he is over to clean your pool. A present from me.’

  ‘Oh, that’s kind, but, no, thank you. I thought it was for sale. Actually, I
’m looking for anti-tick collars for the dogs.’

  He shrugs. ‘Suit yourself. Three?’

  I nod. Open on his desk, a catalogue displaying photographs of rifles draws my attention.

  ‘My passion,’ he smiles, flicking pages to reveal cartridges. ‘You oppose it, don’t you?’

  I scuff my shoe awkwardly.

  ‘I thought you were keen to learn about our Provençal ways of life. You seemed interested in the boars’ drailles.’

  ‘Yes, but I don’t want to hunt them,’ I counter. ‘I know you shoot to eat, but …’

  ‘I don’t hunt for food. I hunt because I enjoy it and it’s a tradition I have grown up with, passed on through generations of my family and my wife’s family. Your disapproval was written across your face last time you were here.’

  I am at a loss, reluctant to criticise his hobby.

  ‘Why don’t you come hunting with me and you will better understand what it’s about? The rules are very strict, and we adhere to them. I would lose my licence otherwise. For example, you can never touch a bête suitée.’

  Again, his French puzzles me.

  ‘A bête suitée is a mare with a foal, or any female mammal with offspring in tow too immature to forage for its own food. It is against the hunting code of Provence to kill a bête suitée, for obvious reasons. Each département has its own rules. They don’t differ greatly but the licensed hunter must adhere to the maxims of his department’s organisation.

  ‘I shoot to kill, never to maim,’ Alexandre admits. Should he accidentally wound an animal, he must finish it off. He never aims when the animal is in motion. He waits until it is in repose or has paused for water so that there is less risk of inaccuracy.

  ‘Come along when the season has opened – but I carry the gun and in no circumstances will I lend it to you. Bring water, food, carry everything in a backpack. No shoulder bags. Absolutely no perfume and no garments sprayed with perfume.’

  I listen, swayed by the intensity of his passion.