The Olive Harvest (The Olive Series Book 3) Page 32

  A handsome, grey-haired man and his very tall son tell me that they have eighty 400-year-old trees and compliment me on the superiority, the plumminess of our drupes. They ask me what I feed or treat them with. ‘Nothing, if we can avoid it.’ I refrain from relating the saga of René’s poison. It is too troubling to reflect upon. ‘I’d rather have a small white worm or two than the cocktail of toxins those wretched sprays give off,’ the father claims. I am amazed to hear this. He is the first olive-producer I have encountered down here who is pursuing an organic philosophy. ‘Not that we sell our oil,’ he adds. ‘A few litres here and there, yes, to cover costs, but we store the bulk of it for family consumption. We do this for the pleasure and the sense of achievement that accompanies the work. It’s back-breaking and it’s demanding, but when I see my trees pruned like poetry …’

  I smile at the image. His oil is spilling through. He bows and hurries away.

  I turn my head in response to a nudge to my sore arm. A man alongside me bellows in my ear: ‘Alain’s wearing a corset. Have you noticed?’

  I couldn’t say that I had, not until this farmer seated alongside me, holding fast to a Doberman, pointed it out. Alain is the chappie who carts the olives from yard to machine. He always has a fag in his mouth, rarely speaks and strikes me as a bit of a miserable so-and-so. In spite of the number of years we have been frequenting this establishment he never acknowledges my presence.

  My neighbour reins in his fearsome dog’s chain and gives the animal a swift kick in the ribs. ‘Sit!’ The poor mutt dithers, looking terrified. The level of noise down here is threatening and unfamiliar to him.

  ‘Where are you from?’ the farmer quizzes. It is almost always the first question any of them ask me. I am an oddity to them, a puzzle they can’t quite figure out.

  ‘Ireland!’ I yell.

  ‘Oh, Holland.’

  ‘No, Ire …’ Faced with the effort of hollering above the machines, I drop the subject. It is far too arduous to bother. So what if he thinks I am Dutch? But in spite of the racket he seems intent on conversation.

  ‘You look like you enjoy your food,’ he shouts. I smile politely and he embarks on an account of a most marvellous dinner he ate a month or so back.

  ‘Simple people. But would give you everything they have in the house. True Provençals, and there are not many of them left. A dying breed. Yes, indeed. They live near Valberg, do you know it?’

  I shake my head.

  ‘It’s a ski station in les Alpes de Haute-Provence. Their village is Touët. An entire pig they served on the table for dinner. Cut it up right there. Cochon de Lys, stuffed with mushrooms I gathered myself that very afternoon from the mountainside. I drove the length of the gorge, found their village, parked my car and scouted about from there. Delicious. Litres of local wine. They are the kind of people you should be mixing with.’

  I smile again and look about me to see who else is here. My attention returns to an old codger who has been amusing me with his incessant attempts to pick a piece of fluff off the cuff of his sweater. He has been fiddling with it since I arrived. Finally, after one last go, when it still refuses to lift off, he lights a match and sets fire to his sleeve. No one pays him any attention, except me. Alone in a slippery corner of this thundersomely noisy mill, he is now slapping and flapping at himself in a desperate bid to extinguish the fire raging the length of his arm.

  Why on earth, I am asking myself, would he think that a lighted match would remove the fluff from his cuff? Later, he disappears, looking very sorry for himself, with his demi-johns swimming with freshly pressed oil and his one charred sleeve and burned wrist.

  It’s curious how I never seem to encounter the same faces twice. Gérard, the miller’s son, calls to me, beckoning with his hand in a backward wave, the way Italians do. He wants to introduce me to a man wearing a flat cap as green as fresh nettles. ‘This here is the village chief. He wants to make your acquaintance!’ teases Gérard, pulling his companion’s hat askew.

  ‘Don’t you listen.’ A man with one badly bloodshot eye grins at me lasciviously.

  Close by us, a little grey-haired man in army boots has just arrived. He is squawking to himself and marching through the mill as though square-bashing. Alain drags in the fellow’s crates of olives and grunts at me to move my handbag out of his way, which I do. The gathered drupes look disgustingly mouldy and Gérard is loath to accept them, but the man grows so irate that our young miller shrugs, gives Alain the go ahead to put them on the scales and the process begins. Gérard’s father, Christophe, the owner, comes toddling through. He glances at the recently arrived load and shakes his head disapprovingly. He looks deeply troubled, but then I have rarely seen him with any other countenance. Hands in pockets, he stares at his noisy steel machines as though they have just broken his heart. Today he is wearing holly-green and mauve. His face is as red and shiny as a berry. He imparts some news to his fils, shakes his head tragically and totters off again.

