The Retreat

by Anne Morgellyn

  From the English language selection Mackie bought A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway and a translation of JP Sartre’s Roads to Freedom trilogy. She chose the Sartre because she had seen his fascinatingly ugly portrait on the staircase with the other ugly philosophers, the Hemingway because it was about Paris and looked like an easy read.

  Quimper was user friendly. She blessed herself with holy water at the cathedral door, spent a while looking round, then went for walk in the centre before it was time to meet Sofka. There were more half-timbered houses and some mouth-watering food shops.

  One o’clock tolled but Sofka was already seated in the crèperie. ‘I hope you don’t mind, but I’ve ordered. I didn’t have breakfast.’

  Mackie couldn’t make sense of the menu. The fillings for the crèpes were confusing. She recognised chocolat, fromage, jambon and Grand Marnier.

  ‘One usually starts with a savoury,’ Sofka said. ‘I’m having cheese and ham. Then you choose a sweet one.’

  ‘I’ll have the same.’

  The waiter arrived. He wasn’t dressed like a waiter. In fact, he looked like a bit of a slob.

  ‘Go on,’ Sofka said.

  ‘Fromage, jambon. S’il vous plait.’

  ‘Well done. Have some cider — it’s very good.’ She tapped her glass, and called the waiter back. ‘Un cidre pour madame et encore un pour moi.’

  ‘Did you pick your French up here?’ Mackie asked.

  ‘My parents spoke French. Scout speaks colloquial French. I expect he picked it up in the Foreign Legion.’

  ‘Are there never any French people at the château, except for the L’Oiseau’s and the secretary at the conference centre?’

  ‘Les Oiseaux,’ Sofka corrected. ‘It’s plural because there are three of them.’

  ‘Three birds. I understand.’

  ‘Jacqueline speaks good English. She organises the conferences.’

  ‘What about the delegates?’

  Sofka burped, and patted her mouth with her napkin. ‘Excuse me. The conferences are mostly for the French. Not the funders though.’

  ‘Where do they come from?’

  ‘They come from all over the place. Some of them come by car. Scout picks the others up from the airport. That’s why we won’t be able to use the mini bus next week. He has to ferry them all around because they bankroll us. They take priority.’

  The waiter brought the cider. The crèpes soon followed. Mackie took a forkful. ‘This is tasty.’

  ‘There’s a very good crèperie in Pont du Calvaire. Did Joanna show you?’

  ‘No. We went to a bar called La Marse. It’s down by the quay. We biked it to the sea afterwards then came back.’

  ‘That place is notorious. I’m surprised at Joanna.’

  ‘I thought she’d come with us today.’

  ‘She’s a bit of a dark horse. I think she’s had a lot of man trouble.’

  ‘Haven’t we all?’

  ‘I haven’t. I’ve no time for relationships with my vocation.’

  ‘You mean as an icon painter?’

  ‘Art is a vocation.’

  ‘Did you get your labels?’

  ‘I did, which is just as well since I’ve got a commission from a Babel delegate who wants to collect it at the end of next week.’

  ‘Do you get many commissions?’

  ‘A few. It takes time to write an icon and you have to have the right mentality. You need to be in the Spirit. Roman finds commissions for me. That’s why I wanted the labels. He gives me an issue number. The payment goes into community funds.’

  ‘I’d like to visit your studio,’ Mackie ventured.

  ‘That’s fine. Any time. Herbert’s usually there. He crayons. He can’t do much more than that because of the weakness in his hands. It’s tragic that he had to stop playing music. Roman says that’s what makes him so crusty. We’re supposed to have compassion for him.’

  ‘He’s blunt. Is that why it is?’

  The waiter came to collect the plates. ‘Vous voulez autre chose, mesdames?’

  Sofka looked at Mackie. ‘Shall we share a crèpe au chocolat for dessert? They’re rather filling, and I want some room for dinner later. There’s half an hour before Scout picks us up?’

  ‘In the same place?’

  ‘Oh he’ll force his way in. I don’t agree with Herbert about his driving. He’s confident. That’s what’s needed here. One has to assert oneself. They don’t queue, you know.’

