Bright Angel

by Isabelle Merlin

  ‘Oh,’ I said lamely.

  Suddenly, he smiled. It lit up his whole face. ‘I am sorry again, Sylvie. You did not want so many words. You are just being polite. And I tell you all my life!’

  ‘No, no, it’s great, really interesting, I’m not being polite,’ I gabbled. ‘I’m not that sort, and me, well, I’m Australian but with some French blood too, well my dad has anyway, he’s Cajun, from Louisiana, and my mum, she’s like fifth generation Aussie and my sister, she’s older than me but I know how you feel about your brother, cos Claire and me, we’re so close and she worries about me too and she gets really uptight when I–’ I broke off, feeling myself going scarlet, white and back to scarlet. God, what on earth had I been raving on for like that? He’d think I was insane, or a complete idiot.

  ‘Sylvie, oh Sylvie,’ he said, and then took another step towards me. And suddenly, astonishingly, but at the same time the most natural thing in the world, I was in his arms and we were kissing. All rational thought fled and only feeling remained, the most amazing mad awesome surprise and delight and wild confusion and fear all mingled together at once.

  I’d had the odd unexpected kiss from guys at parties as well as boyfriends of course but this was different, way different. I can’t tell you how I knew but I did, totally and utterly. He was so warm and smelled so good of cologne and sunshine and his lips were soft, his hands firm, a smile in his eyes. I’ve never been so happy in my life, I didn’t know what it felt like to be happy till that moment, I told myself wildly.

  I can’t tell you how long we stood there, enfolded in each other’s arms but I know that when we did pull apart, I was trembling like a leaf and thought I would have fallen over if Daniel hadn’t helped me to sit down on one of those weathered stone benches, which he then proceeded to tell me were not benches at all but sarcophagi, basically stone coffins. When I gave a little squeal and tried to jump up he pulled me down, saying laughingly that I wasn’t to worry because there wasn’t anyone under there, not any more, they’d all gone to dust.

  He kept an arm around me while he rattled on like that for a moment or two and I snuggled into it and wondered about the strangeness and wonderfulness of the world and how you really should never ever, ever judge people on your first meeting with them. Then he fell silent and we said nothing while all around us the little meadow hummed with awakening cicadas and bees buzzing around the flowers. The air was so perfumed, the sky so blue, the old stone so warm from the sun that it felt as though we were in a special piece of heaven.

  After a time, I said to him, ‘I had no idea.’

  He did not ask me what I meant. He knew. He said, ‘I did, though. When my brother – when Gabriel spoke, like he does, of seeing your bright angel, suddenly, something burst on me. Something that scared me. No, I didn’t see an angel but it was like a dazzle – something new, unexpected, a feeling about you. But I pushed it away. I was rude, obnoxious. Yes, I was. Do not argue.’ He kissed me gently on the forehead. ‘Yesterday, in the woods, I was so aware of you, in every pore, every nerve, but I couldn’t, I didn’t know how to speak to you after what happened. How discourteous I’d been.’

  ‘Is that what what you were thinking about?’ I said, smiling. ‘When I came round the corner just now? You looked worried about something.’

  A shadow briefly crossed his face, then was gone. ‘What? Oh. Mmm. I decided I should leave, I thought that’s what I wanted. What I should do.’

  ‘And now?’ I said, teasingly.

  ‘Now – well, what do you think?’

  ‘Do you need to ask me?’

  ‘No, I do not think I do,’ he said, and reached down to kiss me again.

  Presently, we came apart again. Daniel smiled at me. ‘Sylvie, I must go home soon. I promised I would take Gabriel out for lunch.’ I looked at my watch, and jumped up. My God, it was five to twelve! Time had vanished as though by magic. When I’m writing, sometimes it feels like that. Mum says I’m away with the fairies. I’d never had it happen with a boy before. And well, writing’s fun – but this – this was like, just so, so much better.

  ‘I’ll have to get going too,’ I said. ‘I promised my aunt I would be back for lunch. And it takes nearly an hour to walk back. ‘

  ‘I have a bike,’ said Daniel. ‘You can ride on the back if you like.’

  Riding like that was uncomfortable. I’d done it before. You had to keep your legs up and it gave you a cramp. But who cares? I’d be close up against him, my arms wrapped around his waist. I nodded, happily.

  ‘But before we go, I want to show you something,’ said Daniel. ‘My favourite thing here.’ We walked hand in hand to the back wall of the church and he pointed down in one corner. I peered closer. It was the weirdest thing: a stone face jutting out from the wall. It didn’t look religious – I mean, not like a saint or an angel or anything like that – but rather like a strange kind of stone face mask, with ringlets of stone hair on either side and loops of stone ribbon or something like that on top of the head, and empty eye sockets and a grinning, empty mouth. Apart from this one face, the rest of the wall was blank.

