Halfway Over the Hill #7 (First Nights)

 Back in September 2017 

Standing on tiptoe in the narrow bathroom of my hired lodging in the hilltown of Ilboli, I watched a spectacular show playing out in the night sky through the thin strip of window set high in the wall.
Lightening leapt off the shingle roofs, the frenetic sirocco known locally as the FaOoohn whipped round the chimney stacks and whistled inside. The distant hills flashed in and out of existence; and between rumbles and the drumming sluice of heavy rain, deafening thunderclaps rung through the startled house.
The naked light bulbs over the wash basin quivered and dimmed repeatedly.
Out of the corner of my eye, I was intensely aware of the shadows.
I backed out of the bathroom and started at my own image in the mirror.
This was my last day here, I'd been on edge all week.

The cottage which had been undergoing essential renovation was ready to be moved into. I was going to brave it for a couple of weeks before returning to Paris. My first day there should have been that day but the fridge and cooker hadn’t been delivered.
Just as well. A first night in a lonely cottage, in the middle of nowhere, in a howling storm, was probably not best for an inexperienced townie.

Two weeks before in Paris, a momentous fact had been casually revealed to me: the region was the most snake-dense of Italy, possibly of all Europe.
My pre-purchase research had not brought that up. And through trembling fingers Google was now showering me with snake facts and snake stories. And worse images and videos.
A long, thick black snake ( the most common in this locality) casually stretched out on the wall tiles over the bathroom sink was one photo that had imprinted itself indelibly on my mind.

Why had nobody mentioned this before? because now when I asked about it with an uneasy smile, they cheerfully told me their store of snake stories.
Clive and Sarah, a nice couple I had met from a coastal town 20km away, exclaimed 'oh yes, of course' and I just had to 'keep my eyes open'. 

But I was keeping my eyes open at night, which only made me feel more tremulous in the morning. However, my peripheral vision didn’t give up.

I couldn't get precise information about how often I would see a snake. I'd never seen one in my life, apart from the zoo, maybe. But I was assured that in the country they were rife, unlike up there in the 'town' (more a village).
This was my third visit to Ilboli since the purchase. And the promise of a dream being materialised had taken on a mantle of dread. What could be more sinister than a snake?

A conflation of all the horror films I had ever seen, now infested my daily imaginings.
The grinning faces of the locals hid an underpinning of demonic complicity.
Was this rustic idyll as false as The Wicker Man?
I played along with their amiability despite my churning insides and unsteady knees, a reaction to the unashamed evil I thought I saw in their glinting eyes.
Everything they said and did seemed calculated. They were petting me like a sacrificial lamb.
I saw it all, in glowing sunshine they would trundle past on their brightly coloured tractors, trilling out folk songs, as I hung visibly in crucified decay on the mysterious hooks encrusted in the facade of my whitewashed cottage.
Were they Italy's Children of the Corn? I mused in anguish.

Or on a moonlight night, would the land around me burst open and there rise the corpses of burnt witches with snakes for hair, coming to claim one of their own?
' A woman can't live alone in the country', the locals kept saying. Why?!
How could I barricade myself in my tiny cottage against the Night of the Living Dead?
My mind reeled and my stomach leapt but my higher self said I needed to get a grip. I pushed the shadows aside.

The following day I was duly deposited at the cottage late afternoon. As I waved goodbye to Ben and Ang, my Italian friends from the village, I wondered whether they noticed that my nervous giggle had become increasingly manic and bore the mark of the straitjacket.
And, seemingly so genuine and simple, did they,  Ben and Ang, also harbour some strange secrets too?

I can't remember what I did first that day - maybe I stared at the undeniable hills out of the windows. And I probably brushed off ants in my pants, literally and figuratively.

 As dusk approached I went around bolting all the doors.
I ate a simple pasta meal in semi-darkness ( electrical fittings not complete) in the upstairs kitchen, under the  ridge of the sloping roof, staring at the big chimney breast converging up the gable - wondering what could come down there.
My neighbour Dahlia ( not his real name) had given me two sheaves of wheat arranged into traditional corn bouquets - they lay on the mantelpiece reminding me of where I was; alone in this black expanse with potential devil worshippers.
The silence between the ghoulishly chiming drips of the tap was so solid I could hear the ringing in my own ears. Then I heard a low wail, an unearthly whoooo.

 It was a nocturnal animal. A one-note owl, I concluded.

Meal over, I pushed back my black hair which was curling menacingly round my neck and turned towards the staircase. Plop. Something black and wriggling had fallen on the rail. I noticed on the wall there were more than one. Black worms? Black? It was ghastly!

I called Clive and Sarah.

Don't worry they probably have just come there to die. They probably don't live in the roof. 

Me: What are they? 

Shrug. 

All sorts of creatures here, you know.

The muscles of my face moved involuntarily and my lips kneaded each other like mating snakes.
It's nature, they said, it's been living there before you. Before any of us.

I was reminded of the beautiful black linocut card gifted to me of a cottage scene with gay trees and animals around, entitled the 'The Living House'
The house IS living, I shuddered. The very walls! 

I inspected the beams, married along their length to veil-like cobwebs that the cleaner had refused to touch. In the dim light I couldn't perceive the hidden life there.

The call with Clive and Sarah ended and a horrifying thought struck me. Could they be baby snakes?
With a tea towel over my head and my hands clasping my cheeks in a silent scream I stumbled downstairs to the bedroom.
With my IKEA uplighter by the bed I read Virginia Woolf's A Room of One's Own.
I was stirred from that passionate plea for independence by the sound of collective tramping and deep grunts. The creatures were crossing the front of the house.
It was a troop of wild boar, which I had heard much of.
I secured the door with boxes and my suitcase.
I did not want to be the second English person that woke up here to have a tusked gargoyle staring at me. It was a story I'd heard.

