Free Ten Trees and a Truffle Dog by Jamie Ivey Page B

about reinforced foundations. This was a startlingly honest revelation, even romantically dressed by Eric's story of rows of women sitting in the shade of the trees casting roof tiles on their ample thighs. Yet instead of heeding the warning that the clay soil would swallow any normal construction like a horror-movie child snatched into hell, we discussed names for our house. To stabilise our proposed humble three-bedroom family house we'd apparently have to build the type of concrete foundations more commonly used for office blocks in earthquake zones and yet, such was our optimistic state of mind, we settled on the name 'Le Paradou'. To the English ear the word sounded like paradise, hence our choice, but in fact a paradou is something much more prosaic: a type of watermill.
    Â Â Eventually the misty-eyed courtship came to an end and financial reality impinged. I asked Eric for help and soon a plague of advisors were on the phone trying to sell us mortgages, life insurance and even pensions. Our application headed off to all the respectable banks and a coterie of dodgy, far-flung institutions. The latter offered ridiculously low interest rates teamed with default clauses so punitive they could have been drafted by the mafia. The results, when they came back, were all the same – unsuitable for finance. We might have only missed out by the tiniest margin, but it didn't matter – there was no more money.
    Â Â The realisation that the project wasn't going to happen brought us back to our senses. Like patients waking from a coma we shook our heads, looked around and demanded to know what had happened over the preceding weeks. Life gradually returned to normal. Even the news that Manu had filed for planning permission to develop more of the farmhouse and that we would effectively be living on a building site didn't jump-start the purchase of Le Paradou. We sold wine, we looked after our child and we barely gave a thought to the plot we had loved so much. Then Delphine phoned. 'There's someone I'd like you to meet. Take him to lunch, he's a gourmand.'
    Â Â The person in question was Philippe Raimbaux and as Delphine explained he was a retired mortgage broker who still had excellent relationships with all the local banks. His passion was truffles. During his working life he'd discovered just how hard truffières were to finance. Harvesting the black diamond is a cash business and there are rarely accurate records of income for banks to lend on. And so in his retirement, through his contacts, Philippe had chosen to ease the path of select loans in return for a small payment in his own favourite currency – truffles. Delphine finished her summary with a warning: 'And a word of advice: choose a good restaurant – for Philippe it makes all the difference. And know your subject – you're going to have to convince him you can find the truffles to pay his fee.'
    Â Â Selecting a venue perplexed us for a while. The south of France was full of great chefs who had no idea how to run a restaurant. Recently a new bistro had opened in a nearby village. Miraculous creations emerged from the kitchen, plates were dressed as sexily as Carla Bruni, and the resulting festival of flavours was enough to turn even a swinging local's head away from the nearest brunette. Two months later, though, due to soaring overheads, poisoned customers and the restaurant manager having had an affair with the chef's wife, the restaurant was out of business. Mortgage brokers, we reasoned, were reassured by stability and track record, and on this basis Tanya and I agreed to discount flashy newcomers. We also ruled out the established Michelin-starred restaurants – at nearly €100 a menu we'd hardly be displaying financial prudence, even if sampling lavender-infused ice cream would send us all home with smiles on our faces.
    Â Â Philippe was based in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, the uber-chic capital of the Les Alpilles