Tuesday 13th.
Oscar Hammerstein 111 wrote these lines in Oklahoma “Every night my lovey dove and I, sit alone and talk, and watch a hawk, drawing lazy circles in the sky.” LOVE that image. Cut to:- Morning, Provence, and the scenario is the same…. The swallows are keeping a safe distance from a large hawk. We watch it catching the updrafts and gliding in circles. Jimmy Webb has a song called Asleep On The Wind which talks about the same phenomenon, for we’d swear that the hawk is actually asleep, with no fear of the wind taking it wherever it chooses. I don’t know how long we watch - time is irrelevant. One of us replenishes the coffee, the other brings more bread and apricot jam. It’s tiring work….so we crash out for an hours nap only two hours after getting up.
If there is one thing that stops this experience from being idyllic - it’s the flies. They are everywhere, in their hundreds. They send out scouts to discover what you’re doing and what is the best way to ruin it and then they return in swarms. You can’t leave your coffee to cool…. The flies will turn it into a lido holding a swimming regatta. They’re friendly enough to want to taste the bread or the pate right before you put it in your mouth, and will even offer to clean your teeth for you if you leave your mouth open for longer than a few seconds. French fly sprays have been developed as a form of entertainment for the flies. They scatter and make loud noises which sound uncomfortably like laughter, and then resume what they were doing until the next round of the game. WE have already used a full can of fly spray and I have yet to sight a single dead fly. The alternative to the flies is to keep and windows shut and shutters locked. There’s a rumour that this keeps the house cooler. Such rumour was obviously written by the Lord of the Flies. The house becomes unbearably hot without access to the delightful breeze which blows through the house all hours of the day and night, providing welcome relief from the searing heat.
So, unsuspectingly, you open up the doors and windows - and there are the flies, waiting patiently. Some may have been picnicking on crumbs -some are lurking in the shadows. But within minutes they have taken over the house again and buzz around the fly spray can zzzzing “play the game….play the game.”
I develop my own game. I leave a plate of scraps on the table for the flies to swarm over so they will leave us alone. It works for all of ten minutes….. Then they’re angry that I tried to fool them and form squadrons to dive bomb me. There’s no escape.
In the afternoon we locate the clean linen and make up the beds - deciding to let the sisters choose their own rooms since we know they don’t want to share. Individually they are lovely old ladies….but they don’t get on and never have. At 77 B has always lived alone and is used to doing things her way. M is 81 in two days and still trying to find out who she is after losing the husband who took care of her for 55 years. Tony loves them both - but is also short on patience with them and uses every chance to leave me to entertain them. Already tension is building and they haven’t even arrived yet.
Tony picks his sisters up at Nimes station. I stay home to prepare a special welcoming supper. The table is set on the terrace and the wine is chilled and, despite the fact that they’ve been travelling for 8 hours, both of them are in fine form. We eat chicken so tender it falls off the bone, with lots of salad and bread and fresh fruit and white wine. Both of them love the house and the surroundings and there’s no dispute over rooms. Phew! Perhaps I was worried over nothing. But Tony excuses himself to go to bed early and I am left to entertain the guests, and there’s a growing sense of foreboding as I finally say goodnight. Beloved is happily snoring - oblivious.
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