Kate Mosse - The Winter Ghosts

Guillaume acted as interpreter, because although my French was adequate, it did not stretch to such technicalities as torque tube or running board. With a mixture of hand gestures and his blunt translation, we established where the car might be and what I considered the extent of the damage.

We set off shortly after ten-fifteen under a blue sky, unbroken by clouds. As we crossed the place de l’Église, I felt my heart expand with the beauty of it; the same old world, but seen through new eyes. A white winter sun hung low in the sky and it was bright but cold.

Monsieur Breillac put his hand on Guillaume’s arm and spoke rapidly in patois. I waited until he translated. His father suggested we should climb up through the woods rather than risk the charreton. A two-person cart pulled by a donkey, he explained in response to my raised eyebrows. His father said the road would be iced over and it would be slow and treacherous going. Whereas the woodland paths, protected by the trees, would be more secure underfoot. If I had the stamina for it, that was.

Having been so wretchedly ill, you might wonder at my arrogance. Or stupidity, I suppose. Indeed, I wonder at it myself, even now. Looking back, though, I can only say that I knew I had the strength I needed. The fever had passed through me, leaving in its place a kind of nervous energy and a sense of purpose I’d been lacking for some time.

I readily agreed to Breillac’s proposal. And I was excited, too. Sitting beside the dewpond, Fabrissa had invited me to come and find her. And it was in these mountains that I had first heard her voice.

There had been no fresh snow overnight so, despite a hard frost, the going was not too bad. We walked at a fair pace and soon arrived at the bridge which I had crossed two days previously. As we tramped over it, the Billy Goats Gruff and I, the frozen water below glinted in the December morning like the surface of a looking-glass. Reeds and brown rushes stuck up through the ice like a line of tin soldiers, as if caught at the precise moment the winter took hold.

We walked across the drab fields, the brown furrows crusted with snow, and were soon on the outskirts of the woods where the trees sparkled with frost.

I pointed out the path by which I had descended and, in single file, we began to climb. It was steep, yet it seemed less taxing than previously. Breillac and his sons were easy company, and the sun and the lack of wind lifted my spirits. I kept my ears peeled for Fabrissa’s voice, but today there was no suggestion of figures in the mist or watchers in the hills.

I held off asking the Breillacs if they knew of Fabrissa because I did not want my hopes dashed. The longer I delayed the question, the longer I kept the possibility alive that they could tell me where to find her.

So on we went. I remember a bird singing high up in the barren branches of a tree. A hen blackbird, maybe a robin, oddly English sounds to hear in a French country wood, prompting the absurd thought that Fabrissa and I might, some day, walk hand in hand on the Sussex Downs. My plans were castles in the air, of course, dreams, imaginings of silver days we might spend in one another’s company. The countless dusks watching the sun sinking down into the earth. The nights in one another’s arms. And I smiled as I remembered her clever grey eyes and the pale turn of her chin and the drape of her hair across her shoulders. My heart ached to see her again.

‘I wonder, Guillaume, if you might know a girl by the name of Fabrissa?’

He thought for a moment, then shook his head.

‘What about Pierre? Perhaps your father. Could you ask?’ He turned around and I, keeping my tone light, carried on chattering, shoring up my defences against disappointment. ‘We were introduced at the fête, a couple of nights ago. Like an idiot, I didn’t catch her last name. Be interested to know where she lives.’

I heard Breillac repeat her name, but he was shaking his head, and so was Pierre. Guillaume turned back to face me. ‘No,’ he reported, ‘they don’t know of such a girl.’ Then he added, ‘My father says he didn’t see you, monsieur, at the Ostal.’

My stomach gave an unpleasant lurch.

‘He didn’t?’ I paused. ‘Well, it was crowded. Hard to see anyone much. I didn’t even catch a glimpse of Madame Galy all night and it was she who’d invited me. The way of these things, I suppose.’ I paused. ‘Your father didn’t get caught up in the brawl?’ I gave a brittle laugh. ‘Do you know, I thought it was real to start with. Those swords and helmets, very convincing.’

Guillaume’s eyes cut into me. ‘Brawl, monsieur?’

‘The fight, then,’ I said. ‘The punch-up.’ I stopped and looked at him. ‘You were there, Guillaume? The fête de Saint-Etienne?’

‘I was. We all were.’

Guillaume was genuinely baffled and I, feeling I had somehow blotted the day for us all, said nothing more. But it preyed on my mind. Even admitting I was rather preoccupied at the time, it was queer that my recollection of the evening was so at odds with theirs.

We walked on, barely talking as the path grew steeper yet. At last, I made out the junction where the two paths became a single track leading back up to the road.

We stopped to catch our breath. It was then that I felt the familiar prickling at the nape of my neck, the same thickening of the air. I glanced up into the dense undergrowth to my left and, in the gloom, made out the gnarled roots of some ancient trees, vanishing into the mountain.

‘Like stairs,’ I murmured, hearing Fabrissa’s voice in my head.

‘Monsieur, it is this way, yes?’

‘What?’

I realised my three companions had stopped and were waiting on me for further directions.

‘That’s right, yes. Straight on.’

It was close to eleven-thirty when we emerged from the path by the wooden sign.

We halted a while to rest. I offered my cigarettes, and Breillac senior passed round a canteen of a foul, aniseed-flavoured liqueur. Each of us took a swig, then wiped it off with our gloves before passing it on.

The atrocious weather conditions of two days ago, and my disorientation immediately after the smash, meant I couldn’t estimate with any accuracy how much further along the road I was when the accident happened. In the event, we walked for no more than five minutes before the yellow Austin came into view.

‘ Voilà ,’ I shouted, relieved to see that my motor car had not toppled over completely. ‘Voilà la voiture.’

Half skating up the icy road, half walking, it took no more than a minute or two to cover the last couple of hundred yards. The four of us stared at the yellow car, Breillac and his sons talking too fast for me to follow.

I watched Guillaume take the coil of rope from around his shoulder and tie it to the rear bumper. He then looped it around his waist, and Pierre followed suit. They braced their knees and began to pull, Breillac standing by and hollering like a barker at the fish market.

With the scraping of metal on the hard ground and grunts from the boys, the car was slowly dragged back from the edge of the precipice until all four wheels were back on terra firma.

‘Splendid,’ I said, nodding to Guillaume. ‘ Et à vous , Pierre, merci.’

Guillaume untied the rope, then stood back to allow Breillac a clear view. He walked around the battered little car as if he were at an auction, shaking his head as he pointed at the axle, at the buckled front wheel arch, at some indeterminate piece of cable that hung down like a torn thread. His expression alone announced it was going to be difficult to fix.