Gill Alderman - The Memory Palace

‘I see it in your eyes,’ the butcher explained. ‘A look of confidence – nay, arrogance – under the dirt.’

‘I suppose it’s useless to ask you to hold your tongue,’ I said.

‘I’m not such a gossip as you suppose, not even in my cups. I leave that to my wife.’

I gave him more than he deserved, a silver threepenny bit, and wondered what kind of woman would allow him to bed her. The butcher tested the coin on his teeth.

‘A good one,’ he said. ‘Thank ye. I’ll keep it in case I meet a werewolf.’

I watched him drive off, watched him till he was out of sight. Then I called softly,

‘Erchon, Master Scantling.’ He liked his nickname and usually answered it at once; but there was no response. I called again and, pushing the pendant branches of the chestnut tree aside, crept into its shadow. All I found was a dappled green shade, empty. I circumnavigated the tree. Nothing.

I cursed Erchon. The universal reputation dwarves have for carousing is fully justified. I supposed the wretch lay drunk in some alley or fleet. I wished he would awake with the father and mother of sore heads and a sick stomach as well.

I did not know what to do. Soon, it would be dusk; then, dark. I had planned to set up temporary home with his help, a camp where we might rest safe by the light of a good fire with one to watch while the other slept. The track looked quiet enough, striking off amongst the trees, a band of late sunlight illuminating it and picking out the colours of the summer flowers which grew beside it. I resolved to walk along it until the sunlight gave out, or I reached a corner.

It was a pleasant walk. The birds sang and the shade under the trees tempered the heat. I could see a herd of deer a little way off, all of them lying calmly at rest. A family of rabbits grazed; I walked so softly I did not disturb them. I walked with such unwary joy, and a deeper feeling of peace, that I did not notice the corner till I had rounded it, nor that the light had fled and given the forest back to Night. I must hasten back to the chestnut tree. That stood by the road, at least. I might even chance upon a late-travelling waggoner who would carry me to Myrah. I turned in my tracks and was confronted by the terrible marriage of oncoming night and the forest’s own shadows. The tranquil animals were gone with the sun.

Soon I came to a parting of ways, one I did not remember. Surely I had walked along the only track? I took the left fork, certain that it led in the direction of the tree at the Y. I walked fast and held my head high. I did not look behind me nor to right or left. The track led me on but I never found the chestnut tree, only another division of roads. This time, in near-panic, I took the right-hand fork. And so continued, faster, left then right, alternately cursing myself for a fool and praying for my own safety

because soon there must be a junction at which the girl could safely be set down to continue her journey. Then, free of her, he would also be released from his unlovely desires. Men found themselves in court for less.

The road was sunlit and empty. It wound below steep vineyards and above a little stream buried in dusty summer boskage: he should be enjoying this, not behaving like a guilty fugitive. But she – he glanced – looked happy enough.

The morning, which was almost afternoon, had continued difficult. Leaving behind them the shabby hotel and the simpleton taking the air on its steps, he had explored Avallon with Alice. They came to a busy café, sat at a pavement table and ordered pastries and lemon tisanes . He did his duty, and bought a picture postcard of Avallon to send his wife.

‘What’s the date?’ he asked Alice.

‘June 25th – Wednesday, all day.’

‘Of course. Yesterday went on for ever.’

A red currant from the barquette she had eaten was stuck to Alice’s upper lip. It looked like a glistening drop of blood. He leaned across the table and wiped it away with his handkerchief.

‘I’ll go and ‘phone Dad.’

‘Do you know how – in French?’

‘I do, Guy. Yes,’ she said confidently. She left him and went into the café. In her absence he contemplated her, the little he knew: When he’d asked her the date a faint frown had appeared, and quickly cleared from her brow. He could imagine that frown in class as she worked at her lessons; he could visualize inky fingers, the rows of girls, the uniforms.

Quickly, untidily, he wrote bland platitudes on the postcard and addressed it.

He was startled from a second reverie when Alice swung out of the café. The first thing he noticed was the length of her legs, brown in the daylight against the white of her shorts. Perhaps she wore these briefest of coverings on the tennis courts at school?

She sat down opposite him and played with the packets of sugar in the bowl.

‘Have you finished your postcard?’

‘Yes – I’ll post it now, before I forget.’

‘Poor old man!’

‘Alice?’ Now he would ask the question. ‘Alice, how old, exactly, are you?’

She smiled, not innocently.

‘Fifteen,’ she said.

‘Come on! You must be seventeen – at least. Don’t tease.’

‘I was born on April the first, nineteen seventy-five.’

‘Come on!’ he’d said again, angrily.

So now they were driving, nearly parallel with the auto-route it was true, but seemingly deeper and further into the French countryside.

‘Where does this road go?’ he asked. ‘Look at the map.’

‘Yes, Mr Parados.’

It took her moments. She was very quick – both to start a hare or follow one up.

‘It goes to your village, the one you’re looking for – Coeurville.’

‘But I was going to drop you somewhere – where you could get another lift!’

‘It’s OK. It’s only Wednesday.’

‘I am going to visit an old friend.’

‘It’s OK, I said. I’ll stay in the car.’

‘Fuck!’

‘Yes, Mr Parados.’

He ignored her.

‘Fuck, my bloody hands are hurting like buggery.’

They were there, had arrived in Coeurville. Automatically, he had slowed the car when they passed the sign. He drove sedately into the square. His sudden blast of irritation was gone with the bad language, though the tendons still ached. He was purged and limp.

‘I’m sorry, Alice.’

‘’S all right. Temperamental writer!’

He parked. The place was deserted, the shops and the café shut, though a battered table, under which an old dog slept at full stretch, seemed to await visitors. Guy got out of the car and prowled the square, conscious that he was the anomaly; he and the red machine. Alice too had got out of it and was wandering on the far side of the square, peering into dark windows and the openings of shady passage-ways. She looked as though she belonged, a composed French girl dreaming out the heat. He sighed. Her hair shone in the sun, all the long length of it. She needs a boy, he thought, one of those tawny young lions one sees prowling at the sea-side, someone who won’t be irritated by her silliness.

In the centre of the square, a war memorial rose out of a bright bed of magenta and scarlet petunias. He went closer to it. It was unusual. Three figures, Victory, Hope and Liberty lay one upon the other, and Victory, who flourished a sword, pressed Hope (to death it seemed) beneath him, while the figure of Liberty, far from being the usual resplendent Marianne, lay at the bottom of the heap and was angular and distressed. He glanced again at Alice, paused now outside the shuttered café. He saw a blind fly up, and the glass door opening. Alice disappeared inside.

Then he was alone in the silent square. He looked around him once more and willed the village to awake, but nothing stirred except the dog which got to its feet and also disappeared inside the café. The shop next to it was a general ironmonger’s and then came the bakery and patisserie . That was all, except for the butcher’s shop on his left, where a small horse’s head sign indicated that this particular butcher killed and cut up horses. He went to find Alice.