Children of Light

by Lucy English

  And did the château Blancs remember Mireille? Of course they did, who could forget that little boy, and Dou-dou became a great big hound and hunted boar and fathered dozens of other good hounds. And Badouin gave them a painting and it’s worth thousands of francs but they won’t sell it, it’s over the fireplace. And Mireille’s a botanist now and Sanclair has his own business, would you believe, and his father lives in the Himalayas and wears nothing but a yellow bit of cloth.

  The sun was scorching hot now and table umbrellas added to the bit of shade under the olive trees. The mayor made another speech and Richard Gregson shouted out ‘Bravo! Bravo!’ but nobody else did. The church choir sang a few songs, all out of tune, and Auxille couldn’t help remembering that her grandfather, the shepherd, used to bring his flock up here in the old days.

  Mireille, quiet, in the bosom of somebody else’s family, but enjoying it. It was a comforting place to be.

  Friday 10th June. Midday

  Hot June and this is the Provence that people pay to see. Bright sun, blue skies and terracotta roofs. The wind blowing the earth to dust and the long afternoons trying to find a piece of shade. I’m by the Ferrou. A daily swim keeps me fresh and I’ve promised Jeanette I will go and see her twice a week. If I’m still here at the end of the summer I will need some work. There must be somebody who wants to learn English. Jeanette said why don’t I sing for her customers, her café’s starting to get busy, but I don’t want to do that. I don’t feel like singing.

  I’ve been reading through my life story and one thing keeps occurring to me. I have experienced the fantastic. I did give birth to Sanclair by the pool. I did. It wasn’t a dream, it was real. And living here for four years was real too, and so was meeting Felix. If I’m sad about anything it’s not just the loss, it’s the stretches of the mundane I seem to get stuck in. I read my life story and I thought, why didn’t I go to India? I felt guilty about Vivienne and I was stubborn and proud, but there’s nothing for me to be stubborn and proud about now.

  There’s only me. Sanclair is a grown man and wants something different.

  ‘Children of light, why do you protest when I help you find the path that leads to your light?’

  I keep thinking about this. My light. Being here. The sun on the wet crack in the rock. The still green patch of grass. The leaves turning on the surface of the water.

  She walked back to the hut, heat-hazy and with a desire to sleep. It was difficult to sleep outside now, because of the ants. She lay on her bed with the window and the door open. The breeze blew in, creating little dust storms on the floor. A dog barked at the farm …

  A car came along the road and stopped. People got out and were talking, their voices came closer, one a man’s and one a woman’s. Mireille could hear them, not French voices, but English ones. ‘It’s got to be up here … but I can’t see it …’ the man’s, and the woman’s slightly whinging, ‘God, these brambles!’ For an awful moment she thought it was the Gregsons and she contemplated slipping out of bed and bolting the door, but the man’s voice was younger, more energetic. ‘Here it is … down here, look … Mum, Mum, are you there?’

  Coming along the terrace was a tanned-looking Stephen and a hot-looking Judy. Mireille was so surprised to see them she couldn’t move and stood there in the doorway.

  ‘Mum, it is you! There you are, Christ, this place is difficult to find! Come on give your big boy a hug!’

  She did and he smelled of clean shirts and lavender soap.

  ‘You look well,’ said Stephen and she did, even though her dress was crumpled, she had bare legs and her hair was down to her shoulders.

  ‘I wasn’t expecting you …’ She was still so stunned she couldn’t think properly, but she was overjoyed to see him, she knew that.

  ‘I thought I’d check up on you … you didn’t answer my last letter. I thought I’d make it into a holiday. We’ve been here a week already. We’ve been to Castellane and Moustiers and the Gorge du Verdon.’

  ‘Those roads,’ said Judy.

  ‘And we’re staying in Lieux, in a reasonable sort of place. So we’ve come to St Clair to see you. We asked in the café and some crazy old woman went on for hours about how she remembered me as a baby, and some drunk bloke gave us directions. I never thought we’d get here.’

  ‘Auxille and Macon. Then you didn’t see Jeanette. She’s probably at Monoprix.’ She laughed and laughed. She hadn’t felt so happy for months.

