“Maman,” said Laurent.
Mme de Fayols leaned on her cane. Her eyes were hollows in the candlelight. Laurent leapt over in time to steady the sway and led her tenderly to her high-backed armchair.
“You look frightened of me, Miss Brooke,” she said, staring at Ellie. Her head was skull-like.
“No, not at all. I’m tired, that’s all.”
Tired of your games, she wanted to convey.
“I tried to tell you, didn’t I?”
Ellie forced herself to stand still, though her legs trembled with the urge to run. She looked to Laurent. “I really can’t stay. I just—want to collect my phone. Please.”
But he was in no hurry to indulge her ahead of his mother. She asked for her drink, and he poured a tiny flute of purple liqueur.
“We were like animals hunting at night,” said Madame, still addressing Ellie. “It was all instinct. My instincts have always been acute.”
Ellie stood uneasily rooted to the spot, wondering where she had heard a similar phrase recently. She glanced at Laurent, but he was oblivious.
“We had to spot minute differences,” his mother went on. “A glimpse, a flicker, a peep, did not carry the same weight as an observation or a stare or even a gaze. We were all deciphering symbols . . . these traps. But we all see in different ways.
“If you saw someone arrested, you had to pretend not to know them, to have no connection. It was life or death. We were silent and helpless in the countryside, where all the winds have names but none of us could whisper ours. Our names were not our own. Our lives were not our own. Can you understand that?”
Ellie shook her head. She had no idea what the woman was talking about.
“Secrecy was everything. It informed the shame of defeat and underpinned our fears for the future. I am old enough now to be cynical, but even then I knew that we all see things in different ways, even when we are on the same side.”
A clock ticked loudly, though Ellie could not see one in the room.
“You concern me, Miss Brooke. You don’t seem to want to know about this, and you need to know it.”
Ellie sighed, looking impatiently to Laurent for help. But he was flipping through one of his books in the same way he had when he was searching for a particular image to show her, fired by another of his big ideas, no doubt. If she wanted her phone, she would have to interrupt.
“I’m sorry to have to—”
“He was a traitor, and she helped him. I hate them both for what they did. It stays with you and poisons what comes after.”
The reedy invective broke with such aggression that at last Laurent seemed concerned. He came over and put his hand on her thin arm. “Have you taken your pills, Maman?”
“The treacherous Xavier, who left me to fend for myself and betrayed so many others. He threw us to the dogs!” Mme de Fayols spat on the floor.
“Maman—”
As Laurent addressed his mother, Ellie saw the boy he must once have been, the enthusiasms, the eagerness to please, the incomprehension, and, ultimately, the ineffectiveness.
Jeanne came in with a tray. Had she been listening outside, judging when to intervene? Was this the subject that marked the tipping into a barely-contained madness and the trigger for intervention?
Mme de Fayols waved the housekeeper away imperiously. Her voice was becoming a snarl, shocking from so tiny a person. “War is brutal, Miss Brooke. It unleashes man’s inhumanity, shows a man’s true character. And that’s why any connection to Xavier had to be treated as suspicious.”
“Madame, tenez!” Jeanne held out a glass of water and a small porcelain bowl in which a selection of pills had been arranged.
The handle of the cane cracked down. Glass shattered on the stone floor, accompanied by a howl of fury from the old lady. The housekeeper took a deep breath but said nothing. She turned to go out of the room, presumably to fetch a dustpan and brush.
Laurent bent over his mother, his back blocking her from sight.
“Go. Go as soon as you can,” Jeanne whispered to Ellie as she passed.
“Where’s my phone?”
“In the kitchen.”
“Did you take it?” asked Ellie incredulously.
“No! Why would I do that? Madame said she found it in the library.”
“What?” This was beyond exasperating.
“I will bring it now.”
In the flash of light that followed—was the storm finally breaking?—Laurent looked frail as he tried to calm his mother. For the first time, Ellie wondered whether he was more worried than he had seemed. His face, when he looked up, was drained of its colour.
