Bright Angel

by Isabelle Merlin

  I felt a sudden pang. I said, gruffly, ‘Well, just because things have gone bad for him doesn’t mean–’ I saw their expressions and hurried on: ‘Look, I’m sorry, okay. I should have told you. Didn’t mean to worry you all.’ I went over to Claire and gave her a hug. ‘Sorry, sis. I didn’t think. And I’m sorry I got angry. I don’t mean to. It’s just that sometimes I find it hard to hold back and–’ I couldn’t finish, but she understood.

  She hugged me back, tightly. She said, and I saw her eyes were full of tears, ‘I, look, I’m sorry too, for shouting at you like that, Syl. But I got – I got a bit scared that something had happened to you.’

  ‘Yes, I understand, and I’m sorry,’ I said, quietly, knowing exactly what the look in her eyes meant. I realised she hadn’t told Marc what had happened to us. Not yet. It was too raw. Too soon. I knew how she felt. I couldn’t see myself telling Mick just now, for instance. But I should have been more sensitive. I should have thought what my sudden disappearance would do to her, especially if that guy had told her. Stop. He might be a busybody sticking his nose in where it wasn’t wanted but it wasn’t his fault really. I’d been a thoughtless idiot. I had to admit it. And getting angry was no way of dealing with it. I couldn’t just keep flaring up like a fool for no reason. I had to try and cool it, calm down, chill out or things would get unbearable.

  ‘Where’s Freddy?’ she said, after a pause.

  ‘Down at the ruins. Exploring. Taking pictures and stuff.’

  ‘Claire told me your aunt is an expert on Herod,’ said Marc eagerly, obviously glad for the change of subject. ‘I will much like to talk to her about him. He has a small role in my book, you know.’

  ‘She will be glad to hear that,’ I said lightly. Claire gave me a watery sideways smile, remembering, no doubt, what Freddy had said. The bad moment had passed, and things had settled down. But I still felt a little shaky, about my own reaction as much as Claire’s.

  Conjuring mysteries

  Mum rang after dinner that night. We put the call on speaker-phone so we could all hear her. She had some good news: the police had been in touch with Irina Makarios and they’d traced the writer of the threatening letter. It had turned out to be a hoax, just as they’d thought. It was written by some random embittered loser who had a grudge against all women since his marriage had broken up. He had no connection whatsoever to the family or friends of Thomas Radic. Well now he’d see the inside of a jail, serve him bloody well right. And Helen’s family could stop worrying about it. Helen herself had not been told, of course.

  Mum also dropped a bombshell. She and Dad had been talking about the future and that they’d decided to pack in their job in the Territory and come back to the city to live. ‘That way,’ she said, ‘we can all be together again.’

  I wasn’t sure what I thought of that. I did miss them, but on the other hand I had quite a lot of freedom living with Claire. She did keep an eye on me but it was a big-sister sort of thing, not a mum thing. She had her own life, her own friends. And it would be weird to get used to having parents around full-time again. I said, carefully, ‘That’s great, Mum,’ and Claire echoed me, though I wondered whether she was going to hang around once they came back to the house (which they owned, after all – to save us having to pay rent). After all, she was an adult. She’d hardly want to go back to living with Mum and Dad. Oh well, we’d have to wait and see. Things were going to change in my life, anyway. And I had no choice in the matter. Even if I’d wanted it. Which I wasn’t sure about. It was just confusing, right?

  I slept restlessly that night, full of weird dreams, the sort that make you anxious but you can’t remember why when you wake up, which was far too early, like six o’clock. I lay there for a few minutes trying to force myself to go back to sleep. But it was hopeless, so I got up, drew the curtains and looked out. The day already looked like it would be fine and sunny. I went to the bathroom, had a shower, got dressed, and went quietly downstairs. No-one was up. I made myself a cup of coffee and had some toast with butter and jam. I thought about going back to the computer to see if I’d had any mail overnight but then couldn’t be bothered. Instead, I went out into the garden.

  It was beautiful there, with the dew still on the grass and on these very fine spider webs that looked like diamanté-spangled silk strung between the plants. The bench under the tree was a bit wet so I didn’t sit down, but wandered among the flowers for a bit.

