Tears burned my eyes as I worked. I tried to ignore them as I lugged bucket after bucket of water up from the tiny stream below. The land was banked into terraces, separated by dry-stone walls like old scars. The arid soil sucked at the water, and I found myself sinking my fingers into the wet dirt, wishing that I could be part of it, that I had been born here rather than on the edge of a cold sea far away, to a name I could not shake loose.
From the path below I heard the crunch of bicycle tyres and I swiped the tears from my face. Whatever the townspeople thought of me, I would not let them see me cry. The bicycle stopped. When there was no shout of greeting, I knew who it would be.
Every part of me ached to meet Aaró’s gaze as he approached, but I didn’t, not even when he sat down beside me in the dirt. Would he try to apologize, try to make me understand that he and Mariona were intended, that last night was a slip, youthful exuberance and nothing more? But he only sat there until, at last, I looked up.
His eyes were solemn, grey as the winters of my childhood. My own felt red and swollen.
You, well? he signed carefully.
I couldn’t lie then. I shook my head.
He frowned, but nodded sadly in understanding. His fingers were twitching, running through all of the words he wanted to express. Finally, he turned to me again.
You, he signed, and hesitated, obviously trying to think of words that I would understand. You, he pointed, to my eyes and him, see me. He passed his hands over his face, pulled one finger gently down his cheek.
You saw me, crying at night.
I understood, and nodded. A smile broke from him.
You, he pointed again, held up two fingers separately before placing them together. I frowned, and he huffed impatiently through his nose, before picking up two dead leaves, slim and brown and identical. He pointed to one, then the other, then placed the together.
Same. He raised his eyebrows, repeated it.
You are the same?
I knew then what he was asking. I had seen it in him, the terrible sadness, the weight of the dead, of trying to keep them alive in his thoughts. Did I feel that too?
Yes, I wanted to tell him, every day, every day. My brothers, who would never grow older than nineteen and twenty-two; our mother, who lost the will to keep living, even for Timothy and me. I wanted to tell him everything, to spill it all, but I couldn’t, and I felt such longing that I reached out a hand to touch the black hair that curled at the nape of his neck.
He caught my fingers in his, and I thought he would push me away, but instead he turned my palm in his hands, with its fading scars and the earth beneath my nails, and brought it to his mouth.
The sun was all around us, and the scent of growing things, and his lips were like a drug, not the cold kiss of a glass bottle, but warm and grazing, taking my breath and filling me with more all at once. The chores lay forgotten, sorrow forgotten, as we went back again and again, gluttons at a feast.
It was only when my stomach gurgled loudly that I pulled away, laughing. He frowned, until I took his hand and placed it on my belly to feel the rumbling there. He grinned, his hand tightening on my waist before reaching for the basket I had brought with me.
Clémence had given me a few slices of bread and sausage, a little corked bottle of oil, but Aaró bustled around the vegetables, returning with a handful of green tomatoes, and little bouquet of herbs. Thyme, I recognized, as I bruised a sprig, and parsley. Making quiet noises to himself, he took out a penknife and sliced the tomatoes, squeezing the juices into the bread, before tearing up the herbs on top and drizzling the whole thing with golden oil.
Smiling, he held it to my mouth and I ate. Smooth and peppery, singing with herbs, the sting of the fresh tomatoes soaking into the bread … I closed my eyes as I chewed, trying to pick apart every flavour, because nothing – not even Clémence’s cooking – had ever tasted so good. Even before I finished the mouthful, I felt him leaning in, to kiss the oil from my lips.
June 1969
Jem,
Remember what you said about me being a terrible solicitor? Turns out you were right. I’m in Paris! Right now I’m at the Gare Austerlitz, waiting for a train. I have too much to tell you, and no space to tell it. You’ve probably guessed already; I’m going to look for Emeline. The train I’m catching will take me south, towards a place called Nîmes, the last place anyone saw her. From there … I don’t know. I hope I’ll work something out.
Bill
PS I hope you don’t mind me writing. You’re the only one who will understand.
PPS They have these delicious buns here called ‘croissants’ but you probably knew that already.
