Wild Lavender

by Belinda Alexandra

  ‘Speak!’ he said to Jean. ‘Say something.’

  Jean looked at my mother with tortured eyes. When he opened his mouth to speak and nothing came out, I knew. There was nothing to be said. Father was gone.

  TWO

  ‘There will be no arguments,’ shouted Uncle Gerome, slamming his palm on the kitchen table. ‘Simone goes to work for Aunt Augustine in Marseilles.’

  My mother, Aunt Yvette and I jumped from the force of his anger. Was this the same man who had stood over my father’s grave the week before, his face contorted with grief? He seemed to have recovered from the shock of his brother’s death the way another man might have got over influenza. For the past two days he had been studying his ledger books and tallying up figures.

  ‘I don’t need two housekeepers,’ he said, turning towards the fire and poking at it with a stick. The flame rose and died, turning the room darker. ‘If Simone can’t manage farm work then she needs to make her living elsewhere. She is not a child any more and I have enough mouths to feed. Perhaps if Pierre had not left so many debts…’

  Uncle Gerome rattled off the cost of lavender cultivation, the price of the still, the money owing on the farm. My mother and I exchanged glances. Uncle Gerome was going to profit from the project my father’s imagination had conceived. What did those costs matter now?

  A picture flashed into my mind. It wasn’t something that I’d seen but an image that had haunted me for a week: my father, lying on his back on a rock ledge in the Gorges de la Nesque. He and Jean had waited in Sault until the afternoon storm had passed before guiding the mule down the slopes. After negotiating the most difficult stretches of road, they had stopped to give the mule a rest and to eat some bread. But no sooner had Jean unhitched the mule and led it to a grassy patch than he heard a crack. Scree, loosened by the rain, rushed down the slope. A tree branch knocked Jean and the mule sideways. My father and the cart were washed over the side.

  ‘Bernard will help,’ said Aunt Yvette. ‘If you are going to send Simone to Marseilles, at least send her there to get an education. Not to be some sort of slave to your aunt.’

  It was the first time I’d heard Aunt Yvette stand up to my uncle and I feared for her. Although he had never struck any of us, I couldn’t help wondering if things would change now that my father was gone. As head of both our households, Uncle Gerome’s position was powerful and we had no recourse against him. But he only sneered, ‘Education is wasted on a woman even more than it is on a man. And as for Bernard, don’t fool yourself that he has any money. Anything he’s made in his life has already been spent on cars and the Côte d’Azur.’

  That night, my mother and I lay in each other’s arms, as we had every night since the day of the accident. We listened to the mistral howl. The wind started as a draught under the door, then turned into a fitful ghost that bent the cypress trees and wailed across the fields. We had both wept so much since my father’s death that I thought I would go blind from the tears. I squinted at the outline of the crucified Christ near the door then turned away. It was cruel that my father should have survived the injuries from shrapnel only to be struck down by nature. ‘It was so quick, he wouldn’t even have known what happened,’ was the only comfort the curé could offer us. It had been so quick I still couldn’t believe it was true. I saw my father everywhere: his outline bent over the well or sitting in his chair, waiting for me to join him for breakfast. For a few joyous seconds I would be convinced that his death was merely a nightmare, until the image faded and I realised that I had seen nothing more than the shadow of a tree or the outline of a broom.

  My mother, always quiet, retreated further into her silence. I think she wondered why her powers had failed her, why she had not been able to foresee my father’s death and warn him. But even she had said there were things that we were not meant to know, things that could not be read or prevented. I touched her arm, her skin was like ice; I closed my eyes and fought back more painful tears, fearing the day when I would lose her too.

  At least my mother would have Aunt Yvette. Who was Aunt Augustine? My father had never mentioned her. All Uncle Gerome would tell us was that she was the sister of their father and had married a sailor, who died soon afterwards at sea. Aunt Augustine ran a boarding house, but now that she was old and arthritic she needed a maid and cook. In return I would be given food but no money. I wondered where my father’s open heart and hand had come from. All the other Fleuriers seemed to have descended from Judas: prepared to sell their relatives for thirteen pieces of silver.