“He’s here!” cried Madame.
“Who is, Maman?”
“You brought him,” she said, pointing to Ellie.
“I came on my own. To collect my mobile.”
Madame looked past her, out at the terrace.
A slight movement beyond the doors could have been rain, or leaves or distant lightning.
“The priest came today,” she went on. “He performed an exorcism. He said there would be no more trouble.”
The tang of incense in the hall. Ellie looked around, half expecting to see some ghostly figure. At last Laurent met her eye. He shook his head. More flashes of light—surely this was lightning—reflected on the polished surface of the table. Through the glass doors the night sky slipped past, riding the wind.
Mme de Fayols rambled incoherently, then screamed. Laurent tried and failed to calm her. Then the cries thinned. She dipped her head. Her bony fingers plucked at the folds of her skirt. In an instant Ellie felt nothing but sadness for her. Then—
“Oh please, no . . .”
Mme de Fayols was hardly strong enough to keep the gun level. It shook in her frail grip. Was it the same gun that had been in the drawer upstairs? As if that mattered. She would drop it at any moment. Laurent was quietly making his way behind her chair. A few more seconds, and he would take it from her.
“I’m so sorry,” said Ellie with parched throat. The weapon was no doubt all for show, but she had no intention of taking any risk. “You’re right. I shouldn’t have come here. I’ve obviously upset you, and I didn’t mean to. I’m sorry.” The words came out as a kind of sob that did not sound like her.
No response.
Ellie watched her. The rushing in her ears came again. Her muscles were flexed to run, but she was pinned to the ground as if in a bad dream. All I wanted was my bloody phone, she thought.
An explosion of thunder overhead seemed to crack the house open. A second later the room fizzed with an eerie brightness, and the gun fired. Her reaction was pure instinct. In the jolt of light and noise, Ellie ran. At last she was moving, throwing herself forward as fast as she could, out onto the terrace and down the stone stairway.
The garden was black. There was barely any light from the sky—no stars, no moon. The storm clouds were thickly banked. But the day’s heat lay heavy on the ground, hotter now than it had been when she arrived, like the updraft of a forest fire. Another bolt of lightning plunged a shaft down into the tree line.
She veered round, trying to keep to the path. It was hard to decide what to do—was it crazy to ride a bicycle in an electric storm? Should she just keep running, or find somewhere to hide until the worst was over? More thunder rumbled overhead.
Her feet were no longer crunching on gravel but springing off grass or soft earth. Somehow she had lost the path. How could she have missed it? She stopped. Her vision was blurred.
She put her hands out. She touched foliage, a dense wall of hedge. She could smell the opulent death scent of the datura. She ran along the length of the dark wall, as if feeling for an answer. Her head felt tight. If she could reorient herself, she could find the long way round the house. Perhaps that would be safer anyway.
A rustle of movement ahead. She froze. When she moved, she sensed other movements. She was not alone. It was as though she were being tracked.
“Ellie! Stop
—come back!” It sounded like Laurent.
She fled, running faster than she had ever run. Lightning cracked—or were those more shots? She ran until her lungs were bursting. The ground was sloping downhill. Her muscles felt so weak she stumbled, but kept going. Ever steeper, the path plunged downward. If she stopped, she would fall. But she knew now where she was.
The sea was ahead, the choppy blackness of the Calanque.
The lighthouse. Was that a beam of light?
She was jerked backwards. She had been caught. Hands out to push her invisible assailant away, she touched prickly branches. Her shirt had snagged on some small tree or shrub. She pulled away, tearing the fabric. Gasping for breath, she doubled over.
When she came up, she turned slowly, hardly daring to look behind. As far as she could make out, she was alone.
But then the clouds shifted, releasing enough opaque brightness to show dark shapes gaining on her. This time, she would not go back. On and on she scrambled. She was soaked through. When he caught her, his hands were slippery on her arms.
It was Gabriel.
