Louis de Bernières - The Dust That Falls From Dreams

You could almost hear Ash’s heart melting. He was such a kind and gentle soul. He reached into his pocket and took out a florin. The girl’s eyes lit up and she gave an involuntary start of joy. She took the coin hurriedly and secreted it somewhere about her waist. She pressed the heather into Ash’s hand.

‘Cross my palm with silver,’ she said, ‘and I’ll read thy vast.’ She saw his look of puzzlement, and she added ‘hand’, further adding, ‘I got the gift. It came down the fam’ly. My old mother passed it down.’

‘I just did cross your palm with silver,’ said Ash.

‘Indeed, sir, but that was for the heather.’

Ash reached into his pocket and brought out six pennies that had been bothering him with their weight and which he was glad to get rid of. She shook her head. ‘It needs be silver.’

‘Silver?’

‘Pennies is copper. It needs be silver.’

‘So if I gave you twenty guineas in copper farthings, you wouldn’t take it?’

‘I’d take it indeed, sir, but I couldn’t read thy vast. I’d have to be pretending, sir.’

I rummaged in my purse and proferred the girl a silver threepence, which she immediately tucked away. She took my hand and traced some lines on it with her forefinger. I caught her scent. She smelled of something aromatic, but I couldn’t place it. She looked at the bottom edge, and frowned. ‘Thou’lt get to be middling old,’ she said. ‘Thou’s going to beget two and half children, thou’s going to be sick, but not fatal, and thou’lt have to take care of thy heart. Thy heart be weak, ma’am.’

‘Two and a half children?’ I cried. ‘What on earth do you mean by that?’

The girl shrugged. ‘I read what I read, ma’am.’

Ash looked at me tenderly, and said, ‘How wonderful it will be to have children. We’d better start thinking of names.’

He held out his hand to the girl. She studied it intently for a few moments, and then, quite suddenly, thrust it aside as if it had burned her. ‘I can’t read it,’ she said.

‘Please,’ said Ash.

‘No, sir, I can’t read it. Thou’ld best not ask.’ She reached into her clothing and found the threepence, which she gave back to me. She hitched the child further up her hip, made a small noise in her throat that sounded like a stifled sob, looked up at Ash with teary eyes, and said something like ‘Such a rinkeno cooramengro. God save you both.’ Then she hurried away, round the Tarn, straight past my sisters, who thereby escaped being sold white heather or having their fortunes told.

I looked at Ash, and he caught my eye and snorted. ‘Two and a half children! Whatever next?’

‘What do you think she saw in your palm?’ I said.

‘It’s all stuff and nonsense,’ said Ash. ‘She didn’t see anything at all.’

‘Why would she be so upset then?’

‘Because she thought she did. The superstitious are even handier at deceiving themselves than they are at deceiving others.’

We sat side by side in silence for a while. Leaves spiralled down into the black surface of the Tarn, and the ducks on the grassy bank shook the water out of their feathers. I shivered, overcome by sudden gloom, my heart heavy, and Ash said, ‘Yes, it’s getting cold. Let’s go back.’

I’d recently bought a statuette of the Virgin Mary, and I kept it wrapped up in a cloth under my bed. I didn’t want the rest of the family to know, because we were Anglicans, and they would have disapproved and thought I was becoming a papist. I loved the Virgin, though. Mine had a light blue robe with a gold hem. She had blue eyes, blonde hair and rosy lips. Her feet were bare. She was holding up the Christ child, who was also blue-eyed, blond and rosy-cheeked. He was holding a golden orb in his right hand, and looking very serious. His left hand rested terribly affectionately on the Virgin’s wrist. Years and years later Daniel pointed out to me that the Virgin had actually been a Jewess from Palestine, and was probably quite dusky. I didn’t say anything, but I think that the Virgin gives herself to you in any way that makes it easier for you to understand her. That’s why I wasn’t shocked when I saw a photograph of a black Virgin somewhere in Africa, and a Chinese one in Singapore.

That night I took my Virgin out from under the bed and stood her on my bedside table. I asked her to intercede for Ash and to save him from whatever the gypsy girl saw. I thought that I could protect him if I prayed for him every night, so I resolved to do so, even if I was too tired and even if it was too cold.

IT WAS SNOWING when Ash came round to say goodbye on Christmas Day. The Christmas tree was lit up with candles, and the glass balls were glittering. The angel on the top was, after long service, terribly old and tatty, and had the forlorn air of better days gone by. The family had not opened its presents yet, because the rule was that it was always done after afternoon tea, and not in the morning after church as most people did. They called it ‘the evening post’, and the servants were told not to disturb them. They received their presents in the morning.

Mrs McCosh and Rosie’s sisters very kindly waived propriety and left her and Ash alone in the withdrawing room, in front of the fire. Ash was in service dress, looking very dashing and smart. Rosie found the Honourable Artillery Company’s cap badge rather curious. On that day Ash seemed to her to be particularly beautiful, and his grey eyes were sparkling with enthusiasm. He was longing to get going to the war. His movements were full of vigour and purpose, he smelled of cologne, and, as Homer would have put it of one of his heroes during their aristeia , seemed ‘like unto a god’. He placed a parcel in Rosie’s hands, and said, ‘Happy Christmas.’

‘What is it?’ Rosie asked, although she could tell it was a picture from the feel of the frame through the paper.

‘Open it after I’ve gone.’

She looked down at it and said, ‘I can tell it was you who wrapped it.’

They sat opposite each other, leaning forward, holding hands, with their foreheads touching. Her tears were falling onto their hands, and he was whispering, ‘Darling, my darling, darling, my darling.’

Rosie choked and suddenly burst out, ‘I think you’ll never come back.’

‘I will, I will, I will. I will come back. I will never leave you. Even if I die I will never leave you. Even if I am dead I will come back, I’ll find a way to be with you. I promise, I promise, I promise. I’ll love you forever. Beyond death, beyond everything. Do you know that Arab proverb, about the ideal spouse being the keeper of your soul? I’ll be the keeper of your soul, Rosie.’

‘And I of yours,’ she said. ‘I will never love anyone but you,’ and she looked into his eyes as the tears rolled down her cheeks.

He reached up, collected some tears in the cup of his palm, put his hand to his mouth, and drank them. ‘You shouldn’t say that,’ he said. ‘If the worst comes to the worst … I wouldn’t want you to … you mustn’t deny yourself. You’d be a wonderful mother.’

She looked directly into his eyes, which on that day seemed exceptionally beautiful, and said, ‘I promise you, as if you had made me promise it, that there will never be anyone else but you. No one.’

‘I promise you the same,’ he said. ‘But you mustn’t promise it to me. I won’t accept it. If I die you must have the chance to be a mother, to have a family, and be happy.’ He stood up and beckoned her to follow.

They went to the conservatory at the back of the house, through the French windows in the withdrawing room. It had steps down into the garden. Ash stood Rosie where she could see the garden, and descended the steps. By then it had stopped snowing and the lawn was covered by a perfect, flawless, glistening crust.