‘Well, of course you should. It’s as simple as that. Now, on to the guest list. Because I can’t work out whether to invite—’
‘Mum. My battery is just about to run out,’ I tell her – a lie. ‘Can I find the charger and phone you back?’
‘If you must, dear,’ she says. ‘But I’m pretty sure that we both know that you won’t.’
I sit and stare into the middle distance for a while and wish that my father was still alive. Because though I know that the story sounds mad to my mother, it’s only because she can countenance the idea that I might be talking rubbish. It’s the same with Victor. The problem isn’t the story; it’s the ears that are listening.
Dad would have taken me seriously. And even if he didn’t believe me, he would have at least pretended to and given appropriate advice. But Dad, like Waiine, is gone.
I need to talk to someone else.
I grab my phone and scroll through the contacts list until I get to ‘M’.
‘Bonjour!’ Mark says when he answers his mobile. ‘How’s my little baguette muncher?’
‘OK,’ I say. ‘Well, not really.’
‘What’s up?’
‘I feel terrible, only phoning when something’s wrong, but . . .’
‘It’s fine. That’s what friends are for.’
‘Are you OK, though?’ I ask.
‘Sure. I’m good. But what’s up with you?’
‘Everyone thinks I’m talking rubbish. Mum and Victor both think I’m cracking up. So maybe I am.’
‘I’m plumping up my cushions,’ Mark says. ‘There. Plumped. Fire away!’ His voice is so warm, so familiar, that I could almost cry.
‘OK. It’s a long story,’ I say. ‘And it’ll sound weird. So just suspend judgement till the end, OK?’
‘OK.’
‘Well . . .’
Mark listens in almost total silence as I tell him my story, making only the occasional ‘um’ or ‘ooh!’ sounds as proof that the connection is still working.
When I have finished, I say, ‘So, what do you think? Am I losing the plot here? Am I going mad?’
Mark sighs. ‘I don’t know. I mean, I can see why it might seem that way. It’s all pretty outlandish. So I can kind of understand Victor’s reaction. And knowing your mum, she probably wasn’t even listening.’
I laugh. ‘But you think I’m mad, too.’
‘Maybe, maybe not. Weird shit does happen. Some people do believe in superstitious rubbish: guardian angels and tarot cards and spells and shit.’
‘I don’t,’ I say. ‘Well, I don’t think I do.’
‘But that’s not the point, is it?’ Mark says. ‘If you’re finding tarot cards and weird loops of lucky heather – or unlucky heather – around the place, then someone else clearly does believe in it, and that is scary enough.’
I let out a sigh. The fact that there is at least one person who understands what is and isn’t happening here – that this isn’t about whether I believe in tarot cards or not – makes a huge weight slip from my shoulders. ‘God, I love you, Mark,’ I say.
‘But the weird thing is that your boyfriend is assuming that you’re the one who’s mad rather than the old hag next door. What’s her name again?’
‘Distira.’
‘See, she even sounds like a witch. And people do sometimes do weird shit. They do lock people in cellars for thirty years, and they do murder them and bury them in the garden.’
‘You’re scaring me now,’ I say.
‘I just mean, well, why would Victor want to side with her?’
‘She is his aunt, I suppose.’
‘Yes. Blood’s thicker than water and all that. But all the same. I mean she sounds like a pretty random character. You’ve always been one hundred per cent logical, as long as I’ve known you. So I think you should listen to your instincts.’
‘Thanks. You don’t know how much that means,’ I say, my voice starting to wobble with emotion. ‘So what do you think I should do?’
‘I guess bin the coffee. Burn the tarot card. And lock the doors.’
I laugh. ‘That’s what Victor said. Only he wasn’t so nice about it. Anyway, I already did all that.’
‘So you see!’ Mark says. ‘You’re not mad at all. Just afraid.’
