Englishwoman in France (14 page)

Seeing Tib's disappointment, Modeste smiled wanly. ‘Your mother is the wisest of women, Tib. She knows that food for the mind and the spirit is what will sustain us.' He closed his eyes.

Tib took a very deep breath. Then, invoking the spirit of the Nazarene in the way Modeste had taught him, he leaned across and made the sign on Modeste's sweating forehead. He prized the amber fish from Modeste's hand and hung it around his teacher's neck. He took both of Modeste's hands in his so the two of them made the circle. Then he sat there in silence, allowing himself to hear the song of the birds in the trees and feel the soft wind give life to the hot air around him. He could hear the hum of bees about their work.

When he unclasped his hands he opened his eyes and he saw an old woman, her grey hair braided around her head. She handed him a bag made of tightly woven rushes. Inside were two flat crusty breads and a thin-necked earthenware jug plugged with a wooden stopper. She blinked at them, one to the other, said something and left.

‘She tells us she is from a nearby hamlet called Cessaro.' Modeste, wide awake now, grinned at Tib. ‘Have faith, my son. Ask and it shall be given unto you!' They ate and drank with a will and when they'd finished Modeste stood up. He put his hand to his side and across his back and frowned.

‘What is it?' said Tib.

‘Gone, gone! The bruises are there but the pain is gone! Your touch heals, Tib.' Full of energy Modeste kneeled down to examine his maps and documents, then wrapped them up again in the oiled bag. ‘Come on, boy. We'll get on and find somewhere for the night. The portents are good! Good!'

The boat eased itself into the shallows and Modeste pushed against the bank with his oar to get close in as Tib jumped ashore, then held the boat steady as Modeste followed him. They pulled down the main mast, hauled the boat on to flatter, drier ground, took out their bundles and secured them in the groin of a tree.

Modeste looked around. ‘What a wonderful place, Tib. So green. Lush. Luxuriant. See those tall trees? See how everything flourishes here? This is the place for us.'

So, with a great heave, they upturned their boat. ‘Shelter for the night at least,' said Tib. He looked around at the sunlit grove, the long grasses, and the wild olive trees. ‘Or more. This could be a fine place to live,' he said, rubbing his hands. ‘Now we begin, Modeste. Now we begin!'

T
he drunken dramas of yesterday seem to have changed the atmosphere at the Maison d'Estella. I feel easier, more relaxed inside myself. But the normally laid-back Mae seems suddenly rather nervous of me, making explosive statements and laughing too loud, saying how I was always,
always
her favourite person. But now and then she puts a hand on Philip's shoulder. One time she literally pats him and he looks embarrassed.

The children are still in bed when the four of us breakfast together at the big kitchen table and so we eat looking out on to the courtyard. Philip insists on making Billy a full English breakfast with superior French ingredients. (Food is certainly his message system of choice.) The rest of us refuse. And Mae taps him on the arm, saying that he wasn't looking after her figure, was he?

At last Billy makes a comment. ‘For Christ's sake, Mae, stop embarrassing yourself, will you?'

Her chair scrapes back and she stamps away. In a second we hear her shouting the odds at Olga. ‘For Christ's sake, Olga, will you get out of bed? You're sleeping the sleep of the dead.'

I feel sorry for her.

‘Well!' says Philip, clapping his hands together heartily. ‘I'm looking forward to Carcassonne! Those dreaming towers of medieval chivalry.'

Billy grins. ‘Rather the dreaming towers of medieval rape, pillage and slaughter,' he says, wiping up the last of his egg with the last of his baguette. ‘I don't think you've done your homework, old lad!' Billy's certainly been doing
his
homework. He catches my glance. ‘You coming, Starr? To Carcassonne?'

I'm already shaking my head. ‘Not me. I've work to do.'

Philip gathers up Mae and Billy's plates and stacks them neatly in the dishwasher. ‘Our Stella always has work to do, doesn't she?' he says. ‘Or – my God – she's gotta sleep! Or she's gotta look at the stars. Our Stella's not on the same planet as us more ordinary guys, Bill.' These are bitter words and his tone is uneasy. I feel sorry for him. It really sounds as though he's giving up on me. You can't blame him really.

