Englishwoman in France (3 page)

He laughed out loud at this. ‘Not bad! I'm no sailor but I do sail. I love sailing. My father was a sailor.'

‘What do you do, then?'

‘Funny thing, isn't it?' He shook his head. ‘How people always try to pin you down by what you do. Like they need to put you in a frame before they really see you?' His voice was soft and deep, definitely not local. South-west, perhaps.

I turned to look away, across to the table under the window where two couples were tucking into scampi and chips. Behind one of the men I could see the shadow of an old woman standing with her hand on his shoulder. In fact I could see right through her to the street outside. There was no reflection of her in the glass.

‘Well?' I insisted. ‘What
do
you do?'

‘All right,' Ludovic said. ‘I have this unit on the Oak Tree Estate. I build narrowboats.'

This got my attention. ‘A unit? Narrowboats? Here? But we're miles away from the sea.'

‘These babies are not sea-going. Well, not generally. My boats are for rivers and canals.'

‘How can they get to a canal? From here?'

He laughed. ‘
Very
big lorries. Low-loaders.' He made a wide gesture with his hands, like a man describing a fish he had caught. ‘We even sell them abroad.'

I scowled at him. ‘You build them? Do you paint them? Don't they come with pictures on?'

‘Well, I don't do it all myself. I have a lad to help me with the build. I get painters in to paint them. The decorative stuff I do myself. Like tattoos.'

‘Tattoos?' I was still scowling. ‘But why here? Why build boats here?'

‘I wanted to do it. Thought I could.' He shrugged. ‘And it's cheap here. It's what they call a special area. They give you good allowances for setting up.'

I couldn't think of any response to that, so I finished my drink and jumped off my stool. ‘I'll have to go. Mae and Spelk'll be watching for me.'

‘The Lagoon? Do you
really
want to dance?'

‘When I come back home I
always
go dancing with Mae at the Lagoon. We always have.' I paused. ‘Anyway. You come as well if you want. The disco's good.'

He shrugged. ‘Don't dance, Starr. It passed me by. Seems really strange to me, dancing. Out of control.'

That got my interest. Everybody dances, don't they? ‘So you don't like that? To be out of control? Doesn't fit, somehow. Someone who paints boats, not being able to dance.'

He shrugged. ‘You build boats on your own. It can be a one-man job. I like it that way.'

I picked up my handbag – black patent, borrowed from the prop room at the magazine, very much envied by Mae – and slung it over my shoulder. ‘Gotta go. Mae'll be waiting.'

‘Stop!' he said, putting a hand on my shoulder. ‘I want to show you something.'

‘What? What will you show me?'

‘It's a surprise.'

I ignored the alarm bells that jangled right through me, resounding from my pelvis right up into my throat. What did I know about just how far this angel had fallen? ‘Go on then,' I said. ‘I like surprises.' The words just popped into my mind. In truth, I didn't like surprises, not then. Despite my tendency to see dead people, my life – apart from reading the stars for money – was full of comfortable predictability: nice boyfriend on the lower echelons of London law, nice nights out at mid-price restaurants, nice weekends with croissants and the newspapers.

What was I doing, saying I liked surprises?

‘Good!' Ludovic took my arm and his hand seared my skin. He led me out of the pub into the market place with its lollipop lights, its newly planted trees and cobbled thoroughfare. Priorton was a funny old place. At weekends the market place would throw off its daytime elegance, eschew its listed status and become the bawdy centre of nightlife in the district. Pretty, half-dressed girls (Mae and me among them) would totter from pub to disco on towering high heels, trailed by boys, less pretty but luminous in crisp white tee shirts that showed off their muscles. In between pubs and the final destination of the Lagoon, we would pick up a couple of kebabs to keep us going, only slightly uneasy under the bland gaze of policemen – some no older than us – standing in pairs around a big black van.

Ludovic led the way. Soon we left behind the half-dressed girls, the muscular boys and the policemen and came to the ornate gates of Prior's Park. I looked up at him. ‘What surprise? I know this place. Anyway the gates are locked.
Unlocked at dawn, locked at dusk in summertime
. See that notice by the gate? Not that you can see it just now. Dark, isn't it?'