  ‘That’s just so random and weird,’ I said. ‘Why did they carve it there?’

  ‘It wasn’t carved there. It was taken from somewhere else. It is from the theatre in the old Roman city.’

  ‘But why did they put it there? What does it have to do with a church?’

  He shrugged. ‘Perhaps they thought it kept away evil spirits. I don’t know. But is it not extraordinary?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said, staring at the stone mask, into the empty eyes and mouth where the darkness of ages hung heavy and still. A little shiver rippled down my spine. I was about to say I didn’t think I liked it very much, for all its extraordinariness, when all at once, carried clearly across the bright, still air, came the sound of a bell ringing. Not the tinkle, tinkle of a cowbell, but the sweet, deep tones of a church bell.

  ‘Listen!’ said Daniel as we walked quickly round the side of the church, out of the gate and over to the picnic area. ‘It’s Bertrande, the big bell in the cathedral, ringing the Angelus.’

  I knew what that was, though I’d never heard it before. Dad said it used to be rung every day in his home town, back in Louisiana. It’s a special peal of bells rung at noon and sometimes at six pm too and it’s supposed to be like the voice of the angels, reminding you to give thanks to the Virgin Mary, the mother of Jesus. It was a very sweet sound, and it went on for quite a while, carrying clearly over the valley, while Daniel and I stood together, our ears full of the beautiful music that rang out over us like a blessing.

  Weirder than fate

  Just as I’d thought, it wasn’t comfy at all on the back of the bike, but who cared? I was close to Daniel, half leaning against him, the sun was shining, the holidays stretched happily ahead. In one part of me, I could hardly believe what had happened. In the other, it felt like it was always meant to be this way. I didn’t know what anyone else would say about it but it didn’t matter anyway. Daniel and I were an item now, no question about it. I didn’t think about what would happen once I had to go back to Australia. I didn’t think past the next few hours. Daniel had invited me to come to lunch with him and Gabriel. Freddy wouldn’t mind, I knew that. Claire would be curious, but she’d not mind either. We’d have lunch and then we’d talk and talk and just be together and...

  A car drew up behind us with a skittering of gravel. A familiar voice called out, ‘Hey, there! Looks like hard work.’

  Daniel stopped. I got off. Startled, I looked at the driver. ‘Oh, hi, Mick.’

  He smiled. ‘Would you and your friend like a lift? You look like you’re struggling a bit.’

  I looked at Daniel. He shrugged.

  ‘We can put the bike in the boot,’ said Mick cheerfully. ‘Come on, mate. You must be tired, pushing a double weight like that. ‘He grinned at me. ‘And you must have cramps in your legs, holding them out.’

  ‘It’s – it’s okay,’ I said uncerta
inly, because Daniel wasn’t exactly being forthcoming. But Mick wasn’t deterred. He jumped out of the car, stuck his hand out to Daniel and said, in French, ‘Hi, I’m Mick. Mick Stephan. I’m a friend of Sylvie’s here.’

  Daniel gave me a look. I wanted to say, hey, it’s okay, I’ve only just met him, I hardly know him, but the words stuck in my throat cos they were rude and anyway why should I feel guilty about it? I had done nothing wrong. Then Daniel smiled, and shook Mick’s hand and said, in English, ‘Hello. I am Daniel. Daniel Aubrac.’

  ‘Pleased to meet you, Dan. Hop in. You too, Syl,’ said Mick, sounding very Australian right now, more than he’d done in the woods. I felt a naughty little gurgle of laughter rising in my chest. It was such a weird situation. I’d never been in one like that before. Day for firsts, it seemed to me. As I got into the back seat – I preferred to let Daniel take the front – I said, ‘You been hunting UFOs today, Mick?’

  ‘Just been to Toulouse to check in with the guys,’ he responded.

  ‘Mick works for GEIPAN,’ I explained to Daniel. ‘UFO tracking.’

  ‘I know,’ said Daniel, surprisingly. ‘I mean, I hear of GEIPAN. This must be very interesting work, yes?’

  ‘It is,’ said Mick, and launched into pretty much the same spiel he’d given me. I sat back against the seat, feeling relieved. At least Daniel wasn’t freezing him out now. Not that he had any call to. None at all. Mick was a nice guy who did interesting stuff. No more. I’d never been attracted to him. I’d not spent much time thinking about him. So different with Daniel – even when I thought I hated him, he’d filled my thoughts.