  The garden was bounded by a low wall at one end, and from there you could see into the street below. Looking down, I realised that one of the houses you could glimpse from here was the one where I’d seen Gabriel the day before. From this angle, though, you couldn’t see into the windows. I knew it was that one because the roof tiles looked bright and new beside those of the other houses. Nothing stirred there. The household must still be asleep, like the rest of the place. Like I would be, if I had any sense.

  As I looked idly over, I suddenly thought I caught a movement down beside the house. I looked harder. That side of the house was still in shadow and covered in some sort of creeper too so it was hard to make anything out properly. Had there really been someone sneaking along that wall? Or was that just my imagination, conjuring mysteries? I waited, but saw nothing more. In the end, I decided I had imagined it. I went back to the house and found Freddy up and bustling around the kitchen.

  ‘You’re up early,’ she said.

  ‘Yeah. Couldn’t get back to sleep. I’ve had breakfast, by the way.’

  ‘Wow. You’re organised. Any plans? Going back to the film shoot today? I think Claire is.’

  I shook my head. For a start, I might run into Daniel and I didn’t want to. Plus I’d decided that I found filmmaking boring. I mean, the regular sort. Not the things I did. Just the messing around with actors and crew and stuff, and all the milling and hanging around that went on. I liked making my clips cos it was me in control. ‘I thought I might go for a walk around the ruins, maybe further even.’

  ‘That sounds like a good idea. It’s a nice day for it.’ She rummaged around in a drawer. ‘I’ve got a pamphlet somewhere here, it’s in English, with a map and some basic info. If you like, you could go to St-Just de Valcabrere after the ruins – you remember that place we stopped at the other day, where we saw St-Bertrand from a distance?’

  Sure. I remembered. It had been really pretty there. I would take my camera, take lots of pictures. It wasn’t that I didn’t remember the bad feeling I’d had there. It was that I’d brushed it aside as stupid. Premonitions don’t exist. People don’t really know when bad things are going to happen. We’d had no idea that day at Wedding Heaven. Not a clue. Not a twinge. Not one silly bit of warning. Nothing mystical at all. It had just happened. That’s how things worked in the real world.

  She found the pamphlet and showed me the map. ‘See. There it is. It’s only about five kilometres away. I’d go with you but I’ve got to get all my notes from yesterday written up. You don’t mind, do you?’

  ‘Course not. You have to work.’

  ‘For my sins,’ she smiled, and poured out two cups of coffee. We sat down with the pamphlet and she told me a bit about what the old city had been like, and how it had worked, and what the people who lived around here had been like. ‘There was a big tribe called the Convenae here,’ she said, ‘that’s why it was called Converanum, after them. And Lugdunum after the Gaulish god of light, Lugh – I don’t know if people worshipped Lugh here but the place we call Lyon now, that was the original Lugdunum, maybe the founders of this city came from there. And then they stuck on the name of the local tribe, probably to get in their good books. The Romans were like that. They tried hard to win the tribes over by flattery and gifts if they could. They only went to war against them if they had to. I guess there must still have been wild tribesmen in the area, lurking around in the mountains, but the city was well-defended. Plus a lot of intermarrying went on between the Romans and the locals, so the Convenae must have been pretty much onside. It
was the most important town in the whole region in its time, a kind of border town too, so filled with all sorts of people.’

  ‘Like Herod.’

  ‘Yeah. Him and others.’

  ‘It must have been weird for him, stuck out here so far from his homeland. Did he even speak Roman?’

  Freddy smiled. ‘Latin, you mean. I think, like most upper-class Jews, he must have spoken at least a bit – he’d had to deal with Romans back in Galilee anyway. But yeah, I guess it must have been lonely for him here. And for his wife and stepdaughter.’

  ‘Did they stay here? I mean, like, for good?’

  ‘Nobody’s sure. They never went back to Galilee so it’s quite possible they stayed and eventually died here.’

  ‘Maybe Salome married some local guy. Had a family. Maybe there’s people related to her here.’

  ‘Maybe. Who knows?’

  ‘She never tried to get anyone else bumped off, did she? Like she did with John the Baptist, I mean?’

