‘Tomorrow, Madalena, we will talk to the world, but right now we will eat, and you will eat and feel better, and we will drink more wine, and celebrate being here, alive. Look, the moon is already out over there, across the bay! Drink Madalena, and love life, just like your father did.’
He ordered a plate of anchovies, and a little dish of tiny fried fish, and Madeleine did as she was told, and drank wine and ate, and deliberately dulled her mind, and didn’t speak, and watched the lights of Collioure brighten as the dark descended over the bay and shrouded the castle in a strange kind of intimate mystery. It wasn’t a remote castle, but a part of the town, a mass of golden stone which matched the stone of the church, the bell tower, the harbour walls. They connected, embraced, and encircled the safe harbour they had been built to protect.
The castle had been the German headquarters during the war, and countless prisoners had been kept there. She’d heard that as the occupation ended and the Germans prepared to flee, they considered torching the castle and killing all the prisoners from pure vengefulness.
It was also where the French authorities had kept the fleeing Spanish militia at the end of the Civil War – all the men who were considered the most dangerous. And from here they had released a troop for a day to act as guard of honour for Machado’s funeral.
Later, as they returned to the car, she found her voice, and asked Philippe where the cemetery was.
‘Just up the road,’ he answered, ‘But it will be closed now for the night. Why?’
‘I met a young couple working on Antonio Machado’s new grave there,’ she explained. ‘And they gave me some of his poetry to read. He seemed to write about everything that we’ve been talking about – war, and separation, and the sense of loss, and the struggle to make a life through it all.’
Philippe almost bounced in excitement, and stopped dead in the street, his huge, ungainly feet planted squarely in front of her and blocking her way forward.
‘Two quotations!’ he exclaimed. ‘I’ll give you two quotations, and then I’ll tell you a little story. Antonio Machado wrote, “My philosophy is fundamentally sad, but I myself am not a sad man.” He lived some hard defeats, but the quotation I love the best of his is this one. “Wanderer, your footsteps are the road, and nothing more; wanderer, there is no road, the road is made by walking. By walking one makes the road, and upon glancing behind one sees the path that never will be trod again.” It’s not a message of easy reassurance, but neither is it a message of despair. We create our future. It is not ordained. We have to keep on going, and look ahead, and know what is behind us but not try to go back there.
‘And my little story? Your father knew Machado. He’d met him in Paris, many years before. Machado was much older, but Luis admired him hugely, and loved his company. And when Machado arrived in Collioure, so sick, fleeing from Franco, Luis came to see him, and he brought Elise. He said he wanted her to feel him, to know the man and not just the words. They found him wasted, desperately ill and hardly speaking, but your mother came away saying he had a “being”, an essence and reality, and that this filled the room.
‘And that, Madeleine, is the essence of your mother and father’s relationship. Their reality exists beyond anything else that happened. And there we end all discussion for tonight. And tomorrow we talk to the world, and you talk to Robert, and we put one foot in front of the other and make a road.’
I don’t want to talk to the world, thought Madeleine. I only want to talk to Robert. Oh, how I want to talk to him. He seemed to think I was exaggerating the importance of what Jordi told me, but it’s worse, so much worse than even Jordi could have suspected. It was funny, really, that all her life Madeleine had thought of Robert as the little brother who needed to be protected, the boy young for his years who seemed so vulnerable, but since their mother’s death he had become her confederate, the cornerstone of her sense of family. She could see more clearly how well Robert had coped with their reality as a child. How he had kept his own inner self while making a compact with their grandfather, and won his support and affection without once becoming his puppet. Grandfather needed Robert more than Robert needed him, and she had no doubt that if Grandfather cut off funds for his studies Robert would calmly follow a different course and build a new future. He knew how to make the sun shine, she thought, as she never would.
Right now, here in this deceptively beautiful, serene corner of France, Madeleine felt terribly alone. Philippe, Colette, Daniel – they had their own tragedies, but what she had learnt today was hers alone to deal with. But if Robert was here then they would be two people together facing this new, desolate landscape. Would Robert know how to turn this situation in Vermeilla into something positive? There was a good chance, she thought, that he would know better than her.
