29th July 2010 – Ripples

Finally the weather had warmed up back to the heat wave to which I had grown accustomed. Along with the usual WWOOFing chores of harvesting fruit and making jam, which were regular tasks, it was time to tend to the garden. After a month without rain, the mini-monsoon of a few days previously had been far from enough to satisfy the poor parched plants, but it had at least served to perk them up a little and to loosen the soil. It was time for a lesson in an indispensable life skill: how to transplant baby leeks.

The garden was messy and looked like a jumble of plants set in vague rows; however, there was method to the apparent madness. There was a large plot sectioned off at the end nearest the house which was full of tight rows of roses, still bearing blooms despite frequent culls to fuel the rosewater distillery. In front of the house were two large mounds: one a compost heap and one a bonfire in the making. By these sat Kelsey’s – now Josafien’s – crappy RV.  A couple of overgrown rows of raspberry canes were supported by a framework of sticks, and redcurrants and blackcurrants and a curious hybrid of the two queued in disorderly lines down to the other end of the garden. Further down the hill was a greenhouse, and between all of these were patches of different vegetables, separated by thin planks of wood rather like the ones that made up the outside toilet. Woe betide anyone who stepped on the soil rather than the wood: the possibility of crushing seedlings under a careless foot was an ever-present risk. 

The baby leeks had been spending their formative days in the nursery of the greenhouse. They had passed Xavier’s size test, and had been declared ready for the big bad world of the garden. We were shown to an empty vegetable patch. Xavier marked out rows with a stick, about 30cm between each. We were given our instructions and our knives and dibbers, and we were off. Soon all of our seedlings had tidily trimmed roots, all about 2cm long. With our sticks we dibbed tunnels into the earth, which we half-filled with water from our watering cans. Introducing the shoots to the holes, we pushed the soil in gently to fill the gap and support the little plants, and once they were safely tucked into their bed, we gave them one final drink of water before leaving nature to do her worst. We hoped that Xavier and Michelle would enjoy the fruits – or leeks – of our labour when autumn came around.    

We were a mucky bunch that lunchtime. The combination of mud and heat had one inevitable outcome: faire un p’tit plouf. In English this meant to have a little splash, which was Xavier’s way of referring to going swimming. Trips to the river were frequent at both Fontchouette and Fontsoleil. Showers at both farms were limited: I averaged one every four days, although I did stretch to five at one point. It took some getting used to. After two days I felt greasy and dirty and smelly, but from the third day onwards it ceased to be a problem. Besides, nobody was going to judge us. We were all run aground in the same boat. I took to washing my clothes underfoot in the shower, too, imagining that I was a Roman trampling grapes to make wine. I figured that there couldn’t be much difference between shampoo and detergent and that my clothes wouldn’t care. Anything to save water. 

So we changed into our bikinis and set off in the car, down to the valley to the lake near Desaignes where I had got to know Goedele on her first day. The water of the Doux river was cold, and not at all doux – gentle – like its name. On heavy days when sweat seemed to hang in the air and the sun burned then it was a relief to be there. On cooler days it held less allure, but regardless of the ambient temperature, I never wanted to make the initial entrance: the toe curl of the first step which had stopped me from swimming that first time with Goedele, the terrible numbness as the water hit the crotch of my bikini, the tension and involuntary muscle spasms as I was in stomach deep. My stomach was another reason for not wanting to swim, or at least not to want to wear a bikini. It was far from firm, and I was very conscious of the hair that grew there. If anyone else had noticed, it would probably have been a miracle in itself, but I was aware of it and so, self-consciously, I detested it, and I detested wearing a bikini. I cursed myself for not having taken a swimming costume with me. I could comfortably bare all to the starlight, but not to my fellow bathers, however unconcerned they may have been about my physique.

That day, though, I did swim. I was grimy, overheated and mosquito-bitten, and the water was soothing to my suffering skin. To begin with I splashed around with Kira and Josefien, but after a while of floating I felt the urge to swim properly. Up and down I swam, in the deeper, colder water by the rocky outcrop of valley sides. As I swam I began to concentrate on the very act of swimming. I watched my hands moving in rhythm in front of me, appearing white and ghostly, pushing the black water away from my advancing body. No, not black -- shadowed greeny-blue. I was entranced by these underwater appendages which moved at the level of my water-blurred eyes and which belonged to me yet seemed not to. The movements of my muscles awoke ripples from stillness, and I was made to think of one of the most important lessons I learned at school.

My deputy headmistress had been a strong and formidable woman. Formidable, but kindly. She was the type of teacher who inspired terror in you when you joined the school, but who had your utmost respect by the time you left. One day she stood up in front of the school and told us that every little thing we did had consequences: every action and every word was a pebble thrown into a stream. Once the pebble had been thrown, there was nothing that could be done to stop the ripples. Ripples could not be undone or taken back. They might become smaller and imperceptible but they would keep on going. It might have been a lecture on bullying, I couldn’t remember. But she also said that this applied to good words and actions too, that every good word and good action had good ripples, and that if you set that kind of ripple in motion, then you were spreading uncontrollable goodness. I was about twelve when she gave that speech, and I never forgot it. I wanted to spread good ripples. Splosh. Ripple. Ripple. Ripple. Ripple.

On the way back up to the farm, just outside Desaignes, Xavier pointed out to me an innocuous stone bungalow. He told me the story of the man who lived there. The inhabitant was an old man, a recluse. Nobody knew much about him, apart from the fact that he collected everything and anything he could. Items that he had salvaged from rubbish tips or roadsides, things that he couldn’t possibly need, settees and washing machines and toys, all were stuffed inside the little house and could be seen bursting out of the windows and into the garden. A little further on, halfway up the hill, Xavier stopped the car. He got out and motioned up the hill with his hands. Sailing, as it were, in an empty field was an equally empty boat: yet another of the recluse’s acquisitions. Nobody understood why he had chosen that field, or why he had chosen a field at all, to moor his ship. Nobody understood why he had a ship in the first place. But nobody understood anything much about him. He was a living legend, enshrouded in mystery. He was like the old man who used to live near to me. He would walk along the roadside in a brown-grey flat cap that went with his yellow-grey skin. He would have a bicycle with him but he would never ride it. Instead he would shout and point at the trees on the opposite side of the road. I hadn’t seen him for years, or given him any thought. I could only assume he had died.

A fairly strange conversation that evening made me realise that my time at Fontsoleil was fast coming to an end. Kira and I had only five and four days left respectively, but Josefien was staying for another fortnight after that. We had been laughing about the outside toilet and how we all tried to avoid using it if at all possible. Josefien had two worries. The first was her period. She was due the following week, and felt uncomfortable about using the squatty bog; it was understandable, given as the contents of the pit were hardly a secret. Bearing in mind that Michelle and Xavier had had three daughters, I doubted that they would have batted an eyelid at a spattering of blood, but I could understand Josefien´s unwillingness. At a time when the body was already in discomfort, squatting over everyone else’s shit would hardly help matters. Her other worry was how full the trench was getting. It hadn’t occurred to me, but it was true, the contents were getting dangerously close to the top. Kira and I reckoned we would escape before it overflowed, but the way things were going, Josefien was definitely going to get caught in the tsunami.