  Bernard arrived a week later to drive me to Carpentras, from where I would catch a train to Marseilles. Aunt Yvette cried and kissed me. ‘Don’t worry about Olly,’ she whispered. ‘I’ll take care of him.’ I could barely bring myself to look at my cat, who was spraying on Bernard’s car tyres, let alone my mother. She was standing by the kitchen door, her mouth turned down and grief in her eyes. I squeezed my nails into my palms. I’d promised myself that, for her sake, I wouldn’t cry.

  All I had to take with me was a bundle of clothes tied in a cloth. Bernard took it from me and put it in the car. My mother stepped forward and pressed my hand. Something sharp pricked my palm. When she withdrew her fingers I saw that she had given me a locket and a few coins. I slipped them into my pocket and kissed her. We lingered in our embrace, but neither of us could bring ourselves to say anything.

  Bernard opened the car door and helped me into the passenger seat. Uncle Gerome stood in the yard watching us. His expression was severe but there was something odd about the way he was standing. His shoulders were hunched and his mouth was twisted, as if he were in pain. Was there some sort of demon inside him that made him act so spitefully? Perhaps he wished he could be a man more like my father and less like himself? The illusion was shattered when he called out, ‘Work hard, Simone. Because Aunt Augustine won’t tolerate any nonsense, and I won’t have you back here if she throws you out.’

  The station at Carpentras was a moving market. The first-and second-class passengers boarded the train in a civilised manner, but the third-class passengers squabbled over where to sit and where to put their chickens and rabbits and whatever else they planned to take with them. Noah’s Ark, I thought, stepping around a pig.

  Bernard showed the conductor my ticket. ‘She is travelling alone,’ he told him. ‘She’s never been on a train before. If I pay the difference in the fare, can you put her in a second-class carriage with some ladies?’

  The conductor nodded. ‘She’ll have to travel third class to Sorgues,’ he said. ‘But after that I can get her a seat to Marseilles in second class.’

  Why was it that Bernard thought of my comfort and safety, when my own uncle was happy to send me third class to who knew where?

  Bernard slipped the conductor some money and the man helped me up the stairs and into a seat near the front of the carriage. The train whistle sounded and the pig screeched and the chickens clucked. Bernard waved to me from the platform. ‘I’ll find a way to help you, Simone,’ he said through the open window. ‘Next time I make some extra money, I’ll send it to you.’

  A billow of soot and smoke wafted across the station. The train shunted forward. I didn’t take my eyes off Bernard until we had passed out of the station. When I sat down I remembered the locket my mother had given me. I pulled it from my pocket and flicked it open. Inside was a picture of my parents on their wedding day. I had been five years old when my father left for the Great War and I could barely remember what he had looked like before his injuries. The handsome, alert face that stared back at me from the photograph brought tears to my eyes. I turned towards the window, watching the farms and forests flicker by. After a while, overcome by the heat inside the carriage, the smell of unwashed bodies, and grief, I nodded off to sleep. The train clacked over the rails in a steady rhythm, the descent so gradual that I barely perceived it.

  We arrived in Marseilles in the early evening. The journey in third class had been more enjoyable, despite
the noise and animal smells, than the time I had spent in second class. When we reached Sorgues, the conductor accompanied me to the omnibus train travelling to Marseilles and told the conductor there to give me a seat in a compartment. He put me with two women who were returning from Paris.

  ‘She is on her own,’ he explained to them. ‘Please keep an eye on her.’

  I couldn’t help staring at the women’s clothes. Their dresses were silk with V-necklines instead of round ones. Rather than pinching in at their waists, their belts were loose and dropped to their hips. Their skirts were so short I could see their shins when they crossed their legs. But their hats were plain and floppy, and made me think of convolvulus flowers. When I asked the women if they could tell me something about Marseilles, they pretended not to understand me. And I saw them roll their eyes when I pulled out the garlic sausage Aunt Yvette had packed for my lunch.

  ‘Let’s hope she doesn’t give us lice,’ one woman whispered to the other.

