It’s good to see you, she says, as she steps forward, noticing that he doesn’t step forward to meet her. She is worried about him. There is loss in his eyes.
How are you, today? she says.
They are not far apart now, but it still feels like a distance; the pull between them making the final step seem meaningful. She’s unable to rush, so she takes it slow – stands in front of him, her jacket still on, a winter scarf in greens and gold hung loosely around her neck.
It’s quiet here, she says.
You’ll fix that.
She reaches one arm around his shoulder, one around his waist. Their bodies press together; his arms return her hug. They stand, for a moment, nothing pulling them apart, no pull at all, just this moment. And then a tipping point is reached; her hand brushes his neck, his fingers through her hair, his breath on her cheek, a word, her name, a sigh, her head turning away, so slightly, resting on his shoulder.
You are going to stay, aren’t you? he wants to ask, but he doesn’t. He forgets how to speak, forgets that he ever knew, and she whispers in his ear, like when they were children: It’s OK, she says, everything’s going to be OK now.
FRANÇOIS HAS HEARD HIS MAMA talking to herself every day this month, though before the weather turned cold she hadn’t done that for ages. On the day it started she had been happy, giddy, dancing in the rain like the girls at school, but that’s not true any more – something has changed, and now she is on edge.
He finds her in the study, looking at his atlas – well, it was hers once, but now he thinks of it as his – and he goes and stands by her, pointing out all the places he wants to visit.
She looks over her shoulder as they talk, even though there’s no one there watching. She looks tired, more tired than he can remember, and he slips his hand into hers to bring her back.
This is Morocco, he says, pointing out place names on the page. Shall we cook something from Morocco tonight? And his mama smiles, her eyes back to his at last, as she begins listing the ingredients they need to make a tagine.
Pass me the coriander, she calls out as he climbs his plastic steps to reach the spice cupboard; and the cinnamon sticks.
François gives each stick a crack before throwing them into the pot, smelling the spice on his fingertips and then reaching for a handful of sultanas. The spiced sweet smell of lamb and apricots mingles with music from the radio as they cook together; it is a smell he will remember, as an adult, try to replicate but never be able to capture.
Watching them from the doorway, Brigitte stands unnoticed. She doesn’t want to see them like this but somehow she can’t bring herself to turn away. Severine is getting restless in Bayeux, Brigitte knows that much, even though she’s trying to hide it from the ghosts. But they’re dead, they’re not stupid – does she really imagine she’s fooling anyone?
François’s certainly not fooled, and he’s only ten. He can see something’s changed. But the thing is – and this is what really scares Brigitte – she thinks he’s on Severine’s side. He’s encouraging her to dream of going away; he wants the angry bit of her to win. The bit that will take them away from Bayeux, away from France, across the continent and beyond reach.
It is not fair. None of this is fair. Brigitte will not allow it.
Severine thinks they have no idea that she longs to leave, that she dreams of a wilderness to explore. She smiles, when they reappear day after day, when she finds Great-Great-Grandma Bélanger in the bath every morning.
They cluster around her as she works, pleading with her to play hide-and-seek when she needs to be laying out that day’s display in the shop window. Antoine and Henri have taken to checking the latest deliveries of sweet oranges and avocado, but as she’s trying to get them to stop throwing fruit to each other her mother arrives, points out that the light in one of the fridges has gone. Severine replies with a thank-you, biting back the comment that obviously she already knew, that she will deal with it when she can. And the worst of it – waking up every night with nightmares of fire, with the sound of a woman screaming and a child’s cries. Severine never signed up for that. She never agreed to be haunted, not like that, and the angrier she gets herself the worse it seems to become.
Brigitte comes during the day sometimes, stands quietly in her long gown, her hair twisted into a plait, her eyes full of a terrible knowledge she doesn’t convey.
When are you from? Severine asks, one evening, her voice hardened at the edges.
Fourteen fifty-six, she says, not elaborating on whether that was the day she was born or the day she died. You don’t know what it’s like, to burn.
Severine wishes she hadn’t started the conversation, but at least Brigitte is calm now – perhaps she can be reasoned with.
What happened to you? she begins, but then François comes into the room – it’s as if he knows when they’re here – and Severine pulls her son into a hug and turns away from Brigitte, and when she turns back she is gone.
When the ghosts leave this time, they don’t really leave. They return, day after day. Severine is surprised by this, at first, but soon comes to accept it – this comet will be visible for months, they say on the news, well into next year. Still, she was a fool not to appreciate the peace she had before, when the ghosts came for just a few days, every few years.
What is wrong with Brigitte? she demands of her granny, who is sitting in the old study, pretending to read the copy of Thérèse Philosophe her husband once gave her.
Her granny puts down the book and smiles at her.
What is it she needs?
Her granny’s expression is full of sadness and so Severine sits in her mother’s old chair and says, you didn’t tell me the whole truth, did you?
You chose to see us.
No, I chose to see you. I didn’t know that meant getting the others into the bargain. Brigitte . . .
