Lucy English - Children of Light

CHILDREN OF LIGHT

Lucy English

Fourth Estate

An Imprint of HarperCollins Publishers 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

Copyright © Lucy English 1999

First published in Great Britain in 1999 by Fourth Estate Limited

Extracts from ‘Magali’ are from Memoirs of Mistral by Jean Roussière.

The right of Lucy English to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

Source ISBN: 9781841151168

Ebook Edition © FEBRUARY 2016 ISBN: 9780007483235

Version: 2016-01-07

FOR MY PARENTS

BECAUSE THEY

INTRODUCED ME TO PROVENCE

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

INTRODUCTION

ROCHAS

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

ST CLAIR

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

LIEUX

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

LA FERROU

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

About the Publisher

A bus stopped in a village in the south of France and a woman with grey hair descended. She wore walking boots and tough, practical clothes. She hauled a large rucksack on to her shoulders, but she was out of season. The village was shut like a mussel on a rock. She didn’t walk away but watched the nearly empty minibus drive out of the village and back down the hill. The village looked over a valley to another, almost identical village, whose houses clung to the sides, which rose to a church tower. All around were steep wooded hills of dark green pine. A white tumble of clouds fell out of the whiter sky and hung in the valley like a lost baby. A sudden squall of wind and a flash of rain, the mother sky wailed with grief, then it fell too and the whole valley became a swirling mist of wet cloud. It was March.

Wednesday

Dear Stephen,

I’m sorry we parted on such bad terms. I know it seems crazy what I’m doing but I feel so much better now that I’m here. It took me much longer than I expected. The railway no longer runs to Draguignan and I had to bus it. I was afraid I would arrive in the middle of nowhere in the dark, but I managed to reach St Clair by early afternoon. Oh, Stephen, Jeanette still runs the café. I think she recognised me but I was tired and I didn’t want to talk. The village is different, it’s nearly all holiday homes, much smarter, there’s no weeds growing in the walls. I wonder how many real villagers are left. I didn’t see any.

You were wrong about the hut being derelict. You see, it’s not England here. If you left a place in England for 20 years the brambles and the damp would take over, but here the summers are so dry they scorch plants to the ground. The pine trees are taller. The one near the hut is quite large, but that will give some shade in the summer. When I opened the door it was just as I left it, a cup on a hook, the pans hanging on the walls, the candle in the window alcove. Nobody has been here. There’re so many huts in this valley, each olive plot has one, I suppose they don’t attract attention. Can you imagine this? In England a forgotten house would get trashed, but there is nobody down here, absolutely nobody. It’s such a strange feeling.

I’m writing to you in the morning. I’m still in my sleeping bag, sitting up at the table. The loft bed smelled so much of mice I slept on the floor. I couldn’t sleep at first, I felt alone and stupid, I kept remembering what you said, ‘Why on earth do you need to go back there?’ It was also freezing. I will have to wait until May until it gets warmer. I’m writing this with my gloves on. I’m wearing two jumpers and my jeans. My first task when I finish this is to find some more wood. I got a little fire going last night but it didn’t do much. Up in the woods behind the hut a big tree has come down. I managed to saw off some of the branches. I will have another go today. I remember it does eventually get cosy in here. The saw and the axe were in the tin trunk, a bit rusty but they do work. I’m making plans already. I want to put a cannise up, a sunshade. Now, that has rotted away and is in shreds round the back. I reckon that by the summer this place will look so smart. I can clear the scrub out the front and make a place to sit under the tree. Last night I could hear that tree like a whisper and that’s what got me to sleep. It’s all you can hear, the wind in the pine trees. In the early morning it rained and now it’s so fresh outside, cold and bright. I want to go walking. It’s the time of year for orchids, pink spotted ones, bee orchids, lizard orchids. I shall walk to the village later and post this and see if I can find any. The cherries are in blossom. It’s so very beautiful. People miss this when they come in the summer, the grass is cracked and brown and there’s no flowers. In a few weeks the fields will be flower filled. I remember they used to be dazzling. The water is just boiling on my camping stove, thank you for lending me that, it will be most handy until I get the stove going properly.

Please write to me care of Jeanette Blanc at Le Sanglier. She will be delighted to get my letters, I’m sure. Oh, Stephen, I feel so alive I cannot tell you. I’m still sad and I will be for a long time yet. I miss Felix so much and I miss you, but in England I felt so numb.

With all my love,

Mireille

She wriggled out of her sleeping bag and made a cup of coffee. There were two windows in the hut, but only one was unshuttered, consequently the inside was in half light. Through the tiny window a beam of sunlight shone so brightly it seemed solid, slicing across the stone floor and on to the table. Dust particles danced in it like joyous faeries. Mireille put the cup to her face to feel the warmth and smiled. She felt unwashed and crumpled, but it was a feeling she associated with being young, when her hair had been thick and dark, curling down her back, and soft. Her hair, though grey was still soft, cut straight round her ears. She looked at her jeans and knobbly walking socks. When she was young she used to wear a bright red gathered skirt with a yellow ribbon round the hem and an embroidered shirt, deep midnight blue. An amber necklace which held pieces of insects.

She went outside. In the sunlight the wet pine trees smelled strongly of resin. The clouds raced fast in the sky, white puffy clouds like washed flock blotting and unblotting the sun. Then, there they were, the mountains, like clouds themselves, white and indistinct in the far distance, but only for a moment before the real clouds blew into the valley and obscured them.