  By the time we got out in the car park in the town, things seemed pretty friendly. When Mick proposed that we might all meet up tomorrow and he’d show us how he put a dossier together for GEIPAN, Daniel accepted without reluctance. He seemed quite relaxed now – a tribute, I suppose, to Mick’s natural easiness with people, his laid-back presence. I thought that Daniel’s earlier reaction had been perhaps not instinctive jealousy but simple wariness. I remembered what Marc had said. Bad things had happened in Daniel’s life. He didn’t trust easily. Not really, despite what had happened between us. That was something else. A miracle. A weird clap of thunder. A thing that had been fated to be.

  We left Mick in the car park, after making a time to meet the next morning. As Daniel wheeled the bike up the slope and I walked alongside him, he said, ‘He is from Australia. Like you.’

  I thought that was a roundabout way of saying I must have known Mick a while, so I explained. ‘Yes. But he’s lived in Toulouse for ages. I never met him before yesterday – just sort of tripped over him in the woods – he was working on his thing.’ Stupidly, I was blushing, and it annoyed me.

  ‘I see,’ he said, and looked at me very seriously.

  My heart raced. I stammered, ‘It’s true, Daniel.’

  ‘Of course it’s true,’ he said, and smiled. ‘Why would I think it is not? You have a life. Friends. As do I.’

  ‘Yes,’ I mumbled, aware suddenly of a shaft of jealous pain. What if those friends are girls, actually girlfriends, yeah, he’s bound to have had heaps, and this is just a holiday romance, like something that’ll finish once we go back to our lives, and that’s it. Once I would have thought that was just fine cos like you can’t expect things to last, can you, specially not holiday romances, but I didn’t want to think that now. I couldn’t stand it in fact, and it had happened just like that, so quick, maybe it would also end so quick, disappear in a puff of smoke.

  ‘You look very solemn,’ he said to me, and squeezed my hand.

  We had reached his house by now. I faltered, ‘I – I just must go and tell Freddy I am having lunch elsewhere.’

  ‘She will be angry with you? Is this why you look sad?’

  ‘Oh no. She will be fine,’ I gabbled. ‘I’ll be back very soon. Don’t worry. I’ll be quick.’

  ‘Okay,’ he said, raising his eyebrows a little, and I took off like a startled rabbit, feeling like a complete idiot. He was at least a year older than me, and acted a fair bit older. If I kept up that sort of thing, he’d be sure to think I was a gauche kid. Childish. Stupid. Not the sort of person you’d really want a relationship with. Cursing myself all the way, I got home in a bit of a lather. I found Freddy with Claire and Marc in the kitchen, sharing a bottle of wine and getting things ready for lunch.

  ‘Good walk?’ said Marc.

  ‘You look hot,’ observed Claire.

  ‘Sit down,’ said Freddy. ‘We were just waiting for you to–’

  ‘I’ve been invited out to lunch,’ I said quickly. ‘Is that okay, Freddy?’

  ‘Who’s invited you?’ said Claire, frowning.

  ‘None of your beeswax!’

  She glared at me. ‘It is too. We’re supposed to be looking after you.’

  ‘Freddy is. Not you!’

  ‘Girls!’ said Freddy, peaceably. ‘Look, it’s fine if you go, Sylvie, but you’d better tell us where to find you, okay?’

  ‘I’m going to Daniel’s,’ I said.

  ‘Who’s that?’ she said, having clearly forgotten.

  Marc explained. Claire stared at me. ‘That guy you were so rude about yesterday? But I thought you couldn’t stand–’ she began, but she was interrupted by Freddy, who said briskly, ‘That’s fine. Have fun. Oh, and take your mobile with you. In case we have to reach you for anything.’

  I nodded. I could feel their eyes on me as I went out and knew that they’d be discussing me and Daniel as soon as I was gone, but at least I wouldn’t have to hear it. Marc knew him a bit better than anyone else, including me. They’d want him to fill them in, especially Claire. Honestly! I love my sister to bits but she can be a real busybody sometimes. You’d think she was twenty years older than me and not just six! She’d better not try to tell me I hardly knew Daniel. She hardly knew Marc too and she was already looking at him with big adoring eyes.

  Shut up, Syl. You can talk, my sensible self scolded me. There you are all weak at the knees already, like the kind of boy-crazy girl you usually despise. Maybe you should be more careful. Take it more slowly. I mean I hadn’t fallen in love with him at first sight – no way – but it hadn’t taken long. I thought I hated him at first. How wrong can you be?

