The Olive Harvest (The Olive Series Book 3) Read online

  ‘You are a selfish, inconsiderate lout!’ I shout in English, but he gets my drift. He and his companion rock with derisive laughter again and skid off, leaving me to continue my hearse-like crawl to the bottom of the track, stewing over his manners and the braces of freshly shot blackbirds and thrushes or wretched rabbits he’ll be transporting in that stinking game bag of his.

  I leave my feathered companion in the car while I race to the summer kitchen – shooing our ever-desirous-of-affection hounds away from me – to fetch a cocotte dish, which I fill with a spoonful of diluted milk and a few breadcrumbs hurriedly torn from the baguette I have bought. I settle the bird in an empty shoebox grabbed from the garage – Quashia hoards crateloads of such ‘useful’ articles – cover it with a fly dome and place him, for safekeeping, in one of the stables where there is plenty of light. The door is bolted from the outside, thus securing him out of harm’s way, beyond the reach of the three dogs who are currently patrolling the yard, jealously determined to find out what I am about and what unwelcome being is receiving attentions that are their God-given right.

  Back upstairs in my den, I telephone the swimming pool company once more, but the number rings into a deserted office. I have better luck contacting M. Laplaige. I offer our apologies as I cancel our rendezvous, explaining that our proposed vine-planting is not looking feasible at this moment in time.

  ‘Lost interest, eh?’

  ‘No,’ I argue. ‘We intend to go ahead, but not immediately.’

  He suggests that I take cuttings and send them to him, taking care to wrap them in clear plastic bags so that the leaves do not dry out in transit. He is confident that he will be able to identify the cépages used to create our farm’s original vineyard. ‘If the vines were planted up for rosé wine and the same variety of plant is still available, my husband and I would like to reinstate a rosé-producing vineyard.’

  ‘The grape might well have been a grenache. It thrives along your Mediterranean shore and, consequently, has been cultivated for generations. I can furnish you with excellent quality pieds. Unfortunately, although I will almost certainly be able to recognise the varieties grown there, it will be impossible for me to confirm whether the original plants fruited white or black grapes. So I cannot say whether the farm produced rosé wine or not.’

  ‘But what percentage, approximately, of each would we require for rosé, monsieur?’

  I hear a long-distance sigh. ‘Madame, you have not understood the principle of wine-making at all,’ he tuts. ‘While white grapes are used exclusively for white wine and red to create red, rosé is not a diluted hodge-podge of the two tints. It is not a red wine with a splash of white thrown in to lighten its shade.’

  Even though this gentleman cannot see me, I feel myself blush. ‘Ah, oui,’ I blather.

  ‘Black grapes are used for rosé wine. It is a question of the balance and fermentation process.’

  ‘Excusez-moi, monsieur.’ I have been keen not to make a mistake similar to the one I made with our olive groves. Out of ignorance, I jumbled everything in together by purchasing six trees from a local garden centre – not an authorised nursery, to boot! – only to discover later that these were tanche and not the cailletier, the Olives of Nice variety, which grows everywhere else on our property. As a consequence the drupes gathered from those poor six trees must never, never be included in our harvests when our crateloads are pressed into oil, not if we remain hopeful of an AOC rating. No, we must adhere to the stringent quality-control rules which do not allow the chucking of every Tom, Dick and Harry olive variety into the same basket. When my mistake is spotted by the many experts who have inspected our ancient groves, which it invariably is, I am made to feel, well, in René’s words, a ‘nincompoop’. Now, I fear that M. Laplaige may be forming the same impression of me.

  ‘Post the cuttings, madame, and we’ll take it from there.’

  And down goes the receiver.

  Later, when I return to the stables, I discover my bird upside down and still as a stone, though breathing. He appears to have fallen while attempting an escape. Handicapped by a broken wing and exhaustion, he has not been able to right himself. Deciding that the cardboard walls are a prison to him, I discard my choice of container and replace it with a round wooden chopping board from the kitchen. This creates a solid and generous base and fits snugly beneath the fly mesh. Once the new house has been assembled the bird seems reasonably quiet and I leave him sitting with his torn wing outstretched like a shabby shopping bag.