I walk with them all down to the car park and watch them climb into the car, kitted out with everything they might need for a whole day away. Philip has packed a superb picnic. As she settles into the car Olga turns and gives me this deep look through her round glasses. I know she's thinking of Virgo and Ursa Major. And me, I am thinking of Siri.

I wave them off and turn towards the Café Plazza, finally allowing myself to look forward to seeing Madame Patrice. Neither she nor her bicycle is in place when I arrive, so I order my coffee and settle down to wait. I'm still waiting half an hour later but Madame Patrice does not arrive. I fight hard against the familiar, poisonous panic that floods through my body and makes the world black around me. I'm better now at dealing with this. I have to do it to survive. Not give in. Not end it all.

Find Madame Patrice, I tell myself,
find her
. Find out where she is. Go to the
Presse
and get a map of the town. She said she lived on
rue de la Poissonnerie.
I run down to the shop, bumping into people in my haste. Buy the map, open it up and look. That's when, standing there in the street, I laugh out loud. Two women raise their eyebrows and carefully walk around me. There it is on the map.
Her
street. It's only a dozen steps away from where I was sitting yesterday – it seems so long ago – with the man called Louis, on la Place de la Marine.

As I make my way to that end of the town, I find it more dilapidated even than the rue Haute of the Maison d'Estella. I remember what Madame Patrice said: ‘
the poor gather there, of whom I am one. Bad things are said of them but they are wonderful people
.' I pass a rather grand restored house and other even grander doors, portals to big houses, now battered and broken. Some are patched with plywood. Others are daubed in graffiti. On one door there is a white handprint on the faded green paint.

I wander into a side street only to be stopped by two boys playing football, immaculate in pristine Nike strips. Madame Patrice said of the people here ‘
they look after their children, you know. That's a good sign.
' As I pass the boys they stand aside politely, football in hand. And they smile knowingly when I pass them on the way back, having been thwarted by a dead end. I push right to the back of my mind the thought of those two other footballing boys, locked up now in a cold British prison in some town in the north of England.

At last I find her.
Mme Patrice Léance
written in neat script beside one of the bell pushes. The names on the other bells are scribbled out. The doorway is painted a gingery moth-eaten brown, the last glossy layer on top of as many as twelve earlier layers of paint. I push open the door and see Madame Patrice's
bicyclette
in the dank passageway. I ring her bell three times. No answer. Again. Again. No answer.

I stand back into the road then go to peer into her window through a jungle of plants. Between the customary protective bars, I can make out a neat table with a flowered cloth; a crystal jug; high bookshelves; a daybed in the corner. I take a breath and concentrate, willing Madame Patrice to come to me, to tell me where she is. Then I hear the high-pitched bark of a dog and the clanking of elaborate iron window furniture. I look upwards and in a high window see the head of the man called Louis above a high-buttoned white shirt. ‘Starr?' he says.

‘I'm looking for Madame Patrice,' I call up. ‘I thought I'd see her in the café but she's not there. She's not anywhere.'

He stares down at me. ‘Come up,' he says finally. ‘Climb up as far as you can.'

I'm gasping by the time I've climbed the fourth flight, holding my breath against the latrine smell that seems embedded in the walls of this place. Louis is standing by an open door at the very top, the little dog Misou in his arms. He hasn't bothered to fasten the cuffs of his shirt and they're dropping from his muscular forearms, loose, like flags.

I peer behind him. ‘Is she here, Madame Patrice?' I can't explain to him why I'm demented by losing sight of this woman I've only met twice. ‘Where is she?'

He stands back to let me into the room. ‘She's well enough.' He pauses. ‘She had to make a little visit to . . . the hospital.'

I move into the room. ‘What happened?'

He frowns for a moment. ‘She fell off her bicycle.'

He shakes his head. We both smile, liking the woman, not wanting her to hurt herself.

