I can’t help but feel bad for the bellyman but Marmite is largely indifferent to his declining talent. The chirpy self-assurance is going. Ripples of both empathy and discontentment run among supporters who have basked in his parochial glory. Some have even won money by betting on him. He experiments with his action, not crouching so low to the ground. But then his belly becomes a hindrance rather than a help — no longer helping to achieve an equilibrium of body. This new posture doesn’t lend itself to boules-throwing exactitude. In releasing the boule it is obvious that he is off balance, at risk even of toppling over to complete the humiliation. In cursing the boules, he tosses them higher into the air but altering their trajectory fails to work. Confusion and resentment widen the furrows upon his brow, along which run large beads of sweat. He employs acts of superstition that have previously ended barren spells. He rubs a yellow rag frenziedly against his hip. His nose is blown hard while he prolongs the time spent in terrain assessment, marking and remarking the grit in the throwing circle. He even appears to reduce his pastis intake. His mistakes cause increasing embarrassment. His rare victories are now due more to opponent error.
A man purporting to clear houses has phoned regarding the advertisement in the Le Sémaphore cinema. Marmite has taken the message, which is, broadly, that the man has a large number of English books that he wants rid of at a price to be established. I phone the man from Anne’s flat and it turns out that the books are in Alès, a town lying lies 25 miles north-west of Nîmes, on the left bank of the Gardon River. At the risk of appearing too keen, I fix up a meeting for the following day. He gives me directions to a car park near to the town’s centre.
I spot a white Renault Trafic van and pull up alongside. A man in his fifties jumps out at the sight of the Princess with its English plates. He wastes no time in yanking open the back doors to his van. The sight of hundreds of books greets me. It is often the case, upon being called out to inspect a library for sale, that the books will be all good or all bad. Within seconds I know that it hasn’t been a wasted trip. Now I need to enter negotiating mode. I make a show of counting the books as my mind does the calculations. I see promising titles. How now to convey an impression of insouciance? You tend to do your best negotiating when you genuinely are prepared to walk away from the deal. But it’s difficult to feign that frame of mind. Neither of us is keen to suggest a figure. I say, rather dishonestly, that as a general lot they’re okay while adding, honestly, that I can’t see any really rare items. ‘Allez cinq cent francs,’ suggests the man. I nod, trying to keep a serious face.
The Austin Princess isn’t the most stylish of vehicles but it has good cabin space that I put to full use. I love the smell and the jumbled piles of all these books; vast quantities of American Penguins and Vintage paperbacks, many of which have the name and address of their former owner stamped on the inside cover. Going by past experience, it won’t hinder the selling of them.
The Princess is overheating again but it gets me and the books back to Nîmes. Lacking confidence to approach a garage, I can’t continue to patch up its radiator. So the Princess ends its days in the grounds of the art school where the students make a sculpture out of it. Marmite keeps me informed but after completing his ‘academic’ year, we lose touch. We both stop the drinking; Marmite no longer convinced of alcohol’s incantatory powers to produce good art.
Before leaving Nîmes, I visit the Jardin de la Fontaine one last time with Anne. I show her the pond where the tadpoles are moving with less hectic abandon; their tails having all but disappeared. May is warming the days. We pass by the boulodrome. I haven’t witnessed the tadpoles’s complete metamorphosis but in place Picasso there is a definite indicator of time passing. Still venting joy or frustration in his inimitable fashion, a rotund and familiar figure is engaged in a game of boules with a set of players I don’t recognise.
Anne has quit art school and moved to Montpellier where I want to try my luck with the recent spoils from Alès. I take up residence in the city’s youth hostel at the bottom of rue de l’Université. We have been told about a book market held on Saturday mornings under Les Arceaux, the city’s ancient aquaduct. The project is to sell books there, out of the back of a van.
Pont de Montvert, Late August 1990
I’ve come down from Mount Lozère, passing near to where Robert Louis Stevenson had slept the night under the stars. Drinking a cool can of Coke on the humpbacked bridge (Pont-de-Montvert) that spans the swift-flowing Tarn, I feel an acute sense of well being. I’ve been following in the footsteps of the writer’s 120-mile solo hiking journey through the sparsely populated areas of the Cévennes Mountains. Travelling without a donkey (just as well given that Stevenson’s Modestine was a stubborn beast he could never quite get the better of), I’m now confident about completing the walk despite sore, blistered feet. It’s my own fault, choosing to wear a black pair of Dr Martens that never properly fitted me. It’s been cold in the tent at night and yet hot, very hot on some days after what was a distinctly inauspicious start, landing up at the wrong Le Monastier, some 150 km off course from Le Monastier-sur-Gazeille, where Stevenson actually began his walk.
At one end of the bridge is the tourist office, which has for sale a bilingual (English/French) edition of Travels with a Donkey with an unusually detailed map of Stevenson’s route. I resist a strong impulse to buy it. My funds, after all, are running low.
On the bridge, I skim through my travel notes.
‘Wrong bloody Le Monastier. Fool. Put right by an amused lady in the village’s boulangerie, I venture, weeping with frustration, into a nearby church. Above its altar is a sign that has an implacable logic to it: ‘La Route est Longue’! Must now spend an unscheduled night in the train station in Le Mende, a town whose Cathedral is adorned with Gothic devil dogs carved in a permanent retch. I feel (and look) a bit like them after too much wine. — Return to La Bastide, couple of lifts, arrive in Le Monastier in heavy rain. Spot a commemorative plaque dedicated to Stevenson and his donkey. ‘LE 22 SEPTEMBER 1878, ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON POUR SON VOYAGE A TRAVERS LES CEVENNES AVEC UN ANE.’ (I’ve left my Anne in Montpellier) –
Leave at noon. Punishing early ascent; ripped by thorns and a sad proliferation of barbed wire. 2.30 arrive in St Martin de Frugeres. Exhilarating descent at 3.45. Arrive in Goudet. Blistered feet. The river, described by Stevenson as ‘an amiable stripling of a river’, is today at least 60 feet wide, teeming with dirty black trout. Icy cold to the touch. Fly fisherman tries his luck as the sun goes down behind the chateau Beaufort –
Very cold at night in the tent. Ussel 11.45 a.m. WWI memorial. Sweat stinging the eyes. Feet burning, try wearing espadrilles. Begin to revel in the surroundings but there remains, as Stevenson says, a lingering desire for a companion in travel. –
Le Bruchet 4p.m. stone walls dividing fields in which tractors and farm machinery lie abandoned. Directed to campsite, only me camping. Feels like I’m walking on hot coals — hope they cool sufficiently to allow me to continue to Pradelles. Next day, more drizzle. To the east green gently rolling hills. My water bottle swings to and thro’, metronome like and making me aware of a fairly constant stride pattern. Pass Mount Fouey — phoeey 3600 feet, scarcely aware of the height — Limp into Pradelle at 5.45 p.m. Ensconced in sleeping bag for 12 hours, recovering from tiredness brought on my climb into town. It’s damp & miserable so make it a rest day. Get out my books. Finish reading The Bell Jar and Death of An Expert Witness. In Langogne, deduce Allier to be much swollen by recent rainfall given the description of it by Stevenson. Beautiful descent into Le Cheylad L’Eveque. Plod on but climb Lozère with surprising ease.’