The next morning found Madeleine back at the post office, sitting in the same little cubicle as the day before, but this time the voice at the other end told her to wait and disappeared for ages before returning to say that Mr Garriga was not in his room. The wave of disappointment which washed through Madeleine was almost more than she could bear. She fought back new tears, and left a message, which the voice, a porter she thought, assured her would be left in Robert’s pigeonhole. She thought hard about her message, but finished merely by asking him to call her at the Hotel Bon Repos. There was no point even beginning to explain what had happened, not in a scribbled message in a pigeonhole.
Leaving the post office she was at a loss what to do. She could see Philippe playing boules with a group of men in the square, their sleeves rolled up and their overall jackets laid on the bench behind them. He would be busy all morning, and in any case, they had agreed to meet during the afternoon to plan the ‘next move’, as Philippe insisted on calling it. Were they moving forward, or simply swimming to save themselves from sinking?
Philippe had finished off the Machado quotation last night as they drove home in the car. ‘Wanderer there is no road. Only wakes upon the sea.’ They’d been driving back along the coast road, and the moon was lighting up the water with such brilliance that it reflected onto the sands. Madeleine had responded by commenting how wonderful it would be right now to be in a boat running for the open sea, rather than trying to forge some kind of way ahead without any road. Papa, she thought, you have taken away my past, and I can’t see my way into the future. How could you, how could you?
Right now, standing lost outside the post office, with Robert a million miles away, Madeleine wanted to move, to walk, to empty her head and fill her lungs. She was tempted to walk along the coastal path towards Collioure, which she had heard was often a crumbled cliff path, but with magnificent views. But then on impulse she turned her steps up towards the vineyards, and climbed the hill with a ferocity which set her panting, finishing up by Daniel’s little field of vines, sitting quiet and deserted in the morning sun, as peaceful and timeless as they had been the previous Sunday, when the world still stood upright and dreams were still intact.
There was no wind today, just the slightest hint of breeze, and the sun was hot. What time of year, she wondered, had Luis and Colette begun their affair? In the cold of winter under blankets, or in the heat of the summer, naked to the world? She hoped he had waited until summer, and had at least missed them for a few months. She had an image of a younger Colette, with her grave good looks and without the deep, tired lines which underscored her eyes. Luis was in front of her, standing by the table, that same dining table, listening to her intently.
‘They’re bringing more troops in all the time now,’ Colette was telling him. ‘There’s hardly a house not requisitioned for something. You’ll never get to their headquarters, of course, in the castle in Collioure, but you could do worse than to target old Henri’s house. It’s the biggest in Vermeilla, and there must be ten men sleeping there, but the word is they use it as an office as well, and there are papers there.’
‘Are there any movements on the beach?’
‘Only the fishing. That
continues, of course, and they send a German soldier out with them night and day to watch what they’re up to. There’s a small German launch tied up on the quay but it doesn’t seem to move much. I heard there was some small ship anchored in the bay at Collioure last weekend, and of course they’re all over the harbour in Port Vendres.’
Luis nodded. ‘I’ll go along to Collioure tonight after dark,’ he said. A frown crossed his face. ‘What about you, are they leaving you alone?’
‘It depends what you mean. The bar is full of them, of course, especially in the evenings, and they can get a bit lewd. They don’t have much respect for French women, so I stay upstairs if I can when they start getting drunk. Luc runs the bar for me then, and tries to keep his ears open. During the day they’re no bother, except for always wanting foods we can’t get. They bring me stuff to cook for them – I’ve got a rabbit stew downstairs. You’ll have some, of course, and I’ll give you a whole rabbit to take back with you.’
‘Don’t, Colette! Don’t put yourself in danger.’
‘Oh, I’m not in any danger. Apart from my virtue, that is!’
‘And where is Jean-Pierre while this is going on?’
