by Lucy English
At the funeral I thought about this. He wanted to go to the Ferrou. He wanted us to go to the Ferrou and if he had made it back to the boat and woken me up, out of his brains, ranting and saying we must go to the Ferrou, I would have said yes.
There was nothing of Felix at the funeral. The hymns and reading his mother chose were not him. I couldn’t stand it. I walked outside in the sleet through the overgrown graveyard. Forgotten places. He knew where they were.
We’re standing outside in the sleet and the mother and aunt are thanking people and I can tell which one is the mother because she does look like a headmistress. She has a fixed smile and a mock-sincere nod. The aunt is less stylish and she’s plumper. Stephen’s in there shaking hands also, saying, ‘I’m Stephen Sinclair,’ to anybody who’ll listen.
Then the mother sees us. She comes over and says, ‘Thank you very much for coming,’ as if we are a group of fourth years which has decided to behave. Nobody replies. Rosebud is crying and Barney and Dog-ear look at the mother now barely disguising her distaste. ‘I’m sorry about the baby,’ she says to Rosebud, but no, she’s not sorry at all, she’s furious. Felix got into one mess after another and now he’s dead, and it was just like him to get a dirty thing like this pregnant.
Rosebud looks up through her tears and says, ‘What?’ She’s confused. I could leave it like this. The mother will go away in a minute and she’ll never know, but suddenly I want her to know that Felix wasn’t just a mess.
‘It was my baby,’ I say and the mother looks at me. She didn’t even consider me a candidate. A grey-haired woman in black. ‘Felix was my lover,’ I say. ‘He was coming back to my boat. He was an extraordinary person. I miss him so much.’
She’s looking at me. Her version, the one she’s been telling herself since it happened, now has holes in it big enough for her to see through. There’s something about her eyes which reminds me of Felix, but Felix’s eyes were full of wonder and mystery, not this hardness. She’s not even ten years older than me but she’s starting to look older.
‘How do you do, I’m Stephen Sinclair,’ says Stephen to her.
‘This is my son,’ I say and she shakes his hand automatically and looks at me, and looks at him.
She’s beginning to understand now.
‘Felix was an extraordinary person,’ I say and across her face there’s a flush of disbelief, and also envy, because I still have a child and she doesn’t and the one that’s dead she didn’t know.
She’s rescued by the aunt who says, ‘Come along, Daphne, dear,’ and ‘Are we inviting these people back?’ But before she even has time to think about it I say, ‘Thank you, we’ve made our own arrangements.’
We sit at The Heathers. Dog-ear and Barney uncomfortably on the leather chairs. Rosebud still crying. Stephen hands us cups of coffee and tea. Dog-ear skins up and says, ‘Is this cool?’ but he smokes it anyway, and Barney skins up and Stephen gets out the vodka and we sit there and get more and more trashed.
I wake up on the sofa and I feel like my mother. Empty and hollow and what’s the point? Only then I start to cry.
Every day until March. Stephen was patient. He let me come and stay at The Heathers because when I was on the boat I couldn’t do anything. I couldn’t light the fire. I couldn’t cook. I lay in bed and listened to the water. Slop. Slop. At The Heathers I lay on the sofa and listened to nothing. Then I heard it, one night when I couldn’t sleep, the trickle of water from the fountain. Water over rocks.
And this is why I’m here.
I’m here because I needed to find the next step and now I’m here I’m beginning to think this is the next step. This is it now, me and silence. Me on a hammock in a patch of shadow in late May. Me and the water. Me and the rock. Me and the air through the trees. Like Old Man Henri, I shall stay here now until I die.
I don’t feel sad. I don’t feel lonely.
It’s so still now. There’s no breeze at all. In the mountains I can hear the rumble of shellfire.
I’ve just finished writing my life story. It’s a strange feeling.
