Peaches for Monsieur Le Curé (2 page)

CHAPTER THREE

Friday, 13th August

IT ISN’T OFTEN
you receive a letter from the dead. A letter from Lansquenet-sous-Tannes, a letter
inside
a letter, in fact; delivered to our PO box (houseboats don’t get mail, of course) and collected by Roux as he goes every day on his way to fetch the bread.

‘It’s just a letter,’ he told me, and shrugged. ‘It doesn’t have to mean anything.’

But that wind had been blowing all day and all night, and we have always mistrusted the wind. Today it was gusty and changeable, punctuating the silent Seine with little commas of turbulence. Rosette was skittish, practising jumps along the quayside and playing with Bam by the water. Bam is Rosette’s invisible friend – though he isn’t always invisible. Well, not to us, anyway. Even customers see him sometimes, on days like this one, watching from the side of a bridge or hanging by his tail from a tree. Of course Rosette sees him
all
the time – but then, Rosette is different.

‘It’s just a letter,’ repeated Roux. ‘Why don’t you open it and see?’

I was rolling the last of the truffles before packing them into boxes. It’s hard enough keeping chocolate at the right temperature as it is, but on a boat, with so little space, it’s best to keep to the simplest things. Truffles are very easy to make, and the cocoa powder in which they are rolled keeps the chocolate from blooming. I store them under the counter, along with the trays of rusty old tools – spanners and screwdrivers, nuts and bolts – so lifelike that you’d swear they were real, and not just made from chocolate.

‘It’s been eight years since we left the place,’ I said, rolling a truffle across my palm. ‘Who is it from, anyway? I don’t recognize the writing.’

Roux opened the envelope. He always does what’s simplest. Always in the moment, speculation isn’t really something that concerns him.

‘It’s from Luc Clairmont.’

‘Little Luc?’ I remembered an awkward teenager; paralysed by his stammer. With a jolt I realized that Luc must be a man by now. Roux unfolded the paper and read:

Dear Vianne and Anouk
,

It’s been a long time. I hope this letter gets to you. As you know, when my grandmother died she left everything to me, including the house, what money she had, and an envelope not to be opened before my twenty-first birthday. That was in April, and inside was this. It’s addressed to you
.

Roux fell silent. I turned and saw him holding out an envelope – plain, white, a little scuffed, marked with the passage of years and the touch of living hands on the dead page. And there was my name in blue-black ink, written in Armande’s hand – arthritic, imperious, painstaking—

‘Armande,’ I said.

My dear old friend. How strange – how sad – to hear from you now. And opening the envelope, breaking a seal grown brittle with time, an envelope you must have licked, as you licked the sugar spoon in your cup of chocolate, gleefully, greedily, like a child. You always saw so much further than I – and you made me see, like it or not. I’m not sure whether I’m ready to see what’s in this note from beyond the grave, but you know I’ll read it, nevertheless.

Dear Vianne
(it says).

I can hear her voice. Dry as cocoa dust, and sweet.
I remember the first telephone to make it into Lansquenet. Whee! What a commotion it made. Everyone wanted to try it out. The Bishop, who had it in his house, was up to his eyes in presents and bribes. Well, if they thought that was a miracle, imagine what they’d think to this. Me, talking to you from the dead. And, in case you’re wondering, yes they
do
have chocolate in Paradise. Tell Monsieur le Curé I said so. See if he’s learnt to take a joke
.

I stopped there for a moment. Sat down on one of the galley stools.

‘All right?’ said Roux.

I nodded. Went on.
Eight years. A lot can happen, eh? Little girls begin to grow up. Seasons change. People move on. My own grandson, twenty-one! A good age, I remember that much. And you, Vianne – did you move on? I think you did. You weren’t ready to stay. Which doesn’t mean you won’t, some day – keep a cat indoors and all it wants is to go outside again. Keep it outside, and it cries to get in. People are not so different. You’ll find that out, if you ever come back. And why would you, I hear you ask? Well, I don’t claim to see the future. Not precisely, anyway. But you did Lansquenet a good turn once, though not everyone saw it that way at the time. Still, times change. We all know that. And one thing’s for sure; sooner or later, Lansquenet will need you again. But I can’t count on our stubborn
curé
to tell you when that happens. So do me a final courtesy. Take a trip back to Lansquenet. Bring the children. Roux, if he’s there. Put flowers on an old lady’s grave. Not from Narcisse’s shop, mind, but proper flowers from the fields. Say hello to my grandson. Have a cup of chocolate
.