By the time I hang up, I feel utterly homesick, but also vindicated. I bin the tea in the tea-caddy, the sugar from the bowl, and throw out some flour, herbs and spices. Anything that might have been tampered with. I’m aware, as I do this, that my mother would consider it an absurd waste, and that Victor would be spitting with rage. And it strikes me that the source of much of my tension has been precisely not being able to follow my intuition because of Victor’s contradictory instincts of his own. Binning the suspect food feels, in some strange way, like liberation.
Once the jars have been emptied and refilled from fresh vacuum-sealed packs, I make myself a fresh pot of coffee. A little of my newfound happiness fades with the realisation that it still tastes disgusting.
Starting to doubt my sanity again, I pour the coffee away and fill the cup with water, but even as I raise this to my lips, the smell of the stuff – mouldy and stagnant – makes me feel sick.
I wrinkle my nose and swap the mug for a glass, which I fill with water. I hold it up to the light. ‘God!’ I say – a eureka moment. Because tap water should not be milky. It should not have thousands of microscopic bits floating in it, either.
‘I knew it!’ I mutter out loud, thinking back to my insistence – much mocked – that we buy bottled water. ‘Right from the start!’
I check the cupboards and find a single, sealed bottle of Volvic and swig some straight from the bottle. It tastes fine, if vaguely plasticky. As an experiment more than anything else, I make yet another cup of coffee with water from the bottle. It tastes fine.
And then I restoke the range and settle down to phone Victor with my good news.
‘Hello,’ he says warily.
‘Hi, babe,’ I say.
‘Before you tell me off, I wasn’t ignoring your messages. I’ve been run off my feet. The brocanteur guy turned up before nine. He’s still here. And I haven’t even had breakfast yet.’
‘I wasn’t going to tell you off,’ I say defensively. ‘Anyway, I was just phoning to share some good news. I found the reason why everything tastes funny.’
Silence.
‘It’s the tap water. I knew it from the start, and I was right. There’s something wrong with the water.’
More silence.
‘Victor?’
‘Please don’t start all that again,’ he pleads.
‘Start what? Jesus, Victor! What’s wrong with you? I’m telling you that I have found the cause.’
‘Only there is nothing wrong with the tap water. I’ve been drinking it for weeks.’
‘Only there is. It’s all milky. It looks like wallpaper paste.’
‘It’s bubbles, CC,’ Victor says. ‘It’s just tiny bubbles of air. If you leave it to stand . . .’
‘I’m not liking this new attitude of yours much,’ I say.
‘And which attitude would that be?’
‘The one that assumes that everything I say is rubbish, even before I say it.’
‘Only it is rubbish. I don’t know what’s got into—’
‘It’s not fecking air bubbles!’ I shout. ‘It smells like dog-shite and—’
‘So now you’ve gone all Irish on me.’
‘Well that would be because you’re making me angry. I mean, you can’t even believe me about the state of the water.’
‘You know what, CC, I don’t need to believe you. Because if you don’t like the tap water, if you think my aunt has put a spell on the well or something, then just drink bottled water. And leave me out of it.’
I open my mouth to speak, but words fail me.
‘I have to go. They need a hand moving the wardrobe.’ And with that, he hangs up.
As the day passes, and as Victor fails to phone m
e back, my mood swings wildly between anger and concern. Because who could have imagined, even three days ago, that we could end up here?
After a few cups of tea, and a bowl of rehydrated soup, I realise that my bottle of Volvic isn’t going to last, so I set all the cold taps running in the hope that I can clear whatever is causing the problem from the system, and when I check a glass of the stuff a bit later, it does look, and smell, better. I even boil a batch, just in case, and leave it to cool. But with the thought that if the well or spring or wherever our water comes from has been poisoned, boiling might not suffice, I’m unable to drink the stuff. Instinct simply won’t let me do it.
So I open a bottle of wine instead. And when that one’s empty, I open another.
At 6 p.m., once the sun has set, I close the shutters while watching carefully for fluttering tarot cards or voodoo dolls. I see neither.
Safely barricaded against the world, I attempt to phone Victor, but his mobile is still switched off, so I briefly fantasise that he has realised the error of his ways and is driving home right now to apologise and somehow make everything right. But as evening continues, and I drink more and more wine, I’m finding it harder and harder to work out how things can ever truly be right again.