  Once again I bolt the stable doors because Bassett has taken up post outside and glares at me with black-eyed malevolence whenever I pass by.

  ‘Have you given him a name?’ asks Michel, when he comes down for lunch from the top of the hill.

  I shake my head.

  ‘Any idea what species he is?’

  Looking at him closely, with his white-bibbed neck and cloudy eyes, we decide that this fragile few ounces of life could be some kind of warbler. I recount my discovery of him and of how the Hunter tried to drive me off the road. Michel looks at me in a kindly way but makes no comment. ‘It would be nice if we christen the little fellow, don’t you think?’

  I consult my ornithological encyclopaedia. The rescued bird resembles the illustration given for an Orphean warbler. They frequent olive groves and scrubland.

  By Thursday, the jungle on the terraces surrounding the old ruin has been thoroughly docked. The men have almost reached the summit now. So, armed with my secateurs and three small plastic bags, I cross the land behind the house to snip precious vine cuttings. Studying the plants more closely than I have in the past, I see that there do appear to be leaves of varying shapes and sizes propagating here. M. Laplaige’s appraisal must be accurate; the vineyard, or what remains of it, was planted with mixed varieties. I try to see if I can decipher an order, or a dominant strand, but fail. So I decide to pluck at random. I take five or six cuttings from three terraces and slip them carefully into the plastic bags. Having achieved this, I return to the wall alongside the swimming pool where two very healthy vines sown by me are fruiting vigorously. In season these grapes make delicious eating, for breakfast in plain yoghurt or as a dessert with goat’s cheese, but I have no idea if they are intended exclusively for the table or if they could contribute towards our house beverage. They are black, so it’s promising for rosé! I snick foliage from both types, choosing soft green, budding shoots rather than the tougher-to-cut, woodier stems. What fun if we have inadvertently been nurturing plants that could provide us with wine as well as fruit and how splendid it would be if this old farm is still throwing up the vestiges of exceptional wine stock. Our unexpected olive-oil treasure was buried within groves abandoned on this forgotten hillside long ago, so why not wine too? I carefully package up my mini-harvest and drive it to the post office, dreaming of vintages and grand crus from this olive farm on the Côte d’Azur.

  Our warbler is showing signs of recovery. The poor little fellow is still unable to get airborne – his attempted take-offs land him back on his breast or beak – but at least he is able to right himself again and his will to live is perceptibly more buoyant. Michel thinks that in a few days he will be fit enough to be released. We will continue to protect him until he is able to fend for himself and in our absence Quashia will care for him. He loves all creatures and I find him first thing on Friday morning in the laundry room, mixing up a dish of bread and milk while chatting away to the bird in Arabic.

  On Saturday evening, having showered and rested after the graft of land clearance and knowing that we are setting off bright and early the following morning, our loyal gardener returns. Walking the hill together before our departure is a ritual of his and Michel’s, but today, because Michel has already left for Monaco, I invite myself to take his place.

  We climb at a leisurely pace, accompanied by the frantic drilling of a woodpecker, pausing to admire the slowly setting sun and the sweet-smelling, freshly cut grounds. Pushing upwards on outstr
etched stalks out of the drystone walls are red and pink Valerian. Their bluish-green leaves clasp long waxy stems. In the early days when I was obsessed with hacking away at everything so that we could more easily classify what was growing or had been cultivated here, Michel stayed my secateurs, begging me to preserve the Valerians. ‘See, how graceful they are.’

  ‘They are weeds,’ was my rebuttal. ‘Their roots have infiltrated almost every one of the stone walls and destroyed them.’

  ‘They are wild flowers, chérie. They are doing no harm. Why not leave them to express their beauty?’ he’d quietly insist, and he was right. This evening, as Quashia and I stroll from place to place, bemoaning the lack of olives, the Valerians are in colourful blossom all around us and I take pleasure in them.

  ‘Well done, Monsieur Q.,’ I say. ‘The land is as it should be now. Thank you.’

  But Quashia shakes his balding head and points to the level above the small palm grove. ‘I haven’t seen that before,’ he states sullenly. An entire wall has fallen into rubbled piles. It is the wild boars not the flowers who are the terminators of the terraces.

