I went out to the vegetable garden every day now, to help with watering, and to gather what was ready to eat. We picked colourful peppers, beans and courgettes, careful to save their crinkled orange flowers. I couldn’t believe my eyes when Clémence showed me how to fill them with soft goat’s cheese and herbs and pine nuts and fry them until their petals were crisp as autumn leaves.
But I still had a lot to learn. Every time Aaró brought home his catch, he would spend a few minutes, showing them to me. I learned about all manner of fish and crustaceans that way, how they lived and what they ate. Sometimes, his hands would pause in their speech to touch mine, dripping with seawater.
I did not know how much Clémence knew about us. She had made it clear on several occasions that she considered Mariona and Aaró to be a good pairing. Sometimes, she arranged things so that the two of them sat together at dinner. Mariona knew a lot of Aaró’s language, I saw, trying to push down a squall of jealousy.
They had known each other since childhood, my friend Agathe told me, though in the last year Mariona had begun to suggest they should be more than friends. I answered as casually as I could, and kept my face lowered so that no one would see the burning in my cheeks. I knew I should try to ask Aaró about Mariona, whether there was anything between them, and dozens of times I almost did. But at the last minute I always stilled my hands, and said nothing. In truth, I was afraid of the answer. Instead, I ate and worked, and willed away the hours until he and I could be alone together.
One morning, he came into the kitchen with a crate of the strangest creatures I had ever seen, mottled and striped with huge eyes. He grinned and waved one at me from the bucket, flapping its tentacles in my face. I laughed and was only just able to stop myself from pushing at him affectionately, from leaning in to kiss his cheek.
‘What is it?’ I asked, as Aaró sorted through the creatures in the bucket and held up eight fingers.
‘Cuttlefish,’ Clémence groaned. ‘They are good but they make such a mess. We shall have to prepare them outside.’
I went to fetch a knife, but Clémence called me back.
‘Leave that,’ she said, ‘just bring a bowl, and a cloth.’
On the beach, I followed suit as Clémence took off her shoes, rolled up her skirt until it was over her shins and stepped into the surf. The water was balmy in the shallows and I wiggled my toes, enjoying the feel of it. The old fishermen started catcalling, but Clémence yelled what sounded like a few choice insults in Catalan and they soon fell quiet.
‘Do as I do.’ She slapped a cuttlefish into my hands. It was slimy and chill from the sea. I watched as she pushed an oval-shaped bone out of its skin as easily as shelling a nut. Her fingers dug into the soft flesh beneath and twisted, pulling the head and guts free in one movement. They were dripping with black liquid, but she didn’t waste a drop, just threw the inky mess into a bowl on the shore, the now flat cuttlefish into the bucket.
‘It should not take you long to do the rest,’ she told me with a wicked smile, rinsing her hands in the sea.
Tentatively, I stuck my thumbs into the creature’s back. The bone came free, but a jet of black ink spurted up and into my face, leaving me gasping and swearing and covered with briny liquid.
Clémence laughed until her eyes ran.
‘Mon Dieu,’ she gasped, handing me a cloth, ‘I remember the first time that happened to me.’ A few passers-by had stopped to watch the spectacle and add their laughter. Agathe was there. I waved at her, and only succeeded in splattering myself further.
‘What’s for dinner?’ she called down to us.
‘Arròs negre,’ Clémence called back, ‘if Mam’selle Fischer can spare me any ink!’
That set them off laughing again. I smiled sheepishly, only to see Mariona in the crowd, looking satisfied at my clumsiness. I struggled to do as Clémence had done and pull the creature’s guts free but the black stuff oozed through my fingers, making a terrible mess.
‘Mariona,’ Clémence called, ‘are you busy?’
I froze, even as her feet came crunching down the beach towards us.
‘No, Maman,’ came her answer, emphasizing the second word. I dug my fingers into the squid a little harder.
‘Would you mind showing Mam’selle Fischer what to do? I have chores in the kitchen and I fear she will be here all day, otherwise.’