It can’t be shellfire. It’s a Saturday. They never practise up there at weekends. It must be thunder.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
The storm broke in the night, sweeping down from the mountains. Dry thunder and flashes of lightning forking across the whole valley. It felt as if the hut was shuddering on its rock. It felt as if any moment the lightning would strike a tree and send it crashing through the roof. Then the rain came, hailstones at first like lead shot on the tiles and then a torrent of water. It was impossible to sleep. The tiny hut seemed inadequate protection against nature raging outside one wooden door. Mireille pulled her blankets over her head. There was nothing to do except wait. Water gushed off the roof, and now the thunder and lightning were coming in unison. Flash-boom, flash-boom. The storm was right above her. She wasn’t scared but the experience was like a fairground ride, exhilarating but also sickening. She couldn’t relax. In the silences she was waiting for the next jolt to hurl her out of the sky.
The storm roared round the valley then grumbled back into the mountains only to return with a less violent but longer burst of temper. More rain. Less thunder. And she had almost forgotten what rain was like, but here it was, two streams on either side of the hut spurting over the edge of the rock.
Early morning, in the half light and half asleep she realised the rain had stopped. She put on her coat and looked out of the door. A wet misty morning, not unlike a canal morning, the world was sodden, but it wasn’t cold.
Water was still trickling past the hut, making patterns in the mud. The sun was rising over the mountains and it was the clearest she had ever seen them. In the distance above the mist of the valley they looked so near she felt she could touch them. The pink light of morning staining a bruised-looking sky. The storm had gone to the coast and she could see it, a grey volcano of cloud far away.
She walked through the gully to the Ferrou. She wanted to see if the storm had changed the water and it had. It was pouring out of the basin murky brown, iron red. The rock seemed to be bleeding into the pool. The water was more agitated than usual, turning in a spiral like a cauldron of soup. The Ferrou was a damp, dripping place. Sunless and eerie. It made her shudder. It seemed to be filled with the ghosts of a hundred dead people, all trapped there, all unable to leave.
She was dozing. Through the open door sunlight fell on to the stone floor. Somebody was calling her name. ‘Mireille! Mireille!’ She sat up in bed. She thought it was her mother calling her to get up for school. ‘Mireille! Mireille!’ But it was Jeanette. In her pyjamas she went outside and there was Jeanette by her car squawking like a magpie. When she saw Mireille waving to her she scrambled up the path. They met on the hut terrace, Jeanette puffing and blowing and Mireille in her nightwear but delighted to see her. Jeanette had a huge basket, which she hauled into the hut and put on the table. ‘Oh, it’s so steep! I’m not young like I used to be.’ She sat on the stool and fanned her cheeks. ‘What a storm! I was thinking all night, I’m sure she’s going to be killed. There were two people struck down, one farmer out by Rochas and a shepherd in the hills, it’s always happening. Thank the Blessed Lord you have been spared! We have not seen you for so long I said to Macon, I must go and see her myself. The Ferrou is a lonely place. You are all right, aren’t you?’
‘I didn’t sleep much,’ said Mireille.
‘Who could sleep? Mama was screaming, storms remind her of the war and when they shot Papa. Two branches came off a tree in the square and the dog hid in the cellar and we couldn’t find him. What a night! Now the dog’s got the runs and Mama’s in bed and I said to Macon, I bet a tree fell on that hut. There’s trees down in the forest all over the place.’
‘Thank you for being concerned,’ said Mireille. She stoked up the stove and put on the coffee pot.
Jeanette patted her dress and crossed her sturdy legs. ‘I’ve brought you some things. Nobody’s seen you for weeks.’ She p
ointed to the basket.
‘For me? Are you sure? Oh, how kind!’ Mireille looked inside. There was a quantity of fruit and vegetables, cuts of cold meats, two quiches, a bag of olives and a cassoulet in a pot. A baguette, some local cheese and a packet of coffee. It was like Christmas. ‘Oh, all for me? Jeanette, I was going to go shopping on Tuesday …’
‘Tuesday! There’s nothing to eat, I can see. What do you live off? Roots? Look at you, you’re so thin. Come on, eat!’ and she whipped up a hearty sandwich.