I glance around and the room whirls round me like a roundabout on fast forward for a second, then settles down. I've never been in a room like it, although I feel that I've images and paintings of rooms like this. It's small, no more than twelve feet square. Every surface is painted white. In one corner stands a bed, more like a soldier's cot; beside that a square cupboard. That's it; no other storage for clothes or anything else. Under the high narrow window is a large table made of thick planks placed on a trestle. On the table is a state-of-the-art laptop, a small printer, a pile of printed paper, a pile of blank paper and three folders bulging with documents. The chair pulled up to the table is the only one in the room. The wall to the side of the desk is covered with maps, some of them very old, flagged up with post-it notes. Stuck on to the wall alongside the maps are images of old rowing and sailing vessels.

On the opposite wall is a white ivory crucifix. In a niche beside it a statue of the Virgin Mary. Below that is some kind of low kneeler. I'm suddenly embarrassed at the earthly thoughts I've been having about this man.

‘You're a priest?' Despite my good intention it comes out like an accusation.

He gestures for me to sit on the desk chair. He crouches down on the kneeler, his knees nearly to his chin. ‘I am as I told you, Starr. I am a scholar.'

I absorb that, close my eyes and concentrate.
Do it, Starr. Do it, Mummy.
See what this place can tell me.
See
it properly.

Misou yelps. I open my eyes.

Louis is grinning, his blue eyes sparkling. ‘Steady! You should be careful with that powerful stuff when Misou is around. It makes him prickle.

I close my eyes again. I can see a pair of hands with tapering fingers, light coming outwards through them. The hands open and a small bird flies upwards and perches on the window frame above the desk. It is plain brown with a reddish tail and a white breast. A nightingale.

I open my eyes and there is no nightingale. ‘You're some kind of a guardian,' I say to Louis, suddenly sure. ‘You are the boy's guardian.'

Misou has now crawled on to his shoulder and has coiled round his neck like a collar. Louis puts a hand up to stroke him. He stays silent.

‘Madame Patrice? She's not really in hospital, is she?'

‘She's gone,' he said. ‘Passed on, you would say. She's been gone for a week.'

‘But I saw her. I've seen her twice.'

‘You did, didn't you? But that's what you do, isn't it? You see them, these people who are not properly gone.'

‘But I haven't been able to do that. Not for . . . a long time. Three years now.'

‘But it's beginning to happen again? You made it happen?'

I stare at him. ‘Yes. It's beginning again.'

‘So . . .?'

I know now that he knows about Siri without me telling him.

‘And Madame Patrice is still around?'

‘She's taking care of you.'

‘What do you mean, taking care of me?'

‘Wait,' he says. He stares at me for a while, then blinks, as though he is forcing himself awake. ‘Where are your visitors today?'

‘They've gone to Carcassonne.'

He stares at me. ‘Would you do something for Madame?'

‘Anything.'

‘Will you take care of Misou? We're not supposed to attach ourselves . . .'

We? Supposed?
I don't comment aloud on this. I just say, ‘I'll take care of him for her. Just for now. I'll take him for a walk by the canal.' I pause. ‘I don't know what they'll think of me, taking Misou to the house.'

In the end it's all very businesslike. Louis finds a plastic bag, fills it with dog bowls and packets of food and hands me Misou's lead. Then before I can protest I'm out of the door and on the pavement. I look upwards to see the flash of a white shirtsleeve as the narrow window is closed again.

Misou tugs on his lead and I follow.

As I walk away I know I'd have liked to stay, to sit there in Louis's cell-like room and talk. I'd have liked to ask him about his scholarship and what it was he believed in. Ask him about the boy, and Madame Patrice. I could have told him properly about Siri. How the lovely midwife told me Siri had been here before, that she had an old soul. How nice and down to earth Philip was when we first met him. I would have told him how being without Siri had been a kind of death in life but how here in this place I could feel her around me. I would have asked him about limbo, the interim place for the un-baptised. Louis is probably an expert on limbo. I definitely should have asked him about limbo.

‘Starr!'

I look back to see him leaning out of the high window.

‘Come back,' he says. ‘Come back, will you?'

When I get up the narrowing staircases to the high room the door is open. Louis is leaning against the opposite wall, as though to make the greatest distance between us. His pale blue eyes scorch into mine. Heat rises from my neck right up to the roots of my hair. In one part of my mind I realize my face must be lobster red. Very unattractive. How long is it since I've cared what I looked like?