By the time my phone does finally vibrate, it’s 10 p.m. and I’m indisputably drunk. I peer at the screen of my mobile and am only just able to read that it is Mark who is calling rather than Victor.
‘Hello, chicken,’ Mark says. ‘I thought I should check up on you. Make sure you haven’t been turned into a black cat or something.’
‘It’sh not funny,’ I slur.
‘No. I know.’
‘I’m drunk.’
‘You sound it. Drinking on your own! You always say that’s the sign of a true alcoholic.’
‘Do I? Well, I can’t drink water, sho I switched to wine. Some very expensive Bordeaux. Victor will be furious.’ I frown at the effort it is taking to get my tongue around complex words like expensive and furious.
‘Why can’t you drink water?’
‘It’s murky. She’s done something to it.’
‘Maybe you should drink Perrier or something,’ Mark says. ‘You sound like you’ve had enough to me.’
‘I haven’t got any bottled water! I drunk it.’
‘Then tomorrow you should go and stock up,’ Mark says, using a parent-talking-to-recalcitrant-child voice that I find strangely reassuring.
‘I can’t. Victor’s got the van,’ I explain, doing a baby voice to better fit the role. ‘And it’s too far to walk.’
‘When will he be back, sweetie?’
‘I don’t know. He won’t say. And now he’s not even talking to me.’ I swipe at my cheek and realise that it’s wet, and that my fake childish misery is morphing into real adult tears.
‘Can you walk to a shop?’
‘No. It’s too far. It’s forty minutes away.’
‘You’re fit. You can walk for forty—’
‘In a car! Doh! It’s forty minutes in a car.’
‘Are you crying?’ Mark asks.
‘A bit,’ I say stubbornly. ‘Not much. I feel really miserable, Mark.’
‘Why do you feel miserable, chicken?’
‘Because I’m in the middle of nowhere, and the shops are miles away, and the only person here is Distira and she’s a witch, and it’s freezing cold and we’re running out of wood and the land looks like a tsunami’s swept through it, and the house isn’t finished, and the water’s poisoned, and the walls fell down, and my boyfriend won’t talk to me, and when he does he’s horrible, and the neighbours are creeping around while I’m asleep, scaring the fecking bejeezus out of me, and I bloody hate it here and I miss London and my friends and my cat, and clean water. And you. I miss you.’ My lungs spasm as a wave of drunken angst rolls over me.
‘That Victor’s a bit of a prick to fuck off and leave you on your own with all this going on, isn’t he?’
And even though I know that it’s untrue, that this isn’t quite how it happened, I agree. ‘He is. I hate him.’
‘But you still love him, right?’
I swallow. I know that I do, but I really can’t bring myself to say it right now.
‘Oh dear,’ Mark says.
‘What am I going to do?’ I say, starting to cry again.
‘Can you rent a car?’
‘How? I’m in the middle of fecking nowhere here.’
‘Aw. You are in a mess, aren’t you?’
‘He won’t even answer the phone,’ I say again. ‘And when he does, he just shouts at me. I don’t know what to do, Mark.’
‘Shall I call him?’
‘He’s switched his mobile off. Honestly, I wish I never came here. I hate bloody France.’
‘You don’t mean that.’
‘I do.’
‘OK. Here’s what you do,’ Mark says. ‘You need to stop drinking now. You’re slaughtered.’
‘I know. I’m so thirsty, too.’
‘So will you do that for me?’
‘Will I shtop drinking wine?’
‘Yes.’
‘OK.’
‘Have you got any water?’ he asks.
‘No. Only poison water.’
‘Fruit juice? Coke?’
‘There’s some tonic, I think.’
‘OK. Drink some tonic. No gin though, OK? And go to bed. And in the morning, it’ll seem better. I promise.’
‘How will it seem better in the morning, Mark? How?’
‘It will. You’ll see. Things always seem better in the morning.’
‘It better,’ I say.
‘It will. Goodnight, sweetie! I love you lots.’
