I had made new friends, and for seven long years I tried to avoid going back to the Dordogne.
But every summer I would think about their garden, the taste of gin and tonic, and in winter I could just picture those log fires, I could smell the damp stones and the smoke. And I would think about all the things I missed with my new friends.
It took me a week after I arrived before I could summon up the courage to go back to the hamlet where they used to live.
The house was empty, of course. The light-blue shutters had gone grey. The garden was overgrown, and all of Mary’s efforts to recreate an English country garden full of roses had disappeared under the weeds. The metal gate had rusted and was kept closed by an enormous chain.
That’s when I heard footsteps behind me. I turned round and saw a tall, rather thin man with a face like a bird’s, and sad, restless eyes.
“Do you want to buy the house?” he asked in French with a strong English accent. And I answered in English.
“No, this is just, er... a pilgrimage.”
“Really?”
“I didn’t know the house was for sale.”
“Well, I think it is. It’s been empty a long time.”
“Did you know the people who used to live here? John and Mary?”
“No, they were already gone when I settled here.”
“Do you live in this hamlet?”
“The house down at the bottom, you see? With the perigordine roof.”
He put his hands together to imitate a steep roof, and nodded a couple of times.
“Did you know them?” he asked.
“Yes, I used to come and visit fairly often. And then, well... we lost contact. Gabriel Puyjadas also knew them.”
“The old man? He died.”
“Oh... recently?”
“Two or three years ago. But I know Sue Blythe who knew them.”
“Sue? I know Sue.”
He introduced himself and invited me to his place to have a drink. He was called Richard Collins and came from Batley in Yorkshire. We chatted for a while, had a couple of glasses of cheap wine. When I left he shook my hand and said that we’d probably meet again at Sue’s.
I went back to Brantôme to hang around, and like all the tourists I stopped in front of an estate agent’s window. There was an English couple in front of me. I knew they were dreaming of living here all year round, writing books, painting pictures, wearing straw hats and flowered dresses.
That’s when I saw it on the top left-hand corner of the window: John and Mary’s house. And they were asking a reasonable price, too. That was yet another shock. As if I’d seen their clothes in a secondhand shop shortly after their funeral.
I walked in, trying to look wealthy enough to afford a second home in the southwest of France. As I spoke with an English accent, the agent had no difficulty in believing that I was more than comfortably off.
We made an appointment to go and visit the house the following day.
“Do you know the region?” he asked.
“A little.”
“You’ll see, it’s very well situated.”
I was tempted to make a sad remark, but settled for, “Is the price negotiable?”
At this stage of the proceedings, it was a stupid question, far too premature, and he gave me a puzzled look.
“You’ll have to discuss it with the owner. But maybe you should wait until you’ve seen the house.”
“Yes, of course.”
It was very hot when we arrived at the gate; the light was blinding, like in a bad dream. The estate agent was talking at me, but his voice seemed to come from very far away, like an echo.
“Would you like to see the garden first?”
I said yes, but mostly to delay the moment when I would have to step into the house. I started wondering whether I would find their furniture still in place, covered with white sheets, or more likely with a thick layer of grey dust. Would I find empty glasses in the kitchen still bearing lipstick traces? The one last drink before leaving.
There was nothing left. But still I could read the signs that told me about the life of my lost friends. A dark stain on the floorboards where Mary had once dropped a bottle of wine. The grey line on the wall along the staircase leading to the rooms; it was there because John would always lean against the wall when he went upstairs. And Mary would laugh at him; call him an old man, sometimes even an old drunk. I had to smile at the recollection. And once again the agent looked at me strangely. We walked into the big room downstairs, which Mary called the sitting room. Our steps were echoing on the tiles. There were still ashes in the fireplace.
“You might have to do some work,” said the agent, “but nothing much... it needs to be, er... refreshed. If you’d like to follow me, there’s another room behind the kitchen.”
I almost said, “I know.” That was the room John called his study.
“Would you like to see the rooms upstairs?”
I was starting to have difficulty speaking. There was a lump in my throat, and I made vague noises to answer his questions. I couldn’t help finding him irritating — even though I knew it was unfair — because I would have liked to be left alone.
“Do the owners live nearby?”
“Well... yes.” I knew he was lying but I couldn’t understand why.
“Could I meet them?”
“Oh, well...” he said with a sly little smile and a shrug of his shoulders. “If you buy the house, you’ll meet them when you sign.”
And I too smiled at that moment; I could just see them walking into the lawyer’s office to find me there, pen in hand, waiting to sign the deeds and to invite them to stay in their own house. But if they were in Argentina, everything would be done through the post. At least they’d see my name on the deeds.
“Have you already had an offer for this house?”
“Some Dutch people have shown some interest.”
“Right.”
As we walked out, we saw Richard Collins, who was waving at us.
“Do you know each other?” the agent asked.
“We’ve met,” I said, and I could tell that he was getting more and more suspicious.
Once more Richard Collins invited me in for a drink and promised to give me a lift back to my hotel. I said goodbye to the estate agent and told him I would call the following day to put in an offer.
“Are we going to be neighbours?” Collins asked.
I could tell from the warmth of his welcome that he was a lonely man, one of those English people who live in the Dordogne all year round; they wait for summer, for visitors to turn up. They wait a lot. Then, during the summer months, they have long drunken parties until late into the night, after endless winters spent without anything to do, taking it one day at a time, fighting the boredom and the cold.
Collins seemed extremely nervous, obsequious even, as if he was worried that I would leave him to face his loneliness too soon. He worked himself up into a sort of frenzy, talking with forced gaiety, trying embarrassingly hard to establish an intimacy between us. He reminded me of those drunks in bars who treat you like a long-lost friend if you exchange a couple of words with them; who will spend a fortune buying you drinks you don’t want, and who won’t let you go.
He started talking about old Puyjadas. He’d probably guessed that it was a good way to catch my attention. He explained that he hadn’t known John and Mary, but that Puyjadas had told him a lot about them. He was right; he got me interested, because I knew they were very fond of the old man, whom I could never quite understand, and I was curious to know what he could have said about them.