Contents of article "A tale of Saint-Nazaire"
A tale of Saint-Nazaire en Roussillon
A tale of Saint-Nazaire en Roussillon
(Photos to follow)
All boroughs, towns, cities and conurbations have their symbols, usually a tall erection of stones, concrete or steel reaching for the sky. Rome boasted the Capitol perched on the edge of the ominous Tarpeian Rock, New York is now left with the Empire State Building, clumsily shooting up like a primitive Apollo rocket, Paris prides herself on the Eiffel Tower, planted on four curvaceous legs slowly joining to push upwards a long spindly offshoot coiffed by a structure not unlike a lighthouse, a suitable beacon for the obscure rest of mankind.
Saint-Nazaire-en-Roussillon is no exception. It has a tower unlike any other tower, unique, laden with history, time past, time present and time to come. The Tower of Saint-Nazaire is represented everywhere, on the town hall official paper, on stamped envelopes, on street corners (the noble ones that is, those aristocratically displaying the word ’’Carrer’’, longer in the mouth than its paltry French counterpart. Two ’’Rs’’ rumbling like a drum, prolonged by the final roll). The Tower of Saint-Nazaire also appears at strategic places to mark an abortive or more usually non-existing pavement. Then it towers at the height of roughly 3 feet 5 inches in the form of crenellated bollards, not ochre like the walls, not blue like the sea, not yellow like the parched fields in summer, but green, a deep dark green more reminiscent of an English institution than of the pale translucid colour of the supple reeds bordering the country lanes. A strange superimposition of regular shaped shells covering every square inch of their squat roundness makes them look as though they had hopped out of the deep seas two million years ago and undergone a freakish metamorphosis of their reptilian original selves, Darwinian evolution having gone berserk.
I have a love-hate relationship with those bollards. Unlike the reeds, they are very hard, unbending when your car bumps into them and carries the stigma on its flanks forever more, or when you walk into them if you read the paper or your favourite book as you go by instead of looking where you’re going. Many a sandaled toe has been bruised or broken by one of those green miniature towers. On the other hand, erect as they are, always on the ready to get at you or even into you, their virility somehow reproduces the configuration of the village, geographically and sociologically speaking.
A top and a bottom, the upper part and the lower parts, upland and… nowhere really, the nether land, Erewhon maybe, a ghost of Saint-Nazaire pitifully sprawling and, slime-like, forever expanding at the foot of the hill. The top belongs to the sky, the wind, the clouds, it is the realm of purity, genuineness, in a word: catalanity. The flat areas below flounder and sink in the marshy ugliness of Hades. However hard you try, if you live there, you don’t belong, you have no legitimacy, you dwell among lost souls beyond the local Styx. As you progress up the main road, though, your status grows with the incline. Half way up, you are neither up nor down, but you begin to acquire some social standing and if ever you manage to reach the ultimate goal up top, then be thankful, you have found the Holy Grail.
Yes, invisible but ever present, the Holy Grail of Saint-Nazaire is all-important and explains everything that is to be explained. In fact, a naïve visitor could well ask where the tower actually is. There is a small square squeezed between the 19th century church and a decrepit house. It is partly covered by a narrow concrete space where youngsters gather in the evening, their scooters parked higgledy-piggledy, so that when I go and feed the stray cats, I can see nothing but a wall of wheels studded with headlights among which flicker the illicit glows of strange cigarettes. Behind, close at hand, there lies the secret.
’’Lies’’, not ’’stands’’. Aye, there’s the rub.
If you go back next morning, you will see something at ground level in the shape of three outsized heads spewing water, a cross between kitsch garden gnomes and Gothic gargoyles, each with a jellybag hat on and a florid beard, bloated rotund faces blowing like inane Cupids deprived of their wings and arrows, sans teeth, sans eyes, sans everything. The moss or rather the fungus covering them cannot disguise their nonsensical nonentity. No marble or granite nor black petrified lava for them, but some indistinct conglomerate of residue or dust made solid by cement or resin, emphasising their grotesque outlandish presence. And yet, like the strong-pawed lions guarding the Pharaoh’s temple, like the proud she-wolf nurturing Rome, they too keep their absent eye on the sanctum, a dwarfish semi-circle of a wall, unfinished, deformed, scarce half-made up. That is the Tower that was, with a few rickety weeds sheltering inside, innumerable fag ends, a few empty beer bottles and some soiled papers, endlessly removed and endlessly reborn.