  A Late Homecoming

  I wake and turn in the bed to discover that Michel is not at my side. Opening my eyes I try to think. Ah, yes, Monte Carlo. What time is it? Why hasn’t he returned? If there were a problem I would have been informed; he would have telephoned. Almost synchronised with my developing thought, the phone begins to ring, echoing round the tall-ceilinged, open-plan rooms. My heart begins to race. I switch on the light. It is twenty-past one. I am almost too afraid to pick up the receiver.

  ‘Hello?’ My voice is thick with sleep and fear.

  ‘Sorry to wake you, chérie.’ I hear tension in his words.

  ‘Are you all right?’

  ‘The car has packed up. I have been trying for over an hour to get it started,’ he sighs, ‘and I haven’t been able to raise a soul to come and look at it.’

  I am so relieved to know that he is safe. ‘Where are you?’

  ‘Still in Monte Carlo. I could stay in a hotel tonight, take the first train back in the morning if I can’t find an open garage, but it will delay our departure, or … could you bear to come and collect me?’

  We arrange a rendezvous point outside one of the major hotels for half-past two. I hurry to get dressed and on the road. The night is clear as far as Beaulieu, where it begins to drizzle lightly. My motor speeds along without a hitch and I arrive in Monte Carlo ahead of the appointed hour. Michel is waiting by the lobby entrance looking exhausted but glad to see me.

  ‘Thank you for doing this. Do you want me to drive?’ he asks, climbing in.

  ‘I am pleased it was nothing more serious,’ I say, omitting to mention that I had woken with an unsettled feeling in the pit of my stomach.

  The rain, such as it is, seems to be easing and, says Michel, assessing the heavens, probably won’t continue. Still, it is late. He offers again to take the wheel but I shake my head. He looks beaten.

  ‘How did it go?’

  ‘Not as well as I’d hoped,’ he mutters.

  ‘In what way?’ No response. I glance to my right. Michel is nodding off. All the better; he needs the rest. ‘Sleep,’ I whisper, stroking his knee. ‘It will be easy to find the road.’ After a dozen or so kilometres I will join the Aix-en-Provence autoroute which will give us a straight run all the way to Cannes. From there I will turn inland on to lanes that I could almost trace with my eyes closed; we will be tucked up in bed within the hour.

  Leaving the principality is less direct. The roads are labyrinthine, a steep, corkscrew ascent into the mountain face, and tonight they are shiny with slick from the almost invisible rain. But the sky is clear and even the light downpour gauzing the windscreen does not opaque my vision. I can see constellations of stars and, to my left, where the moon’s narcissus-lemon beam is hitting the satiny surface of the Mediterranean like a central spotlight, I have a bird’s eye view of fantastically proportioned ocean-going cruisers crossing overnight to Corsica and beyond. Mmm. This time tomorrow we will be at the Camargue coast, discovering the fishing village of Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer. On the path to romantic, authentic Provence; its uncorrupted heart. I can’t wait.

  I switch on the wipers and then the radio. It plays softly and we neither of us talk, enjoying a sleepy, companionable quietude. Michel is dozing. I am listening to the smoky jazz and silently trying to identify the pianist. We continue to climb, negotiating the bends, back and forth, looping and twisting, like a bat rising to its heavenly belfry. ‘It’s Brad Mehldau!’ I cry without thinking. The man at my side stirs, shifting in his seat. ‘Sorry,’ I mouth. Dug out of the craggy rock face, way above us, are dwellings. One or two. A lone house here and there clinging to the vertiginous mountainside, lording over the Principality of Monaco and far across the sea to Africa. Stupendous must be the views they enjoy. An isolated luxury villa and then another, nestled into the cliffside, abuts our road. All are in darkness. The world, save us, is aslumber. I glance at the clock. It is a quarter to three. Beneath piano and drums I hear the engine’s soft whine, a spring unfurling, as my coupé spirals on upwards, hugging these figure-of-eight, alpine curves.

  Michel opens his eyes and because he is seated to the right of me he sees the approaching beam, reads its warning, before I do.

  ‘Watch out,’ he whispers softly, without panic, but it is too late.