Colette frowned, and gave an instinctive look over her shoulder, although for once she knew he was not at home. ‘You know, Luis, Jean-Pierre is getting stranger and stranger. He hardly goes downstairs at all at the moment, and he mutters to himself. He’s scared, I think, and feels helpless. It’s so bad for Daniel to see him like this.’
Her face was full of pain and worry, and Luis reached out a hand and stroked her cheek. His voice was very soft as he answered her.
‘The sooner you get that boy away from here and back to school with other children the better. He could come with me tomorrow, even, and I’d take him to Philippe, if you’d let me.’
‘I know I should.’ Her voice quivered. ‘It’s just he’s all I’ve got.’
‘I know, Colette, I know.’ Luis kept his hand against her cheek.
‘It’s worse for you, Luis, up there alone, with all your family gone.’
Colette’s hand stole up to touch his. Their eyes held, and Colette gave a tiny gasp, her lips parting in surprise. Luis leant forward and kissed her.
‘Luis, we shouldn’t.’
‘I know.’ But he kissed her again. ‘Where’s Daniel?’
‘There was a truck going to Perpignan. Daniel went with his father to take him to the chiropodist. It’s the first time Jean-Pierre’s been outside the village for years, I think.’
‘Well he couldn’t have timed it better.’
Was that how it had happened, Madeleine wondered? A rare moment alone, an intimate look, and then the succumbing? She thought of the front guest bedroom in Colette’s apartment, and shook her head to try to banish the couple she saw there. Elise seemed so far away. All she could see was Colette, with Luis’s hands entwined in her hair. And Daniel on the other side of the door.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
She returned to the village in something of a daze, and realised she’d sat longer than she’d thought among the vines. Philippe and the boules team had finished their game, and gone home to eat, and Madeleine came awake and headed straight for the hotel, thinking Robert was maybe trying to get hold of her. But it wasn’t Robert who had been looking for her. Standing outside the Hotel Bon Repos, placidly smoking a small cigar and watching Vermeilla life making its way to lunch, was Bernard. He’d come, he told her, with his most charming smile, to see what she’d been doing to this harmless little place. Robert had sent him, of course, more worried than he liked to admit by their conversation yesterday. Call us, Bernard and Solange had said, and Robert had taken them at their word.
‘Have you been starting a new war, my dear?’ asked Bernard. And then, reading her tense face and bruised eyes, ‘Lunch first, and then you can tell me.’
He wasn’t Robert, not her Robert whom she wanted so badly, but Bernard was as rotund and reassuring as ever, and in his elegant presence the events of the last few days seemed somehow much less dramatic. Over a lunch on the quayside she told him her story as simply as she could, and watched as his eyes widened when she came to Luis’s affair.
‘Well,’ he said as she came to an end, ‘who could ever have believed that? Maybe Solange was right thinking you should never have come down here on your own. You’ve had a lot to contend with all alone here, haven’t you? And have you seen this new half-brother at all, since all these revelations?’
‘No. No, I haven’t seen him yet. I don’t want to see him! But I suppose I must some time. I don’t even know what Colette plans to tell him. He has been the only one here living completely carefree, not knowing anything. I need to see Daniel as well. He’s the one who worries me. He’s so good to everyone and too quiet, much too quiet, and I still can’t believe I actually accused him of betraying the camp.’
‘Should you really be worrying about all the others in this story, do you think? I’d rather have expected you to be more worried about yourself just now. I have to say, you’ve taken a very mature role, coping with all this on your own, and even on behalf of the rest of them.’
Madeleine gave a rather threadbare laugh. ‘Do you think so? If the truth be told I feel so knocked over I can’t think straight. And anyway, I haven’t been completely alone. I’ve had Philippe, and for him I think I qualify as family. Did I tell you, he still lives in the same apartment that Robert and I lived in as children here? Which reminds me! Oh, hell! I tried to call Robert this morning, but he wasn’t there, so I left a message for him to call the hotel. I was hoping he would call at lunchtime, but seeing you made me forget, and now I may have missed his call. He doesn’t even know about Colette and Papa – about Martin.’