The story goes that four decades ago, neglected, forsaken and forgotten by generations of negligent mayors and councillors, the forlorn tower decided that enough was enough and let itself go. To everyone’s amazement, one fine windless morning, it suddenly emitted a few plaintive gurgles and collapsed to the ground, roof, tiles, stones and cobbles, small bits of red brick, now a heap of rubble enshrined in a cloud of lime dust. A final rattle and the tower was no more. As from this baleful day, village life was never the same. The death of the tower tolled the bell of passing harmony. It all happened up there on the hill. Down below hardly existed at the time, a few pioneering villas lost in the wilderness of rushes and reeds, owned by strangers who didn’t feel concerned. In any case, it was none of their business. Had they dared voice an opinion, they would have been sent back to where they belonged, to their innate nothingness. Although they wore no togas, the senators of the village convened, conversed and decided that no conciliation, let alone reconciliation, was possible. Henceforward, there would be those who were for, and those who were against.
For or against what? Either the Tower would be rebuilt in its original form as the watchtower it had been since the Saracens were pushing forward in the realms of Aragon or Navarre, or it would not, thus being left to its sore fate. After months, or more likely years of palaver, rifts and fluctuating splinter groups, the current mayor courageously opted for a bold compromise. The remnants of the wall would be consolidated and the rubble cleared. Three creatures probably from some Junquera shop would complete the restoration of the site, their continuous spitting being an added attraction. And so, the tower of Saint-Nazaire became virtual, a pitiable memory, a once glorious sun made a winter of discontent. So it has remained to this day.
The social rift also persisted, slowly enlarging into a chasm as though the tectonic plaques of resentment were each pushing outwards. On the surface all is fine, but the fire is still smouldering and from time to time, usually when local elections begin to loom on the horizon, it bursts into small flames, roars in a brief outburst then subsides like a temperamental volcano, appeased but ever ready to break the silence of the three blind spitting monsters.
I was told all this a few years after we hung our hat in Saint-Nazaire. Our younger son was fifteen and his one wish was to acquire a second hand 125 cc Yamaha. We were prepared to help, but not to pay the whole amount. So he started enquiring around and, much to his surprise was offered the position of apricot picker in a neighbouring farm. Before the agreement could be sealed, however, a mysterious signature was required; we would be told in good time.
A couple of weeks before the picking season was due to start, a smiling young woman knocked at our door, introducing herself as Madeleine T., the daughter of Nicholas’s future employer. Only too pleased to further our son’s vocation, we willingly shared a cup of tea and a few biscuits with her. Madeleine was not used to such afternoon niceties, but accepted them with good grace, even the usual drop of milk in her dark beverage. Once the preamble was over and small talk came to an end, very serious matters were discussed. She did the talking and we did the listening.
We knew that the village had joined forces with Canet and quite frankly, we didn’t take much notice. Things, however, were not as simple as we thought. If rural Saint-Nazaire recovered its autonomy,it would no longer be bound to the arrogant supremacy of a seaside resort; if it could revert to its inland calling instead of being dragged to an alien shore, its dignity would be reinstated, its historical treasures restored and its people (783 at the time) would be able to lift their cultural heritage to the heights that it deserved. In short, the Tower would be rebuilt and would retrieve its former eminence. Of course, we signed the petition demanding the secession, proclaiming the indispensable U.D.I. All’s well that ends well. The daughter would speak to her father and Nicholas would get the job.
He did, but never worked. Two days before he was supposed to start, he fell off his bike, sprained his ankle and was carried home on the back of the kindly, robust local shepherd. On the prescribed morning, therefore, I presented myself as a replacement. Eyebrows began to arch, dark eyes under bushy eyebrows cast suspicious glances at me; grumbling words were muttered between clenched teeth and pursed lips. Eventually we set off in silence. I was allotted a huge ladder, a medium sized bag to hang round my neck, a huge one to sling over my shoulder and a long row of high trees. I was also flanked by the farmer and his son. Who was I, after all? A foreigner, an intellectual, someone who spent his whole time writing and lecturing, a good-for-nothing who could only produce “thinking”. “Let him eat what he writes” mumbled a new work-mate. Better keep an eye on this smartiepants
Things went well, though. However heavy my ladder was, however bruised were my legs, however sore my bowed neck and heavily laden shoulders I kept up, not neglecting one single fruit, not dropping any either, climbing to the top of the tree to reach for the ultimate solitary apricot. After a couple of days, Monsieur T. paid me an unexpected compliment: much to his surprise, I was what he called “accrocheur”, tenacious and conscientious, and maybe it had dawned upon him that after all, the father was a better proposition than the young son. And so we began to talk. Soon, 18-year-old Bernard decided that he would share my row with me. Perched in the same tree, we chatted away like old comrades and from his own side, Mr. T. joined in, even more talkative than his son.