‘Bien sûr.’ The girl smiled, and began to unlace her own boots.
‘You take the bone like this,’ she told me politely in her accented French, as Clémence disappeared towards the café.
Though not as deft as Clémence, Mariona made quick work of the fish. Her black hair was piled up on her head. In a white blouse and blue skirt she looked pretty and neat. I thought about the smirks she had thrown my way the night before, as she sat beside Aaró.
‘You do not need to pretend for my sake,’ I told her sharply, ‘she is gone.’
Mariona glanced up at me through her dark lashes.
‘I know what you are doing,’ she said. ‘You think you are so secret, with your baskets from the maquis, but I know.’
My fingers slipped, sending the cuttlefish splashing into the shallow water at my feet. I retrieved it, shaken.
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
She shrugged, throwing a handful of innards into the bowl.
‘I am not worried. Sometimes, you find a new taste. And you like it, because it is different. But soon, new becomes old, especially when there is no place for it. You will leave and he will forget, return to what he knows is right for him. Right for the town.’
I watched the ink drip from the creature’s body into the gently frothing surf.
‘He will make a good husband,’ she said decisively, seizing up another cuttlefish, pushing out its bone with a wet snap. ‘There aren’t many left here like him. He could not go away to fight, so he is strong. Not like the others who came back. I do not want to be a nurse to a broken man.’
I stepped towards her in the sea, until she was forced to look up, to meet my gaze.
‘You don’t understand at all,’ I said, trembling with emotion. ‘You don’t understand how he feels, what it is like for him to be the one who survived …’ I couldn’t find the words, could only stare down into her wide, dark eyes.
‘What does a wife need to understand about her husband beyond what their bodies can tell them?’ she asked innocently.
I told Clémence that the cuttlefish had made me sick. I shoved the bucket and bowl on to the table and fled for the stairs, ignoring her questions. In the cracked mirror she’d given me for my room, I saw my face, smeared with dark ink. I went to the washbowl, scrubbed at the skin until it was red and stinging, and all the while Mariona’s words echoed through my head.
You will leave and he will forget.
She was wrong, I told myself feverishly. I could make a home here in Cerbère. But beneath that, stronger than a rip tide, was the fear that she spoke the truth. I was a stranger. What was more, I had lied about who I was and what I had left behind me. How could I stay here, marry Aaró and raise children, when I could not even tell him my real name? It seemed impossible.
And what if you slip? a voice from the darkest part of my mind whispered. What if you lose yourself again and everything that happened at Hallerton happens here? You think he wants a madwoman for his wife?
I lay on the bed and dragged the sheet over my head. I did not move when Clémence called me for lunch, did not move when I heard church bells toll the hour, when the heat of the afternoon grew strong and sweat prickled my forehead. I knew Aaró would be waiting, alone with his bicycle, but I only stared, dry-eyed, at the cotton threads, willing myself to make a choice.
Finally, it grew cooler and the scent of onions frying rose from downstairs. I knew a summons when I smelled it. Clémence was kind to me that evening. Perhaps she thought she had gone too far, leaving me alone with Mariona. Perhaps she thought she had finally succeeded in warning me away from A
aró. For all I knew at that moment, she had.
We made arròs negre, a rice dish cooked with cuttlefish. It was pungent with lemon and herbs, briny and glossy from the ink, but I couldn’t pay proper attention. When we brought it out, I could feel Aaró watching me. Dinner was lively as always, the café’s doors open to catch the cool breeze off the sea. I felt questions in his gaze, concern, but I couldn’t look at him. Finally, I took my unfinished plate and slipped away, mumbling to Agathe that I was not well.
Heart-sick, I sat in the darkness on the back step, and gave my food to Aaró’s cats. I listened to the sounds filtering through from the café, laughter and conversations with fifty years of history behind them.
I should have turned away when I heard that familiar tread come around the corner, but a treacherous part of me refused to move. Aaró stopped when he saw me. His face was tight with hurt.
He tapped his head rapidly, let his hand drop.
Why?
I looked at the ground, but he stepped forward, repeated it.