As Mireille was eating Jeanette put the food on the shelves. ‘Being a botanist doesn’t pay, you need another job, let me tell you, and one that puts meat in your pot. At least you keep this place tidy. Old Man Henri, he lived like a pig, but then what do you expect, he was a man …’ The coffee pot boiled and she poured it into the cups. Then she saw the pile of paper. ‘Ah, that’s why you’ve been alone … and I thought it was because you’ve been going mad …’ She looked through the papers thoughtfully as if she could understand what they said. ‘So thorough and not too much crossing out … what a great deal of writing … I have to admit I hardly ever write … won’t your magazine be pleased … they will surely pay you well for this and then you can eat like a queen … and dates too … an excellent survey …’
‘It’s a precious document,’ said Mireille, smiling, and took the journal off Jeanette and put it on her bed.
‘You have your father’s brains and that’s for sure. You have written a complete survey of all the flowers in the valley. It’s sure to be published. I shall tell everybody …’
‘You do that,’ said Mireille, laughing now.
They sat outside on the wooden bench Mireille had made and shared the meat and cheese. Jeanette kicked off her shoes and bared her legs to the sun. Mireille changed into her dress. The rain was evaporating from the grass and the trees, rising in a steam. Jeanette didn’t stop talking, the village, her mother, Old Man Henri, the price of meat in Lieux, the topics changing like the remnants of the clouds until there wasn’t anything left to talk about and the sky was a clear pure blue.
Two women sitting on a makeshift bench, staring at the sky and the view of the wooden hills across a quiet valley.
‘You could sit here for ever, couldn’t you?’ said Jeanette, yawning.
‘I sit here for hours sometimes,’ said Mireille.
‘In the end Old Man Henri wouldn’t come to the village at all. You must not be like that. Too much silence makes you mad. There’s an aioli next Monday. If it doesn’t rain it’ll be the best one yet. Madame Cabasson has already sold fifty tickets. Will you come? You must come. You must come with us. Whitsun Monday at the top of the Col de St Clair.’
‘Thank you,’ said Mireille. Jeanette got up to go. ‘And thank you for the food and thank you for everything.’ Mireille hugged her.
‘We mustn’t let you starve,’ said Jeanette, a bit embarrassed, as she collected her basket.
‘I nearly forgot. Here’re two letters for you. They arrived ages ago, but I haven’t seen you.’ She retrieved them from out of her bra. She gave them, crumpled and warm, to Mireille, and for once she wasn’t curious about their contents.
Sunday 29th May
A letter from Stephen and a letter from Gregor. Happy, chatty letters asking me the same thing. How are you and what are you going to do next?
I don’t want to answer them just yet.
LA FERROU
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Aioli is garlic mayonnaise. An aioli is a grand picnic where boiled vegetables and fish are served with garlic mayonnaise. The whole village takes part and in Provence it is as traditional and unquestioned as our church fêtes. The St Clair aioli was held every year at the top of the Col de St Clair, a wooded hill with a small olive grove and a little chapel on top. Perhaps once the occasion had been after a mass, but now the chapel was semi-derelict and unused. The aioli was always on Whit Monday.
Mireille walked, but most of the villagers went up in cars and vans and the zig-zagging road was full of them, honking to each other, bumping over the stones. It was a long walk, hot and dusty and quite uninteresting. The pine trees were so tall there wasn’t even a glimpse of a view. Even at the top there was only one place that was clear of trees, behind the church, and from here the three villages could just be seen. St Clair, Rochas and Lieux, and beyond Lieux the dark ridge of the Canjurs.
It was a hot day and due to become hotter. Since the storm there was a feeling that summer had definitely begun and cicadas had started their dry song. There would not be much rain now until September.
The top of the hill was full of butterflies, yellow and blue ones. Blown up on the warm draughts of air, they danced among the olive trees. Also flitting about were the villagers, putting up trestle tables, laying table-cloths, opening chairs and emptying great boxes of food. This was a French picnic.
Cabassons were in charge and theirs was the largest table, laid out with the aioli for those who had paid for the privilege to eat it. The villagers gradually took their places according to their family groups. Noticeably absent were the Villeneuves, the North Africans and Odette and her daughter, who never went to such occasions. The Blancs hadn’t arrived yet but the Gregsons were there, on a table next to the Cabassons. Mrs Gregson saw Mireille and called her over.