Sometimes, a hoot could be heard, the flutter of a wing escaped from a hidden nest. The superimposition of the delicate orange hue of the luscious apricot against the vivid green of the quivering leaves, through which the deep blue of the cerulean sky formed an immaculate background, never ceased to fill me with wonder. That was beauty at its purest. The elements had conspired with the sun to the mellow fruitfulness of the season, and there I was, partaking of it all, gorged with colours, at one with nature and indeed, the whole universe.
My obvious beatific state inspired confidence and fairly soon I became the receptacle of long-harboured secrets, dark stories and age-long feuds. ’’So’’, I would say to Bernard, ’’you’ll never talk to your uncle and cousins? Yet, you’re not concerned with the quarrel between the two brothers. You were not even born when it all started’’. ’’You don’t understand’’, he would reply, ’’you’re not from here. How could you?’’ - ’’You’ll wait until your uncle dies & then you’ll see him; he’ll be in his coffin,. Is that what you want?’’ – ’’Eh, oui… that’s how it is here’’. Never mind blood ties, the common law of the land demands that you hate those your parents hate and in turn pass on the hatred to your children. Of course, it had something to do with the distribution of vineyards and orchards after the death of a long-forgotten ancestor. But that no longer mattered, things were as they were. What mattered was the perpetuation of the family rift.
I spent three healthy weeks in the apricot trees. To my colleagues, father and son, Andalusians and Algerians, I became ’El Professor’ and I would often be asked questions to which I could provide no answer, That inevitably entailed the half sardonic, half friendly comment: ’’You see, even El Professor doesn’t know…’’ I was shown old photographs of the tower, countless sketches of what it could and would become if ever ’’we’’, for now I was included, eventually won.( We did win actually, but the three overblown gnomes go on spurting away forever.) This was June, the apricot season. Now it was July, the month of the peaches which were blushingly compliant.
As I passed by his small Mas one evening on my way back from the orchards, my boss’s estranged elder brother called me in. ’’Rumour has it that you’re a good worker’’, he said with an engaging smile, ’’if you agreed, I’d be happy to employ you. We’re starting on Monday, 5 a.m.’’ You bet I was interested! More money for Nich’s bike, and maybe some left over for us. Family feuds, I thought, that’s the thing. If the younger brother could have El Professor, why not the elder? He had his one-upmanship on his sibling and I was neutral.
Peaches are red and downy. “With gentle hand touch”, as the poet said. Picking peaches is more refined than plucking apricots off the branches. There is something like class distinction between the two activities. However beautiful, succulent and firm, enjoying rude health, apricots belong to the lower order. Peaches are aristocratic, tender and juicy, delicate and fragile. ’Un abricot’, ’une pêche’, French genders are not so erratic as they seem, masculine and feminine concealing deep time-honoured truths. Indeed, a peach producer is higher up in the hierarchy than an apricot man and a peach, when being detached from its stem, is a velvety caress. Sometimes, two round ones hug so close that your hand hesitates at first, then slightly trembling with excitement, your fingers linger over their smooth skin. Hey you, enough erotic nonsense… Your body starts itching all over, face, neck, bare arms, bare knees and calves, back and chest. The desecrated peach is having its revenge, the once voluptuous down has permeated your whole being and your skin burns with desire, but only for the evening shower.
Naturally, I heard the same stories as those I was told the previous month, but in reverse. Baddies became goodies and vice-versa. As there were fewer Spaniards working with us, El Professor was demoted to ’le Prof’. Ahmed, always ready with a new joke, became my friend, teaching me a smattering of Arabic. At ten, there was ’la pause’, sort of elevenses before eleven, with big slices of Christian salami and chunks of Moslem cheese. Monsieur, his wife, their son and daughter-in-law were more affluent than my previous boss, with never-ending orchards, three tractors and a recent lorry. They didn’t climb in the trees. Whilst she selected the best fruit from the crates to sell locally, he would encourage his troops, punctuating his spare words with regular ’’Mangez! Mangez!’’ I did, so much so that it sometimes happened that I had to climb down my ladder in a hurry and run behind the hedge. The sky was often laden with heavy lowering clouds, the air was heavier and the picking tempo was accelerated in the sultry heat for fear of an oncoming storm.