Oh, and one more thing, Vianne. There used to be a peach tree growing up the side of my house. If you come in summertime, the fruit should be ripe and ready to pick. Give some to the little ones. I’d hate the birds to get them all. And remember: everything returns. The river brings everything back in the end
.

With all my love, as always
,

Armande

I stared at the page for a long time, hearing the echoes of her voice. I’d heard it so many times in dreams, balanced at the edge of sleep with her dry old laughter in my ears and the scent of her – lavender, chocolate, old books – gilding the air with its presence. They say that no one ever dies as long as someone remembers them. Perhaps that’s why Armande remains so very clearly in my mind; her berry-black eyes; her impudence; the scarlet petticoats she wore under the black of her mourning. And that’s why I couldn’t refuse her, even though I wanted to; even though I’d promised myself never to go back to Lansquenet, the place we’d loved best of all, the place where we’d almost managed to stay, but from which the wind had driven us, leaving half of ourselves behind—

And now that wind was blowing again. Blowing from beyond the grave, prettily scented with peaches—

Bring the children
.

Well, why not?

Call it a holiday
, I thought. A reason to leave the city behind; to give Rosette a place to play; to give Anouk the chance to revisit old friends. And yes, I
do
miss Lansquenet; the dun-coloured houses; the little streets that stagger down towards the Tannes; the narrow ribs of farmland that stretch across the blue hills. And Les Marauds, where Armande lived; the old deserted tanneries; the half-timbered derelict houses leaning like drunks into the path of the Tannes, where the river-gypsies moored their boats and lit their campfires along the river …

Take a trip back to Lansquenet. Bring the children
.

What harm could it do?

I never promised anything. I never meant to change the wind. But if you could travel back through Time, and find yourself as you used to be, wouldn’t you try, just once at least, to give her some kind of warning? Wouldn’t you want to make things right? To show her that she’s not alone?

CHAPTER FOUR

Saturday, 14th August

A NOUK RECEIVED
the news of our trip with vivid, touching enthusiasm. Her schoolfriends are mostly away for August, and with Jean-Loup still in hospital, she spends too much of her time alone and sleeps more than is good for her. She needs to get away for a while – as do we all, I realize. And Paris
is
dreadful in August; a ghost city, crushed in a fist of heat; shuttered shops, streets bare of everything but tourists, with their rucksacks and their baseball caps and the traders who follow like swarms of flies.

I told her we were going south.

‘To Lansquenet?’ she said at once.

I hadn’t expected
that
. Not yet. Perhaps she read my colours. But her face lit up at once, and her eyes – which are as expressive as the sky, with all its variations – losing the squally, ominous look that seems habitual nowadays and shining with excitement, just as they did when we first arrived in Lansquenet, eight years ago. Rosette, who mimics everything Anouk does, was watching closely, awaiting her cue.

‘If that’s all right,’ I said at last.

‘Cool,’ said Anouk.

‘
Coo
,’ said Rosette.

A ricochet on the oily Seine signalled Bam’s approval.

Only Roux said nothing. In fact, since Armande’s letter he has been unusually silent. It is not that he has any particular affection for Paris, which he tolerates for our sake, and because he regards the river, and not the city, as his home. But Lansquenet has not treated him well, and Roux has never forgotten it. He still bears a grudge for the loss of his boat, and for what happened afterwards. He has a few friends there – Joséphine is one of them – but on the whole he sees the place as a den of small-minded bigots who threatened him, burnt his home, even refused to sell him supplies. And as for the
curé
, Francis Reynaud—

In spite of his simplicity, there is something sullen about Roux. Like a wild animal that can be tamed, but never forgets unkindness, he can be both fiercely loyal and fiercely unforgiving. I suspect that in the case of Reynaud he will never change his mind, and as for the village itself, he feels nothing but contempt for the tame little rabbits of Lansquenet, living so quietly by the bank of the Tannes, never daring to look beyond the nearest hill, flinching at every breath of change, at the arrival of every stranger—

‘Well?’ I said. ‘What do you think?’

For a long time Roux stayed silent, looking into the river, his long hair hanging in his face. Then he shrugged.

‘Maybe not.’

I was surprised. In all the excitement, I’d forgotten to ask what he felt. I’d assumed that he too would welcome the chance of a change of scenery.

‘What do you mean,
maybe not
?’

‘The letter was addressed to you, not me.’

‘Why didn’t you tell me before?’