He drew me to one side, to a narrower gate. ‘But this gate's open. See? People live there, inside the big gates. In the Prior's Hall, and in those little houses. They have to get in, don't they?' The gate creaked as he opened it and pulled me through. He took my hand and walked faster, making me race. Our feet crunched on the gravel as we ran past the Prior's Cottages then made our way alongside the high wall of the Prior's Hall to the broad farm gate that led into the park.

I wrenched my hand from his, breathing heavily. ‘Where's this surprise? I've been here hundreds of times.'

He opened the farm gate and pulled me through. ‘Ah, but I bet you've never been here in the dark, have you?' He shut the gate behind us. ‘And you've never been here with me.' He took my hand again. ‘When I first came here I thought this place was magic, full of surprises. The park may be no surprise to you, but in the dark, I'm telling you, it's total magic.'

I looked around. The lights in the town were in the dim distance and the wooded park before us was enfolded in the dark. I could feel the great age of the massive trees in the foreground as clearly as if I were counting their rings. I could hear the murmuring river below. I used to play here when I was small. Tonight I could sense the great ridge beyond the river where as a child I'd once watched the roots of great trees on the High Plains reaching down and tangling with the riverside shrubs.

In my mind's eye I could see the greensward winding through them, leading onto the high road beyond. I remembered a time when I was eleven, blackberrying there with Mae and I could see this very old road, buried beneath this greensward. It was on this unseen old road that I saw a carriage with horses. And a cart hauled by an old horse with a pony tied on behind. And a man trudging along with a backpack. I told Mae that this was a road from
olden times
and she told me that it was just a bit of green and I should get lost and stop being such a mad hen.

Now Ludovic's hand tightened round mine. ‘Well? Are you game?'

I let him lead me onwards. We walked through the park to the Deer House that stands on a promontory above the river: a hollow colonnaded structure with a tower at one end. Now, with the light and the sounds of the town almost gone, I could smell the dried, burnt-off smell of the autumn and hear the occasional flutter in the undergrowth.

‘Here we go!' said Ludovic. He opened the battered wooden door to the tower and pulled me in.

In all the times I played here with Mae as a child, I'd never been inside this place. As children we found it forbidding, like a witch's castle. Inside it was pitch black and smelled of rotting leaves. But looking upwards in the roofless tower I could see the belt of Orion the Hunter, in the bowl of lighter night sky.

Halfway up the tower wall was a platform. ‘That's for us,' said Ludovic.

‘You must be joking,' I said.

‘I'll show you,' he said. ‘It's possible. I tried it. You do it rock-climber style.'

He made me face the wall and stood behind me. I could feel his chest against my shoulder blades, his thighs against mine. Then he took my hands and made me reach up and curl my fingers into stone crevasses. He reached down and slipped off my shoes and showed my feet where to grip. So we went up the wall, he like a crab's shell on my back. He smelled faintly of sweat and turpentine and his breath was like honey on my cheek.

After some hauling, gasping and giggling we were standing upright on the platform in the darkness. I peered through a narrow arrow slit into the mantle of darkness outside, making out the giant trees which were like the very core of darkness. A delicious orgasmic wave rippled through me from my heels to my head and I could sense every living being who'd ever stood in this spot, from eighteenth-century gardeners, back to seventeenth-century revellers, back to Roman camp followers, back to Celtish men in hoods following one after another in a line. The place was teeming with them. My head was aching with their presence on the surface of my time.

Ludovic gripped my arm tight. ‘Look! North!' he said. Northwards, where the polluting lights of the town had stopped staining the night, the sky had retrieved its dense black and the stars were intense points of light. Orion, Cassiopeia, the Pleiades and Pisces were all there, shapely in their dispensation. It seemed the Gods were here with us. A privileged audience for the night's events.

I shivered.

He put his arm round me and hugged me to him. ‘It's all right,' he whispered in my ear. ‘It's all right.'