I talked, I told him after a while, cycling my hands before my mouth, me and … I didn’t know how to say her name, I realized. In the end, I tapped at my finger where a wedding ring would be, and pointed back towards the café.
I saw his expression change, and knew that he understood.
You and her, I gestured, are right. Me … I waved my hands, trying to indicate the whole town and shook my head hopelessly. Not for the first time I wished I still had my old diary, so I could write down everything I was thinking and give it to him to read. It was easier to be honest on paper. But he couldn’t read; people learned by sounding, Clémence had explained, and he had never known sound, so had never known written words.
His hand touched my chin, raised it gently until I was looking into his eyes. They were bright as he brushed a finger across my lips.
Enough.
His muscles were taut beneath his shirt; they bunched and stretched as we rode away from the town, away from the café. Balanced precariously on the back of the bicycle, I felt the heat of him as he pedalled faster and faster. He swerved and I laughed wildly, gripping him tight. We were in the olive grove, ghost-grey trunks flashing past. Above us were stars, a whole sky thick with them.
I threw my head back, the night air streaming through my hair like ribbons, whisking away the day’s sadness and confusion, and I hoped that we would never stop. But stop we did. The dust clung to the sweat of our bodies as we lay amongst the early fallen fruit, their oils locked tight like a merchant’s precious cargo.
In the darkness beneath the trees he took my hand, placed it over his heart. The beat rose and fell against my fingers, and those three words, the most important ones a person can say, Aaró told me without a sound.
June 1969
Through a window of the station building I see Luci, Javi and Matti all standing like prisoners at a dock. A railway official – who doesn’t look any older than me – stands nervously to one side. In front of them a second man, evidently more senior, sits at a desk sorting through some papers. Javi is nursing a swollen lip; Matthieu and Luci are both glaring with a mixture of fury and contempt.
I take a deep breath, trying to summon my Harry Palmer confidence. It was easier when I didn’t look such a mess. I straighten my jacket and grip the briefcase firmly in my sweaty palm. Now or never.
‘What is the meaning of this?’ I demand as I march into the office, trying my best to look both professional and annoyed. The railway men gape at me. They probably don’t speak English, I remember. Too late now. ‘I demand to know why you have detained these people.’
Matti, Luci and Javi are staring at me like I’ve sprouted tusks. I feel my terrible act start to waver.
‘Well?’ I say loudly, to compensate.
The railway official behind the desk has started to recover. His eyes take in my mismatched shirt and sorry-looking suit more thoroughly than I’d like. A sneer crawls up his face.
‘What you want?’ he says.
‘I asked why you are holding these people, who are accompanying me on an important business matter. And I won’t repeat it again.’
‘Hey, Bill—’ Matthieu starts, but I shake my head at him.
‘No ticket,’ the official tells me, leaning back in his chair. ‘They pay fine.’ The three of them burst into outraged French. ‘They cannot pay fine,’ the official shrugs over their protests, ‘so, I call police.’ He picks up the telephone receiver.
Deliberately, I take the wad of banknotes from my jacket pocket.
‘I’ll pay for their tickets. And, er, a bit extra, for taking up your time,’ I say meaningfully, hoping I’m doing it right. I’ve never tried to bribe anyone before.
The receiver hangs forgotten in the railway official’s hand. His colleague’s eyes look ready to fall out.
‘So how much will it be, then?’ I ask briskly, separating out a note or two.
The man’s double chin stretches into a smile.
‘Bastards, bastards,’ Luci is spitting, before we’re even out of earshot. Javi is cursing gently in Spanish and Matthieu is silent, his face like thunder. I trail behind them, shell-shocked.
Behind us, jubilant laughter echoes around the deserted country station, as the officials celebrate their unexpected bonus. What the hell is wrong with me? Why did I take all the money out at once? I should’ve guessed the greedy bugger would try it on, but threatening to report me to the police for ‘bribing an official’ unless I gave him the whole lot as a bribe just didn’t cross my mind.
