C'est Modnifique!: Adventures of an English Grump in Rural France, page 13
'So, let me get this straight,' I said, my frustration mounting as I once again found myself fighting this losing battle. 'You've taken on a bullied goat, to place him with two bigger goats who are already being bullied by a horse that is itself being bullied.'
They all looked at me.
'What are we doing here, running some sort of bullying finishing school? I mean, is that it? Do we need fresh meat? What is this, Goat Gladiator?'
Again, silence.
'We really have…' I never reached the end of the sentence, as the boys started up again, the charade that I ever have a choice in these matters being played out to the end for the sake of form. So Bambi (I suspected they were really after a deer) stayed; another addition, another mouth to feed, another maladjusted animal to add to the list of needy cases that we've already rescued.
I picked up my case and hobbled towards the door. 'Where are you going, Daddy?' Maurice asked as they all settled down again.
'I'm going to stand by the roadside for a bit, maybe flag a car down, tell them I'm being bullied, hopefully find a new home.'
'Silly Daddy,' he said cheerfully, and un-paused the television.
It was beyond mayhem in my opinion. A few weeks earlier we had seriously considered, albeit under duress, moving house and now we were building up the squad again. I just shook my head in disbelief, genuinely at a loss for words, utterly helpless and completely frustrated, thinking about turning straight round and getting back on the road again. A couple of weeks later, though, and I'd have given anything to be back there.
The Home Guard
'Excuse me, do you have any Christmas puddings left?'
The rather startled woman working in the Sainsbury's bakery department looked me up and down, trying to gauge if I was winding her up.
'Christmas puddings? It's February, love. Are you late or early?'
It was a reasonable response to a question I didn't really want to ask frankly, and for two reasons: firstly, I pride myself on my supermarket shopping capabilities; my lists are in the same order as the shop layout (if it's a supermarket you've never been to before, do a recce first), I eschew offers of packing help, because nobody does it as well as me, and I never ask an assistant for assistance because I have my shopping pride. Secondly, I'd been backed into a late-Christmas pudding corner and I was still confused as to how.
A few weeks before Christmas I was at home alone during the day, preparing for the onslaught of Christmas party gigs, when the doorbell rang, or at least the bell connected to the front gate. That's actually quite a rarity, one of the many beauties of living in the middle of nowhere is that very few people come to your door at all, though of course it usually means that when the doorbell does actually ring it'll likely be an unwelcome call. Sometimes, it's a roaming gang of salesmen offering to scrape the moss off your roof or some such niche occupation or, on two occasions, a very attractive Swiss Jehovah's Witness, wandering around on her own through the Loire Valley, spreading a message that frankly nobody wanted to hear. So when the doorbell rings now, I run upstairs and peek through the window first to see if it's worth going to the gate at all or just to release the dogs.
As it was coming into the festive season, I thought that it was probably the postman with a parcel and I bounded out to the gate. It wasn't the postman.
Now, I am particular and fussy about clothing, I know that. There are rules I live by and, while I don't expect everybody else to reach those standards, I do expect certain basics to be adhered to. The very tall, grinning man standing at the gate talking to the dogs was wearing a turquoise shell suit, huge black slip-on shoes and, sitting improbably on his head, was a tiny purple bobble hat. Our paths wouldn't, in a just world, normally cross.
'You're the Englishman!' he said, somehow making his grin even wider revealing big gaps where there were once teeth, and holding out a huge hand.
I'll be honest, much as I was put off by the look of the man, and because of a lisp I was having difficulty following what he was saying, I am also at the lower end of show business and therefore needy enough to have felt flattered that I had apparently gained some local level of celebrity.
'I am the Englishman!' I said warmly, calling off the dogs in French with what I hoped also had a hint of landed gentry English 'poshness' about it.
We chatted for about ten minutes, well I say 'we' – he talked for about ten minutes and I occasionally offered a nod and a 'oui', 'non' or 'c'est vrai?'. Standard responses for someone who is not entirely sure of what is being said to him. His conversation was erratic, to say the least. My French has improved and I can, if I concentrate properly and if I don't daydream (which I do no matter what language is being spoken to me), hold a half-decent conversation. But throw in a few detailed non sequiturs and I'm constantly playing catch up.
He would begin with one topic, switch topic mid-sentence and then return to the original opening gambit. For example:
'I see Kate's pregnant, that's good news,' he began.
'Well…' I am no great royalist, but I try not to be a churl about it.
'And Depardieu!'
Eh? He's pregnant too? Forgetting the Kate pregnancy briefly, he then launched into the news that Depardieu, a local boy by the way, was leaving the country, 'with Bardot!' he added, though I must stress for rumour fans that they were apparently leaving separately.
It was difficult to keep up, but he also had immense charm and was obviously a genuinely nice man and an anglophone too, which while neither here nor there for me, was something he wanted to share and something which I warmed to. The perception is that the French have the same antipathy towards us as we have towards them, and they just don't. The Parisians do, but they're not proper French.