  They took the table outside and sat in the shade. ‘Tell me your news, then,’ said Stephen.

  ‘There isn’t any. Here I am. That’s the news.’

  ‘It’s quite a place, isn’t it? I love the view.’

  Judy didn’t look so impressed. The sun was bothering her. She had fair skin and her nose and cheeks had started to go pink. Her expression reminded Mireille of Vivienne. Thinly disguised distaste, which increased when Mireille showed them the hut, the bed, the sink and the loo in the woods. She gave them water to drink because the stove was unlit.

  Judy sipped hers politely. ‘The perfume factory at Grasse was interesting,’ she said.

  ‘Why don’t you come and stay in the village? Jeanette’s got a flat,’ said Mireille.

  ‘We didn’t want to rough it,’ said Judy quickly.

  ‘Come on, Jude, where’s your sense of adventure?’ said Stephen, but Judy didn’t look like she had any. She was trying to knock the ants off her legs. ‘We were worried about you,’ she said accusingly. ‘Out here on your own. We thought you’d be back by now.’

  ‘I’m happy here,’ said Mireille.

  Judy and Stephen exchanged glances. ‘Come on, Jude, we don’t want to bother Mum with that just yet.’

  ‘Why don’t you stay for dinner?’ asked Mireille, ‘I’ve got bread and salad, cheese and salami.’

  ‘Brilliant!’ ‘We’ve made other plans,’ said Stephen and Judy in unison. They looked at each other again.

  ‘Another time,’ said Mireille. There was an anxious pause. ‘Tell me about Bath, then, and The Heathers.’

  And Stephen did. A new bookcase, a new lawn-mower, a new gate to the bridge, and Mireille felt herself taken back to that part of the world that was so familiar to her, and so sad.

  ‘And the canal,’ she said, trying to smile.

  ‘Those guys that bought your boat are gay, and after the shock the Bigbys got used to it. Now they’re all great pals and they’ve formed a clean-up-the-canal campaign, which of course means the crusties, but when I last saw them Barney said they wanted to move to Ireland anyway. They send you their love.’

  ‘Before I left they said they wanted to get together a collection of Felix’s poems.’

  ‘No. That didn’t happen. They couldn’t find any. Just a few bits of paper, but nothing made sense. I suppose they were in his head. Sorry, Mum.’

  Nothing left of you. Not even your words.

  Stephen stood up and flicked back his hair. ‘Well, I think we better go.’ He gave the car-keys to Judy. ‘I’ll be with you in a minute,’ he said. They watched her pick her way back down the terraces.

  ‘You are all right, aren’t you, Mum?’

  ‘Oh yes,’ said Mireille.

  ‘I can see why you came here. It is beautiful.’

  ‘It was bloody cold in March.’

  Stephen laughed. They watched Judy sitting in the car fanning herself with a road map.

  ‘It’s funny …’ said Stephen. ‘It’s like I remember it, but I don’t remember it. Inside, with the bed and the table …’

  ‘Thank you for coming to see me,’ said Mireille.

  ‘And we’ll see you tomorrow. Where? Here?’

  ‘In the square for lunch. Tomorrow I do my shopping.’

  When Jeanette saw Stephen she covered him in hugs and kisses, exclaiming inaccurately, ‘My baby! My baby!’ The café was busy and she announced to all the customers, ‘My husband’s aunt used to look after him when he was a little boy.’ Stephen took it very well. He blushed and sm
iled and ordered a three-course meal, which was exactly the right thing to do.

  It was a pleasant lunch. Stephen got out a map and outlined their plans for the rest of the holiday. Jeanette, rushed off her feet, still had time to remark how Stephen looked so like his papa and wasn’t his girlfriend just like Princess Diana, and even Odette managed to close her shop so she could come and look.

  Macon hovered by the table. ‘He’s a city boy, but his father was so strong he could carry twenty bricks in a hod. That German told a good joke. This one looks serious.’

  Stephen bought him a bottle of wine, which was also the right thing to do. Mireille ate her lunch and smiled. Her son, although harassed, was passing the first test. Ordeal by villagers.