Once, as I was having a little chat with Mme T., Léontine, that is, known to the whole village for the succulence of her fruit and the generosity of her vegetables, fragrant juicy tomatoes, hard crunchy celery, huge leafy artichoke, we saw Mme Boyrette riding past on her old-fashioned bicycle. She and her husband ran a large Mas with a difference, no fertilizer, no pesticides, free-range poultry, sheep running at liberty, pigs basking in the sunshine. Their younger son was a friend of Nich’s and we’d already met them several times. ’’Ah’’, said Léontine, ’’here’s Mme Boyrette, do you know her?’’ I did. ’’You can’t find nicer people than this couple’’, she added, ’’they’d give you everything if you needed help. They’re ever so kind, you can’t help liking them’’. I acquiesced. ’’Mind you, we’re not on speaking terms, but they’re ever so nice…’’ How’s that?’’, I asked. ’’Ils sont de l’autre bord, vous comprenez.’’ No, I didn’t understand which side was which. More than twenty-five years have passed and I still wonder whether one side went to church and the other didn’t, whether one was in favour of the Canet - Saint-Nazaire federation whereas the other was against it, which would imply the future of the ill-fated tower… All this put together, no doubt, and much more besides.
Villages must keep their mysteries. Without them they would lose some of their social cement and disintegrate like… you know what, enough said about it. They also need a few shops, not so much for local commerce, reduced to a minimum, but as a meeting place for gossips. There are three notorious Justines in Saint-Nazaire, Guistina C. known as Justine l’Italienne, Justine la Parisienne who had had a career in the capital and Justine l’Épicière, now retired. Going to Justine l’Épicière’s was an experience and a half. You entered her shop which was like a poultry yard equipped with microphones and loudspeakers. Catalan cackling, shouting, loud guffaws (even the laughs were in Catalan) would assail and deafen you from all sides. Shrieks, raucous, garrulous voices reverberated in the small crowded shop, so much so that the bottles of wine and the cans of peas were set a-vibrating like church bells on a Sunday morning. The louder the din, the higher the pitch and the more desperate the efforts deployed to rise above the racket and make oneself heard. Bosoms would heave like oceans, cheeks were puffed out like balloons about to burst and squat bodies would stretch out, perilously perched on tiptoe, so that you might have imagined that you had accidentally interrupted the rehearsal of some noisy pantomime. ’’Interrupted’’ is inadequate as a word, for after a split second of silence, the vociferous conversation was resumed in courteous French, whether on the same topics or not, I never knew, but without having lost any of its intensity.
Once a gossip, always a gossip. Village gossips play a vital role in the community. You don’t actually have to talk to them, you just listen to what they say and endlessly repeat from shop to shop, from bench to bench, at the town hall and at the post office, in the doctor’s waiting room and at the pharmacy, at the tobacconist’s and the baker’s. The story is not always the same and may vary according to the audience. It grows in importance as the church clock strikes the hours of the day. It reaches its peak a few minutes before 7 p.m., when it’s time to go home to prepare the evening soup and turn on television for the 8 o’clock news. By then, the whole hill top is aware of what has happened, the nether land will have to wait until the morning, when the news begins its new life, relayed by sub-gossips as far as the remotest nooks and crannies. ’’Don’t tell anyone!’’ is whispered two or three hundred times and echoes on in hushed reverberation, as in St Paul’s upper gallery, till the next piece of information is made available, which is, in the normal course of events, at the crack of dawn the next day.
Saint-Nazaire’s gossip-in-chief was Mme B, a very affable lady in her sixties, her permed grey hair covering the whole of her round head like fleece. Her grey shopping bag roamed the streets, dangling from her replete forearm. At 8 a.m., the bag was empty; by 10 it appeared a quarter full, at midday it was brimming over. You would encounter it again round about 5 p.m., emptied of its morning contents, and from then on, it pursued its endless errand, gradually swelling in size and weighing more heavily on the bones and muscles sustaining it.
It had taken long years of practice to reach Mme B.’s virtuosity. When you met her, the golden rule was to say nothing. Never, never ask a gossip a question! You’ll never escape. On the other hand, if you’re interested, bide your time. You may just say: Comment ça va? but experience has taught you what you’re in for and consequently you are prepared to take the risk. A gossip is always in a hurry, so each of Mme B.’s sentences was punctuated by ’’Bon, I must go now’’, which was very sincere, but not easy to perform now that she’d pinned somebody down and had him all to herself.
Poor Mme B., with so many aches and pains, such delicate innards, such incompetent doctors, such horrible neighbours. We both shook our heads in desperation and raised our eyes to the skies when, en passant, you learnt that M. So and So had left his wife and that Mme J. had broken down in an abyss of depression. And, would you believe it, Martha’d won the lottery, as if she needed it (the amount of the gain being whispered in your ear, then loudly repeated in the very same ear because of that silly boy racing up the hill on his motorbike) and, how stupid can one be, she’d given the whole sum to her husband whose firm was going bust… And, well I could have told you, what d’you think he did? Ran away with the hairdresser’s daughter of course, who’s about half his age. Il s’en passe des choses, mon pauvre Monsieur! C’est pas comme avant!
