At Home With Piano Man Joel And Madame Macrame Cathou

In truth, Joel had no need for the meagre skills I had to offer — I was, and still am, about as useful as a chocolate fireguard when it comes to handyman stuff — but he was working alone at the time, and just was not cut out for the silence.

I reckon now I was like the apprentice in the old Irish story, ‘Gioraíonn Beirt Bóthair’ (‘Two Shorten The Road’) about the Gobán Saor (mythical master craftsman) and his apprentice, whose true role, the story reveals, was to provide the master with companionship. To shorten his road as they travelled to a new job and back. And I was okay at that.

And now, my Gobán Saor, Joel is older and grey, but still as mischievous and skittish as ever. A sometime painter and always music lover, he still tinkles away on the battered grand piano in his living room, a rustic chamber of old mirrors, sideboards, recovered treasures and mementoes. There is a huge old wardrobe at one end of the room, with a tree etching high up on the front, indicating it dates from the time of the French Revolution! Several of Joel’s own canvases hang on the walls, and throughout the house.

Little wonder that Anne, who could only join Joel in his unique take on the English language brought upon her by her lack of discernible French, describes him now as ‘probably the nicest man she has ever met’.

This chatty and vivacious Kerry woman has met a few good ‘uns in her time.

And Cathou, whom we both had only encountered for the first time, bowled us over with her charm and warmth.

I will cherish my memory of this droll and enlightened lady in her grey-haired mid-70s, rising on her tippy-toes like a skittish schoolgirl as she hugged Anne in thanks for the beautiful silk scarf we had brought with us among our gifts on arrival at the house after Joel had collected us from our Bordeaux overnight hotel.

And the engulfing hug and kisses for both of us on the morning of our departure as she presented Anne with the just completed macrame flower pot holder and chic cat motif shoulder bag she had made before. 

Long retired from his maçon’s trade, the vast repertoire of Joel’s skills are evident all around us in the wonderfully quirky house he has fabricated from the long old storage building directly across the road from his parents’ house, the house he grew up in.

When I worked with Joel, the fine stone facade of this ancient building was its only noteworthy feature. There was the bare, beaten earth floor downstairs and above, the ancient wooden planks that covered about a quarter of the space overhead. This is where the cement and general supplies were stored.

The downstairs housed the old Citroen truck Joel’s dad, Roger — known to all as Pappy (granddad) — had himself driven when he too operated in this corner as a maçon, and had apprenticed Joel and Joel’s only sibling, his brother Michel, a specialist in old stone fireplaces. 

Joel still drove that same truck back then. Every work morning, he or I would get out the starting handle and wind up this dark green old monster … the putt, putt, putt growing louder and faster until the old girl was ready to advance unaided. And boy, could that squat old truck motor.

Oh, the roads and there miles we travelled in that noisy yet noble old truck back then, Joel and I, and Francois or Eugene betimes. Wind-ups aplenty in our wind-up truck.

An unassuming region, this none too celebrated corner of south-west France, really grew on me. Wine country, primarily, I came to love its rolling hills and vines … vines, vines and yet more vines snaking long and far and everywhere, and trees …  so many trees, dominating the undulating skyline, mainly deciduous, with oak, chestnut, beech and hornbeam prominent, and the usual conifers, spruce and Douglas fir.  

So lush and so verdant, and nestled among the trees and the vines, the mighty Garonne river, which we would cross and recross just about every work day. 

Autumn here, with it’s eye-gorging tapestry of reds, yellows and bronze was an especially magical time, that unsurpassable vista to take in as we joshed and smoked our skinny roll-ups on the way to another day’s work.

And now, to see this noble old shell of a building transformed stone by stone, brick and lintel by brick and lintel and all the rest into such a great house. Right in the centre is a winding stone-stepped stairs, which Joel measured out and laid out. And then the nooks and divisions, floors, walls … everything built by Joel to his and Cathou’s satisfaction. Each day of our stay yielded another treasure or artifact in some corner or other to linger on a moment.

Past and present are easy bedfellows in this elegantly whimsical yet ordered and perfectly pragmatic home.

All of this Joel and Cathou delight in now, him busy faffing around fetching and fixing and finessing, and, late at night, doing his word puzzles with the radio on (jazz or classical music only) at the little round table after he dons his mask and undergoes his oxygen intake ritual for an hour because of a long-standing lung issue, and recent sleep apnoea, while Cathou sits upright on the old soft leather couch, head bent forward with brow fixed on the macrame weaves she has perfected since lockdown.

A banker for many years, and proprietor for a while of her own newsagents in the nearby medieval village of Saint Macaire, she has had her health battles, and is content now to mellow away her evenings cooking, or on her crafts — consulting patterns and tips on the iPad one of her eight grandchildren has bought her — while Joel scoots in and out of the village for bread, wine and the rest, and meeting the demands of his position as nominal head of the local community organisation, the equivalent of Tidy Towns here. 

The big modern television over the fireplace never came on while we were there, and Joel and Cathou informed us they rarely used it, and if they did, usually for one of the large collection of movies on disc in the shelves below.

Joel’s family home is still there, across the narrow road, beautifully maintained by the Romanian family who rent it out — for a small rent, as Joel allowed them to restore it and fit it out to their own needs, as it needed a lot of work. Joel didn’t have the money to do it up, and besides he was way too busy restoring his own house at the time the family home became vacant after his mother died.

Joel and Cathou tell me their tenants have done a brilliant job on the house, and it certainly looks gorgeous from the outside, all pink clay roof tiles and shuttered windows, ancient trees, effusive flowering shrubbery and scrambling vines. The little maisonette adjoining the main house and which I slept in a few times is still there too.

So many memories of that house, especially that Christmas Day long ago when Pappy perpetrated his heinous crime against taste and tradition …

TO BE CONTINUED …