It was our road trip — Oli and I had decided to go for “Opening day” down there, in my home region of Aveyron, South West of France, quite a journey for us Parisians. A real expedition: not much motorway, old iPods loaded with songs, and above all friendship — that incredible thing that makes even the longest trips enjoyable.
Since then you’ve gone, and I miss you often. Luckily, on the walls of my house hang some of your paintings, with your signature, Oli Person — and our memories too, like that one, our fits of laughter, our conversations until dawn. All those memories, Oli, they are part of me now.
Thank you for being my mate during those wonderful years, when we had only one idea in mind: to have fun!
And to pay tribute to you, here is what we posted on Le Mouching back in 2008.
Clean your fly lines! We leave on the 23rd, old pal!
The boot will be packed with rillettes, country bread, Aveyron saucisson and a fine thick slice of golden Laguiole cheese!
As for us, deep leather armchairs will cradle our distinguished backsides as, iPod blasting, we tear down that long ribbon of road that stretches from the flat, monotonous plains of the Beauce region all the way to the winding, enchanting back roads of the Massif Central — where hedgehogs dawdle on the tarmac to keep their feet dry.
On a tartan blanket, you and I will stretch out by the water’s edge and, feasting on our Pantagruelian picnic, we’ll cast an eager eye over the currents where the trout — who have been waiting for us all winter — are dancing. Carried away by joy, we’ll leave scraps behind to feed the ants and shrews, while in the cool water, moving with the silent step of an Indian scout, we’ll wade into the current. And even if the cheeky trout tease us, watching our flies drift past with an amused eye, this spring stroll will have given us back our childhood souls — the ones we love so dearly.
The rillettes will be pork! Goose or duck is for fancy people who don’t know jack shit and only exist by showing the world how they spend money!
You see, dear Oli, happiness is sometimes so simple that we forget to go looking for it.
Sharpen your hooks and get your flies ready! We shall sleep the sleep of the righteous.
On the road, somewhere between Aumont-Aubrac and Saint-Chély-d’Apcher, doing over 180km/h, I let one rip.
We were going so fast that the sound never reached our ears — instead it bounced off the rear windscreen of my spirited R16 and arrived with a slight delay.
The smell, however, wasted no time making itself at home in our cosy cabin, and the pleasant scent of leather was swiftly replaced by the aroma of pig’s trotters in gribiche sauce, which I had wolfed down at yesterday’s picnic lunch.
It’s astonishing how long it takes to digest those things.
All at once, the present ceased to exist. My mind had instantly whisked me away to our little promontory above the Tarn, in the gorges — where the gentle spring sun warmed us and the tits chirped and hopped about. To my right, Oli was wrinkling his nose and refusing the pig’s trotters with an expression of disgust. I was delighted: I was going to get a double helping. Two halves of a trotter would make one whole trotter. My face lit up — though I found myself wondering: was it the left foot or the right? Front or back?
These questions hung unanswered as it was time to return to the riverbank, for it was already one o’clock, and the fish don’t wait for the hatch to pass.
Through the windscreen, the landscape rushed by at full tilt. Here and there, patches of snow clung to the north-facing slopes. We were hurtling toward Paris and the radio was hollering Bright Lights, Big City…
Nothing else mattered. I had the good taste of pig’s trotters in my mouth. I was happy.
As a boy, in my Aveyron village, our neighbour Monsieur Faux was a pig-slaughterer by trade. All winter long, the mornings were marked by the cries of the pigs he bled. The snow was spattered with bright red blood, the air smelled wonderfully of singed hair, and into great buckets the blood was collected for black pudding. On the stove, in clouds of steam, metres and metres of intestines were cleaned — destined for boudin, fricandeaux, sausages and saucisson. The women bustled about in a hubbub where you could make out the sound of knives being sharpened on a steel, the better to slice through the fat. I watched it all with wide, wonder-filled eyes, as if in a dream. You had to be quick to eat the sanguette — that delicious dish given only on the slaughterer’s day.
Afterwards, garlands of saucissons, coils of black pudding, spirals of sausage — everything went up into the chimney, and the great stone floor was scrubbed with boiling water. It was in those clouds of steam that the hams, the vendrècheand the bacon made their way to the salt box.
In the blue morning sky, a buzzard circled, hunting a field mouse, curious about these first days of spring. We glided over the tarmac, crossing the Aubrac with a purr, the engine humming below 4,000 rpm. My mind was blank.
Oli, who had by now also caught a whiff of the pig’s trotter, was staring at me. Behind my Ray-Bans, I didn’t flinch. I turned up the car radio. We’d be in Paris in under six hours.
Life is good.