  Seconds later a small saloon appears, orbiting out of control, and crashes with the force of a high-speed train full tilt into the left side of my engine. My face is slapped against the glass of the left-hand window. I feel rocking, ricocheting, bodywork buckling, and a sharp, instant stinging.

  I lift my thumping head, trying to focus.

  ‘What’z zappened?’ I slur.

  Through a mental fog, I try to recall. Approaching too fast, an automobile descending this perilous incline at breakneck speed.

  Headlights.

  ‘Watch out,’ Michel’s voice.

  The car slams on its brakes and skids on the slippery surface. I hear the withering scream of wheels. A vehicle orbiting out of control. Slewing, turning circles, spinning like a top down this precipitous hillside. Its circumrotation appears to be in slow motion until it begins bearing down on us. Propelled across the narrow road, it spins faster and faster and crashes with the force of a high-speed train full tilt into the left side of my engine. I feel rocking, ricocheting, bodywork buckling, and then nothing but blackness.

  I lift my thumping head, trying to focus.

  The flesh beneath my left eye feels cauterised. Blood is trickling from where the skin has split open. I taste the saltiness of my own life juice.

  Rivulets of liquid are coursing down the hillside and I hear howling. ‘Michel!’ I swing to my right, which sends my head whizzing, to find him collapsed forward like a rag doll, completely motionless.

  ‘Oh, my God!’ I release my seat belt – my hands are jittering to the point of clumsiness – and push open the door, shoving frenetically, repeatedly, beating at it with my shoulder and fists because the front of the car, bonnet and frame, has been concertinaed. Stepping out into the dampish night I am overcome with teeth-chattering indecision and panic. My head is swimming. The caterwauling is chilling. It has to be coming from the other vehicle. I must release Michel first. I stagger to the passenger door and wrench at it manically. It opens with ease, sending me flying backwards; here the bodywork is undamaged. Blood is pouring from his brow like a forgotten tap on to the knees of his grey trousers and the floor mat. The rearview mirror is in shards at his feet and claret-stained with his blood.

  Should I try to drag him out? I don’t know what to do.

  I appear to be the only one who can move, who has released themself from the wreckage, so I somehow deduce that the onus of responsibility, of getting a rescue team to the scene, lies with me. I must act fast. My brain, though, is muddled. Decisions are not locking in. The radio is still playing, lyrical harmonious notes.
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br />   ‘Michel,’ I am kneeling at his side. There is petrol running and bubbling all around me. ‘Michel, please, can you hear me?’ I am fighting hysteria. My heart is pumping so fast I think it will explode.

  He nods imperceptibly. He has responded. Thank God!

  ‘I’m going for assistance. We passed a villa.’ I rise. ‘Please don’t die!’ I yell, head thrown back, yowling at the moon. Hurtling in the direction we have travelled, sliding on liquid, I pound down the track. From somewhere distant a dog is barking. I am tugging on a substantial bell-pull outside imposing, black, wrought-iron gates. ‘Help! Ambulance!’

  A middle-aged woman in a cardigan and nightdress unlocks a solid door. ‘My husband has called the emergency services. They’re on their way. He’s getting dressed. Do you want to come in?’

  I shake my head, too breathless to speak, already retracing my steps. I can taste blood. My eye is weeping, closing up. I think I am going to vomit. I am reeling, staggering. When I arrive back at the car, Michel has lost consciousness, or … I don’t allow myself to contemplate the alternative.

  I am dancing with madness on the alpine path, skidding in floodlets of petrol, hopping to the other motor, where a young man is trapped at the steering wheel. ‘Get me out of here,’ he blubs, whimpering like a cur. I lean in to see what can be done and smell the fumes on his breath.

  ‘Someone’s coming,’ I tell him.

  A police car skids to a halt behind my Mercedes, which is skewed across the byway and has swung a full quarter-clock to the right.

  ‘Please, my husband!’ I cry. ‘Come quick!’ The two young policemen separate. One follows me while the other legs it to the drunken driver.

  ‘Michel, Michel!’ I am kneeling on the tarmac, soaked in stinking diesel, hands on his bloodied hands, limp in his lap. ‘Can you hear me? Oh, God, can you hear me? The police are here and an ambulance is on its way.’