Chapter Four

But now there was more. I was nineteen and no longer a naive fourteen year old. Helene was no longer the little girl of twelve years old. She was beautiful. Seductive. She was graceful in her movement. The way she walked. The way she ate. This was not a girl who should be on a farm. She was better than that. I wanted to hold her and kiss her and tell her I loved her. But she was my best friend. The aftermath of our first innocent meeting was still with me. How could I touch this girl? I could kiss her and spoil our friendship. I couldn’t do that. No matter how desperate I was. What if she didn’t feel the same way? So we talked and played games just like before and I was happy just to be in her presence.
All that day we played boules, football or just sat in the long spring grass talking. We ate meals with the family, drank wine and revelled in the perfection that is country life.
The next day we got up to find everyone preparing to leave the farm.
"Where are you going?"
"We’re going to make the hay." said Helene.
"Can we come and help?" I asked.
"No, you don’t have to you are on holidays."
"But we’d like to. To show our thanks for your hospitality." I looked at Gary and he nodded.
"OK." she said. "we’ll go to the fields."
We climbed on the tractor and headed for the field. Apart from the tractor there was no other machinery. Just the tractor and the trailer. The hay was all in lines up and down the field. Helene’s cousins were already at the field waiting, pitchforks in hand. They looked surprised when Gary and I picked up a pitch fork each and set to, tossing the hay onto the trailer while one of Helene cousins arranged it. We worked solidly for hours Helene’s father driving slowly up and down the field and us boys with the pitchforks either side gathering the hay. I hadn’t even noticed that Helene had disappeared. Until someone shouted "Dejeuner" and I saw Helene and her mother walking across the field toward us with baskets. We collapsed in the hay. It was like a scene from a Stella Artois advert.
Helene and her mother had brought bread, cheese and red wine. But no Stella Artois. It was midday and the sun was fierce. The red wine made me sleepy. I thought "I love this life." We’d done about two thirds of the field by then and I turned to Helene and said "We’ll soon be finished."
She laughed "No, we have to do another field after."
"Oh."
"It’s the field of a neighbour, she is told old to make hay."
Gary and I fell about laughing. Helene looked puzzled and I explained what "Making hay" meant in English.
She laughed "She’s vraiment too old for that as well."
Dinner finished we went back to work. It wasn’t easier, but after several glasses of red wine we didn’t care anymore and the field was soon finished. So we went to the next field belonging to the little old lady. We arrived at her farmhouse on the tractor and was introduced as "Les Anglais". She gave us wine. We stood in front of her house, her yard was just dried mud, trying to make conversation and dutifully drinking the wine offered. Then we made hay. It was a much smaller field and quickly finished. Helene had disappeared again. Gary and I rested a while next to the tractor waiting to be told we were going back to the farm. But no. There was a third field to do. on a third farm. Again we were introduced as "Les Anglais" and yet again given more wine, before and after.
Finally we had finished and exhausted we went back to Helene’s farm. My hands were agony. I wasn’t used to physical labour and I had blisters all over my hands. I went into the kitchen.
"Helene. Look at my hands." I held out my blistered hands for Helene to see. As a student I wasn’t used to hard labour and my hands were soft. No callouses.
"Pauvre garcon. let me see. Et tu Gary?" Gary held up his hands they were similarly abused. "I ‘ave something for that." she said. She went to a cupboard and got out a small bottle. "I’ll put some of this on your ‘ands."
"Will it help?" I asked.
"Bien sur." she said. And she took the bottle and upended it onto a piece of cotton wool. Then gently taking my hand she dabbed at my blisters. It was cool and soothing for about a millisecond then..............
"Aaaargghhhhhh!" I screamed. It was Iodine straight onto raw flesh. I pulled my hand away shaking it in the air, blowing it.
"Oh Mikel" she said taking my hand again. "it’s good for your hands"
It was at that moment, in some perverse way, I knew I loved this girl more than anything.
Gary quickly said "Actually my hands aren’t so bad after all."
"You don’t want the medicine for your ‘ands?"
"No I’ll be OK. I’m sure." said Gary.
Tears were rolling down my eyes with the pain of the Iodine and I realised that Helene was still holding my hand. Her mother called her and she let go.
She was needed to help make dinner. They had decided to hold a dinner party in honour of "Les Anglais". The front room, normally unused was thrown open and dust sheets pulled off the best furniture. Helene and her sister Nelly cleaned and dusted the room. They polished the ten foot chestnut table, opened the shutters and cleaned the windows, and laid the table for a banquet. A short while later the local farmers turned up to meet "Les Anglais". As guests of honour we were seated at the top and bottom of the table. Rabbit stew was served with even more red wine. We were treated royally and not allowed to help at all.
So with the dinner table full of family, friends and "Les Anglais" dinner was eaten wine was drunk and toasts proposed.
"A Les Anglais"
"Vive La France."
"Vive L’Angleterre"
Each toast an excuse for another drink. We never felt happier in our lives. I felt like a king for a day. We were offered bread which we tore of the loaves following the example of the others, carved chunks of cheese from a selection on the table. We laughed and joked with our new friends. Helenes mother grabbed my hand and lifted it up to show the farmers,then related the story of the iodine. Everyone laughed. It was ten o’clock when the guests started leaving, shaking hands and thanking us for our help. It was late for rural France but still early for us. I looked at Helene when everyone had left. "What do we do now?"
"Everyone is going to bed, it’s late." she said.
"But it’s only ten o’clock. Let’s talk some more."
"But my parents will be trying to sleep we’ll disturb them."
"We can talk in the tent."
So Gary, Helene and I walked across the farm yard over the gate and climbed into our small ridge tent. Where we sat laughing and joking for another two hours. Trying to translate English jokes into French and Helene trying to Translate French jokes into English. The jokes were terrible but the translations hilarious.
At midnight Helene announced she had better go to bed. We were suitably tired so we agreed. She left with a smile and scampered off to the now completely dark farmhouse. Gary and I settled down into our sleeping bags.