Eventually I dared sleep. I'd bought baby nightlights to be stuck in the sockets for the bathroom where there was no ceiling light and I used one in the bedroom too.
Several hours later my toilet urge awoke me.
I switched on the uplighter. On the white ceiling was a dense pattern of various known and unknown insects that scattered away from the light.

 I took some bathroom spray and sprayed the lingering ones. They fell or they fled.  No more slight movements but a leaf in the room was trembling - it was fragile me.

I tried to sleep with the bright light on and placed a stifling scarf around my nose, mouth and ears; being an insect cavern was the most unbearable thought.
My mind began to drift, my weariness was intense... BANG! A gunshot which seemed just a metre behind the house blasted the air. 
I shrunk under the covers with my fingers in my ears. No more shots followed.
Somehow I did sleep through the strong fumes of the spray and the smoke of my fear until I was awoken by the yowling fight of wildcats beyond the door.

The bright sunshine outside was appeasing. Through the prison bars of my spooked mind, I breathed in the wholesome air and let myself be consoled by the distant peaks promising freedom. A chicken cock-a-doodle-dooed. A woodpecker pecked.

During the day Dahlia came to fix the leaking drain of the sink. The tap would have to be fixed later. As we crouched down examining the coils of tubing below, he shrugged, 'pipes leak, you know' and he placed a hand on my knee, giving me me a significant look.
I quickly showed him a broken downspout outside. He couldn't do anything but he pointed to the great oak and said there was an adder living there. He was going to return shortly with some planks of wood and nails for the bottom of the doors. More effective against invaders then shoving bits of cardboard underneath.

He returned 15 minutes later (he lives a 100m away) and started hurling himself against the door when I didn't open it instanteously and he didn't hear my shouts. I flew off the foot of the stairs, scraping my foot in my hurry to get to him (the torn wood is still there today).
He speedily 'fixed' the doors inelegantly. Of the lower double doors, one could not open fully any more. He was pleased with his work, pointing out that now there was no danger of a snake slithering into my bed in the middle of the night, was there? Another significant look.

I reminded him of all the work he had to do back home.

The afternoon sun dulled. I stepped through the double doors for a last intake of fresh air.
A big black spider bounced down from the lintel but I just laughed. A small gecko absailed past my head from the roof and plopped on the ground by my feet; my eyes rolled with amusement.

I then placidly turned the corner of the house and in the loose stone wall I saw a snake; coldly staring out at me.
Pinpricks agitating my body, I dashed back into the house. 

My god, a snake in paradise. It's true, it's true!

I called Clive and Sarah. It will go away, they said.

I called Dahlia and I called Greg, the English odd-job man, long-time expat and exaggerator ( he'd told me that snakes dangled down from trees and some were 2m long).

 Dahlia came first, swearing like a trooper at being disturbed. When he couldn’t find a trace of the snake, I cautiously ventured out. Where the snake had been, was a twig pretending to be a snake's head. I confirmed to Dahlia it must have gone, my face a lying mask.

He went back down the path meeting the oncoming Greg and they both laughed at my damsel in distress act.
(When I think back on it, I'm surprised they came so readily. A call-out is not an easy thing here.)

Later that evening, eating another simple pasta meal, I looked at the framed blue tiger butterfly on the wall - an ornament left by the previous owners. 

My eyes wandered and I noted another decoration, a giant scorpion glued to the wall.
The pasta lodged in my throat. A giant scorpion on the wall. I swallowed with difficulty. 

I called Dahlia.
Miserable pork, he shrieked, get a stick and kill it, duh! 

 I called Clive and Sarah - they advised me to do the same. I couldn't do it, I didn't even have a stick. I would have to stay up all night and watch it. My tongue was thick and blubbered. They made consoling noises but I was in this alone. The call ended.

I sprayed the scorpion with the bathroom cleanser until it was almost white. It winced but did not move immediately.
I grabbed the broom end and thrust it at the scorpion. I almost struck the electricity meter and narrowly escaped plunging myself into darkness.
The beast scurried. With the steely determination born of terror, I launched an insane attack of blows. It fell to the floor and, again and again, I bashed away until it was clear it would never move again. I clung to the broom in a cold sweat looking upon my grisly deed. It was surprisingly intact.
My heart pounding, and my guts knotted like a viper's nest, I called Clive and Sarah. It's ok, they stated. The house is not for you. You can sell it, you don't have to stay there...
Downstairs on my bed I talked to myself in desperation or rather I recorded whimpering sounds on the phone. In agony, I tearfully evoked the lie of my realised dream. I can't remember how I slept.

The following morning Ben and his son confirmed it was one of the biggest scorpions they had ever seen and gave me a killing stick, which has since seen much action.
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I got back to Paris in one piece, having survived the highs and lows of exhilaration and terror. It wasn't the season for snakes and I was prepared for the scorpions.

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Yes, living with nature can be brutal as well as beautiful.
I stopped having murder fantasies. The locals' eyes were only spinning deviously because they saw me as a source of easy money. Their minds functioned like roulette wheels, that was their sole collusion.

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Unfortunately, I quickly lost my audio recordings of those first few eventful and traumatic weeks and and in subsequent visits I didn't make any additional notes, pointlessly bemoaning the loss of those vital first impressions.

I hope to have retrieved some in this post.

S

PS The black worms were actually millipedes and are a regular sight. Greg said they were good protein.

More than half of my squatters eventually moved out, unable to cohabit with a rogue landlady but every now and then they re-invade.