Brigitte’s scared that you are the last, and that her time is running out.
What will happen if I am the last?
We will go, ma petite.
Where?
Her granny shrugs. It doesn’t matter, we will be gone.
But the rest of you don’t give me nightmares.
Brigitte’s story is different.
How so?
There’s someone she can’t let go of. And she can’t control the flames; she had a terrible death. It still haunts her.
Severine softens.
Then I need to help her.
Her granny looks up at her, shakes her head. We all tried, at one point or another – we don’t have the answers she seeks. And there’s a risk. François . . .
What do you mean?
Please, Severine, she says, please. Don’t push it.
Her tone is different now, far away, and something in it makes Severine want to hold her close, to tell her she is going to be OK.
If you let someone else’s loss take over your life you can lose something of your own, her granny says softly.
Don’t you think I might know something of compromise already?
Her granny laughs, returns to herself as she returns her eyes to the book. You know, you can make us all leave, if you want to, she says without looking up again. Or if that’s too hard, you can just leave yourself.
In her épicerie, the next morning, Severine tries something out.
She turns her back to the room, stacking shelves, and tells herself that there are no ghosts. She has been ridiculous, imagining she had to stay here, in this place, in this town, for all of her life; there is nothing holding her here. When she turns round to face the room, the ghosts are gone.
A customer comes in, orders some of her tomato and lentil soup with a baguette. Picks up some biscuits from the counter. Pays. Leaves again.
Severine is alone. She made them disappear.
All of a sudden she is scared of what she’s done – where have they gone? She wants their voices back, their playful jokes. She didn’t even say goodbye to her granny. She didn’t want to hur
t them, to banish them forever . . .
She wishes they would come back.
And then she is not alone any more, and Antoine is sitting on the floor in the corner reading a comic book with Henri, and her granny is peering at the broken light in the fridge as if nothing has happened. And she is relieved, and grateful.
Antoine looks up.
I dare you, he says with a grin.
What?
You can do it – he turns a page – you can go and see the world. That’s what I’d do, if I could. Don’t worry about us. He looks back down at his book, smiles at something on the page. After all, he says, we’re already dead.
In school, François is learning about the Hundred Years War, which was not a war that went on for a hundred years, but three of them – war after war after war. It is not like the history lessons they had at his old school. It seems more serious; he feels like they wouldn’t be teaching this stuff to children. It didn’t really end with the last war, just like it didn’t really start with the first – it started a long time before that, in 1066, but he thinks it probably didn’t start then either. Everyone is the product of something else.
The first war of the Hundred Years War went on for twenty-three years. And the next lasted only twenty. The last was the longest one of all and that started in 1415 and had Jeanne d’Arc in it, when she was the same age as François, with her visions and her strange faith, and her conviction that the voices she heard were real.
François thinks it’s probably a good thing his mama doesn’t know too much about Jeanne d’Arc. It might encourage her. There is something going on at the moment, and he’s wondered if he should talk to his grand-mère about it, but has decided not to tell tales. It’s not just that his mama is talking to herself in the house; she’s started acting weird as well, weirder than usual. The other day she asked him where he’d like to go, if he could go anywhere in the world. It’s like she’s plotting. He’s not sure yet, but he thinks there’s a chance she’s going to take him on a real adventure. Now that would be a good thing.
That night Severine is woken by Brigitte screaming. She tries not to listen, but it doesn’t work. Something too horrific for words happened centuries before she was born, and she has to feel it, every night.
What is this about? she tries.
She thinks she can smell burning skin.
Stop this, please.
The room goes quiet; the fire flickers out.
What is it that you want from me?
I know you’re planning to leave, Brigitte says.
And how do you know that?
You are planning to leave, and you’re going to take François away with you.
Leave my son out of this.
Your son—
The flames threaten to engulf the curtains.
Stop it, Brigitte!
Severine tries to be calm, despite the intensifying smell, the smoke that makes her eyes burn.
Stop it and talk to me.
But Brigitte can’t stop these flames any more than she could stop the fire that killed her. Her voice comes out as a growl, skin curls off her arms and she is gone.
As the sun rises, Severine remembers what Antoine said, and goes looking for him. She doesn’t want to be told what she can’t do any more, she wants to talk about all the places she wants to see, to take François – the promise of all that world they have yet to explore. And one of the ghosts, at least, will understand why she wants to leave.
IT FEELS DIFFERENT, TO LIAM, to make breakfast when he knows he is going to share it with Róisín. The coffee smells stronger, fresher, looks a deeper colour of black in the mugs once it is poured. He makes up a tray, feeling like a character in a film: coffee and juice, toast with marmalade and strawberry jam. Carries it up the stairs so they can have breakfast in bed.
Of course, it feels different. They are different. But it also feels different from anything else. When Róisín wakes up she has this strange feeling of knowing that she has nowhere to go – nowhere that she has to be; no work that she has to do. And it can’t go on. She is going to have to find something to do. This is too like a holiday.