  I wander over to the giant vat which is churning our chocolate-brown paste. These will be our first pressed fruits in two years. From this paste will be extracted our oil and from those golden bottles will be chosen our first specimen to be offered to the inspectors to confirm our Appassionata AOC, and I am praying that it will be fine, that René’s insecticide never penetrated the fruit. Gérard joins me. ‘Smell it,’ he breathes. ‘Its perfume. Mmm, truly excellent.’

  And it is. Today our newly pressed oil tastes creamy and very peppery. He and I shake hands.

  ‘Looks like you are set for an excellent season, Carol, if the rest is of an equal standard.’

  ‘Let’s hope so. See you next week.’ I smile. But until the oil has been tested and passed by the experts at Nice we cannot be certain and I won’t rest easy.

  Upstairs in the shop above the moulin, Gérard’s wife, who runs the accounts and the till, gives me the news.

  ‘Have you heard about René?’ she asks in a tone that troubles me.

  We haven’t heard a word from him in weeks and weeks, but this is not unusual, particularly during the olive season. I haven’t bothered to phone to find out why he hasn’t collected the 150 steres of wood piled in our drive that he promised to take away and sell for us and why he palmed me off with that illegal poison, because it is hopeless trying to reach him during the harvest anyway and because I cannot bear to rupture a longstanding friendship. After all these years, could he really have intended to cheat me or could there be another explanation?

  ‘He’s in the Hôpital Pasteur. Four bypasses, he has had. All the arteries are blocked.’

  I picture René in my mind’s eye. I cannot imagine what it must be like for one as active as him to be in hospital. Recently turned eighty and still climbing in and out of trees every day. Pruning, gathering olives, making money.

  ‘I’ll call his wife tonight and see if there’s anything I can do for her,’ I say, as I pay the requested 700 francs for our pressing.

  Outside, loading up my bidons of oil, I come across a poor bugger shouting and swearing in the parking.

  ‘Jesus! I’ll be in the doghouse when my wife sees this!’ The man, in a tracksuit and worn plimsolls, has unloaded what must be close to 1,000 kilos of olives. One of his plastic crates – la cageotte – has split and his drupes, so laboriously gathered by hand over many wet days, have spilled all over the crowded car park. Now they are rolling away faster than he can retrieve them; streams of purply-black fruits disappearing down the steeply inclined lane.

  ‘Can I help?’ I call, hurrying to his assistance.

  ‘What? No, go away, leave me in peace. I’ll manage. My wife is going to wring my neck for this. Well, I won’t tell her. I’ll say it was a miserable pressing.’ He gives up on his crop. He has spotted a parking place – others are leaving with their oil, smiles all around, save for him – he leaps into his four-by-four, releases the handbrake, lurches the car into gear, accelerates hard and smashes directly into the rear of a stationary va
n owned by another oléiculteur waiting below in the mill. ‘Shit!’ he screams in fury. ‘Shit!’

  I smile and turn my head, eyes squinting in the sunshine, to listen to the birds. Today, the sun is shining. It is the end of the first week of December. Brightly coloured birds caged in an aviary higher up the hillside are singing their hearts out.

  Another year, another day at the mill.

  It is the end of the Christmas holidays. I hear the familiar sound of the yellow post-office bike struggling up the drive. I didn’t see our postman before Christmas to give him his tip in return for the annual calendar he presents to us, so I hurry downstairs now to meet him and wish him the best of the season. I am greeted by a young blond woman who introduces herself as Marie and hands me the usual picture calendar.

  ‘Where’s our regular fellow?’ I ask, handing her a banknote, realising that we have never known his name. Her face falls. ‘Unfortunately, Philippe passed away a couple of months ago.’

  I am speechless. ‘What happened?’

  ‘He’d been fighting cancer for a while and …’ she shrugs. ‘I’ll be doing this route now. Happy New Year.’ And off she goes, leaving me staring after her, remembering our postman engrossed by the bees.

