The Mystery Man

Yesterday something rather rare occurred.
We had a head-on collision with that mysterious thing known as... human kindness.
In fact, outside of close family and friends, spontaneous human kindness is such a novelty that I admit I had a little trouble recognising it at first.

The four of us were wandering, tourist-like, in a small village in the Lauragais (25 km outside of Toulouse), as we often do these days. We were on the look-out for the future - affordable - house of our dreams, whilst sizing up the village, testing the quality of the local baguettes: you know, important pre-investment ground work.

We met the mystery man by chance, when BB raced through the open door of the local vet's in search of the source of yapping that could be heard from the street.
FH rushed in after him, then I followed, with LB in the pram and a large piece of baguette stuffed in my mouth.
The yapper was a smallish black dog (don't ask me for the breed: I know as much about dogs as I do about cars, i.e. colour and size...), and its owner was a young man of 32 (we found his age out later, of course).

As BB shrank back from the dog (he is not as brave as he likes to think), we got chatting to the man, about the village, the kids, the traffic, the advantages and drawbacks.
Then the vet appeared, and it was time for black dog and his owner to be treated.
"Oh, but, it'll only take ten minutes: if you have time, hang around and I'll tell you a bit more about the area, if you like..." the man offered, smiling warmly.
"Great!" FH grinned, French-style.
"Er... well, if you don't mind, I mean - er - we don't want to take up your time..." I mumbled, English-style.

For ten minutes, we hung around awkwardly, wandered up the street, toyed with the idea of leaving ("he was only being polite! He doesn't really want to be bothered, you know!" I insisted, becoming more and more awkward, reserved and British by the second. Plus, LB hadn't eaten yet, it was lunchtime, and this whole encounter was starting to seem a little too spontaneous for my liking).

Then, suddenly, there they were: man and dog strolling towards us, man casually smoking a roll-up ("hum! bet he can't be trusted.." thought I, stupidly, when I saw the cigarette).
We chatted some more in the street: it turned out that the man's girlfriend had grown up in the West Indies, like FH ("hum! so he's not gay after all.." thought I, stupidly), that they had also lived in Paris, had come to the south seeking a quieter life...

Then, just as I was starting to make some "we'd better get going" noises, the unthinkable happened. Mystery man said shyly: "would you like to maybe come back to my house for a coffee? It's only 15 minutes drive from here, it's kind of isolated, but I'd be really happy to show you around..."
"Great!" beamed FH.
"Er... well," I mumbled, searching for a valid reason to refuse other than "you might be a weirdo".

Of course, we ended up following him back to his house. How could we not? Even though my imagination had flipped right over into "Crimewatch" mode, complete with kidnapping and murder scenario in isolated country ruin, the decent part of me - the optimistic, spontaneous side - knew that if we were to refuse this invitation due to simple fear, it would leave a decidedly bitter aftertaste. It would mean one thing: we no longer trusted other human beings.

So off we drove, for miles and miles, through stunning countryside that made the village we'd just left look like a buzzing metropolis.
At last we arrived at the idyllic house, nestled between vineyards and sunflower fields.
It all looked fine, but we opted for the garden when asked "inside or outside?"
It was only as we settled ourselves down at the long wooden garden table, watching the fat lizards dart up the walls of the house and the indolent cat stretch at our feet, that we finally relaxed.
Mystery man's girlfriend - 8 months' pregnant with a little boy - came out to greet us, smiley and welcoming.
What ensued was a couple of hours of pure happiness: drinks, chat, laughter, good conversation.
It turns out, they were just friendly people who had had a chance encounter with other friendly people, and were open and kind enough to pursue the encounter.

I realised later, as we drove home, content and surprised by the unexpected turn our day out had taken, that this sort of encounter happens so rarely these days. Maybe it's because we have kids, therefore we mistrust everybody; maybe it's simply because we're older, tireder and too attached to our minute-by-minute agenda for the day.
Mystery man showed us that, from time to time, the road less travelled can be just as much fun.