  The only person who was failing was Judy. Auxille had plonked herself next to her and was recounting her complete memories of Stephen as a baby, plus everything else she wanted to recall. Unfortunately Judy’s French wasn’t up to it. She nodded and looked more and more bored.

  ‘Is she deaf?’ said Auxille to Mireille. ‘I’ve asked her four times when is the wedding, but she doesn’t answer.’

  ‘I think she’s tired,’ said Mireille, trying to be kind, but Auxille interpreted this as pregnant and started winking and nudging Judy, who responded in horror and pushed her plate away.

  ‘Stephen, are we going to stay here all afternoon?’ But Stephen and Macon had found they had one subject in common: rugby.

  ‘Maman!’ shrieked Jeanette from the café. ‘Are you going to sit there or do I get my dishes washed?!’

  By three o’clock the café had emptied, but they were still there.

  ‘So …’ said Stephen, folding up his map, ‘we’d better look round this village then and look at this flat.’

  ‘It’s a shame we can’t stay in Lieux. It was much quieter,’ said Judy.

  ‘We’re here to see Mum,’ said Stephen. Judy pursed her lips. She started rubbing sun-cream on her nose. She looked petulant now, like a little girl who hadn’t been given the present she wanted.

  ‘You don’t have to stay here,’ said Mireille. ‘You don’t have to see me every day.’

  ‘But I want to,’ said Stephen emphatically. ‘All these people remember me. It’s weird. I keep remembering little bits. I remember that church door and this square and … I know, there’s something I’ve brought for you.’ He ran off to his car.

  He came back with the accordion. ‘It was a pain getting it over here, but I thought you might like it.’

  He gave it to Mireille and she held it gently as if it were valuable, because to her it was.

  ‘Oh Stephen, I haven’t played this for months,’ and the last time was a starry evening on the roof of her boat with Felix. A tear dribbled down her cheek.

  ‘I thought it might cheer you up,’ said Stephen.

  ‘Thank you,’ said Mireille and smiled. ‘It has.’ She wiped her eyes.

  ‘My father gave you that,’ said Macon. ‘My father gave her that, for nothing.’

  A red accordion with ivory and brass decorations. She undid it and put her fingers on the keys. She played a chord, a minor one, a sad one, then another. Jeanette and Auxille sat down.

  She closed her eyes.

  – O Magali, se tu te fas

  La pauro morto,

  Adounc la terro me

  farai,

  Aqui t’aurai!

  ‘O Magali, and if cold clay

  Thou make thyself, and dead,

  Earth I’ll become, and there

  thou’lt be,

  At last, for me.’

  She didn’t sing but she played the tune she hadn’t played in that square for twenty years.

  She opened her eyes. Stephen was drumming on the table. Even Judy was listening.

  She stopped. ‘Can you take me home?’ she said to Stephen, ‘I’d like to go home now.’

  A week of trips, car rides and lunches out. Mireille had seen more of the area than she’d ever seen in all the time she’d lived there. Stephen was becoming more enamoured of the countryside of his birth. He wanted to see everything in the guide book. He was already planning to stay another week. But Judy wasn’t happy. Hot and bored, she was behaving like Vivienne, except Vivienne had excellent French and an icy polish. The flat was poky and airless. She hated the hairpin roads. Her shoulders were burnt and wherever they went she could only sit there like a dummy while Stephen and Mireille bantered with the waiters.

  At the end of the week Stephen came to see Mireille on his own.

  She was sitting outside. She had been playing her accordion. Stephen looked glum and fed up.

  ‘I thought today was Avignon and all points due west.’

  ‘Judy’s got a headache.’ He sat on the bench next to Mireille and undid his shirt. ‘I’m going to take her to the airport tomorrow.’

  ‘And what about you?’

  ‘I want to stay another week.’ He sighed and stretched out his arms. ‘We had a row. She said I need to be here with you. Perhaps she’s right. You see, I keep remembering things. I went to the baker’s and I remembered it, and inside the church. It’s like a dream I’ve forgotten. It’s difficult to explain.’

  ‘Tell me what you remember?’ said Mireille, in French.

  Stephen laughed, ‘Oh yes, and I can understand the accent and that pisses her off as well. She likes organising things. She likes being in control and she’s not.’