His cheek was soft against mine, not rough like I'd expected it to be. He put up a hand and combed back my hair with his fingertips. I turned my face to him and kissed the corner of his mouth. He moved his cheek and his lips were burning on mine. He had one hand on my throat, weaving its way under my shoulder straps. ‘Such soft skin!' He spoke against my lips and I wanted more, much more of him. So much more.

I pushed his shirt collar to one side and felt his collarbone with my finger tips. His skin was hot, burning. He let out a groan and in a single action, loosed himself from his shirt. Now my fingers were tracing the muscles on his chest and he was easing off my top and we were skin to skin. In that moment I knew my father and my mother. In that moment I knew how I had been made.

In my life up till then I'd made love with quite a few men and relished the experience in a languid fashion, exploring my feelings and satisfying my curiosity. It was a natural, enjoyable process, like having a good meal. And I was often hungry. When I first went to London I even lived with a guy for a month or two. But he was keener at playing houses than playing lovers and soon became very dull. He was quite hard to shake off, however, and went on to play the stalker for a while.

But making love with this man whom I didn't know at all – this Ludovic – was different. Finally naked and shivering, we slipped to the floor of the platform and on a layer of densely packed fallen leaves we made love – once, twice, the energy pouring from us both, lighting us up again and again. And in between we stroked each other and giggled like children. Then, exhausted, I drifted off to sleep and dreamed of my mother and father. At that moment I remembered my father although I had never known him. His face was like mine, only longer in the jaw. I
saw
my father, this man whom my mother didn't even remember.

I woke up covered with clothes – his and mine – to find Ludovic beside me, naked, leaning on his elbow looking down at me. ‘You are amazing,' he said, grinning from ear to ear like a goblin. ‘Really amazing.'

‘I know,' I said demurely. And we both collapsed into giggles, our breath steaming into the cold night. Then he tried to make love to me again but didn't quite manage it, which made us laugh even more.

I shivered and we both sat up with our legs dangling over the edge of the platform. We got back into our clothes with some difficulty. He pulled a flat torch out of his back pocket and flashed it into my face. ‘You're all sooty,' he said. Then he launched himself from the platform and landed on the ground, steady as a cat. He held out his arms and said, ‘Jump!'

So I jumped into his arms and we rocked together for a moment. It was like being enfolded by a mountain. He kissed me on the cheek. ‘You are something, Starr,' he said. ‘You are something very special.'

Then we clambered down the steep bank to the river and kneeled down to dip our hands in the water and rub them together to clean them of the scent of the rank leaves and the sticky outcomes of our lovemaking. After that we splashed water on our faces and as I bent down to do this I glimpsed other reflections in the water, illuminated by the stars and the gleaming moon. I looked behind me and of course there was no-one there.

‘What is it?' Ludovic said, rubbing his hand down his shirt.

Then I looked across the water and could see a line of men and women, draped in long clothes, their faces in shadow. Some were holding long sticks, others held planks or boards of some kind. They were walking in line, one after another. I rubbed my hand up and down his shirt, front and back. ‘Nothing,' I said.

We walked back in a kind of uneasy silence through the park to the narrow gate. It creaked as he pushed it open. ‘Do you want to go back to dance?' he said. ‘Or would you like to go back to the Swan?'

I looked up at him. ‘What do I look like?' I said.

He touched my cheek with his fingers. ‘A clown,' he said. ‘Your eye-lines have run.'

‘I can't go back in there then, can I? I'll make my way back to Mae's. She won't wait for me at the Lagoon. She'll suss out what's happened.'

‘Let me take you.' He led the way down a side street to a motorbike, chained like Hercules to a bollard. He flipped open the box and handed me a helmet and a big leather coat. ‘Here, put those on.' He grinned. ‘Going home in style!'

The cold night air burned my skin as we made the short journey through the streets of Priorton. The journey was too short. At Mae's house he jumped off, removed his helmet and took mine. I slipped out of his coat, folded it over and handed it to him.

He held it to his face. ‘It smells of you. Can I come in?' he said.

I was already shaking my head. ‘Mae's mother and brother are in there. Impossible.' I waited. ‘Perhaps we could meet tomorrow.'