Now here we are, the road trip circus, up in the Val du Loire now. Jeremy bought a cave, decades ago. Just a hole tunneled into a hill. He paid way too much for it and we all just threw our hands up with incomprehension and acknowledgement of our powerlessness. It was a weird investment. It really hasn’t stood the test of time. But you have to let people make their own mistakes, and it was done before we knew.
Then he bought another when my uncle died. That was the decision that caused us all to take stock. We were all hopeful he might be able to make his extremely haphazard existence a bit less troublesome. Bricks and mortar traditionally gain value. It turns out that caves don’t. You can buy a ruined house with land for what he paid twenty years ago.
There’s a lot that doesn’t quite work. First up, it’s on a main road. It’s not peaceful. It’s in an industrial area. Construction sites. Mess. Noise. You can’t sell it as a peaceful rural retreat. There’s nothing going on for light years in all directions.
When I first heard about it I imagined a natural cave, interesting and organic rock whittled by time and water into curious shapes. No. It’s a perfect rectangle, bored into the side of a hill by some sort of machine. There’s nothing natural about it.
You might be able to plumb it and connect it to the grid. You might be able to make it run off grid. Both have merit and both have complications but neither appeal when it is in such an unpeaceful area. Still, the neighbour has started to try. He’s paid a builder. They’ve started making their ones shipshape. Put in a kitchen, little bathrooms, clever lighting. Plumbed it, connected it. They’re having a go. They’ll be on Airbnb as a special cave stay type bollocks.
We went up today and met the builder. They’ve dumped all their dross outside Jeremy’s place. We will be back there tomorrow with some bolt cutters because of course Jeremy has a million keys that fit the lock and doesn’t know which is the right one, and the lock is rusted.
We went to the store for a pair of chain cutters. I’ll be using them tomorrow. Of the three of us it won’t be anyone else. We might be able to get the door open. He might be able to dig some stuff out to take back with him to blighty. Both Rupert and I are aware that this is now just sunk cost fallacy. Jeremy will never recoup what he spent. Someone saw him coming, twice. But we are hoping that somehow we can steer things to a better result than entropy. We shall see.
I’m in bed now. Early still but all this good food and high quality wine takes it out of a man. I’m gonna sleep deep.
“That guy … he’s destroyed it from a picturesque point of view.” All around Jeremy’s now, caves full of IKEA tut. We are gonna look back at the IKEA decades and wonder what the actual fuck people were thinking.
AlBarclay 