He kept saying it was a pleasure to meet me, shaking my hand and walking away towards his van, then he'd remember something else and the largely one-way conversation would start up again. Insurance companies, tax, caravans, a seemingly endless list of conversational subjects and then finally it seemed, he was spent, but no.
'I had completely forgotten why I came!' he said, slapping his forehead in standard slapstick style. 'I've never had an English Christmas pudding.'
He was obviously angling for me to get him one when I was next back in England, and the preamble about emigrating actors and royal pregnancies may have been a nervous ruse, but I doubt it. He was just a charming, but scatty individual. He began to stutter slightly and then he asked directly.
'Could you get me a Christmas pudding, please?' he made the request sound almost Uriah Heep-like.
'Of course!' I said . 'My pleasure.'
I was actually, before he'd called, writing out an immense shopping list for my two weeks in the UK. I was driving back in an empty car, but I would return with the kind of Christmas vittles that they just don't do in France: crackers, a box of Roses, water biscuits, stilton, Celebrations, the usual crisps, brown rolls and, of course, Christmas puddings.
He was so grateful when I said yes, that somehow his grin got even bigger, and he pulled off his bobble hat and shook my hand again.
The first pudding transaction took place just before Christmas, again accompanied by a scatterbrained conversation, this time shifting from the weather to cherry brandy and that, I thought, would be it, but I was wrong. He returned after Christmas with a bottle of expensive sweet white wine and effusive praise for the quality of the puddings (I hadn't skimped on quality).
'My father loved it!' he said, with a surprising intensity. 'Really loved it.' He obviously took his father's praise and happiness very seriously indeed, 'Really, really loved it.'
'That's good; I'm pleased,' I said, his passion somehow making his father's happiness my concern as well.
'It's his birthday in February…' he said, almost guiltily, catching my eye.
I looked at him, still not quite able to work him out and then I twigged. 'I'll see what I can do,' I said.
The Sainsbury's lady was still unconvinced about my motives.
'So, you haven't got any Christmas puddings then?' I asked, and for the first time noticed the shiny new rows of Easter eggs.
'No, love. Sorry. I've still got one at home from two years ago, you know!' She laughed at the thought.
'Really?' I said. 'How much do you want for it?'
She stopped laughing and walked away.
Oh well, I tried.
In truth, I was glad of the daytime conversation and an errand to occupy my time. I think, after three full and busy weeks away, I was beginning to go a little crazy. Any descent into madness would hardly involve a massive plummet for me, but by the end of this trip I was spending my days unshaven, shuffling around my in-laws' large, empty house in Crawley, in my pyjamas and refusing solids.
There's a reason why solitary confinement is a punishment, but normally being alone doesn't bother me – in fact, I'm quite good at it. Stand-up comedy is a lonely business; you write alone, you travel alone and you perform alone, therefore, if you do it for long enough you either become happy at being on your own or you were pretty much a loner to start with. When the media rakes over the aftermath of a serial killer or lunatic running amok with a gun, the phrases 'he kept himself to himself' and 'he was a loner' are always trotted out as character traits. Well, comedians have those traits too, so just be thankful we write jokes instead – and hecklers really should bear this knowledge in mind before they casually open their mouths in future.
But being good at being on your own is one thing; three weeks is a whole other proposition, especially when you have a family. It gets into your head that this is it, this is your future and those people you occasionally Skype or email are actually a mirage, not real at all. Professionally speaking, it was a great three weeks. What began unpromisingly with snow and the ensuing travel chaos turned out to be three weeks that included a number of corporate events and a sold-out weekend at the best comedy club in the world, the Comedy Store in London. There had also been a week in Cyprus doing the armed forces decompression gigs, including a high-profile one to Prince Harry and members of his helicopter regiment as they returned home.
The decompression gigs in Cyprus, though, I found emotionally draining. The idea of decompression is that for all troops returning from 'theatre', Afghanistan and initially Iraq, there would be a 24-hour stop-off in Cyprus, a chance for the soldiers to let their hair down and get things out of their system before they go home. They spend a day at the beach, or play golf, or go horse riding and so on; they have a barbecue and in the evening they have a show: two comedians and a band and their first alcohol – a limit of four cans – for six months or the duration of their tour. They are also briefed about what to expect when they get back home, such as the potential difficulties in adjusting to civilian life, and about how to deal with the very different change in their daily routine. Though not everyone wants to be there, they'd much rather go straight home, obviously, I have done a lot of these tours and the response is nearly always positive and makes a difference to the returning soldier.
They are humbling gigs and we, as 'entertainers', are looked after and paid for our work, but I personally find the gigs themselves very hard. I am not a rabble-rousing comedian, I don't do one-liners or filth, and though these armed forces gigs very rarely actually demand those skills, I find it hard not to go in with the mindset that I am out of my depth, way out of my comfort zone. I had always been nervous of these shows from when I first did them; there's a responsibility in these shows that a lot of gigs don't have and then, a few years ago an incident occurred which, while putting everything else into perspective, has affected my confidence ever since.
