A House in the Sunflowers by Ruth Silvestre Read Free Book Online Page A

gypsies and perhaps the contentment I felt had something atavistic about it, even though I was indoors – just. If I glanced up the wide chimney I could see the sky!
    We scrubbed each wall in the main room and painted it flat white. We mended the ceiling, replacing the rotten and missing boards and we put down plastic sheets in the attic until the
charpentier
could repair our roof. The children talked a wonderful mixture of English and French. Strangely, and without any prompting, our two attempted a sort of French while Philippe practised his very good English. On being asked which English book he was reading at school he replied in his precise tones ‘
The Canterville Ghost
by Oscar Wilde.’
    ‘Blimey!’ said our two and he learned another English word.
     
    Almost every day M. Bertrand would pass on his tractor but with exquisite tact would turn to look away from the house and only stop if we went out to greet him. Once he did stop however, he was clearly eager to see what we were doing. He told us how pleased he was to see Bel-Air cared for once more. ‘It looked so sadbefore,’ he said. On the second week of the holiday he warned us that the electric fence would have to be switched on as he would be bringing up some of his cows to their summer pasture.
    All the next morning, helped by Grandma, he rumbled slowly back and forth up to the house, the tractor in the lowest possible gear, with two cows at a time tethered to the trailer. Grandma walked behind with a stick, wearing Wellingtons, a flowered overall and a large straw hat, and calling encouragement to the cows as they nodded their way nervously up the track. The first to be untied was the largest and oldest. She was to be ‘Mother’ and look after the younger ones. Slowly and carefully M. Bertrand untied her while we watched at a distance. It amused us to hear him talking to her incessantly in soothing tones, praising her
sagesse
and the beauty of the morning and the lushness of the grass in the her horns if she panicked – and also her value; she was worth almost seven hundred pounds. By midday nine young and beautiful
Blondes d’Aquitaine
stared at us over the fragile fence. Every few hours, led by Mother, they would trek past the house to drink at the pond and then, just as leisurely, file back up again to stand, like animals from a child’s toy farmyard, in a straight line along the horizon.
    The newly cemented floors in the two bedrooms were now solid enough to walk on. We took measurements.Each room was almost twelve feet square. We looked forward to moving into the bedrooms on our next trip in the summer. One had a magnificent view southwards down to the village and miles beyond. The other, once we had hacked away some of the straggling box trees, looked up the meadow to the cows and the distant woods. I decided that I would one day get rid of the box trees altogether. I hated their sour smell.
    Our time was running out. We drew endless plans for studying back in London. We called again on the
charpentier
who confirmed that the roof would be done before July and that he would re-use as many of the old tiles as possible, mixing them carefully with the new. He showed us one of the new stop tiles which he intended to use underneath; these would, he said, prevent the upper tiles from sliding down as the old ones did whenever the French Air force jets made them jump with their supersonic bangs. ‘They were not designed for that!’ he smiled.
    With a M. Albert, the plumber from the next village, we discussed the possibility of putting a lavatory and basin in the far pigsty. We did not feel we could face another holiday without that, but the bathroom proper would have to await more funds. He was another large, smiling man and very agreeable, but he explained that before he could begin we must contact M. René, our
maçon
, to install a septic tank or
fosse septique
first.
    Consultation with M. René resulted in his arrival afew days later with a huge