  January, a new year, is upon us and Michel and I are home together. René remains in hospital. Quashia has taken the boat for Africa for a hard-earned two-week break with his family.

  Our harvest has been completed. Our fruits have been processed and Michel has delivered a sample bottle from each of this year’s pressings to the olive authorities in Nice, who will send them away for testing and quality control. We await the results. Is the oil from this season worthy of the AOC stamp to which our farm is now entitled? I still harbour a niggling doubt.

  Blessed June

  This weekend has been designated Party Time. What are we celebrating? Our golden olive oil, of course, or oli d’oulivo in Provençal. Six separate lots from our winter pressings were delivered to the Olives of Nice organisation down at their seaside offices and each has received the official stamp of approval. It has taken us over seven years of inspections, visits and agricultural challenges to achieve this badge of merit. Michel describes it as ‘our tribal initiation’. Now we are members of the brotherhood. Yes, we are bona fide producers of top quality oli d’oulivo. A cause for celebration? Oh yes, indeedy.

  As the sun comes up and circles round to the front of the house, most of the guests who descended upon us last night are still sound asleep in tents dotted around our grounds. Michel appears and then disappears from view, carrying a small wooden ladder. ‘The ladder of adventure,’ he winks as he passes. ‘To keep the children happy.’ Off he goes, climbing up behind the house, to place it outside Monsieur Q.’s splendid hangar. There he stacks ancient, broken roof tiles gathered from our still-neglected vine-keeper’s ruin to support it. Within the hangar our tools are neatly laid out. Creeping up its exterior, jasmine and bougainvillaea are flowering. Flanking it are my fruiting trees. It is a heart-warming sight.

  ‘What are you doing?’ I call.

  ‘Creating a dungeon. It will keep the little ones occupied for a few hours,’ giggles my husband. His long curly hair reminds me of Frédéric Mistral’s. I wave, marvelling at his ability to invent non-stop games for the kids. He understands the need for the marvellous, for children to give rein to their imaginations. He is a bizarrely inventive grandfather, if a rather young one. More importantly, I am thrilled to observe this mirth and fun in him again, his renewed health and rediscovered carefree spirit. After he and Monsieur Q. have completed preparations for the ‘dungeon’, he heads off to the town hall of an inland village to borrow tables and chairs for the sun-drenched meals that await us this evening and tomorrow. A short while later, he returns with the mayor himself in tow, a gangling apricot farmer whose passion is go-kart racing. I have no idea where or how Michel met him. Together they set about unloading the furniture and carrying it to the designated dining site.

  While the men are at this work, the butcher drives up with a suckling pig for spit-roasting. It will need to be stuffed with apples and herbs and then the stomach restitched, he informs me while I attempt to control the dogs, who are set on consuming the entire carcass right now. Much debate ensues about what thread to use. I haven’t a clue. I don’t like pork and it would not have been my choice of principal dish. The spit, la broche, is a hand-operated iron contraption discovered by Michel in a knick-knack yard, bought for a song and cleaned up by him a few days ago. Michel’s brother-in-law, Ralf, has woken up for a swim. I observe much male discussion about whether the spit will be long enough and sufficiently sturdy to support the weight of the pig which, according to bald-headed, puffing Monsieur Le Boucher, is 30 kilos. Eighty or more guests are to be fed and, this being France, the worry that provisions will be insufficient or not handsomely prepared is cause for serious consternation. But Michel will have none of it. He reassures present company that his purchase will prove itself to be sturdier than any costly, modern electrical device.

  How many hours will the beast take to roast? Five, the butcher has advised, as he takes his cash and waves au revoir. But at what height from the fire should the pig be hung? This is a question that no one has thought to pose and now it is too late, for the butcher has departed; gone fishing in the mountains for the rest of the weekend. While the men of the party assembly committee discuss the finer points of mediaeval roasting, others are digging a bath-sized shallow trench and encircling it with large stones to stabilise the spit while Michel’s sister, Angélique, and female friends from London and Paris are clustered about our wooden table grating finger-length sticks of cannelle, cinnamon bark, with cheese-graters.