All around the city is getting started. Scooters growl past, overloaded delivery vans cough and splutter; businessmen and builders start work on their third cups of coffee. A grimy announcement board clacks out another wave of departures. At last, there’s the train I want, one that goes all the way to Nîmes.
In a little kiosk that sells newspapers and cigarettes and all manner of strange things, I wave the postcard around until the woman nods in understanding and sells me a stamp. Beside her on the counter, there’s a display of sunglasses. I can imagine my mother’s face, grimacing in horror at the little round lenses. I buy a pair. The world is tinted honey brown as I walk up to the platform.
My hopes of finding an empty compartment, where I can settle down with Emeline’s diary and try to work out my next step in peace, are dashed by a businessman with a pencil moustache and an old woman in a fur hat, despite the weather. One of them smells overwhelmingly of mothballs. As the train pulls away, I shove down the window as far as it will go and lean my head out, so I can watch Paris disappear into the distance.
Just as we reach the end of the platform, I see a group of people break cover from behind an information board and race for the train. Three of them, two boys and a girl, running with bags on their shoulders. We’re going faster now, and it doesn’t look like they’re going to make it, but one by one, they leap aboard. The last thing I see is a pair of legs flailing as the girl is pulled on to the end of the last carriage.
I sit back. The mothball woman gives me a disapproving look and I realize that I’m grinning stupidly, still wearing the sunglasses. Oh well. I suppose I do look a bit of a mess, in a linen shirt borrowed from Puce and my crumpled suit trousers.
We haven’t long been under way when the door of the compartment slides open. I glance up, thinking it might be the ticket inspector, only to find myself staring. I can’t help it; the man standing there looks extraordinary, like Jimi Hendrix. He’s wearing a pair of tight striped trousers, a threadbare blue shirt and a leather necklace. He even has a battered hat with a feather stuck in it over his wild black hair.
He’s asking something in French, but I’ve got no idea what. The mothball woman’s eyes look like they’re going to pop out and the businessman only grunts. The young man looks towards me, but shakes his head at my gormless expression and turns away. It’s only then that I see the unlit cigarette in his hand.
‘Hey!’ I jump to my feet. ‘Wait, monsieur?’
At the bottom of my briefcase is the box of matches I bought at Liverpool Street station, what seems like a hundred years ago. I hand them over at the door.
‘Thanks, man,’ he says, lighting up. I gawp all over again.
‘You’re American?’
He takes off his sunglasses and tucks them into his pocket.
‘Canadian.’
‘Oh, sorry.’
‘Sorry that I’m Canadian?’
‘No, I …’
The man smiles and shakes his head again.
‘Kidding. Want one?’
I don’t normally smoke. I glance back into the compartment. The mothball woman is looking more and more like an angry toad. I slide the door shut on her.
‘Why not?’
At the end of the train, where the corridor widens, two people are sitting on their bags. They’re the three who scrambled
aboard, I realize. Fare-dodgers. I feel a prickle of apprehension as the cigarette guy takes out a pouch of tobacco.
‘I’m Matthieu,’ he says, ‘that’s Lucille, and Javi.’
And I thought Jem was a hippy. The other guy, Javi, looks Italian or Spanish, with long dark hair and a scrubby beard. His lean face stretches into a smile and I smile back.
‘Are you both Canadian too?’ I ask, for something to say.
The girl snorts dismissively. Her hair is blond and straight with a fringe that hangs into her eyes. She’s wearing what looks like a man’s shirt, a pair of shorts and sandals that lace up to her knees. The mothball woman would have a heart attack.
‘Lucille is Parisienne,’ Javi tells me as Matthieu hands over a freshly rolled cigarette. ‘I am from Spain. You?’
‘England,’ I say, taking a careful drag on the cigarette.
‘You speak no French?’
I shake my head. ‘I’d like to learn, but so far I only know “excusez-moi” and “bonjour” and “croissant”.’
The girl laughs at that and looks a little friendlier.
‘How are you called?’ she asks.
‘Bill.’ I fumble with my bag and cigarette to hold out a hand. ‘Bill Perch.’