  ‘Really? Well, the same place suits me. I’m bushed.’

  ‘We usually rest in our rooms for a couple of hours before supper. You’ve got some books, I see.’

  ‘Yes. Sartre and Hemingway. Have a look.’

  ‘Did you know Roman’s books are in the library? They’re well worth reading. They help me to understand why I came here. It’ll be three years in September.’

  ‘We’d better pay and go and meet Scout. I don’t fancy taking the bus, and I don’t suppose he’ll wait for us.’

  ‘No, he won’t.’ She took out her purse and put money on the table. ‘Please, let me,’ she insisted as Mackie reached for her bag. ‘Roman told us to welcome you. We were a bit off with you at first, I’m afraid. We don’t get many visitors.’

  6

  Mackie couldn’t get on with Ernest Hemingway. She had bought his book for light relief but just couldn’t engage with his struggle to become a writer while living it large in Paris. God knows what she’d make of the Sartre novel. She went down to the library and saw Roman’s books exhibited on the table. She signed them out, and took them back to her room. They seemed to be a mixture of tips about getting what you want from life, backed up with obscure philosophy. He used a lot of long words and terminology she didn’t understand. There were long indexes at the end of both volumes. Nietzche featured a lot, and Freud and Jung. She had heard of them, of course, but didn’t know Kierkegaard or Bakhtin.

  She decided to look for Joanna in the garden. Roman came out of his study as she was crossing the hall.

  ‘Had a good day?’

  ‘I enjoyed the trip to Quimper. I’m used to having nothing to do but I’m getting used to it.’

  ‘I was going to order some tea. Would you like to join me?’

  ‘Thank you.

  ‘I’ll ask Marie-No to bring it. Go in and make yourself comfortable.’ He gestured towards the study.

  Mackie closed the door and quickly snapped the papers on his desk. She had no qualms about doing that. It was what the service phone was for. It was what she was being paid for. She was itching to open the desk drawers but sat down quickly on the chaise when she heard the door open. He came to sit beside her. She could feel the warmth of his body and smell his expensive cologne.

  ‘Tea won’t be long. I need a break. The funders are coming next week for four days and I’ve been going over the paperwork — the online paperwork, if there’s such a thing.’ He stretched out, brushing against her. She was about to move but the L’Oiseau girl came in with a tray. ‘Merci, Marie-No.’ He watched her go out before remarking: ‘There’s an unhappy young woman. She is totally crushed by her parents. She’ll never leave this town, find a man, have adventures. She was bred to serve maman and papa.’

  She poured them both a cup of that insipid tea. ‘So you’ll be attending the funders conference?’

  ‘Naturally. I’m chairing it.’

  ‘I expect you have to report about this place. Profit and loss and all that.’

  ‘That’s a job for the accountant. I just chair the discussion. — I’d better move before I spill this.’ He took his cup and saucer and went to sit on his shrink chair. ‘Babel — that’s the name of the foundation — is a society of like minded people who are concerned about the state of Europe. It’s a philosophy that proposes a new social order, based on controlled segregation. Multiculturalism is a false ideal that has failed, as has comprehensive education and exponentially growing immigration to countries in the European Union. The indigenous masses ha
ve seen what’s coming and are sorting themselves into ghettos and factions. There is sectarianism and social unrest. Are you with me?’

  ‘I’ve seen fights between gangs grow a lot worse in the last twenty years. I’m not political.’

  ‘There’s no manifesto as yet, just broad aims for a state in which the population is segregated into groups based on ethnic background and occupation. The professional class — lawyers, doctors, engineers, financiers, the vast lower middle class, the working class and the underclass.’

  ‘Isn’t it like that already? It’s always been like that.’

  ‘There’s no organisation. We’re slipping into anarchy. The new state would be realised through military resistance to terrorism, nipping it in the bud before it has a chance to spread and enforcing segregation.’

  ‘Like apartheid?’

  ‘This is far more radical than racial segregation. It’s a new order, an efficient society achieved through strictly enforced social perimeters. Europe is imploding. It needs to regain its position in the world.’