I am sorry to have to use the past tense. Yet I can’t do otherwise, for Mme B. is no longer the chief gossip in my village. Not that she was struck off or demoted. No, it was her own doing. One day, she made up her mind… but wait a while, it is quite a long story which I shall try to cut as short as possible.
I happened to be the victim of a road hog some years ago and had to undergo surgery on a grand scale, six or seven operations, infectious complications, months and months in hospital and in Collioure and Saint-Estève. But that’s not the point. The point is that as I was enjoying my last three months at La Pinède, I bumped into Mme B. one evening, looking very poorly, shuffling down to the restaurant. Gone were the curls, gone was the full round face, gone the grey shopping bag, gone the ceaseless flow of words. Although I felt sorry for Mme B., I managed to direct her to a distant table. It took her a good fortnight to brighten up and I could see from where I was sitting that she tucked into her food with greater gusto than usual and that her alacrity was definitely waxing to an abnormal peak. I soon found out the cause of her speeded recovery.
It was whispered that the recently widowed wife of the ex-Mayor of Perpignan had been admitted as a patient the night before. She kept to her room for a week, and then was allowed to share her meals with her fellow-sufferers. She appeared to be a dignified old lady with a benign smile on her lips. Then lo and behold! Who was at her side, basking in her newly conferred glory, supporting the still fragile Madame A. and gently guiding her to her table, but our own Mme B. who, as far as I was aware, didn’t know the Mayoress (as she came to be called) from Adam. From then on, Mme B. was in her element. She simpered and minced, fawned and strutted, buzzing around like a moth caught by the light.
In the spare moments which she could devote to me, she would tell me the sad news that not one person from the village had come to visit her. After all she’d done for them! An ungrateful bunch, that’s what they were. It was over and done with. She would never have anything to do with that lot again. Strangely, Mme B. stuck to her word. I no longer see her grey bag dangling along the streets in Saint Nazaire. Once I briefly encountered her at the chemist’s. She looked very well indeed and, half closing her eyes in secret complicity, she puckered her mouth and confirmed that it was fini, oui, bien fini. Sad, but that’s how it was.
You will be pleased to know that I too have fully recovered and can once again enjoy the long walks which, to my dog’s great joy, my fitness requires. Every morning, not very early, when the sun is already one third up its trajectory, we set out for the fields. In order to avoid the main road, two routes are possible, either towards the first ford or towards the second. The first one is poky and dry, but soon replaced by a larger one, while the second is a good hundred yards long and lined with shallow pools linked by meandering rivulets to a much deeper one where water keeps fresh and clean until summer lays its hot metallic sheet over us. We know every single blade of grass, Chewy and I, every hedge of reeds, every cluster of rushes. Buzzards glide high in the blue sky, rabbits scamper away to their burrows. The high verges are riddled with holes bored in the clay, always at an angle and no doubt linked with long galleries leading to secret chambers.
In the spring, the grass thickens and becomes inviting. Sometimes, particularly when the west wind blows from the land, I seek shelter in its midst. I know many spots where nature provides suitable pillows and mattresses, and down I lie with my eyes riveted to the last drifting clouds, Chewy lovingly stretching by my side. I listen to the rustling poplars, to the swish of stems at ground level. Every now and then, the trees start roaring like an aeroplane and I can see their tops straining against the blasts.
Invariably, melodious, then imperious notes come to me from nowhere, always the same. I am so familiar with these sounds suspended in mid-air, each calmly waiting for its companion and eventually inviting it to take its place, gentle pearls slowly strung one after the other, and it seems to me that the clouds keep up with the music as though on a celestial score. Then come the trumpets blowing four times, then once, then once again.
This is the end of Mozart’s piano concerto in D minor, the 20th with its Masonic call. Yes, the clouds are still in time with the universal harmony. I reluctantly roll on my side, then bend a knee, and in a last abdominal contraction, encouraged by Chewy’s wet muzzle rhythmically butting me upwards, here I am on my feet again.
We soon reach the end of the dyke protecting us from the Réart’s sudden torrential tidal waves, walls of muddy water rushing down from the mountains, tossing helter-skelter broken tree trunks, ripped off branches, rusty car carcasses, dislocated caravans, innumerable tyres. On our left is Canet-Village, with its beautiful church, in front lies elongated Canet-Plage and its endless row of holiday blockhouses, on our right is Saint-Cyprien, an odd mixture of white and blue. If the atmosphere is crystal clear, you can make out the closely huddled houses of Argelès-Plage. To venture further would mean walking in the dark oozing slime, so we turn round and twenty minutes later, we’re able to cross the dry bed of the torrent, climb onto its other bank and make for the bridge spanning the road to Alenya. While Chewy jumps from rock to rock, I hug the pillars under the bridge, bending my head to avoid the huge rafters supporting it, and eventually reach the other side. Climbing over the bank is no easy matter there. You have to break through an entangled thicket of tall reeds, compact rushes and wild bramble. Chewy follows in my steps, not adventurous enough to lead the way.