But then he slips back into bed beside her, and his bare legs lie against hers, and she remembers the first time, when he had kissed her, quickly, like if he didn’t kiss her fast he was going to back out, pretend it was only a joke, and she had been so shocked. Not that she hadn’t thought about it, she had, many times, but still, she’d never thought he would actually do it; never thought they would kiss like this, in his bedroom – the same bedroom they are in now – while his dad was out at that farmers’ union meeting and there was condensation clinging to the windows that separated them from the insistent rain. He had pulled away, been ready to apologise she thought, but she hadn’t let him. She had pulled him back, while his eyes looked at her in disbelief. They had kissed and not known what to do next so they had kept kissing, had spent the afternoon kissing. They were young, at first. But now, he is a man, and some combination of his rough stubble and his sure hands, his eyes that are so like those of a boy, his voice that is deeper than she remembered, the lines already forming on his forehead, his skin, the skin of a man who works outdoors, who understands what it is to manage acres . . . All of it makes her put the breakfast tray on the floor and reach for him again, still half amazed that she can, that she has made this happen.
Liam smiles now, a half-sigh, half-laugh, as her hands push him back onto the pillow, as her hair falls over his face. He, too, remembers how she had been older than him (it doesn’t feel that way now), less afraid, or so it seemed, when she had taken her shirt off and told him to do the same. I want to see, she had said, I want to see you, and that had changed everything that he was. How he had stood still for her, allowed her hands to touch his chest, the flicker of a smile on her lips as her hands moved up over his shoulders, down over his stomach, making him hunch over from a tickle he couldn’t laugh about, that did something else to him entirely. His breaths had come in stop-starts, he remembers, as she took so long, so long to unbutton his jeans. Now his breathing is less desperate but still fast; his thoughts more conscious but still not controlled; his exhale comes with a deeper voice as she guides him inside her again and his memories dissolve into some continuous present version of the past.
Róisín thinks, in the shower, that she must go out today. She will go to the village, see if she can find some temporary work.
Liam doesn’t knock on the door, does not come and join her.
As he leaves the house he sidesteps around the large box that was delivered a week ago. It is Róisín’s telescope that, for some reason he doesn’t understand, she has left unopened in the hall.
She walks from the post office to the pub at the end of the high street, feeling like she is too big for her surroundings. When she was a child this street had seemed long, with the green opposite, and the old wooden benches named for people that no one can remember but with surnames they all recognise: families that have lived in the village for longer than anyone knows, having arrived no one knows when.
She looks up to see that the butcher’s has closed but the baker’s is still open. She goes inside and orders a sticky bun, for old times’ sake.
Are you back for a visit? Keira asks. Keira, who has worked here since she was old enough to reach the till, who wears the same apron her mum used to wear when she worked here – and look, she still does. Róisín smiles as Keira’s mum appears from the door to the back room, curious to know who has come in, not quite recognising the voice.
Róisín, it’s you. Staying with your mum?
Róisín smiles, considers her words.
Actually I’m staying on the farm for a bit, with Liam.
Mother and daughter smile and nod. Keira twists the corners of the paper bag, sticky bun inside, and spins it over once, before handing it to Róisín.
In the pub, she asks: Any part-time work? I can waitress.
They have started serving food. She wonders i
f they get tourists here now – she has noticed a couple of B&Bs that weren’t there before. The isolation of this village makes her long for them to arrive.
Let me think on it, sure, the owner says. Haven’t seen you round here for a while. Staying with your mum?
Mmmm. Róisín smiles – well, let me know – and leaves.
They have a family dinner on Friday – Róisín, her mum, Neil and Conall. She suggests to Liam that he stays home, this time, just until she’s had a chance to see, to test the water.
So, you’re staying on the farm? her mum says.
For a while, says Róisín, fake casual, taking a sip of wine.
That’ll be grand, says Neil, give Liam a hand. It must be hard, running that place alone.
Her mum smiles, Róisín smiles. This is going to be tricky.
It’s nice to have you home, her mum says, taking a sip herself. Don’t get me wrong, it’s wonderful.
Róisín nods, spikes some peas with her fork.
It’s just, what happened with your job?
It’s just a sabbatical, Róisín finds herself saying. I can go back.
And will you?
I’m not sure yet.
You seemed to like it in Bayeux.
Róisín doesn’t reply, though she did like it – thoughts like that aren’t helpful at the moment.
The sun has set but the blinds are still open, letting in the dark of the garden, letting in the cool of the night.
A silence sits around the table with them, the silence of what everyone knows but no one will say.
We’re just two people, Róisín thinks. Two cousins, living together, it’s not so bad as all that. But she knows that to other people, to her mother, it might be that bad. And even so, her mum hasn’t said anything. No one has told her to leave. There have been no arguments. There is just this silence.
She goes to slice a potato, sees that her hand is shaking.
Neil glances at her.
Her mother gets up and closes the blinds.
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