  He picked a snail shell up off the ground. ‘Shells …’ he said, in French. ‘I remember putting them in my pocket … and red plastic sandals … outside with a bowl of water, washing shells and putting them in a line.’

  ‘They’re still there,’ said Mireille and showed him. A line of shells along the far wall of the hut. Stephen knelt down and picked one up. ‘I put them there … that is so weird …’ He was behind the hut under the cannise, he could see the hammock and the woods. ‘I don’t remember the hammock.’

  ‘No, that’s new.’

  ‘I remember it raining and hiding under the trees. I’m wearing wellies and I’ve got a little dog and I put him in my coat and I sleep with him at night and he licks my face.’ He walked towards the hammock. ‘I remember it being really hot and I went to play in the woods then I think … no I’m muddling this up with something else … I remember going swimming … and it’s not a river and it’s not a swimming pool… Is there a pool here?’

  ‘Come with me,’ said Mireille and she led him up the gully towards the Ferrou.

  They stood there looking at the rock and the still pool of water shaded by the trees.

  ‘God, I dream about this place,’ he said in a whisper. ‘I didn’t think it was real.’ He put his hands in the water and washed his face. ‘Did I swim in it?’

  ‘We used to swim in it all the time.’

  ‘I don’t remember you being there. I was swimming on my own … I didn’t think it was real.’ He looked like a man who had just discovered fairyland.

  ‘This is the Ferrou,’ said Mireille. ‘This is why I’m here.’

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  Tuesday 21st June. Afternoon

  Stephen’s here. He’s in the woods making a shelter for the toilet. He hasn’t learned that you don’t do things when it’s hot, but I know this and I’m inside resting. He came here ten days ago. He was with Judy and they were having a holiday but it turned into something else. She went home on Saturday and there were tears and bad scenes. In the end I felt sorry for her. She’s too urban and English for this place. She wanted a nice sight-seeing trip and for one week we were complete tourists. I’ve seen so many hill-top villages I can’t remember which one is which. I hate being a tourist because you are just looking, just consuming. I want to be settled. I want to be absorbed. She couldn’t do that. She couldn’t understand the French and that’s vital here. You have to speak French. And Stephen has started to discover his roots.

  For the first time in his adult life he’s asking me ‘Where did we sleep? What did we do? What did we eat?
’ when he was little. Judy’s not a part of this at all and she was right, he does need to do it on his own. They were up at Jeanette’s flat for a week but now he’s down here. It was his choice.

  It’s odd having him here. He’s not my little boy anymore. He’s a great big man, eating man quantities of food and planning projects and walks in a man-sized way. But then I see it. Making a shelter for the loo is a game which involves banging and sawing and much puffing, and I see it, he’s four years old making dens in the woods.

  Now he’s gone brown in the sun with a few days’ stubble and his hair’s losing that office-cut look, he does so look like Gregor. I read Gregor’s last letter again and I think, he’s in his sixties now and in every single letter he’s written, ‘Come and see me.’ He’s never stopped saying that. I’ve been thinking, isn’t it time I swallowed my pride and saw him? I don’t mind anymore that he chose the Baba and not us. Stephen has no memories of him and that does make me feel sad. Last night I woke up and Stephen was asleep on the floor. He was making a sort of clucking noise and I swear he used to do that when he was small. Just for a second it felt like we were all together again.

  Stephen came down out of the woods, dripping with sweat, and saying, ‘God, it’s so bloody hot. I need a swim.’ He came back wet and refreshed and they sat inside. Even with the door open the hut wasn’t cool, but at least inside was out of the sun. ‘Is this the botanical survey Jeanette raves about?’ asked Stephen, picking up Mireille’s file of papers. ‘I thought she was making it up.’

  ‘It’s a journal,’ said Mireille and politely took it off him. She put it on her bed. It wasn’t for him to read.

  Stephen shook the water out of his hair. ‘I meant to tell you before, but I’ll tell you now. I’m afraid I read all of Dad’s letters.’

  ‘Why should that make you afraid?’

  ‘Well, they were private, weren’t they? When you were away I was sorting through stuff and I found them in a drawer. I read them all.’