We had finished the show, performing at a packed-out event for 200 or more returning personnel happy to be on their way home. It was raucous, full of banter, nervewracking and hugely enjoyable. A young soldier came up to me after the show, behind the marquee where I was standing alone.
'I really enjoyed that,' he said, though he never took his eyes off the ground.
'I'm glad, thanks,' I replied. There was silence and he continued staring at the floor. 'You must be looking forward to getting back?' I'm not good at small talk, but this seemed like the obvious opener.
'Not really,' he said, and burst into tears, great big sobbing tears. I won't go into why or what had happened – there's a great need for privacy regarding each individual who goes through the decompression system, and sometimes emotion in these situations can just be all about relief, a very necessary comedown after months on high alert. He stopped crying before long and went to rejoin his mates, I think perhaps relieved to have got something off his chest.
I stayed there behind the marquee and then I burst into tears too. In many ways, what had just happened is exactly what decompression is all about, but I couldn't handle it; I'm not cut out for things like that. Heckle me and I'll deal with it, but I'm too soft off stage to cope with such things. I'm never a million miles from an emotional collapse anyway, but suddenly – and selfishly – I felt a long way from home, I thought about my children and I needed to see them, and Natalie too.
I didn't go out with the others after the show that night, I couldn't. In fact, every time I go back to Cyprus for decompression I think back to that incident. I am very grateful for the work and, like I say the gigs are humbling, but I find it difficult to relax there anymore; it's a week of draining high tension and emotional turmoil and always seems to be at a time when I'm away from home for a long period, which doesn't help. I rang Natalie from Cyprus after the Prince Harry show, relieved it was all over and needing the palate cleanser of home-life news. I got it in spades.
Natalie was in full-on Miss Marple mode and determined to solve the dead pigeon mystery. OK, it wasn't as if you had to wear a hard hat outdoors for fear of suddenly deceased falling birds, but the sinister appearance of dozens of pigeon corpses was nonetheless macabre and too disturbing to be ignored. As always, the Internet is the first port of call for investigations of this kind and once you've managed to filter out the crackpot conspiracy theories – really, I don't think the CIA are all that fussed about the Loire Valley pigeon population – there were a number of potential explanations which we'd considered before I'd left.
Trichomoniasis, common in pigeons apparently, is related to the human STD of the same name, which suggests that pigeons, particularly the racing kind I suspect, are putting it about with wild abandon. There's a line in the Blur song 'Parklife' which implies that pigeons are highly sexed creatures, which is scant evidence on which to base what appeared to be some kind of epidemic granted, but, no pun intended, we were fumbling around in the dark here. Whatever it is it's fatal, but because most of the victims we had found were pretty mangled we couldn't gather the proof.
Natalie reported over the phone that the crows were attacking sluggish pigeons in mid-air, like a fighter plane skirmish, but again it couldn't account for the sheer volume of deaths. In the end though, it's not the Internet that solves these mysteries, it's local knowledge, for which there is no substitute. If our two farmer neighbours play a good-cop bad-cop routine, then Monsieur Rousseau is definitely the good cop. Natalie told me that he'd delivered the monthly hay and walked around the property with her, as intrigued and baffled by the avian carnage as we were. He even took a carcass away with him for further investigation. The next day Natalie phoned him again, there'd been another killing she said portentously. Rousseau didn't hesitate and brought round a local expert who, he said, would hopefully find an explanation.
He did too. According to this expert the fault lay with bad-cop Monsieur Girresse. It seems he had been lazy in preparing his fields and had left the corn stalks and some of the corn husks unploughed. We suspected this to have been deliberate, to provide 'sport' for his shooting parties, something for the specially bred pheasant cannon fodder to hide behind before being blasted apart. The problem, though, is that corn left in this state is poisonous to the pigeon; it expands in their gullet, leaves them unable to breathe and is therefore fatal.
'Ah,' said Monsieur Rousseau nervously, 'I'll have a word with Girresse, tell him to get it sorted out.'
Natalie and I talked about the likelihood of Girresse actually doing something about it and we reckoned the chances were between zero and 'you must be joking'. It was good to be in a position where we could finally laugh about that mad old man, a ridiculous brooding individual, whereas not so long ago we had felt genuinely threatened by him.
It was just good to talk to Natalie and the boys really; something we normally shy away from on these long trips, as it rarely actually helps and only makes the longing harder. But we seemed to be back on an even keel again after a tense couple of months, and it was lovely to hear all the chatter in the background. I couldn't wait to get home, and I kept telling myself – again something I don't do often enough – that I was very lucky to be doing so, because some don't have the choice.
Seul Man
Going home this time, however, wouldn't be the morale boost it normally was. Yes, I wanted to be home more than anything, but I also knew that when I got there Natalie and the boys would be on their way to England for a half-term break. We would literally be passing each other as I arrived home and they left for the dubious delights of Crawley. Once again, I was ruing what we had as a life as, in practical terms, in terms of actually spending time as a family, it didn't seem much of a life at all at present.