‘Bill,’ she repeats. ‘Sit.’
I’m sure we shouldn’t be lounging out in the corridor like this, but there’s no conductor in sight, so I do. Once I would have worried about my trousers.
‘Why are you out here?’ I ask, as Matthieu settles back down. ‘Don’t you have tickets?’
They all laugh. Lucille stretches her legs over Matthieu’s lap.
‘No money.’ Javi shrugs.
‘And Paris is too hot,’ says Lucille.
‘So we’re flying south, to visit Javi’s homeland and maybe find a sea to bask in,’ Matthieu finishes, putting his sunglasses back on. ‘How about you, Bill Perch from England? Where are you going?’
‘Nîmes.’ I try to make it sound casual. ‘For a start, at least. Won’t it take you ages to get to Spain?’
‘It’s not that much further than Nîmes, actually. And anyway there’s no rush. We’re on a summer holiday, sort of.’
‘Not like Cliff Richard,’ Javi assures me. ‘It is a work holiday. My grandparents, they have a finca, in Girona. Times are hard for them, so we go to help.’
‘And to fight the good fight,’ says Matthieu, ‘one in the eye for Franco.’
‘We are going to pick beans, not fight.’ Lucille laughs, as Javi looks rather pained.
They are students in Paris, it turns out. Matthieu and Javi are studying history and art; Lucille, music. My parents would never have let me study anything so romantic.
‘What do you play?’ I ask.
‘A few things.’ She shrugs.
‘Anything with strings.’ Matthieu nudges her, and her lips soften into a smile.
‘Mandolin is my favourite,’ she says. ‘I like bluegrass, you know?’
I have no idea what she’s talking about.
‘Cool.’
‘And you?’ Matthieu finishes his cigarette and chucks it out of the window. ‘What’s in Nîmes?’
‘It’s a long story,’ I say and sigh.
‘It’s a long train ride.’
Matthieu isn’t wrong. There’s nothing else to do on the train except talk and smoke, so I tell them the bare bones; that I’m here in France looking for someone. Rather than grilling me, they shrug and nod and the conversation moves on. Soon we’re talking about music, and the differences between Paris and London, English and French food. Javi idly sketches on a piece of paper, a little cartoon of me riding a horse, like Don Quixote, he says.
The countryside is endless, field after field of cabbages. The warm summer air buffets through the open windows. More than once when we arrive at a station, I find myself bundled into the tiny toilet cubicle with the rest of them, to avoid the conductor. Lucille bites her lips to keep from laughing and I feel like a kid at school playing sardines, trying not to breathe in the smell.
The train rattles out of a place called Nevers and we fall out of the toilet again, laughing as Matthieu mock-vomits out of the window. I realize with surprise that I haven’t thought about Emeline, or my ill-advised quest, for hours. Part of me itches to get to Nîmes, to start searching, but another part wishes I could forget all about it, tag along with Luci and Matti and Javi – as they insist I call them – all the way to Spain.
Outside, the land starts to change; clusters of old stone buildings poking up between stands of trees, the ground surging into small hills, like rumpled blankets on a bed. I play about twenty games of ‘snap’ with Javi, while Luci and Matthieu start a heated debate in French. Whatever it’s about, it’s resolved when Luci laughs and kisses Matti’s cheek. He grins and starts to roll a cigarette, which I suspect doesn’t only contain tobacco.
When it comes my way, I hesitate, but only for a second. William Perch, Solicitor, would’ve refused, but I left William Perch, Solicitor, back in London. Bill Perch can do what he likes. The pungent fumes soon fill the end of the carriage. The movement of the train is soothing. We sit, cushioned by our bags, and the afternoon slides by like honey.
I must doze for a while because when I wake it’s to the sound of jingling coins. Javi is holding a handful of change, Luci is digging through her bag.
‘Hey, man,’ says Matthieu, looking a bit bleary. ‘We’re going to the buffet car. You want anything?’
Luci drops another small bronze coin into Javi’s hand. He pokes through the pile, a little despondently. Feeling the wad of French banknotes in my pocket, my cheeks start to burn. I’ve no idea how much is there but I assume it’s quite a lot; when I changed the money Mr Vane gave me at the currency booth, the lady was surprisingly nice and called me ‘sir’.