At last, we are up on the other side, free to wander among the blossoming trees in the orchards towards Alenya or, if we feel more courageous, we’ve come as far as Saleilles where grey-white Ulysse, mottled Ariane and long-haired Pimpin are braying, bleating and whinnying their good mornings. Then six tall horses and mares with gleaming coats have rushed to the fence to wish us their best. Soon, we can hail seven more, but from a distance since their field is inaccessible from where I stand. This is the more civilised portion of our walk. No wilderness, no thriving weeds, but straight rows or lines of fruit trees, each with a heap of blue granules at its foot (later, white ones will replace them). If no machine is excreting its horrid green spray in the vicinity, we linger along the hedges at leisure. Sometimes, I lean forward to relish the smell of a fragrant corolla. I listen to the bees busying themselves among the petals. If I am lucky, I may admire a long elegant grass snake undulating a few yards away. Chewy stops short, looking anxious, and hides behind my legs.
At such moments, I feel serene and happy. I never tire of the mountainous horizon, sharply delineated against the sky. All the shades of blue, green, brown, pink and red are enhanced by the luminous air. No mist, no haze, that’ll come later in the season, Mediterranean contours and colours at their clearest.
And so, we come back. A few hundred yards before reaching our street, we turn right into a fallow field. I climb over a wire fence at the end of it and cast a furtive sidelong glance at a lonely vegetable garden, with sinister warnings nailed to its gate (pièges à feu, propriété privée, défense absolue d’entrer sous peine de poursuites) and where three forlorn tomato plants strive to keep alive amidst a forest of tall weeds. If the yellow Renault Rodéo of its owner is parked there, we turn back and surreptitiously make our way home. If not, I say ’’Go on, Chewy, go on!’’ and jumping over the low barrier, she rushes to a sort of pond presided over by a tall plastic heron, and therein she bathes and swims to her heart’s content. Although the water looks very dark from a distance, it must be clean because when the dog emerges from it, her white hair spotlessly sparkles in the sun.
So many stories come to my mind as I turn into our cul-de-sac. Chewy has yet a ritual to perform and I leave her to it. First house on the right, two dogs to bark at, whether they are in or not. Third house, fifth and sixth house, same scenario which invariably brings an expression of deep contentment to her face. She looks up towards me to verify that she’s been a good girl. She has. All is in order.
Yet there’s still some unfinished business: that ugly grey derelict building on my right, for instance. Broken window panes blocked by ill-adjusted wooden planks, remnants of ancestral whitewash still peeling off, a corrugated iron lean-to ominously overlooking the next door villa built so close that you wonder whether a permit was ever granted. I know the whole history of the place, although it all started long before our time. A mortal feud between two neighbours, passed on from grandfather to son-in-law and now to grandson. Actually, the other party won a few months ago, but it’s too late. They can no longer use the boat for which they wanted a passage, they’re too old and unable to stride the waves. There’s still a small detail which hasn’t been finalised. For some obscure reason, neither of them is allowed to paint his house front. As in Bleak House, the Court of Chancery will make its decision known when they’re all dead. Jarndyce v. Jarndyce in Catalonia.
Ah, here is old Mr T. When I write ’’old’’, I mean that he looks old, although he is probably younger than I am, which of course is no guarantee that he isn’t old. He has this unsociable habit of staring me in the face when I walk across the street, waiting for my bonjour before tilting his head sideways in silence.
Now comes his younger brother who files past without casting so much as a glance at me. For almost thirty years, every single day, we’ve met thus, in total ignorance of each other. I remember bumping into him once in the departure lounge at Orly Sud. Po-faced as usual, he looked blandly towards the ceiling as though I was endowed or rather afflicted with some extraneous transparency.
Now I must stop to listen to Mr G. who has already stepped off the pavement to greet me. He is in pain, he is always in great pain, which he depicts not so much in words as in dolorous contractions and profuse sighs. You may die on the spot, his mimicry will still proclaim to the world at large that his woes are worse than yours.
