Provence
As soon as I opened my front door I could smell it. Along the path, flakes of white ash landed on my arms. Looking north beyond the cliff, I saw a rapidly increasing plume of brown-black smoke. Before long it filled a third of the sky. Not again. Ten years ago, almost to the day, the concrete shack I was renting in the woods a few miles from the village was almost engulfed. Jeremy was having a break and staying with me when a wildfire broke out in the valley below. The smoke and flames looked about a quarter of a mile away and firefighting Canadairs flew low overhead. Friends told us to leave but I refused. I’d left everything behind in Scotland 18 months before and couldn’t face doing so again. Jeremy asked if he’d have to knock me out and throw me over his shoulder. I threw him a look, heated up some soupe au pistou and then sat weeping on the terrace sipping the large gin he’d poured me. But after the wind changed and the smoke and flames headed back towards us, we left, and the house survived.
By evening the smoke was much worse. I knew I would be safe here in the cave, but I help rent out a house ten minutes’ walk away near the forest, and on Saturday had let a young couple in. She was pregnant and although we’d been texting I thought I should go and see how they were. I took the long way round, heading up to the top of the hill to get a better view. There I could see the smoke was coming from the direction of St Joseph, the monastery where our young Mater Dei nuns are based. St Joseph is connected to the Sanctuary of Notre-Dame de Grâces by a forest track. From the wind direction it seemed that both sites were in danger.
The road was busy as dozens of fire trucks, sirens blaring, careered down the hill
Further down and round the corner the smoke, made orange by the sinking sun, filled the sky. Canadairs came low over my head in formation. I ran to the renters’ place and, finding the gate locked, called them. They’d left already. But American Cathy is here and her house was also in the path of the flames. I rang her, told her to come to mine, and hurried home. Having worked hard all her life as a doctor and psychiatrist, she’s had a terrible year of divorce and – like me – lost almost everything. Her house and friends here are her consolation. Half an hour later there was still no sign of her. No answer to my calls or messages either. ‘If you don’t answer I’m coming to get you.’ She didn’t. It was getting dark.
At the bend in the road, looking back, I could see a massive bank of flames rise behind the hill. The Canadairs had stopped for the night, but the road was busy as dozens of fire trucks, sirens blaring, careered down the hill. When I rounded the corner of Cathy’s steep drive I saw we were in trouble. The huge hillside 200 yards or so east was ablaze; the heat, a vast wall of it, was intense, and the air was filled with dense smoke and the roar of tens of thousands of burning trees. Domestic gas bottles exploded close by. Like some Provençal Heathcliff, I shouted over and over for Cathy, and found her sobbing in the hall. ‘Come on, get in your car, I’ll close the upstairs shutters.’ ‘I can’t, I need to find my laptop and phone.’ ‘Your car is packed. They’ll be in there. Go and look.’
I ran upstairs. From the open bedroom windows the fire was closer still. It was so hot I had to turn away. The last window wouldn’t open. Panic rose. For a moment my body didn’t know whether to faint or throw up. Giving up on the shutter, I ran downstairs and locked the front door. Cathy had found her phone but was still crying, looking for her laptop. ‘Look, there it is. Go to mine now. Be calm and careful. I’ll follow.’ ‘I can… I can do that. I’m a doctor. I’ve seen terrible things.’ Her face cleared and she set off.
Later, at about 11 p.m., on my terrace sipping local Carpe Diem rosé, we counted 90 fire trucks coming down the hill. Cathy wanted my neighbour Geoffrey to join us and messaged him. A few minutes later, a look of horror. ‘I texted the wrong Geoffrey! I texted my 19-year-old patient instead.’ ‘What did you say?’ ‘I said, “If you’re still up, please come over.”’ ‘That’s you struck off.’
Next morning I left Cathy sleeping and went to check her house. Near the garage smoke-blackened pompiers leant against their trucks glugging bottles of water. Feeling suddenly overcome and tearful, I waved. A pompier hose lay abandoned on Cathy’s terrace. They’d saved the house. But the garden was burnt to within inches of the living-room wall and was still smouldering. Later, American Cathy, English Cathy, Colonel Peter and I spent hours trying to put the embers out with buckets of pool water, but it wasn’t until a fire engine arrived that it was fully extinguished. Filthy and bloodied by burnt undergrowth we said our goodbyes, promising to reconvene over drinks later. The monastery and sanctuary were both saved.
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