breathing, and probably even if he were not, so they shook hands on the bargain
and he set to work. It was springtime, so to save his rent money Bruno moved
into the barn with a camp bed, a sleeping bag and a camping stove, and came to
relish the briskness of his morning shower a bucket of water from the well
poured over his head, a quick soaping, and then another bucket to rinse himself
off. It was the way he and his unit had kept clean on manoeuvres. He spent his
first days off and all his evenings clearing the old vegetable garden and
building a new fence of chicken wire to keep out the rabbits. Then, with a happy
sense of mission, he began planting potatoes, courgettes, onions, lettuce,
tomatoes and herbs.
He explored the copse of trees behind the vegetable garden and found wild
garlic. Later, in the autumn, he discovered the big brown cep mushrooms, and
under one of the white oaks he saw the darting movement of the tiny fly that
signalled the presence of truffles on his land. Below the turf that stretched
out generously to the front of his new home were hedges of raspberries and
blackcurrants, and three old and distinguished walnut trees.
By the time the electricity was connected, he had put new lathes and tiles on
the cottage roof and installed insulation. He had bought ready-made windows from
Bricomarché, making them fit by building his own wooden frames. The doorway was
of an unusual size, so he built his own door of planks and beams, and to fulfil
a longstanding fancy of his own ever since he had first seen a horse staring
curiously over a half-door in the cavalry stables at Saumur, he made the door so
that the top half could open separately, and he could lean on the sill of the
half-door inside the cottage and gaze out at his property. Michel from the
public works depot had brought up a mechanical digger to repair the old car
track, dig a hole for the septic tank and lay trenches for the pipes. Michel
stayed to help instal the electricity circuit and run cables to the barn. René
from the tennis club had put in the plumbing, and old Joe had brought his cement
mixer up the newly levelled track to help him lay a new floor, and then showed
him how to make foundations for the additions that Bruno was planning a large
bedroom and bathroom. Without really thinking about it, Bruno assumed that
someday there would be a wife here and a family to house.
By the end of the summer, the foundations of the new wing were laid and Bruno
had moved out of the barn and into the big room of the cottage with its view
over the plateau. He could take a hot shower in his own bathroom with water from
the gas heater, fuelled by the big blue containers that Jean-Louis sold at the
garage. He had a gas cooker, a refrigerator, a sink with hot and cold running
water, wooden floors, and a very large bill at the Bricomarché that he would be
paying off with one fifth of his monthly paycheck for the next two years.
He signed the contract of sale in the Mayors office, the town notaire on hand
to ensure that all was legal. There was enough of his Army gratuity left to pay
the first year of property taxes and to buy a good wood-burning stove, a lamb
and a hundred litres of good Bergerac wine, and throw himself a housewarming
party. He dug the pit for the fire that would roast the lamb and borrowed the
giant fait-tout enamel pot from the tennis club to make his couscous. He added
trestle tables and benches from the rugby club, feasted all his new friends,
showed off his house and became an established man of property.
What he had not expected were the gifts. His colleagues at the Mairie had
clubbed together to buy him a washing machine, and Joe brought him a cockerel
and half a dozen hens. It seemed that every housewife in St Denis had prepared
him jars of homemade pâté or preserved vegetables and jams, salamis and
rillettes. Not a pig had been killed in St Denis over the past year but some of
it ended in Brunos larder. The tennis club brought him a set of cutlery and the
rugby club brought him crockery. The staff of the medical clinic gave him a
mirror for his bathroom and a cupboard with a first-aid kit that could have
equipped a small surgery. Fat Jeanne from the market gave him a mixed set of
wine and water glasses that she had picked up at the last vide-grenier jumble
sale, and even the staff at Bricomarché had donated a set of cooking pots.
Michel and the lads from the public works depot made him a gift of some old
spades and garden tools that they had managed to replace by juggling next years
budget. The gendarmes bought him a big radio, and the pompiers gave him a
shotgun and a hunting licence. The minimes, the children of the tennis and rugby
clubs whom he taught to play, had put together their centimes and bought him a
young apple tree, and everyone who came to his housewarming brought him a bottle
of good wine to lay down in the cellar that he and Joe had built under the new
wing.
As the night wore on, Bruno had felt compelled to take a small toast with every
one of his guests. Finally, when wine and good fellowship overcame him sometime
towards dawn, he fell asleep with his head on one of the trestle tables. The
friends who had stayed the course carried him into his house, took off his
shoes, laid him on the big new bed that René had built and covered him with the
quilt that the pompiers wives had sewn.
But Bruno had one more gift. It was curled up peacefully asleep on an expanse of
old newspaper, and, as Bruno rose with an aching head, it woke up and came
across to lick his feet and then scrambled up into his lap to burrow into the
warmth and gaze at its new master with intelligent and adoring eyes. This was
the Mayors gift, a basset hound from the litter of his own renowned hunting
dog, and Bruno decided to name him Gitane, or gypsy. But by the end of the day,
when Bruno had already come to delight in his puppys long, velvet ears,
outsized feet and seductive ways, it had been shortened to Gigi. For Bruno it
had been the most memorable evening of his life his formal baptism into the
fraternity of the Commune of St Denis.
Dressed in shorts and sandals, Bruno was staking his young tomato plants when he
heard a car labouring up the track and one of the celebrants from that first
happy night came into view. But there was no cheer in Doctor Gelletreau as he
levered himself from the elderly Mercedes, patted the welcoming Gigi, and
lumbered up the path to the terrace. Bruno rinsed his hands under the garden tap
and went to welcome his unexpected guest.
I called at your house earlier, but there was no-one there, Bruno told him.
Yes, thanks, Bruno. I found your note on the door. We were in Périgueux, with
the lawyer and then at the police station, said the doctor, who had taped
Brunos broken ribs after a rugby game, tended his influenza and signed his
annual certificate of health after a casual glance up and down the policemans
healthy frame. Gelletreau was overweight and far too red in the face for
comfort, a man who ignored the sound advice he gave to his patients. With his
white hair and heavy moustache, he looked almost too old to have a teenage son
but there was a daughter even younger.
Any news? Bruno asked.
No, the damn fool boy is being held pending drugs charges, which the lawyer
says may not stand since he was under er restraint when the police arrived.