Three houses down, Julien, whose first name I heard months after his arrival – surname still unknown - deserves at least three paragraphs, if not four. He was about 45 where he bought the villa next door but two to us. As far as we knew, he was a retired man already, attending to the domestic chores while his younger wife still exercised her art in some salon. A fine figure of a man, tall, erect, with regular features and a good crop of hair. New blood and a breath of fresh air, we thought. It didn’t take us long, however, to realise that he was afflicted with loftier thoughts, at least when we walked past the gate he was painting or was just standing on the pavement. So it continued, never a glance, never a word. No matter really, everyone’s entitled to live as they please. One winter morning, I woke up with ’flu, shivering and stiff all over. It was still early. The doorbell rang and, in my pyjamas, I popped my head out of my room downstairs.
Here was Julien, legs apart and arms akimbo, towering above me. Before I could open my mouth, stern remonstrating words poured forth. Did I know the regulations concerning stray dogs? Three times, no less, my dog had been to his fence and poked his nose through the wire mesh. Three photos were taken as proof of the offence. If any damage had been done or if ever his bitch became pregnant, I’d have to foot the bill… Anyhow, he’d already complained to the mairie. Sandy? Our dear old Golden Retriever? The poor thing was at a great age, hardly able to walk as far as the field nearby. ’’Was little Lucy on heat’’, I asked? That was none of my business.
I know I should have humbly apologized and sworn that never, never would it happen again, but I didn’t. ’’What a great idea’’, I said with a pout of admiration, ’’I wouldn’t have thought of taking photographs. That’s brilliant’’. I detected a flicker of pride in his eyes. ’’When the photos are developed, would you mind giving me a copy? Sandy’s so photogenic’’. At long last it dawned upon the Defender of the Law that I was taking the mickey. He swaggered menacingly towards me. ’’Away! Away!’’ cried I like Dido to Aeneas in Carthage, ’’I’ve got the ’flu. You will be contaminated!’’ Julien recoiled in horror and as he fled to his house, I burst into loud guffaws which shook the whole neighbourhood as though an earthquake was about to engulf us all in cosmic laughter. We’re not exactly friends, Julien and I. Little Lucy is always welcome, though, whenever she strays to our fence or inside our garden. Poor Sandy died a few weeks after having behaved in such a dreadful manner. I never received the photos. Pity. I may still ask for them one day.
And now comes Mme V., dear Mme V. What a blessing to have her opposite us! She loves animals, she is reliable and she has what’s known as a GSOH. She never takes herself seriously, unless she feels she has to correct the wrongs of the world; then she becomes a passionaria who can be heard from as far away as the main road. Doctors, dentists, chemists, supermarket managers, even the mayor, no one is safe from her ire. ’’Why didn’t you go to Inter to-day?’’ she shouts from behind her curtain as we’re taking our victuals from the car. ’’Because we wanted to go to Carrefour’’ – “I can see that’’. And out she comes with a plate of bunyètes she’s just prepared ’’Here you are, although I don’t know why I bother’’.
For some unknown reason she had never really taken to her new neighbour and one day found the ideal excuse to remonstrate against him. Mr B. had a fast-growing passionflower providing shade over his pergola. Unfortunately this beautifully perfumed plant was beginning to hang over Mme V.’s garden, and though she would have appreciated having it trimmed, she didn’t want her neighbour to trespass in her garden. Mr B. used to rise early and one morning, in his usual good-natured way, lifted her broken gate off its hinges, slipped in and trimmed the offending flora, replaced the gate and was gone.
At Midday, Mme V. knocked on our door, pushed it open and shouted ’’Y a quelqu’un?’’, her usual way. ’’You’ve got funny friends. They’re rude and ill-mannered’’ - ’’Who?’’ - ’’Your friends across the road’’. When I heard her story, I couldn’t help laughing. ’’What’s so funny? I don’t find it funny’’. ’’Quand même, it’s not so important.’’ - ’’Not important?’’, ’’Mme Ferrieux’’, addressing my wife, you should keep an eye on your husband, he’s going soft in the head these days’’, and as my hilarity would not abate, she added ’’Vous, ça va pas la tête, hein. Faudrait vous faire soigner. Ça devient urgent.’’ Two hours later, there was a plateful of apple fritters on our window sill. Forgiveness or apology?
Many people wave to me as I pass by in the car or stop for a little chat when summer brings elderly men out on their doorsteps, astride their kitchen chairs. The women gather with their backs to the street and greet me with Alors, on se promène?, which seems obvious to me, but I know it is just their way of acknowledging someone’s presence.
We no longer worry when a benevolent soul warns us that a petition against our feeding and sterilising stray cats is circulating in the village. Stray cats must not be fed and certainly not sterilised, otherwise they will not chase rats and mice; the more they proliferate, the more vermin are eliminated. I agree that the argument’s logic is worthy of the best syllogism, but we persist in our wrongdoings. Petitions usually end where they belong, in the mayor’s waste paper basket. Once we were told that a man living near our feeding station had a ’’contract’’ out on that eccentric English woman who emerged every night like Lady Bountiful with the Kitekat.
