Provence A-Z by Peter Mayle

Author:Peter Mayle [Mayle, Peter]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-307-48985-2
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Published: 2009-09-22T16:00:00+00:00

Inconnus, Les Petits

This is a term favored by gentlemen who specialize in the restoration of old Provençal properties. Architects and masons use it endlessly, electricians use it frequently, and even painters, when all other excuses fall on deaf ears, have been known to take refuge behind it. And why? Because it is the ultimate escape clause, at the same time vague and all-embracing, equally effective whether applied to time or money. In its essence, it is the transfer of blame to an earlier generation of workmen, now conveniently dead. Here’s what happens.

The first thing to understand is that an old house will not be equipped with anything as modern as a set of wiring diagrams—that is, if electricity has actually been installed. Nor will there be a useful map that shows where pipes and drains and culverts have been concealed. To that extent, the entire house is an inconnu. All you know for certain is what you can see: the flagstone floors, the beamed ceilings, the thick and seemingly solid walls.

Reassured by their substantial appearance, you decide to pierce some openings—one or two extra windows, a couple of arches to allow access from one room to another, nothing too drastic. Or so you think. The first enthusiastic attack is launched on the walls with a jackhammer. But abruptly, work stops. The first petit inconnu has been discovered. The wall is not as solid as it looks. It has been mal fait by some scoundrel back in the eighteenth century. The center has been filled in with sand and small rubble, and if threatened again by the jackhammer, the whole wall will almost certainly collapse, thus putting the handsome ceiling at risk.

Speaking of the handsome ceiling, how is it that nobody has so far spotted those sinister traces of woodworm in the beams? Or the permanently moist patch—there, where the plaster is flaking off—in the kitchen? And what is that curious, unpleasant smell? One by one, the petits and often not so petits inconnus are brought to your attention, each time with a sympathetic shrug. You ask how much they will cost to fix and how long that will take. Again the shrug. Impossible to say. That’s the trouble with inconnus. One never knows. It is not long before the original estimate is no more than a pleasant memory, a fraction of the eventual cost. And any thoughts of completing the work by spring have given way to tentative hopes of completing by Christmas.

Then there are the minor inconnus that have more to do with natural causes than with structural defects. A hornets’ nest has been found under the roof tiles, and work has to stop until the fire brigade’s hornet team can come to the rescue. The root system of an ancient plane tree has penetrated the septic tank. Bats have taken up residence in an old ventilation shaft. Or, the most disagreeable surprise of all, there is the goat legacy.

It was at one time quite common for goats to be sheltered at night during the winter, either in an outbuilding or in the main house itself.

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