Трейси Шевалье - The Virgin Blue

I didn't move. My shoulders were shaking, and I lowered my head and began to cry.

Without a word Mathilde put an arm around me and picked up the travel bag. When Sylvie picked up the gym bag I almost cried out, ‘Don't touch it!’ Instead I let her take it and my hand. Together they led me inside.

I couldn't face getting on a plane. I didn't want to be cooped up, but more than that, I didn't want to get home too fast. I needed more time to make the transition than a plane would give me.

Jacob came with me on the train to Geneva and put me on the bus to the airport, but three blocks out from the train station I got up and asked the bus driver to let me off. I went to a café and sat with a coffee for half an hour till I knew Jacob would be on a train back to Moutier, then went back to the station and bought a train ticket to Toulouse.

It had been hard leaving Jacob: not because I wanted to stay, but because it was so obvious to him that I wanted to get away as soon as possible.

‘I'm sorry, Ella,’ he murmured as we said goodbye, ‘that your visit to Moutier has been so traumatic. It was meant to help you but instead it has hurt you.’ He glanced at my bruised forehead, at the gym bag. He hadn't wanted me to take it with me, but I'd insisted, though I wondered vaguely if there would be problems with any sniffer dogs at the airport – another reason to take the train.

Lucien had brought the gym bag the previous morning when I finally woke up after the drugs the doctor pumped into me had worn off. He appeared at the end of my bed, unshaven, dirty and exhausted, and set the bag next to the wall.

‘This is for you, Ella. Don't look in it now. You know what it is.’

I glanced dully at the bag. ‘You didn't do it alone, did you?’

‘A friend owed me a favour. Don't worry, he won't tell anyone. He knows how to keep secrets.’ He paused. ‘We used stronger rope. The beam almost came down, though. The whole house almost collapsed.’

‘I wish it had.’

As he was leaving I cleared my throat. ‘Lucien. Thank you. For helping me. For everything.’

He nodded. ‘Be happy, Ella.’

‘I'll try.’

They left my bags in the hall and led me to the backyard, a patch of lawn fenced off from the neighbours on both sides and scattered with toys and a plastic wading pool. They made me lie in a plastic lawn chair, and while Mathilde went back inside to get me something to drink Sylvie stood at my shoulder, gazing at me steadily. She reached out and began patting my forehead lightly. I closed my eyes. Her touch, and the sun on me, felt good.

‘What's that?’ Sylvie asked. I opened my eyes. She was pointing at the psoriasis on my arm; it was red and swollen.

‘I have a problem with my skin. It's called psoriasis.’

‘Soar-ee-ah-sees,’ she repeated, making it sound like the name of a dinosaur. ‘You need a bandage there too, n'est-ce pas ?’

I smiled.

‘So,’ Mathilde began when she'd handed me a glass of orange juice, sat down on the lawn beside me and sent Sylvie in to change into her bathing suit. ‘Where have you been to get such bruises?’

I sighed. The prospect of explaining everything was daunting. ‘I've been in Switzerland,’ I began, ‘visiting my family. To show them the Bible.’

Mathilde wrinkled her face. ‘Bah, the Swiss,’ she said.

‘I was looking for something,’ I continued, ‘and -’

A shrill scream came from the house. Mathilde jumped up. ‘Ah, that will be the bones,’ I said.

It was hardest leaving Susanne. She came into my room not long after Lucien left the gym bag. She sat on the side of the bed and nodded toward the bag without looking at it.

‘Lucien told me about it,’ she said. ‘He showed me.’

‘Lucien is a good man.’

‘Yes.’ She looked out the window. ‘Why was it there, do you think?’

I shook my head. ‘I don't know. Maybe -’ I stopped; thinking about it made me shake, and I was trying hard to make them think I was well enough to leave the next day.

Susanne put a hand on my arm. ‘I should not have mentioned it.’

‘It's nothing.’ I changed the subject. ‘Can I say something frank to you?’ In my weakness I was feeling honest.

‘Of course.’

‘You must get rid of Jan.’

The shock in her face was of recognition rather than surprise; when she began to laugh I joined in.

Mathilde came back out, holding a weeping Sylvie by the hand.

‘Tell Ella you're sorry for looking at her things,’ she ordered.

Sylvie regarded me suspiciously through her tears. ‘I'm sorry,’ she mumbled. ‘Maman, please let me play in the pool.’

‘OK.’

Sylvie ran to the pool as if eager to get away from me.

‘I'm sorry about that,’ Mathilde said. ‘She is a curious little thing.’

‘It's OK. I'm sorry it scared her.’

‘So that – those – that is what you found? What you were looking for?’

‘I think her name was Marie Tournier.’

‘ Mon Dieu . She was – from the family?’

‘Yes.’ I began to explain, about the farm and the old chimney and hearth, and the names Marie and Isabelle. About the colour blue and the dream and the sound of the stone dropping into place. And the colour of my hair.

Mathilde listened without interrupting. She examined her bright pink nails, picking at her cuticles.

‘What a story!’ she said when I'd finished. ‘You should write it down.’ She paused, started to say something else, then stopped herself.

‘What?’

‘Why have you come here?’ she asked. ‘ Ecoute , I'm glad you came, but why didn't you go home? Wouldn't you want to go home when you are upset, to your husband?’

I sighed. All that to tell her too: we would be here for hours. Her question reminded me of something. I glanced around. ‘Is there a – have you got a – where is Sylvie's father?’ I asked awkwardly.

Mathilde laughed and waved her hand vaguely. ‘Who knows? I haven't seen him in a couple of years. He was never interested in having children. He didn't want me to have Sylvie, so -’ She shrugged. ‘ Tant pis . But you haven't answered my question.’

I told her everything else then, about Rick and Jean-Paul. Though I didn't cut any corners, it took less time to tell her than I'd expected.

‘So Rick doesn't know where you are?’

‘No. My cousin wanted to call and tell him I was coming home, but I wouldn't let him. I told him I would call Rick from the airport. Maybe I knew I wouldn't make it back.’

In fact I'd sat on the train from Geneva in a stupor, not thinking about my destination at all. I'd had to change trains in Montpellier, and while I'd been waiting I'd heard a train announced, with Mende listed as a stop. I'd watched it come in, people get off and on. Then it had just sat there, and the longer it had sat not going the more it had taunted me. Finally I'd picked up my bags and stepped onto it.

‘Ella,’ Mathilde said. I looked up; I'd been watching Sylvie splashing in the pool. ‘You really need to talk to Rick, n'est-ce pas ? About all of this.’

‘I know. But I can't bear calling him.’

‘Leave that to me!’ She jumped up and snapped her fingers. ‘Give me the phone number.’ I did, reluctantly. ‘Good. Now you watch Sylvie. And don't come inside!’

I leaned back in the chair. It was a relief to let her take charge.

Luckily children forget quickly. By the end of the day Sylvie and I were playing in the pool together. When we went inside Mathilde had hidden the gym bag in a closet. Sylvie said nothing more about it; she showed me all her toys and let me braid her hair into two tight plaits.

Mathilde would say little about the phone call. ‘Tomorrow night, eight o'clock,’ she explained cryptically, handing me an address in Mende, just as Jean-Paul had with La Taverne.