  I was at his place now. The front door had this huge brass knocker on it. It made a big noise when I banged it. But it took a little while for the door to be answered. And it wasn’t Daniel, but the Spanish-looking woman who stood on the threshold, not looking very welcoming at all. ‘Oui?’she snapped.

  ‘Good day. I’m Sylvie Mandon,’ I said in French, trying to sound grown-up and firm. ‘Friend of Daniel. We go out to lunch.’

  ‘He not go now,’ she said impassively. Her French was strongly accented and not a whole lot better than mine.

  My throat thickened. ‘Please, just get Daniel.’

  She looked at me, then to my relief, nodded. ‘You come in.’ She waved me towards an open door. ‘Wait here. I find Daniel.’ She closed the door after me.

  The room into which she’d ushered me looked like a combination of library and living room. A few glass-fronted book cabinets, full of old-looking books, some leather sofas, pictures, a small desk in a corner with a laptop sitting on it. I sat on the edge of one of the sofas and waited. Five minutes, ten minutes. I was about to get up and look at the books when Daniel came in.

  His face lit up. He came straight to me and gave me a hug. The feel of his arms around me, the warmth of his skin, made me thrill with delight. I hugged him back, tight. He held me out from him with a smile. ‘Sylvie, I am sorry to keep you waiting. Gabriel is not well. I must wait till he falls asleep.’

  ‘Oh, no,’ I said, ‘What’s wrong with him?’

  ‘Nothing much. Pilar – that is his nanny, you meet her – she thinks it is just a little cold. But he is tired. He needs sleep. So he cannot come out to lunch today – he is disappointed because he wants to see you too – I tell him you are coming – and so
we eat lunch here, yes? Then after his siestemaybe you can talk to him?’

  ‘Oh, sure,’ I said, a little uncertainly, because I wasn’t sure why Gabriel would want to talk to me, and what I’d say.

  Daniel saw my expression. He smiled. ‘Gabriel would like a big sister rather than a big brother, I think.’

  ‘Oh,’ I said, none the wiser but what did it matter? I had no idea how little kids worked really and if Gabriel had taken to me that was good anyway because clearly Daniel was devoted to him, you could tell, and anyone who didn’t get on with Gabriel wouldn’t get on with Daniel either.

  We had lunch on the private, sunny terrace at the back of the house. Cold chicken with a garlicky sort of mayonnaise, salad, and sweet crepes to finish, with lemon and sugar and cream. And lovely, cold, homemade sweet mint tea with ice. It was delicious but what was even more delicious was sharing it with Daniel, just the two of us facing each other over the table, under the striped umbrella the maid had put up for us. (Yes, they had a maid as well as a nanny, and a cook, and goodness knows what else.) We ate and laughed and toasted each other with the mint tea, and talked. And talked. I told him about my parents and their work in the Territory and how Claire and I lived in the city, and about Freddy and her work, and about the things I did back home. I told him about my clips and my You Tube channel and he said he wanted me to show him. But I did not say anything about the real reason why we were on holidays here. I just said Freddy had invited us. I said nothing about Thomas Radic. Not yet. It was too new, too fragile, what we had, to cloud it with that sort of dark and terrible thing.

  He told me about London and about how he was expected to eventually go to some important university like Oxford or Cambridge but was having a gap year off before deciding. (By that I knew he’d finished school at least last year.) He talked about how Gabriel had settled into England better than he had and how many friends the little boy had, and he talked about his mother and how beautiful she’d been, and how loving. He told me about how his parents had met. His father, Martin Aubrac, was a carpenter who’d worked on his grandparents’ house and the two families had not approved at first of the marriage, and not because as you’d think one was white and one was black but because his mother’s father was a professor at the university and his father’s father was a farmer and they didn’t have the same kind of politics or ideas on most things. Anyway they came round to it in the end once Daniel had been born, which was some years after the marriage. He said that he’d been to Senegal with his parents once when he was ten, to visit the family that was left there and that he’d liked it a lot but it was funny ‘because, you know, in France people say I’m black but in Senegal they said I was white’. He said his grandfathers were both dead now and his grandmother on his mother’s side too but his grandmother on his father’s side was still going but she was old and rather sick and so had not been able to take them in when their mother died. ‘My uncle, Benedict Udo, my mother’s brother, insisted we come to him,’ he said, and that was the first time he mentioned his uncle. I asked him then if he got on with his uncle, and he shrugged and said they got on okay. But I saw an expression come into his eyes that made me think things weren’t okay at all. I didn’t want to push things though. Like I said, it was all so new and fragile.