  ‘So this group, Babel. The ones that fund this place. Are they bankers?’

  ‘Many of them are. Some of them are economists, academics,

  philosophers – myself, for instance.’

  ‘And they’d be running the state? From where I’m sitting it looks as though they are already.’

  He frowned. ‘Well there it is. The conference centre, and the Babel conferences in particular, are quite separate from the château community. You don’t have to concern yourself with them.’

  ‘I’m interested to know how you’d get people to sign up to this. Doesn’t there need to be government by consensus? There’s been a lot of opposition at home to unpopular policies. Immigration, welfare cuts, student fees, badger culls. Animal rights.’

  ‘But it’s unfocused, as it is in Europe. There’s a desire for change but it needs to be organised.’

  ‘It’s no joke policing riots.’

  ‘Isn’t that why there needs to be more control?’

  ‘You mean a military regime?’

  ‘If that’s what it takes. At the start.’ He changed the subject. You said you liked Quimper? Forgive me for rattling on.’

  ‘I got myself some books. I’d like to help in the garden.’

  ‘You should read Voltaire.’

  ‘I’ll bear him in mind when I’ve finished Sartre.’

  She was tempted to sound off about military coups and all the rest of it, but she’d been schooled to remain impassive. They’d staged mock encounters with suspects and interviewees at the police academy. Sometimes it was hard to keep a straight face. Sometimes you felt like socking them in the eye. If it was a pedophile or rapist, you wanted to drag a confession out of them by fair means or foul. She learnt to value this training when she started on the beat. It had dampened her emotional response but enabled self-restraint, scepticism, cool-headedness. And also detachment. The only man who could press her buttons was her son.

  7

  The Babel delegates arrived a few days later. She took up a position behind her folded bedroom shutter, service phone at the ready. First came a general in a black Mercedes E-class with Spanish registration. Next, a sandy haired man past his prime who looked as though he’d been blow dried. A Range Rover with British plates disgorged a portly, red faced man in a Barbour jacket. The drive filled up with monster vehicles. All they needed to do was widen the path through the rhododendrons and build parking spaces in front of the conference centre.

  The minibus arrived last. The seats were filled by an assortment of middle aged men carrying laptop cases. Scout began unloading their luggage onto the gravel. She zoomed in to get the flight labels, assuming Rudyard’s team would be able to enlarge them, and ran downstairs before Scout disappeared through the rhododendrons.

  ‘No minibus for us till Tuesday, then?’ she asked him. I might get my car out and go on a trip.’

  ‘You won’t. You’re blocked in.’

  ‘Can’t you move these cars?’

  ‘No.’ He was uncouth. She couldn’t see him sitting round a conference table with those well dressed businessmen. He loaded the last bag and pushed the trolley up to the path. A shaven headed trio with zigzag tattoos came roaring up the drive on motorbikes. They were about Scout’s age and, like him, looked right through Mackie. They parked their bikes around the fountain and followed Scout. The bikes had Dutch registrations.

  ‘How do the funders affect us in the château?’ she asked Joanna when she joined her on the plot. ‘Apart from the loss of the minibus, of course. Will they come and inspect us?’

  ‘No, they keep their distance. We do, too. Roman’s there, of course. He has to be.’

  ‘It seems a bit odd that Scout attends, if it’s a think tank.’

  Joanna sniggered. ‘He’s not the Brain of Brittany, is he? Let’s start with the tomatoes. Madame l’Oiseau wants the big ones to stuff for dinner.’

  ‘Does she have to cook for the conferences delegates as well?’

  ‘No. They get in a caterer.’

  They walked slowly up the slope.

  ‘I haven’t seen much of Iris,’ Mackie said. ‘What does she do all day?’

  ‘Iris is a scholar, or she says she is. She makes book indexes in her room and replies to enquirers. Gerald is giving up the garden. He says it’s too much for him. He needs to get some fresh air instead of hanging around with Herbert and Sofka in the craft room. L’Oiseau found him a fold-up chair. It looks as though it’s seen better days, but we thought he could use it to sit on at the stall.’

