....At the top of the path a fairly wide road appeared to lead motorists towards the high mountains alongside its predecessor, an old mule-track which ran parallel to the road between fences and hedgerows for half a mile or so. It became increasingly muddy then boggy and I squelched along looking for stepping-stones, greeting the inquisitive cattle and goats in the sloping field to one side and marvelling at their resistance and the persistence of the squat trees and shrubs in the face of the harsh weather they must endure in winter. As I neared the top of the hill and could already spy a cluster of farm buildings ahead I snagged my left trouser-leg on something and felt a biting pain cut through to my calf. Looking down I saw a length of rusty barbed wire tangled up among the rocks and pebbles scattered in the muddy puddles. One end of it was firmly embedded in my leg and on examination had taken a couple of small chunks of flesh out.

                       RUSTY BARBED WIRE! MUD AND COWSHIT!! TETANUS!!!

            I doused it with alcohol, which I had brought with me from England in a small plastic bottle for just such an eventuality or for general deep cleaning, and struggled on. The farm was empty – no doubt everyone was out in the fields or gone to the supermarket – but one other house stood next to it which was occupied by a retired docker from Toulon and his wrinkled wife. They were busy watering the lawn when I limped through their gate and invited me to have a seat and a cigarette with them for a moment but seemed quite at a loss to know what to do next other than offer me an aspirin. I unpacked most of my rucksack to dig out some plasters, Savlon, bandages etc., which I applied rigorously as they looked on with some amusement. Obviously they had never heard of tetanus. I didn’t know whether this would reduce my chances of getting tetanus either, but at least it would avoid any other infection. I would just have to keep an eye on it for the next few weeks.

            After getting over the initial shock and experimenting with carrying my reloaded rucksack again I resolved to set off and cover the final ten kilometres, which should be an easy stroll through forest on a well-marked path followed by a few km. on or next to a road, mostly on fairly level ground as I am already above 1300 m with only another 250 m to climb. The first half was pretty straightforward, but at some point I must have turned left when I should have gone right because about an hour later here I am standing at a junction after walking a long way downhill next to a sign pointing back the way I’ve just come and saying: Mont Gerbier 14. My calf is sore and my spirits are low. It’s going to be too late to meet up with my erstwhile travelling companions and get a lift down towards Le Puy and the railway station. Surprisingly there is reception for my French mobile phone, however, and I manage to contact the Tourist Office at Les Estables. Someone tells me there is nowhere to stay near where I am but there are plenty of places in Les Estables, so I decide to hitch a ride up over the pass to get there.

                                                                      ******************

                            Sandrine was driving home after a particularly difficult appointment. The old man had been disgusting – his foul breath and rotten tooth-stumps, the deformed cheek even worse than her own facial scarring: Frank had said the other day it was hardly noticeable at all now. His strange voice like gravel rattling round in a cement-mixer. And then that place he lived in, way up in the hills, talk about remote. He said he had loads of people to stay but she didn’t believe it. She thought he was just a lonely old man whose wife had died or run off and left him, and he was pretending to run some kind of hostel for hikers and cyclists by putting a few bunkbeds up in a couple of spare rooms. But God, what’d it be like in the winter? He said he’d been cut off for 3 days in February. And he was old – at least 70 – what if she went up there one time and he was dead and no-one had been up there for weeks? Didn’t bear thinking about. Then she remembered the last time she’d been on this road: “I’d just slowed down at this junction on the twisting mountain road to turn right up the hill past that cliff where you can see for miles from the top and there are marmots up there... and people go there with binoculars and fancy cameras to take pictures of eagles and stuff... and just as I was about to put my foot down this guy was standing there looking into the car with his thumb out. Funny-looking guy with long hair and a hat made him look like a scarecrow. And a stick, that was it, a long kind of staff like a shepherd or a magician. I wonder, come to think of it, if he was anything to do with the signpost I’ve noticed at that junction that advertised a herbalist and witch at the next village. No, I really did, no kidding! Weird, I know! Anyway I’d stopped to see what he wanted and he started babbling about how he was going to Les Estables and was I going there?; then he climbed into the car and I started off. He started telling me how he’d got lost on a path in the mountains with no signs and ended up on a road with no name and he didn’t know where he was going and it all sounded like a Bob Dylan song so I put my foot on the brake and said “OK, GET OUT NOW!” and put on a fierce face like they showed me once in kung fu classes. So he opened the door and was getting his stuff together kind of humbly ready to leave me to it when I thought “What the hell” and said “Oh it’s OK. Don’t you feel afraid, being out here in the middle of nowhere all alone?” “No”, he said with a look of total surprise, “although maybe I should after what happened here two hundred years ago”. Now the tables were turned and it was me who was on the back foot and I felt a shiver, you know? “Why, what?” Then he told me this whole story which he swore was true about how a surveyor went to Les Estables just up the road here in 17something. He looked so outlandish to the local peasants with his tools and instruments that they took him for an evil magician and beat him to death with cudgels.”

                Frank smiles at me patronisingly in my head. “As if”, says he. “In a civilised country? That was just before the Revolution. Not that long ago.” “Yeah but have you ever been up there? I know it’s a Nordic ski resort now, but some of the people… have you seen the signpost at that junction about the witch?” “Whatever.”

                Sandrine had carried on driving deep in thought while the stranger told her how he was walking the length of the Loire but had taken a wrong turning right at the end and would no longer be able to finish the journey today. He said he had been offered a lift down from the top of the mountain at the source of the river to a place where he could catch a train but had missed the rendezvous so would have to find a place to stay the night in Les Estables before continuing in the morning. He said he had already walked about forty kilometres today and was dog tired, so she’d begun to soften towards him and advised him that there were several guest-houses in the village and she was sure he would find a good place to stay. Reaching the top of the pass and driving in golden evening light across the plateau with the roadside verges covered in alpine flowers she had suddenly felt at ease. There was no need to panic, she could relax. The trying day was over, there was no need for shame.

                She’d dropped the foreigner outside a small hotel and driven on to her next appointment.