‘Shit.’ I kick at a stone and sink to the kerb. Half an hour ago I had a wallet full of money and a vague, but hopeful, plan. Now I’m stranded in the middle of bloody nowhere with nothing. ‘Shit.’
‘Hey.’ There’s a touch on my back and Javi sits down beside me, looking a little haggard. ‘Thank you, Bill, you saved our ham.’
‘Bacon,’ Matthieu corrects, kneeling down as well. ‘You did. Thanks.’
Luci squeezes down on the other side of me, and cuts off her swearing to kiss my cheek.
‘It was nothing.’ I can’t help smiling, just a bit.
‘Those francs were not nothing,’ Luci says. ‘Where did you get that money?’
‘It wasn’t mine, exactly …’
As we walk towards what is hopefully a nearby town, I tell them the truth about why I’m in France. They ask questions about Emeline and Hallerton, they laugh when I describe how I found the old union railwaymen in the bar, and then Puce, in his grand Belleville house.
‘That’s why I was going to Nîmes. It’s the last place anyone saw her. I was going to use the money to try to find out something, anything, about where she might have gone next.’
I lapse into silence. Tall trees line the road, their dusty green canopies shielding us from the heat. Early-evening birdsong echoes strangely. It reminds me of Hallerton, a thousand miles away. Matthieu stops and puts a hand on my shoulder.
‘No “was”. We owe you, man. We’ll get you there, and we’ll see if we can’t put a bit of money in your pocket at the same time.’
Even if I get to Nîmes, I want to tell him, I don’t know what will happen. I might end up penniless on the streets. I might have to turn myself in to the British Embassy and be sent home in disgrace, empty-handed.
‘Thanks,’ I say instead. ‘Do you even know where we are?’
‘Probably only a few hours away.’ He shrugs. ‘Shouldn’t be too hard to hitch, even from a place like this.’
Hitchhiking with hippies. Steph would be horrified. Mum would give me up for dead. I still feel guilty, thinking about them, but not for long. They would tell me that I’ve been an idiot, that all of this trouble has been for nothing.
And they’d be wrong, I think, as the evening sun flashes through the leaves and Javi does a silly walk to make us laugh. This isn’t nothing.
June 1919
In Cerbère, the seasons did not creep. Instead, midsummer burst upon us like a drunk at a party: col
ourful, vibrant, teetering between magnificent and unbearable. The weather was hotter than anything I had ever experienced. More than once I found myself gasping in the shade, my head spinning. Of course, the townspeople were accustomed to it. They adjusted their days to start earlier, resting from noon until the fierce sun began to slip behind the hills. No one ventured outside during this time, except for Aaró and me.
We ruled the countryside. When the trains fell silent on the tracks above the town, and everyone else lay calm behind closed shutters, we ran wild. Those afternoons were like another world, one where there was no need for restraint, for self-consciousness or artifice. Our blood boiled and we were bold. We knew each other’s bodies like our own, every blemish and scar.
We lay naked in the deepest part of the rapidly drying streams; we picked cherries and stained our lips red with their juices. We claimed the land, and the fruit and herbs we collected in our uncaring sin were the same ones the townspeople ate, night after night with relish.
The sun began to set later. Often, the sky was still light, people still laughing and singing outside the Café Fi del Món, when in winter they would long be abed. At this time of year, in Saltedge, the people of the village had held midsummer celebrations. Durrant’s wife, Annie, had once laughed and told me that it was mostly an excuse for the young people to sneak away together. Perhaps that was on my mind when I asked Clémence whether they observed any such customs in Cerbère.
‘The Feast of Sant Joan,’ she told me as we sat on the back step, sorting through a sack of onions. ‘Midsummer’s Day, the most distant day from the birth of Our Lord.’ She crossed herself with mock piety and I saw where Aaró got some of his mischief.
‘What happens?’
‘We used to have a correfoc,’ her eyes brightened, ‘a night of fire. We would make coques, and drink cremat, and build a great bonfire on the beach. And everyone would drink too much and forget to be good Christians, for one night at least.’
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