  Ralf and Quashia have gathered wheelbarrow-loads of substantial logs to fuel the fire. Ralf appears to be leading the spit-construction team while Michel has appointed his nephews, three enterprising lads, apple commanders, furnished them with woven baskets and charged them to go gathering early-fall fruits from the orchard I planted so many years ago in memory of my late father. If they don’t suffice, I have a box or two stored away in Quashia’s hangar, reeking richly of cider. The boys return with a few knobbly, insect-infested windfalls and the sloughed yellow and brown skin of a mountain snake they have found in the dried grass.

  A moment of animated panic unsettles the preparations of the sweltering morning when my cousin Noel and I bring the stored apples out into the sun. Long-bodied wasps swarm every which way and an investigation reveals that they are nesting in the chimney. With so many guests expected and children about, I run to call in my heroes, the fire brigade, to clear them away.

  Michel christens one very persistent wasp Christopher. This causes the children to hoot with laughter until Noel is stung by the very same fellow. Pandemonium ensues. ‘Anti-histamine!’ cries his wife. ‘He has an allergy!’ There is talk of hospitalising my beloved cousin. A group gathers around him, looking on while his finger swells up. I beckon to Jacques, who has just driven up with his wife and daughter and is about to clean the pool in readiness for later, to come and help. While I am hunting for our first-aid kit the red engine and its team of firemen hurtle up the drive, on the scene within fifteen minutes. Whence the panic subsides. The allergy is very minor and there is no real crisis.

  ‘Vespa crabro is the Latin name for les frelons,’ a handsome young fireman explains when the nest has been smoked out and he and his companions are enjoying a chilled glass of lemonade out of the sun. ‘They are hornets, not wasps.’

  Michel is gathering the children together and off they go, following my Pied Piper of a husband for the ceremony of ‘burying Christopher, the long-bodied wasp’. As they lay the hornet to rest, my red-headed Irish nephew is heard to say, ‘Rest in peace, Christopher. You’ll never sting Daddy again.’

  I thank the retiring firemen and invite them to return later when their duties are finished to join us for our Olive Oil Party.

  Wine is delivered in a vat: a Côte de Blaye, great
value at 18 francs a litre. Flowers arrive. And champagne. Followed by a van delivering cheeses. Four friends are in the vegetable gardens plucking lettuces and tomatoes. Oh, the preparations are exhausting. As the sun begins to slip behind the hills, endless processions of plates piled high with offerings of food are being laid out in the shade on the summer tables, including dishes of marinated olives from our own trees, which have proved a great success. Clarisse and friends are rigging up a disco and wooden dance-floor over by the disused vineyard. Cars are arriving at an astonishing rate. Children are shrieking, throwing themselves in and out of the pool, splashing water everywhere, arms outstretched, imitating hornets; dogs are jumping and leaping. The firemen return, now off duty. Corks are popping. And here comes Alexandre. And Gérard, our vet. The party is kicking off. Strike up the band. Let’s boogie the night away beneath the warm starry sky.

  Sunday morning. I open my eyes and inhale the aroma of brewing coffee drifting into the bedroom. I hear cups rattling as they are placed on to saucers. Breakfast, narrated in sound and smell, is in preparation. Time to get up.

  Outside in the rising morning sunlight, our wooden table, the length of a railway sleeper, has been laid and several of our house guests are already attacking their breakfasts: toasted chunks of yesterday’s baguettes, tartines runny with golden butter, topped with melting jams, Corsican clementine marmalade, chunky Appassionata orange marmalade or poached free-range eggs. The dogs are hunched beneath the peeling and faded garden chairs, hiding from the heat, scrambling from seat to seat in search of attention, affection and titbits. Animated chatter, sunburned faces, open smiles greet me. An extended family at feeding time. The children are heaving themselves noisily from lap to lap, giggling insanely, encouraging or goading one another while their young mothers’ attentions are elsewhere. I descend the steps slowly, making for the pool; a gentle dip before joining the gang. A symphony of birdsong accompanies my laps. All around me the trees are sharp green with early summer growth. I inhale warm June scents and take in the satisfying sound of the whirr of hosepipe nozzles watering the already parched flowers. Spring’s wild flowers have been felled. The earth is growing thirsty again, as is the vegetation. The cicadas are in full lusty throat. Black and white butterflies, their pulsing wings unfolding like parachutes, lift off the water and drift in the air. Midgy insects, no bigger than dust motes, speed through the morning light. I swim lazily through spangled sunshine beneath the fig tree.