He pulled her close with infinite tenderness. “It’s over now,” he said.
“Mme de Fayols—she tried to kill me!”
“It’s all right, it’s all right . . . I’ve got you. I’m here now.”
“You came to find me? How did you—”
He stroked her hair with a warm hand, easing away the fear. “Shh . . . you don’t have to worry about anything. I’m here. Whatever needs to be done, I can help you. You’re safe now.”
She let herself fall against him.
They walked away from the garden by the sea. The storm had ceased. The clouds were lifting to reveal a flame-red sky; he held her by the hand. They were bathed in the sunset. A plane soared overhead, and she seemed to be taking flight herself.
“No rush now,” he said. “We have all the time in the world.”
He was right. That was the moment she felt the past slip away, the longing for a man who was gone, along with the grief that had locked the door to her future. She could still feel the sadness, but it no longer held her down.
In this present hour, there was time for anything to happen, endless time.
So she continued slowly, with Gabriel, the man who understood the power of the past, towards the most westerly point of the island. Dark rocks stood waiting to be sculpted by the wind. Tiny seeds rode the air, waiting to fall and take root. Under the sea, corals formed and pearls hardened. Sap rose and juices fed along the vines. White trumpets flowered, and mandarins and lemons shone like drops of gold in fragrant groves.
Book II
The Lavender Field
1
Provence
April 1944
Not a word should be spoken. The scent was the word.
Each week it was the same routine: the girl caught the bus coming down from Digne, no different from any other nineteen-year-old with a job to do. The bus pulled in under the plane trees in the village of Céreste, and she alighted. By a bench where she placed her baskets for a moment, she reached into her shoulder bag for the perfume bottle and carefully dabbed her wrists, applying enough fragrance for it to be unambiguous. Nothing suspicious about this, simply attention to detail; a charming advertisement for the Distillerie Musset, makers of soap and scent. A blue scarf secured her hair; tied around her waist, the lavender-print apron she wore to serve in the shop. Then she picked up her two heavy baskets and made her deliveries: one to the hotel, one to the doctor’s surgery, and one to the general store. She walked purposefully but would stop for a few minutes to pass the time of day with occasional customers. Then, when her load was lighter, she went on to various houses around and beyond the village and finally arrived at the café.
She would order a small glass of weak wine, and greet the regulars. It was important to acknowledge the Gestapo officers or the Milice at the best tables. She would drink the wine, turn to leave, and then hesitate by the man reading the paper. Sometimes she went over to the Germans to ask if they had any special requests, a present for a girl perhaps. She always gave them a heart-lifting smile, just the right balance of sunny nature and shy innocence, then took a few paces back to the table where the man sat with his newspaper. He was always there, a little unkempt, smudging his glass with dirty hands. Sometimes he read, sometimes he stared into space. They all knew that his spirit had gone. He drank too much. She ignored him, let the scent pass the message. It had warmed now on her skin thanks to all the walking; her quickened pulse pumped sweet fragrances into the air between them. Lavender: Come to the farm. Rose: We have more men to move. Thyme: Supplies needed urgently.
She stood at the table, halfway between the counter and the door, making a note of any orders from the men who enjoyed their new powers so much. Smiling pleasantly, though all her instincts told her to spit in their faces.
She glanced up at the clock on the front of the Mairie to check that her watch was correct. Unwise to hang around too long at the roadside bus stop, with the eyes of the men in the café lingering on her. She thanked the café owner, then walked across the road to catch the return bus as the clock hand moved down to show half past three. A nice normal pace, all the way.
2
Wild Violet
1943
When the war lowered the whole of France into blackness, everyone spoke of shadows falling, the dulling of the sun. It seemed to Marthe that she was one of the few who already had the knowledge necessary to survive. She had never seen the occupation of France, but she felt its force pressing down like a meaty pair of hands around the throat; it weakened the breath and weighted the body. On Nazi flags dripping from official buildings a sinister half-spider sat on a full moon against a background of blood, a sight surely no more peculiar to see than to imagine. Polished black boots rang on cobblestones, stamping authority to the streets, and harsh voices shouted in a language no one understood. The more Marthe heard, the braver it made her: she was no worse off than anyone else as the Germans and the despised Vichy regime tightened their hold on the south.