The Mairie are very considerate with senior citizens. Every Christmas, I receive a big basket which is full of goodies, Muscat, pâté, foie gras which I don’t eat out of principle, rousquilles, buiscuits, chocolates, even a jar of ratatouille, a lovely word in keeping with the ’’Oc’’ area, agouilles, ripouilles, andouilles,bouille, bidouilles and also… brouilles. Two or three times a year, we’re treated to a sumptuous meal in the Foyer Rural or the Halle aux Sports. Although the enormous loudspeakers uselessly keep pounding behind our backs and in front of us, so that we have to shout at the top of our voices to make ourselves heard, it is a pleasant occurrence, which enables us to get to know people whose talents, or adventures we were unaware of.
Here was Pierrot, with long white hair hanging over his shoulders, looking like an aged cowboy. After his divorce when he was still in his early sixties, he had purged himself of his unhappiness by selling all his belongings and going round the world on his Harley-Davidson. It had taken him four years to complete the grand tour, and when he came to the end of his meagre savings, he worked as a nurse in some African, Siberian, Chinese, Peruvian or Australian dispensary for a few weeks, then moved on.
And what about the benign, self-effacing lady who spends her days cooking delicious meals and baking cakes to distribute to the Resto du Cœur or whoever chooses to knock at her door? She and her benevolent hubby live in a small house on the outskirts of the village. Ten to fifteen people eat at their table twice a day.
Would you believe it? Rémi, the supposedly intractable tax-inspector, plays the piano with such virtuosity that you wonder whether he’s ever done anything else. ’’Where did you learn?’’, I asked, agog with admiration. ’’I didn’t. I just picked it up’’. I looked at him as if he was one of the Lady-Killers hurriedly closing his ’cello case when the old lady came downstairs with a tray of tea and buttered crumpets.
Saint-Nazaire is bright and clean and more welcoming than it used to be. Old derelict houses have been demolished to create new squares, the restored church is nicely lit up at night. Shoulder-high lampposts line the main street. Roads have been mended, roundabouts decorated, pavements colourfully paved, as pavements should. A by-pass is about to be finished and soon non-resident cars will be able to go round the village. The centre is already a pedestrian area. Two children’s amusement parks have recently opened. We can drive to Canet on a wide straight road, with a bicycle track parallel to it. It takes five minutes to reach the coast, six to get to Cabestany, ten to be in Elne. New villas are being built everywhere, but it’ll soon have to stop as land is becoming scarce. Three English families have settled in the village. They are good friends of ours and they all say that they love it here.
After having spent twelve years in one of the largest houses in the village, which they had beautifully restored, Jim Crosby and his family decided to move to Perpignan to live closer to where they work. Once, on the traditional Fête du Livre et de la Rose, when a band accompanies a group of men and young women dressed in traditional Catalan outfits, white trousers or skirts, black waistcoats, red bonnets with a tassel on top, who was at our gate offering the usual rose to my wife? Jim, of course, a true Catalan if ever there was one, taking his role very seriously and refusing to answer us in English. Here was integration at its best, I thought, a symbol of friendly understanding and well-meaning.
The village has definitely livened up, its population being 2,300. More people, more children, more youngsters. Concerts to suit all tastes, rock festivals, classical recitals in the beautifully renovated Chapelle de l’Arca, salon dancing, a choir, a music school, an excellent nursery school and a well-run primary school, numerous societies, all sorts of activities are available for children and adults alike. Painting classes, ceramics groups, cross-stitch club, Sardane society, football club, swimming, excursions, two associations du 3e âge, thé dansant, pétanque of course, tennis courts, a large stadium, a new sports centre, yoga classes, judo sessions, randonnées. A good library, regular car boot sales attracting thousands of people and the village fête, which is a big, if deafening event… Stop! This is beginning to read like a brochure from some information bureau.
S uch is life in Saint-Nazaire, Sant Nazari if you prefer. We’ve been here for almost thirty years and, although there are still many things we don’t understand, we feel at home in our cul-de-sac. Neither Lancashire nor Bourbonnais, nor even the playing fields of Eton attract us any longer, apart from short visits, which are becoming less and less frequent. As long as our British friends or relatives bring us back Crunchies and oatcakes from the blessed isle, we are satisfied. We no longer wonder whether we would like to move elsewhere.
We’ve settled down.
Robert Ferrieux
April 2007
Tourist Info
A tale of Saint-Nazaire