‘I’ll go,’ I tell them, standing before they can protest. ‘I need a walk anyway.’
It’s late afternoon now, a cool breeze rattling down the train corridor, blowing the hair back from my forehead.
‘Bonjour,’ I say to the bored-looking man behind the buffet bar, and point to what I want, holding up a variety of fingers. When I’m done, there’s a bizarre assortment of biscuits, crackers, bottles of lemonade and nuts on the surface. The man rolls his eyes when I pay with a note but I don’t care. I scoop up the armful of bounty and stagger happily back down the train.
We’ve come to a stop at another station. The others will be in the toilet. But when I make it to the very end, there’s no sign of them. The toilet door stands ajar, the cubicle noxious, but empty.
My briefcase. All of my mother’s warnings about hippies and vagrants surge back with force. But there it is, in the corner, exactly where I left it. Where the hell are they? Someone blows a whistle; compartment doors are being slammed, the train is about to leave. Would they really have just gone without a word?
Why would they bother to stay? William Perch, Solicitor, hisses from the back of my mind. You’re not like them. They wouldn’t want to be friends with you.
Miserably, I shove the snacks into my bag. The brakes release, and as the train pulls away, I peer out of the window one last time. A bare, concrete platform, a dilapidated station building and a single sign that tells me this middle-of-nowhere station is Coteau-Sainte-Thérèse.
I watch it go, am about to turn away, when I hear shouting, a familiar voice protesting loudly. Through the door of the station I catch a glimpse of Luci, struggling in the grip of a uniformed official, Matti and Javi fighting to keep hold of their bags, as a second man tries to drag them away.
Then the scene is gone, snatched away from view as the train picks up speed. The very end of the platform is approaching. In another few seconds, it will be too late. The evening light flashes upon the window of the station like a beacon. Stay or go? it asks. Stay or go?
Without another thought, I shove open the door, clutch my briefcase to me and take a leap from the moving train.
May 1919
From that
day, we were inseparable, though we could not be seen as such. We nodded and smiled amiably to each other in front of Clémence, then he would go to his work and I to mine. But the afternoons, the quiet time after lunch and before the preparations for dinner began, when the whole town rested in the ever-growing heat, those were our own.
We would meet at the edge of the maquis, he with his bicycle, me with an empty basket, and we would flee from prying eyes, into the wild borderland where the only sounds were the droning of insects, the far-off jingling of goat bells and the hiss of dry plants, baked to husks by the fierce sun.
He took me to secret places, like his cliff overlooking the sea, where I picked crest marine from the rocks. Or we ventured far into the dense scrubland, seeking out wild sage and rosemary. I always tried to collect enough to explain my absence, but it was never long before we sank down together beneath the shade of the twisted juniper trees.
I learned to let go of speech. Instead, he taught me his language, fluttering his hands over my unclothed body, making me repeat signs and gestures, taunting and teasing until I got them right, until I thought I would go mad with waiting and wanting.
In that no man’s land between countries, we crossed every border. I didn’t care; all I knew was recklessness and joy. Even the sunburn across my cheeks, the scratches on my legs from the gorse, were testimony, were treasured reminders of what it felt like to live.
As the weeks wore on, I grew stronger. My skin turned brown, the sun lightened my hair to gold and when la Tramontana tugged it from its pins and sent it flying, I let it.
Every night people came by the café, to drink, to talk, but invariably to eat. The meals Clémence and I produced were becoming more elaborate, with no need to rely on the pantry; summer was coming to Cerbère, bringing with it a rush of produce. Tomatoes ripened by the bucket-load, and as Clémence predicted, someone from the town nearly always left a basket of them, freshly picked, on the back step of the café. The deep, red fruits found their way into every dish, roasted or diced or cooked down with garlic and oil into sauces that stained mouths and fingers orange. For breakfast we even ate them squeezed over bread, slathered in olive oil and sprinkled with salt.
Where the Wild Cherries Grow Page 18