‘I don’t think we’ve had the privilege. Richard, this is the lady botanist.’ Richard didn’t hear, he was explaining loudly to a group of his friends the fiscal advantages of living in France.
‘Do sit with us.’ Mrs Gregson was tanned a honey colour and her hair was two shades lighter than when Mireille had last seen her. She was a fit-looking woman in her late fifties. Her friends reminded Mireille of her parents’ friends. This did not endear them to her. ‘Do excuse Richard, we haven’t seen the Bonvilles since Christmas. Sometimes I think we entertain all summer. Some wine? It’s from the château. Please, call me Pat …’
Mireille sat down.
‘Tell me about your book … and who’s going to publish it?’
Mireille sighed. ‘It’s just a personal thing. It’s of no interest to anybody.’
Pat Gregson looked bitterly disappointed. ‘Oh, I thought you were a specialist.’
‘No, I’m a nobody,’ said Mireille. ‘I love the countryside here but Jeanette has a wild imagination.’
‘So there’s no truth in this at all.’ She was quite annoyed. ‘You can’t believe anyone around here.’
‘There is a book and Jeanette has seen it,’ said Mireille cryptically, protecting Jeanette. ‘But I’m not a specialist. I’m an admirer of truth and beauty.’
‘I see,’ said Pat, but she didn’t. She poured herself more wine. She looked around the tables. ‘Don’t you love these affairs? They’re so Provence. That’s what I like about living here. When we first came here I said to Richard, who on earth will we get to know? But we’ve met people from all over. I think there’s an English family in every village now and we know a few Parisians. Dutch people are nice too, so polite. If it wasn’t for people like us these villages would be ruins, you know.’
The priest was blessing the food and the mayor had started a lengthy speech about modernity versus tradition, but not many people were listening, least of all Pat Gregson. ‘… I mean the Provençals are fine and all that, but you never get to know them. They’re all family, and between you and me, well, they are peasants and they have no idea about their culture. Peter Mayle wasn’t wrong, you know, and I know he was writing about the Lubéron. Personally I think he got his ideas from Lady Fortescue. I much prefer her books. We’ve got early editions, but I do believe they’re in print again. Anyway, we’ve been here fifteen years and that’s longer than the Mayles.’
Mireille decided to play Pat Gregson’s game. ‘My parents bought our place in 1963,’ she said.
‘Good gracious! Richard, did you hear that? This lady’s family’s been here since the sixties. Sorry, my dear, what was your name?’
‘I’m Mireille
. My father was Hugo Devereux.’
‘What, the architect? … who designed the luxury flats at Juan les Pins, and that house, what’s its name, that overlooks the Cap and is open to the public? Well of course we know about that. Richard used to work for Edwin Musgrove, he designed our swimming pool feature … Richard, Richard, this lady is Hugo Devereux’s daughter.’
‘Yes, Devereux and Crawford,’ said Richard and for slightly more than a minute shifted his attention to Mireille and told her about all the other architects he had worked for. ‘… and of course Edwin Musgrove designed our pool. Have you got a pool?’
Mireille hesitated. She wanted to say, my pool is a natural feature of unparalleled beauty, but she didn’t want the Gregsons anywhere near it. ‘No,’ she said.
‘Well, you’ve got to have a pool,’ said Richard and went back to his friends.
‘You must live in the most superb place if your father designed it,’ said Pat, looking furtively in her diary for when she might be able to invite Mireille for dinner.
‘Not at all. My father died. I live in a cabanon. Excuse me,’ for she had just seen Jeanette and Auxille arriving with two car-loads of the second best Blancs.
‘What a peculiar person,’ she could hear Pat saying as she left.
But Jeanette was overjoyed to see her and the mayor’s speech had nearly finished so they hadn’t missed a thing. Madame Cabasson started serving the aioli, and oh, was the fish as good as last year, and surely they had more vegetables, and Auxille could remember when they used to come up here on donkeys. Macon opened the wine. The feast had begun.