Arrazat Laurent - Arrazats aubergines: inside a Languedoc kitchen

Do you feel as bad as you look? asked Manu, pausing briefly at the top of my drive to let his heart slow down after the sprint across the bridge from his neighbouring cottage.

Its the birds, I explained, as a couple of litres of homemade rouge emerged ominously from a pair of faded blue dungarees. It was useless to point to my half-finished breakfast. If Emmanuel Gros was determined to celebrate my return to the Languedoc, then celebrate we both would.

It seemed Id only just gone to bed, I continued, as he brushed aside the dining-room cobwebs that separated him from my wineglasses and started pouring. Id hardly turned out my light but there I was woken by the dawn chorus. I struggled up, thinking I must already be late for the market, but when I opened the shutters, I discovered it was still pitch dark. The birds were singing at the tops of their voices but it was only two oclock in the morning.

Nightingales, said Manu authoritatively, having evicted an item of unopened luggage from his favourite armchair to settle in comfortably. The first ones of spring. They arrived a couple of days ago. Im surprised you dont remember from your whatsisname

My sabbatical?

Voil! From two years ago But, oh mon dieu, you do look bad, he laughed, as he replenished his already empty glass.

Of course I look bad, I grumbled, looking wistfully at my fast-cooling mug of coffee. So would you, if youd driven all the way from England and had barely two hours sleep.

Have you had a chance to look round? he asked, with the air of someone bracing himself to receive praise. I think youll find we made a pretty good job of things, me and the wife, looking after the place while you were away. Bit of mowing, bit of strimming. Even your precious vines, he added, with a new note of bitterness. Miraculously, even those survived without the interference of the great Monsieur Joly. Youd never think Id had vines of my own for decades. Coming up here, trying to poke his nose in

Virgile Joly was the talented young winemaker from Saint Saturnin whose work I was lucky enough to shadow in my first year here. When I decided to plant some vines, he tried to encourage me to plant wine-producing varieties but, more timidly, Id opted for table grapes. I wasnt sure how long it would be before I could be here all the time to look after them and, anyway, perhaps the most important thing that I learned about winemaking during my year at his side was how difficult it was. Even so, I was relieved when Virgile offered to look after them in my absence. Far better his pursuit of quality than Manus dogged adherence to quantity. But now it appears that Virgiles perfectionism has been shown the gate, leaving everything at the mercy of Manus laissez-faire.

The only thing is, we did have a few problems with the strimmer. Well, the lawnmower too, really, confesses Manu, reverting to his normal jovial manner. Nothing that the garage wont be able to fix, Im sure. In fact, I meant to get them mended by the time you arrived. But what with all the fruit to pick and so on

I resisted enquiring what unseasonal harvesting could have monopolized his recent months. It was about to be Easter and nothing could have needed picking since the autumn olive crops.

I could see from the kitchen window that I had missed the fruit blossoms by several weeks. Even the late-flowering cherries had started setting their fruits and the bright yellow mimosa on the tree that I planted eighteen months ago had already turned a dusty brown.

Beyond this, I had scarcely begun to explore but what little I had seen suggested that Monsieur and Madame Gros had confined their horticultural efforts to the preservation of access routes to everything remotely edible. It had been the same on the handful of holiday visits that Id managed in my fifteen months away: weeds and brambles gradually reasserting themselves in every corner of the ancient stone-built terraces except where there were things to be eaten.

Somehow, my short periods of occupancy had never quite coincided with the harvests. Either the fruits were frustratingly under-ripe (a crime to pick them yet, was the oft-repeated verdict from the other side of the stream) or a well-developed sense of neighbourly duty had required a total stripping of the trees in the preceding days (another day and theyd have rotted, the alternative judgement).

Such a pity about your freezer breaking down, said Manu, cheerfully draining the first bottle. Otherwise, wed have filled it for you. But then I was always telling your Uncle Milo it was on its last legs. Outlived him, though, poor fellow, he added, with a respectful raising of his glass to the memory of the generous, childless relative who made me the heir to this house.

Surprised were they? asks Manu, in more expansive, enquiring mode, now that the second bottle has been broached. When you told you them you were leaving the office for good?

Im sure they could see I was tempted, I tell him. From the moment I got back from that first year. But they didnt think Id be daft enough to actually do it! Too late to worry now though

Thats what the wife was asking the other night, says Manu with an embarrassed cough. I mean, it would be too late to change your mind, would it? If you decided you couldnt afford to keep this place going without a regular income? I know poor Milo found it a bit of a struggle, even before his illness Ah, there you are, ma chre!

A tall female figure in a tightly buttoned nylon housecoat has appeared at the doorway, casting a long, dark shadow across the room, as she favours me with the briefest of nods.

Have you asked him? she demands of her husband.

I I was just working round to it, he stammers, looking quickly over his shoulder, as if for the means of escape. His questioner tuts an as usual I have to do everything myself kind of tut; then two surprising things happen.

The first is Mme Gross smile. This is an eerily unaccustomed phenomenon under any circumstances but even more exceptional on this occasion in being targeted unmistakably, almost beamingly, on me. I have no idea what I can be about to do to deserve it.

The second is a lacerating reprimand to Manu. Your neighbours glass is empty! she snaps, as he leaps to his feet to remedy the omission. This is even more astonishing. Historically, Mme Gros was always relentlessly unforgiving of the fact that my proximity afforded potentially round-the-clock pretexts for her husbands deeply disapproved-of liquid hospitality. Yet amazingly, this morning she is abetting the crime.