  ‘I suppose you can’t get the stuff to market while the minibus is out of commission.’

  ‘The Oiseaux have a van, one of those funny looking three-wheeled things. Marie-No has a moped with a locker on the back. They could take the produce but Roman says it doesn’t hurt not to run the stall for a bit. He says it increases demand. You seem to be getting on with him.’ She looked at Mackie searchingly.

  ‘He’s easy to talk to. I don’t care for his philosophy though. It’s above my head.’

  ‘Sofka told me he’d broken the heart of one of the women who came to stay here. Apparently, she threatened to kill herself. And he’s been seen with a local girl. You might have seen her when we went to Chez la Marse’

  ‘The girl in the dungarees and biker boots? ‘

  ‘That’s her. She was playing pool on her own, showing off in front of the guys.’

  ‘It could just be gossip. I expect there’s a lot of that in a place like this.’

  ‘Oh no. She’s been seen with him. Marie-No saw her.’

  ‘She can’t be more than eighteen.’

  ‘She’s twenty. She went to school with Jacqueline and Marie-No. Jacqueline said no one liked her.’

  ‘Well she’s very attractive,’ Mackie said. ‘Girls can be bitchy.’

  She missed Roman at dinner that evening. The table had lost its focus. Gerald looked weary. Herbert and Sofka were having an argument about art. Herbert liked modernism and abstract expressionism. Sofka maintained the Byzantine position. Mackie was surprised that Iris didn’t put her two pennies in, but she said nothing throughout the meal and left before the dessert. She didn’t look well.

  When they were eating fruit and cheese, Roman made an unexpected appearance in the dining room. He made a beeline for Mackie and touched her on the shoulder. ‘I wonder if I could have a word with you outside?’ he asked. Sofka and Joanna exchanged glances.

  ‘The delegates are interested to know why you are thinking of leaving the police. I wonder if you could come and have coffee with us over there.’

  ‘I don’t know what to say to them. I thought what I said in the study was supposed to be confidential.’

  ‘You won’t have to go into that. Just take their questions.’

  ‘OK. If I’m able to.’

  It was dark on the path. She felt his hands on her shoulders, steering her away from overhanging branches. The conference centre wa
s ablaze with light. They went through the foyer and into a dining room with several round tables for six. Scout and his tattooed cohort were at a trestle table in the corner. A waiter and waitress were serving coffee and brandy.

  Roman steered her to the front of the room, where all the delegates could see her. ‘Can I have your attention please? This is Inspector Divine from the Metropolitan police in London.’ The conversation lulled.

  ‘General Pombo, I believe you had a question.’

  The general eyed Mackie impassively. ‘Are you confident, inspector that the Metropolitan police can handle a public uprising? We have all seen the news about the riots in London.’

  ‘We’ve done all right so far. The riot police are fit. They run in from Hendon as part of their fitness training.’

  ‘What measures do you have to contain a revolution?’

  ‘That would be classified information. I have no knowledge of that. There’s been a directive to arrest all looters. It makes a lot of work for the magistrates but I believe it deters marchers.’

  ‘Yes, but would you say this system is efficient?’

  ‘Of course it’s not efficient,’ scorned the red-faced Englishman ‘It’s a disaster waiting to happen.’

  ‘As a woman, would you say you are able to enforce an arrest? You are very delicate.’

  ‘I’ve had my fair share of collars,’ she returned evenly. ‘May I ask why you want to know all this, sir?’

  ‘We have been discussing the threat to national security,’ the general replied. ‘What do you think yourself about the Metropolitan police, Inspector Divine?’

  ‘I’m not currently serving. I’m on indefinite leave because I questioned a false arrest.’

  ‘So you are dissatisfied?’

  ‘I came here to think things over.’

  ‘Do you personally believe that the police in your country are able to deal with mass insurgency?’

  ‘Of course they’re not,’ shouted Barbour jacket. He was beetroot now. ‘It calls for the army.’

  ‘The army haven’t kept the peace in Northern Ireland,’ Mackie said quietly. ‘It’s still going on.’