  I stared at my lap, my cheeks burning with shame. I was a poor girl but I had scrubbed myself and put on my best dress for the journey. But I forgot about the women’s nastiness when the train pulled into Gare Saint Charles; I had never seen so many people gathered in one place. Surely that was the entire population of my district bustling about on the station? I watched women hurrying back and forth, identifying their luggage; pedlars selling flowers and cigarettes; sailors lugging canvas bags on their shoulders; children and dogs perched on top of suitcases. But it was the array of languages babbling around me when I stepped onto the platform that most surprised me. The Spanish and Italian accents were familiar, but not those of the Greeks, the Armenians and Turks. I opened the map Uncle Gerome had given me and tried to figure out how long it would take to walk to the Vieux Port, where Aunt Augustine lived. It wasn’t long until sunset and I didn’t fancy tramping through a strange town at night.

  ‘It’s too far to walk,’ a sailor with a cigarette slung in the corner of his mouth told me when I showed him the map. ‘You’d better get a taxi.’

  ‘But I can’t afford a taxi,’ I said.

  He edged closer to me and smiled with teeth like a shark. I could smell the whisky on his breath. A shudder ran through me and I slipped back into the crowd. There was a woman near the station entrance peddling miniatures of the Basilique Notre Dame de la Garde, the domed basilica whose bell tower was topped by a gilded statue of the Virgin. I knew that the Christ mother was supposed to watch over those lost at sea. If I’d had the money, I would have bought one of the miniatures in the hope that she would watch over me.

  ‘Take the streetcar,’ the woman told me when I asked her how to get to the old port.

  I made my way to the spot outside the station where she had said to wait. A noise as loud as a thunderclap made me jump and I looked up to see a streetcar hurtling towards the stop. Clinging to the sides and running boards were dozens of bare-footed children with dirty faces. The car came to a stop and the children jumped off. I handed the conductor one of the coins my mother had given me and took a seat behind the driver. More people piled into the car, and new children—and some adults too—climbed up onto the sides. I later learned that you could travel for free that way. The streetcar took off, gradually gathering speed and rocking and bucking from side to side. I clung to the windowsill with one hand and the edge of my seat with the other. Marseilles was a place I had never seen before and I was sure that I could never have imagined it. It was a patchwork of grand buildings with tiled roofs and elegant balconies alongside houses with shabby wooden shutters and water stains down their walls. It was as if an earthquake had squashed together a jigsaw of different villages.

  There was no glass in the windscreen of the streetcar and a cool breeze prickled my scalp and cheeks. It was just as well the ventilation was good because the man sitting next to me reeked of onions and stale tobacco. ‘Did you just arrive?’ he asked, observing the worried expression on my face when the streetcar squealed and lurched around a corner. I nodded. ‘Well,’ he said, his sickly breath in my face, ‘welcome to Marseilles—home of thieves, cutthroats and whores.’

  I was glad when I finally arrived at the Vieux Port. My legs trembled as if I had been at sea for months. I slung my bundle of clothes over my shoulder. The last rays of the sun glittered on the Mediterranean and the sky was aquamarine. I had never seen the ocean before and the sight of it and the seagulls screeching overhead made my toes tingle.

  I walked along the Quai des Belges, past Africans selling gold and ochre-coloured spices and brass trinkets. I knew of black people from the books Aunt Yvette had given me to read, but had never seen them in real life. I was fascinated by their white fingernails and pale palms, but I remembered how the two women on the train had treated me and was careful not to stare this time. I followed the port around to the Quai de Rive Neuve. Cafés and bistros were opening for the night and the air smelt of grilled sardines, thyme and tomatoes. The aroma made me hungry and homesick at once. My mother and aunt would be preparing the evening meal now, and I stopped for a moment to imagine them laying the table. I had left them only that morning and already they were beginning to seem like people in a dream. Tears filled my eyes again and I could barely see my way through the maze of crooked streets. The gutters were littered with fish bones and the cobblestones reeked of human waste. A rat scurried out of a crevice to feast on the garbage.

  ‘Don’t walk here!’ a gruff female voice called out behind me. ‘This is my corner!’

  I turned to see a woman lurking in a doorway. Only her torn stockings and the red glow of her cigarette were visible in the gloom. I quickened my pace.