‘Well, there’s a delight still in store for him,’ Bernard murmured ironically. ‘But don’t worry about his call. We agreed yesterday when he phoned me that he would call Solange this evening in Paris. Phone calls to here seem to be difficult. And he was worried enough on the telephone to talk of coming down here himself this weekend, after getting through some examination he has today. Just decide how much you want to tell Solange, and we’ll call her later this afternoon and give her instructions to get Robert moving. I think, like you, that this story now needs his presence.’
Madeleine eased back in her chair, deliberately relaxing the tightened muscles around her neck, and sipped her coffee. Bernard had arrived from Paris, wafting with him the magic of a world where people had telephones at home, and called each other with ease, and planned journeys from England to France without batting an eyelid. She could leave everything in his hands, it seemed, and he would have thought of everything. How his urbane persona would deal with her new world in Vermeilla was a question she left for later.
She needn’t have worried, she realised when Philippe almost fell over them outside the post office later that afternoon. Philippe’s big head bobbed up and down energetically as he shook Bernard’s hand, his thick mane of hair flapping above the Parisian’s neatly trimmed, thinning coiffure and speckled moustache. Philippe must have been fifteen years older than Bernard, but you wouldn’t have known it. He swept them along in his wake, and if Madeleine had wondered how she was going to approach the Café de Catalogne again, she found herself outside its doors before she had even had time to think where they were heading. She faltered at the door, and let the two men go ahead of her. She wanted to see Daniel, but the thought of seeing Martin appalled her. She followed slowly behind Bernard, her heart pounding.
There was no sign of Colette or Martin in the bar, but Daniel was at the counter, talking to his friend of the other day, Eric the newly-wed fisherman. Philippe was ahead of her, already talking, and waving forward Bernard. Daniel, she saw, had frozen at their entrance. In the flurry of introductions of ‘our friend from Paris’, Daniel’s silence went unnoticed. He watched Madeleine from deep inside a set, unfathomable face, and she wondered how you could ever hope to be forgiven for throwing accusations of abetting a sl
aughter at a young man as sensitive as Daniel.
She waited while Bernard greeted both young men with his usual smooth complaisance, and then Philippe drew him off to a table, calling for coffee and his usual afternoon slice of whatever patisserie Colette had baked that day.
The two men settled down to talk, two confident men from very different worlds, linked perhaps by their intellect. Madeleine heard Philippe mention chess, and knew a board would appear within minutes. It would provide them both with the means to get to know each other in the most comfortable way possible.
Which left her, standing at the bar, comfort far from her mind, wondering what to say to the young man who was watching them all with remote eyes and an almost supernatural stillness. Eric broke the silence, greeting Madeleine with a flirtatious grin, and holding her hand for rather longer than necessary.
‘Well, Mademoiselle, all these days and we didn’t meet again. But today is my lucky day, it seems. What have you been doing with yourself in our little hidden, uneventful village, where nothing happens from one end of the week to the next?’
Uneventful was not a word which Madeleine would have chosen herself to describe her time in Vermeilla, but Eric was not to know. She smiled at him, but freed her hand and held it out to Daniel, who seemed to become aware of it gradually, and then took it in a non-committal grasp. Madeleine squeezed, and didn’t let go, and answered Eric.
‘I’ve been incredibly well looked after, thanks. I feel as though I have found a family here, and Daniel has been wonderful, showing me around, taking care of me.’
Listen to me, Daniel, she was thinking. Look at me!
Eric dug his friend in the stomach with his elbow. Daniel still stood withdrawn, like a tortoise in its thick shell, eyes watching from just inside.
‘Lucky dog, you,’ chuckled Eric. ‘That’s the advantage of owning a bar, Mademoiselle. It’s a natural meeting place, and you’re king of your own dungheap. So he’s been showing you around, huh? Where? Around the village? Oh, his vineyard? All very fine, but has he taken you out for a ride at sea? That’s what you need, is a nice boat trip. Hey, Daniel, you should take out my launch. That’s the way to make romance blossom!’
Daughter of Catalonia Page 20