  Freddy laughed. ‘There is no record of it. She wasn’t a mad axe murderer type but a very proud and vengeful girl. You know why she wanted the Baptist dead? Well, her mother Herodias was first married to Herod’s brother. When he died Herod decided to marry the widow. That was a big no-no in those days, but Herod was a king so he could do what he liked. But John said very rude things about Herodias and Salome hated him for that. She couldn’t bear him insulting her mother and wanted to avenge the family honour by killing John.’

  ‘Jeez,’ I said, ‘pretty full-on.’

  ‘Sure was, honey. Ah, there you are, Claire.’ My sister had walked in, yawning and complaining about being woken up by an engine starting up in the car park under her window.

  A little later, I took a bottle of water, an apple, my camera and the pamphlet, and stuck them all in a little backpack Freddy lent me. I said goodbye to them both – Claire was surprised I didn’t want to go back to the film shoot, but relieved too I think – and promised to be back for lunch at one o’clock.

  The day had really started now, shutters had been flung open, people bustling about. A couple of people nodded at me as I went past, and I said Bonjourto them in my best accent. I avoided going past the house where I’d seen Gabriel, in case I ran into Daniel or one of their minders, and headed down the hill towards the ruins.

  I wandered around them for a fair while. Not actually inside them, because they were roped off, out of bounds, but walking round and round, stickybeaking from the low wall that surrounded the relics, and trying to read the inscriptions, which I only half understood. But the pamphlet was useful to help me work things out. Here was a temple, there the markets, there the forum or main square, where everyone came to get news and meet up with friends. Over here houses. Here a military camp. There a theatre. The public baths. And so on.

  I took some pictures then sat down on the wall for a bit, staring out over the ruins and thinking over what Freddy had said. It was weird, imagining what it might have been like, especially for people like Herod and his family, who had been sent here from so far away. They must have felt really out of place, powerless, and stuck at the back end of beyond. Did they make friends? What did they do with their time, especially the women, who wouldn’t have had as much freedom? It must have been so strange. Separated from all they knew, so far from any news of back home, they must almost have felt like they’d died. They’d had everything and then it had all been taken away. Maybe they felt like they’d been cursed. Did Salome ever think it might have been because of what she did, getting John the Baptist murdered in that horrible way?

  Eventually I tired of it. I looked at the map. St-Just was about five kilometres from where I was. It wouldn’t take me that long. I swigged a bit of water and set off. It was getting warmer but it wasn’t hot, there was a little breeze and I wasn’t hurrying. A few cars passed me along the way, and once I passed another walker heading towards St-Bertrand, but that was it. I turned into the little lane leading to St-Just within an hour. Unlike the other day, there were no cars parked in the spot near the meadow at the back of the church. It must be too early for tourists. The cows were still grazing in the meadow, though, just like they had been the other day. The leader was right up near the fence. She didn’t seem at all bothered when I started taking pictures of her, just gazed at me with big liquid eyes. After a time, she even let me touch her nose. It was cold and wet.

  I turned in the other direction, towards the picnic area, from where you could see St-Bertrand. I took lots of photos of that too. I looked out over that beautiful sunny landscape and no bad feeling came to me at all.

  I walked up towards the church. It looked deserted, though I could see a bicycle leaning up against the entrance wall. But there was no-one to be seen.

  Over the entrance gate was a kind of stone plaque, inscribed in a language I supposed was Latin. I remembered Freddy saying they’d used bits and pieces from the ruined Roman city to build this church. Maybe this was one of them.

  There was a booth by the gate that sold postcards and tickets to go into the church, but it was closed. I walked past it into the sunny little graveyard that spread at the foot of the church. I wandered around a bit, looking at the names of the people buried there – there were a lot of the same names there, like de Batzand de Grandidier – and then tried the church door, but it was locked. So I went round the back, into a lovely green grassy patch, covered in daisies and little blue flowers whose names I didn’t know. It was scattered here and there with what looked like low, weathered stone benches. And sitting on one, with his head in his hands, was Daniel.

