Ten Trees and a Truffle Dog Read Free Page A

to save the hospital but when the main local farmer threatened to stop supplying his famed asparagus to Paris, politicians finally took notice. Sitting together waiting for a midwife, we could not have been more grateful.
    Â Â Nearby a tall man with three-day stubble and a shaggy mop of hair paced up and down, looking anxiously towards a distant door. He clutched a packet of cigarettes in his hands and judging from the plastic wraps over his shoes he'd come from one of the birthing rooms. Despite the heat in the hospital he wore a scarf wrapped tightly around his neck and a heavy woollen jumper. For some reason he looked vaguely familiar, but I couldn't place his face.
    Â Â  'Ça va?' I asked.
    Â Â ' Oui, ça va , you have to wait outside for the epidural,' he explained. 'The needle's big and sometimes the fathers faint.' With that thought he succumbed, placing a cigarette in his mouth and heading for the stairs.
    Â Â  'Madame Ivey, venez avec moi.' A slim elegant lady dressed in midwife green beckoned to us. She was perhaps our age, with warm nut-brown eyes, but her voice was stern and the hospital orderlies seemed to shrink away from her. Introductions were clearly not part of the service and I squinted to read the name stencilled on a badge on her chest – 'Lea'.
    Â Â Tanya struggled to her feet and like the losing couple in a sports day three-legged race we hobbled into Lea's office. Inside the small room a large window looked north towards the Luberon hills. The evergreen pine and olive trees and the sumptuous blue sky combined to give the appearance of a summer's day.
    Â Â 'We've phoned for your records. Any trips or falls? Anything out of the ordinary?'
    Â Â Tanya shook her head and the examination continued, with Lea writing notes slowly into a book. Outside in the corridor we could hear the wails of newborn babies and the odd piercing scream of a mother in labour, but Lea was oblivious.
    Â Â 'Do you smoke?' Lea's tone was that of an interrogator.
    Â Â Once again Tanya shook her head.
    Â Â 'Drink?'
    Â Â 'Eat uncooked meat?'
    Â Â 'Unpasteurised cheese?'
    Â Â All that was missing was a spotlight in Tanya's eyes. I could see her breaking soon and, to stop the incessant questioning, confessing to an invented orgy of wine, goat's cheese and Gauloises. Lea meanwhile sat unperturbed, reeling off an extensive list of prohibited activities, her single raised eyebrow suggesting all the time that she didn't believe a word of our responses. Something had to explain why our baby was premature and she would have her answer.
    Â Â Inexplicably her attention then turned to me.
    Â Â 'Do you smoke?'
    Â Â I shook my head.
    Â Â 'Drink?'
    Â Â 'A little,' I admitted, trying to figure out how my habits, unsavoury or not, could possibly be relevant. Rather than giving them the third degree, I'd heard of other French hospitals offering expectant fathers a wine list. Where was the touchy-feely holistic approach I'd been led to expect?
    Â Â Sensing my disquiet, Lea's voice softened. 'It's for the baby – we like to get a picture of your home life.'
    Â Â Turning her attention back to Tanya, Lea paused, perplexed at the lack of explanation for the premature labour. 'Truffles, perhaps?'
    Â Â Provençal folklore was full of stories of the medicinal effects not only of lavender but truffles as well; to me, the idea seemed ridiculous.
    Â Â 'Did you eat any truffle?' persisted Lea.
    Â Â Tanya shook her head. 'But I did sniff one.'
    Â Â 'It's often enough,' said Lea. 'In England, it's hot curries; for us, it's truffles.'
    Â Â 'The man outside,' I added in a flash of inspiration, 'who left for a cigarette – he was at the truffle fair too.'
    Â Â ' Beh voilà , mystery solved,' said Lea with great satisfaction, changing her demeanour completely now it was clear we were gourmands and not the chain-smoking, raw-meat-eating,