‘I could see you wanted to go.’

‘And you’d rather stay here?’

He shrugged again. Sometimes I think his silences are more articulate than speech. There’s something – or
someone
– in Lansquenet that Roux doesn’t want to revisit, and I knew that no amount of questioning would make him confess to anything.

‘It’s OK,’ he told me at last. ‘Do whatever you have to do. Visit the place. Put flowers on Armande’s grave. And then come home to me.’ He smiled and kissed my fingertips. ‘You still taste of chocolate.’

‘You won’t change your mind?’

He shook his head. ‘You won’t be there long. And besides, someone has to look after the boat.’

That was true, I told myself: but still, it makes me uneasy to think that Roux prefers to stay behind. I had assumed we would travel by boat; Roux knows all the waterways. His route would have taken us down the Seine and through a maze of canals to the Loire, and from there towards the Canal des Deux Mers, the Garonne, and at last into the Tannes, through locks and lifts, fast water and slow, past fields and castles and industrial estates, watching the water change as we go from broad to narrow and back again, from oily to green, fast-moving to slow, brown to black to yellow to clear.

Each river has its own personality. The Seine is urban; industrious; a highway crammed with barges piled with timber; crates; shipping containers; metal girders; car parts. The Loire is sandy and treacherous, silver in the sunlight but rank below the surface, riddled with snakes and sandbars. The Garonne is bumpy; irregular; generous in certain parts, so shallow in others that a houseboat – even a small one like ours – would have to be hoisted by mechanical lift from one level to the next, taking time, precious time—

But none of that happened. We took the train. A better option in so many ways; besides, to move a houseboat on the Seine is no straightforward task. There is paperwork to fill in; permissions to be granted; the mooring to be secured and countless pieces of administration to be seen to. But somehow it makes me uneasy to come back to Lansquenet like this; suitcase in hand, like a refugee, Anouk at my heels like a stray dog.

Why should I feel this sense of unease? After all, I have nothing to prove. I am no longer the Vianne Rocher who blew into town eight years ago. I have a business now; a home. We are no longer river-rats, moving from village to village in search of mean pickings; itinerant work, digging, planting, harvesting. I am in charge of my destiny.
I
call the wind. It answers to me.

Why then – why this urgency? Is it for Armande? For myself? And why is it that the wind, far from easing as we leave Paris, seems to have grown more persistent as we travel south, its voice acquiring a plaintive note –
hurry, hurry, hurry
?

I keep Armande’s letter in the box that I carry with me wherever I go, along with my mother’s Tarot cards and the fragments of my other life. It isn’t much to show for a life; all those years we spent on the road. The places we lived; the people we met; the recipes I collected; all the friends we made and lost. The drawings Anouk made in school. Some photographs; not many. Passports, postcards, birth certificates, identity cards. All those moments, those memories. Everything we are, compressed into just two or three kilos of paper – the weight of a human heart, in fact – that sometimes seems unbearable.

Hurry. Hurry
. That voice again.

Whose is it? My own? Armande’s? Or is it the voice of the changing wind, which blows so softly that sometimes I can almost believe it has stopped for good?

Here, along the last stretch of our journey, the roadside is covered with dandelions, most of them now gone to seed, so that the air is filled with bright little particles.

Hurry. Hurry
. Reynaud used to say that if you let dandelions go to seed, the next year they get into everything – roadsides, verges, flowerbeds, vineyards, churchyards, gardens, even the cracks in the pavement – so that in a year’s time, or maybe two, there are nothing but dandelions left, marching across the countryside; hungry, indestructible—

Francis Reynaud hated weeds. But I always liked the dandelions; their cheery faces, their tasty leaves. Even so, I’ve never seen quite so many growing here. Rosette likes to pick them and blow the seeds into the air. Next year—

Next year—

How strange, to be thinking of next year. We are not used to planning ahead. We were always like those dandelion seeds; settle for a season, then blow away. Dandelion roots are strong. They need to be, to find sustenance. But the plant only flowers for a season – even assuming someone like Francis Reynaud hasn’t already uprooted it – and after it has gone to seed, it has to move on with the wind to survive.

Is that why I find myself drawn so readily back to Lansquenet? Is this a response to some instinct so deep that I am barely conscious of the need to return to the place where once I sowed these stubborn seeds? I wonder what, if anything, has grown there in our absence. I wonder whether our passage has left a mark, however small, on this land. How do folk remember us? With affection? Indifference? Do they remember us at all, or has time erased us from their minds?