  Angelus

  He must have caught something – a noise, a flicker of movement, a change in the air – because he looked up, suddenly, and saw me. I had no chance to escape. Not with dignity, anyway. I could have just turned tail and fled but that would have been too dumb for words. I wasn’t scared of him, for God’s sake. I just didn’t like him.

  Our eyes met, for what seemed like ages but was probably only half a second or something. I couldn’t just ignore him. So I said, nervously, ‘Er, hello.’

  ‘Hello,’ he said, getting up but not making a move towards me.

  I swallowed. ‘I – I thought y – you were at the shoot.’

  ‘I’m not needed today.’

  ‘Oh. Right. Sorry I – I startled you. I didn’t know anyone...’

  ‘It is all right,’ he interrupted softly. ‘I was just thinking.’

  ‘Oh.’ I was racking my brains as to what to say next, or to think of a way of disappearing gracefully, when he astounded me by saying, ‘I’m sorry, mademoiselle.’

  I goggled at him. ‘What?’

  ‘I – I was very rude to you the other day. In the cathedral.’

  ‘Oh, that. It’s okay.’ I pretended a casualness I didn’t feel at all. My heart was hammering, my palms felt prickly.

  ‘It is not okay,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘I am sorry. I really did not mean–’ He swallowed. ‘That is untrue. I did mean it. But I regretted it after.’ He came a few steps closer. ‘I am truly sorry for what I said to you, mademoiselle. Please forgive me.’

  ‘That’s all right. Really,’ I added, quickly, trying to hide my agitation. ‘Please don’t worry about it any more.’ I paused. ‘And – and – please don’t call me mademoiselle. My name is Sylvie. Sylvie Mandon.’

  A fleeting smile lit up his features. ‘Sylvie. I am Daniel. Daniel Aubrac.’ He held out his hand. I took it. We shook, briefly, and in that moment I knew the course of our lives had changed utterly. All of a sudden I knew instinctively, without a doubt, that everything I’d thought I’d felt about him had been wrong, quite wrong, in every way.

  And he felt the same. I saw his expression change, and the Adam’s apple bob in his throat as he said, ‘I – I should like to explain properly to you, Sylvie. Gabriel, my little brother, I worry about him. He–’ He stopped, then went on more strongly – ‘He is so innocent. Trusting. He does not understand the world. He think
s it is full of good things.’

  ‘Of guardian angels,’ I said softly.

  He shot me a quick, anguished look. ‘Yes. Our mother – she told him that always – always the angels would watch over us, and he believes it. Even after–’ he broke off.

  ‘Even after she died?’ I said quietly. ‘Mireille told me yesterday,’ I added, as his eyes widened. Oh God. I wanted then so much to reach out and touch him, to draw him close to me. And I wanted to back away from him, run like hell and never come back. I didn’t know what I truly wanted. I felt sick with the confusion.

  He said, ‘I – I see.’ A pause, then he went on. ‘Maman, she believed in the protection of angels too. She trusted. She believed in a good God. A good world. But she died in pain and suffering and far too young. She died – and left us.’

  There was such desolation in his voice that it made me want to weep. I said, trying to form my words properly over the huge lump in my throat, ‘I’m sorry – I’m so sorry, Daniel.’

  We looked at each other. I felt as though my knees would buckle. My limbs were turning to jelly.

  He said, very gently, ‘Thank you. You are very kind.’

  No, I’m not, I wanted to shout. I’m stupid and blind and insensitive and intolerant and I’ve been thinking all these dumb things about you, misjudged you completely – but of course I said none of that. Instead, I stammered, ‘You sound French but you live in England and you speak English and–’ I broke off, aware of how stupid it sounded, how clumsy, churning out inappropriate words because I felt embarrassed and confused and euphoric and miserable all at once.

  He said, still in that very gentle voice, ‘I amFrench. Born here, living here always till – my father, he died, long since – he was from Toulouse. My mother, she was born in Senegal. It’s a country in West Africa,’ he added. ‘She came to France with her parents and her brother when she was just a little girl.’ He looked away. ‘I learn English at school. But since a year, I must speak it every day. My uncle, my mother’s brother, he insists. He went to England when he was young. There was a fight with my grandparents, I think, though he does not say. Now he will only use English.’