  The Rue Sainte, where Aunt Augustine had her boarding house, was the same eclectic mix of architecture as the rest of the city. It consisted of grand houses from Marseilles’ prosperous maritime days and squat terraces. My aunt’s house was one of the latter, and was joined to another house from which a blend of incense and laundry soap wafted. Three scantily dressed women leaned out of one of the windows, but thankfully none of them shouted at me.

  I stepped up to the door and lifted the knocker, letting it go with a timid thud. I looked up at the salt-encrusted windows but there were no lights in any of them.

  ‘Try again,’ suggested one of the women. ‘She’s half deaf.’

  I was too shy to look at the woman but I took her advice. I grabbed the knocker and swung it. It hit the wood with a bang so forceful that it rattled the window frames and ricocheted along the street. The women laughed.

  This time I heard a door opening inside the house and feet clumping down stairs. The latch clicked and the door swung open. An old woman stood in front of me. Her face was all angles with a beaky nose and a chin so sharp I could have tilled the vegetable garden with it.

  ‘There’s no need for such noise,’ she scowled. ‘I’m not deaf.’

  I stepped back, almost tripping. ‘Aunt Augustine?’

  The woman examined me from the part of my hair to my feet and seemed to come to a displeasing conclusion. ‘Yes, I am your Great-Aunt Augustine,’ she said, folding her meaty arms over her bosom. ‘Wipe your boots before you come in.’

  I followed her through the parlour, which contained a worn rug, two chairs and a dusty piano, to the dining room. A table, a glass cupboard and a sideboard were crammed into the space. Paintings of seafaring adventures clashed with the striped wallpaper. The only natural light came from the adjoining kitchen’s window. There was a fringed lampshade dangling over the table and I expected Aunt Augustine to turn the light on for us. But she didn’t and we sat down at the table in the gloom.

  ‘Tea?’ she offered, pointing to the pot and the mismatched cups next to it.

  ‘Yes, please.’

  My throat was parched and my taste buds sprang to life at the thought of a soothing tisane. I could almost taste silky chamomile gliding over my throat or the refreshing snap of rosemary against my tongue.

  Aunt Augustine grabbed the pot handle with her
gnarled fingers and poured. ‘Here,’ she said, pushing a cup and saucer towards me. I eyed the dark liquid. It had no aroma and when I sipped it I found that it was cold and tasted like stale water. It must have been left over from the morning or even earlier. I drank the tea because I was thirsty, but tears pricked my eyes. Couldn’t Aunt Augustine even make me a fresh pot for me? Part of me had dared to hope that she might be more like my father and less like Uncle Gerome.

  Aunt Augustine sank back in her chair and tugged at a hair on her chin. I squared my shoulders and sat up straight, determined to give her another try. Surely she understood that we were both Fleuriers, each other’s flesh and blood. But before I could open my mouth, she announced, ‘Three meals a day. And watch what you eat, you’re not a guest.’

  She pointed to a piece of paper nailed to the doorframe. ‘The others leave their names on that to let you know if they will be in for their meals. Monsieur Roulin is always in, and that one upstairs is never in. But I wouldn’t have such a person to the table anyway.’

  ‘That one?’ I asked.

  Aunt Augustine rolled her eyes to the ceiling and I followed her gaze. But whereas I saw only cobwebs, the scowl on her face gave me the impression she was referring to something evil. The ominous ring of ‘that one’ lingered in the air.

  ‘Now,’ said Aunt Augustine, snatching my empty cup away and placing it upturned on its saucer, ‘I’ll show you to your room. I want you up at five o’clock tomorrow to go to the fish markets.’

  I hadn’t eaten anything since my sausage on the train, but I was too afraid to say that I was hungry.

  My room was at the back of the house and directly off the kitchen. The door was warped, and when I pushed it open the trim scraped the floor. I could see by the semicircular scratch on the boards that this was its usual pattern of movement. My heart sank at the sight of the cement walls. The only furniture was a rickety-looking chair in the corner, an armoire and a bed, the cover of which was spotted with mildew. Through the grime on the barred window I could make out a lavatory shed and a herb garden in need of weeding.