‘Thanks, Mark. You’re my best friend.’
I attempt to place the phone on the arm of the chair but miss and it falls to the floor. I don’t care. It can stay there.
I sit and stare at the fading flicker of the range and think about everything that I have left behind, as tears silently slide down my cheeks.
FIVE LITTLE DEATHS
I wake up with a hangover, dehydrated and gasping for water. I drink half a litre of the water I boiled yesterday. And then I promptly throw it all back up. Whether this is the result of the hangover, the water itself, or simply the idea that something is wrong with it is anyone’s guess.
For a while I can’t find my mobile, and hunting for it produces a vague sensation of panic. When I eventually do find it beneath a blanket on the floor, the battery is flat, so I plug it in to charge. While I wait the requisite five minutes required for it to become functional, I relight the range and open the shutters onto a cold, sunny day. I stare at the moon-like landscape and wish that I was anywhere but here.
I check my voicemail and phone Victor, only to find that his phone is still switched off.
‘Call me,’ I say into his answerphone, ‘and at least tell me when you’re coming back. I love you.’
I wrinkle my nose as I force out those last three words, and then wonder for a moment what the fact that I can no longer say them without pulling a face might mean.
Thinking about the conversation with Mark last night, I pull on my coat and shoes then head outside with the jerry-can, wondering if I can find a pool of clean water somewhere. Seeing that Distira’s Lada is missing, I have a better idea. I cross the garden and, nervously glancing around, fill the can from her garden tap. Her water may come from the same spring as mine, but it smells, and tastes, fine.
I attempt to call Victor’s phone three more times that morning, and become a little more angry with each attempt. And beyond the immediate anger, I begin to have a nagging sense of doubt about our relationship. We have survived so many things together, I was beginning to think that we were invincible. But maybe, just maybe, this episode is going to prove otherwise. You really never know where the fatal fault-line of a relationship will appear. Lack of belief in what your partner is saying might just turn out to be ours.
At two, my mobile rings and I run t
o check the display. It’s Mark.
‘Hello, you,’ I say. ‘Are you checking up on me?’
‘Yes!’ he says. ‘How are you this fine day?’
‘Fine,’ I say. ‘Well, hung-over.’
‘Look out the window,’ Mark says.
‘Why?’
‘Just look out the window and tell me what you see.’
I sigh and cross the room. ‘Mud. Mountains. Mayhem. Things beginning with “M”.’
‘Oh,’ Mark says. ‘Can’t you see me? I begin with M.’
‘No, Mark. I can’t see you. Even my eyesight’s not that good.’
‘Really? Are you looking now?’
‘Yes.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Of course I’m sure.’
‘Are you looking out of the front or the back?’
‘The front.’
‘Oh. Shit! I must be in the wrong place, then.’
‘You’re not making any sense, Mark,’ I tell him.
‘But I’m here,’ he says. ‘Well, I’m supposed to be. Is your place the big one or the little one in all the mud?’
‘No!’ I gasp, rushing to the front door, fumbling with the key, and then running outside.
There, in front of Distira’s house, I see a little blue Renault Kangoo. Mark is standing in front of it, holding a big bottle of water.
‘You’re in the witch’s garden, you twit!’ I laugh, and he turns to face me and waves at me with his bottle of water. ‘Water, water, everywhere!’ he laughs, and I can now hear him both through the phone and across the field.
I start to run towards him. For the first time in days, I begin to smile. ‘You crazy man!’ I shout. ‘I can’t believe you’re here,’ I splutter as I reach him and we embrace.
Mark pulls away just far enough to see my face and smiles lopsidedly. ‘Looks like it’s a good thing I came,’ he says.
‘Oh these?’ I say, swiping at a tear. ‘It’s just the cold wind. You had better move your car over here. You don’t want to upset the witch.’
Once he has moved his car, Mark stands and appraises the house. ‘Well,’ he says, wrinkling his nose.
‘I know,’ I say. ‘It’s not looking its best.’
As we enter the house, he points at the bowl of food I have put out. ‘New cat?’ he asks.
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