“Filthy collaborators!”
The insult flew at them like a hissing insect. Mme Musset and Marthe, walking arm-in-arm down the boulevard des Tilleuls in Manosque, said nothing in response. Marthe felt Madame’s grip dig deep into her arm. Their pace picked up, but the older woman made no attempt to refute the accusation.
Marthe allowed herself to be steered along the street to the shop with its own small perfume distillery and soap factory at the rear. There they stopped abruptly. The morning jangle of keys preceded their entry into a calming billow of lavender. Madame opened up the shop, then oversaw Marthe’s tasks for the day, providing two young girls to help her. They set to work in the shed at the back, making a fresh batch of rosemary soap.
“Is it true what they say, that we are collaborators?” Marthe finally asked Madame as they stood side by side in the shop putting together an order of eau de lavande. It was shaming to admit, even if only to herself, that she had never considered that they might be.
“We are doing the best we can for ourselves.”
“But when people say—”
“It’s best to forget whatever you happen to hear.”
“So—”
“We all have to bend with the wind.”
“But—”
“No more questions, my petal.”
“ ‘Nothing is to be feared, it is only to be understood.’ Do you know who said that?” persisted Marthe. “Marie Curie, the great scientist—the great woman scientist. They told us that, more than once, at school, and I have always believed it.”
“And I cannot disagree. Now, make sure these stoppers are pushed in as tight as can be. I’ll not send out leaking bottles.”
Marthe pressed her thumbs harder into the cork until it stuck fast in the glass neck. In the end, she rationalized, bravery came down to faith: faith in the Mussets’ kindness and calm authority; faith in the knowledge that waves still broke on
the southern shores, that spring buds would unfurl into flower and fruit would ripen.
Throughout the war the Distillerie Musset had continued to manufacture and distribute basic lines of soap and antiseptic cleaning fluids, and small amounts of scent. In most parts of France, a soap made of wood ash and clay was a luxury permitted only to those who had the dirtiest employments. In Provence, where olives still produced oil, and soap could be made from the most basic of local plants, the wartime mix was easily improved; the authorities demanded they continue, allowing Victor Musset to negotiate favourable terms for the supply of any excess.
“What’s the alternative?” M. Musset always said. “Without work, we will all starve. With produce, we can at least barter. And if we do not work, what are we? We are dead trees, or fruit that falls unripened. If we have no respect for the land and the crops, respect for the olives and almonds and vines, then we have no respect for ourselves.”
Following their lead in this as in everything, Marthe allowed herself to embrace this comfortingly simple philosophy of life in the foothills close to the great lavender fields on the Valensole plateau. She had already left one home and found another, faced both her fears and then the terrible reality that they were not unfounded. This was the place where, against the odds, the loss of her sight had opened up a world she might never have known without her blindness.
The Mussets were clearly fond of Marthe, and she was so grateful to them for her apprenticeship at the Distillerie Musset that she never thought to question what they told her. They were a second family, and with that came absolute trust and acceptance.
The war had not yet begun when Marthe Lincel went to the perfume factory for the first time. It was a visit organised by the school for the blind in Manosque. If anyone were ever to ask her, she would tell him without hesitation that it was the day that changed her life.
She was eighteen years old, almost ready to leave the school, when she took her first careful steps towards the long table in the blending room at the Distillerie Musset, her hands in the hands of other girls, one in front and one behind. The girls walked in concert down from the school, through gusts of dung from the stables, past the ramparts of the ancient teardrop-shaped town, on past incense from the church and into the tree-lined boulevard des Tilleuls. At the door to the shop, a bell tinkled, and moments later they seemed to enter the very flowering of lavender.
The Sea Garden Page 9