A Year at the French Farmhouse(20)
Eventually, she took a turn onto an even smaller road that seemed to decrease in width the more she drove, then began to climb alarmingly, making the little car’s engine squeal in protest. To her right, a small grass verge gave away to an enormous cliff-like dip, peppered with trees and without a barrier in sight. Without realising, she began to drive more towards the centre of the road to avoid this death-drop, and earned a loud blast of the horn from a careering Land Rover.
Gripping the wheel more tightly, her heart thundering, she tried to reassure herself. Everyone got a bit of road rage when they were stuck behind a slow driver, or whizzed around the corner to find a tiny Nissan cruising down the middle of the road. People weren’t unfriendly here, it was just the circumstances. The near death experiences. She’d get the hang of this weird left-hand drive, right side of road combination after a while and it wouldn’t all be so stressful.
Besides, she’d spend as little time in an actual car as possible, she resolved; she’d buy a woven basket and walk to the market, filling it with fresh, locally sourced produce. She’d eat at the local restaurants and purchase her bread daily from the boulangerie. Perhaps she wouldn’t even need a car at all. This was the storm before the calm.
With just a few more kilometres to go, she breathed in the fresh air and tried to relax. She found that if she ignored the drop of certain death on the right of her, things felt a lot better. According to the GPS, she was nearly at the chambre d’h?tes she’d booked – and just ten further kilometres from the house she would soon call home. Once at the B. & B. she could kick off her shoes, gulp down a cuppa and start her new life.
As if reading her thoughts, the in-car satnav suddenly went black and displayed the words ‘signal lost’.
‘Shit,’ she said, in spite of herself. In spite of the new, stress-free, relaxed version of herself she was trying to be. But how hard could it be to negotiate the last few kilometres? From what she could remember, there was literally one road that led into the tiny village. It shouldn’t be that difficult, even for someone with her sense of direction.
After what seemed like at least five more kilometres she felt less confident. The road weaved back and forth and signposts pointing to tiny hamlets along muddy tracks gave no indication of how far she was from her destination. If Ben had been here, he’d have brought a map, she realised. He always brought a map, no matter how much she insisted that the GPS would guide them wherever they needed to go. She was literally lost without him.
But this was ridiculous. She was a grown woman, quite capable of finding her way without electronic help. Spotting a Land Rover pulled up on the side of the road and a man in a high-viz orange jacket leaning on the bonnet, holding something in his hands, she pulled up to ask directions. It would be good practice for her fledgling French, after all. And surely nothing could be too complicated. A simple aller tout droit (go straight ahead) would be enough to reassure her that she was still on the right route.
‘Bonjour, Monsieur,’ she said, walking up behind him.
‘Mon dieu!’ he exclaimed, jumping almost out of his skin. He swung around, and she realised what he was holding in his hands was an actual rifle.
‘Non, Monsieur,’ she said, waving her hands in a gesture that she hoped looked apologetic. ‘Je suis désolé, je… um, didn’t mean, to um, faire un choc, une… Une surprise.’
He nodded and smiled; his mouth only just visible under his enormous grey moustache. ‘Désolé, Madame,’ he said, nodding at the gun. ‘C’est pour le sanglier.’
‘Sanglier?’ The gun was still, disturbingly, pointed at her, despite his smile. The man seemed to have forgotten it was there at all. While she was pretty sure he wasn’t going to shoot her intentionally, there was every possibility she wasn’t going to come out of this exchange very well. She noticed a small bottle of whiskey balanced on the bonnet of the Land Rover, just past his hand. It was three-quarters empty. The man looked a little too elderly to be trusted with a gun at all, and she noticed to her horror that one of his hands seemed to have an occasional involuntary twitch.
‘Oui, le sanglier!’ he said, pawing the ground with his foot and making a snorting noise. ‘Le pig, le pig of the forest,’ he added in broken English. ‘Wild.’
‘Oh, wild boar?’ she said. She’d read there was hunting in the area.
He shrugged. ‘Je ne comprends pas, Madame.’
‘Right. OK. Um, je suis… je ne trouve pas… Faux la Montagne?’
He shook his head sadly and shrugged, lifting the gun slightly as he did so, so it pointed towards her head instead of her heart. At least death, if it came, would be quick and painless, she reasoned, trying to step away from his line of fire.
She took out her phone and typed in the name of the village into her notes, then, carefully approaching from the side, away from the pointed barrel, she showed him.
‘Ah,’ he said, his eyes beginning to sparkle, ‘Faux la Montagne!’ Only rather than her forks la montaGnee he gave what must be its correct pronunciation. Which sounded nothing like what she’d said at all. ‘Oui, c’est la, c’est la!’ he said, pointing to the road ahead, excitedly.
‘Straight on?’ she said. ‘Er, tout droit?’
‘Oui, OUI!’ he said, waving his gun in delight.