Peaches for Monsieur Le Curé Read online

  Don’t get me wrong. I like Jean-Loup. But my little Anouk is sensitive in ways I understand only too well. She feels responsibility for things that are beyond her control. Perhaps because she’s the eldest child; or perhaps it has something to do with what happened in Paris, four years ago, when the wind nearly blew us away for good.

  I scanned the crowd for faces again. This time, I recognized Guillaume, eight years older, but just the same, with the dog that was a puppy when Anouk and I left Lansquenet now walking sedately at his heels, and a small group of children following, feeding treats to the little dog and chattering excitedly.

  ‘Guillaume!’

  He did not hear me. The music, the laughter, were all too loud. But the man at my side turned abruptly, and I saw his very familiar face; the features small and sharp and neat, the eyes a chilly shade of grey, and I caught a glimpse of his colours as he turned with a look of astonishment – in fact, were it not for those colours I might not have known him without his soutane, but there’s no way of hiding who you are under the skin of the mask you wear—

  ‘Mademoiselle Rocher?’ he said.

  It was Francis Reynaud.

  Now forty-five, he has hardly changed. The same narrow, suspicious mouth. Hair slicked severely back to fight its tendency to curl. The same stubborn set of the shoulders, like a man carrying an invisible cross.

  He has gained weight since I saw him last. Although he will never really be fat, there is a perceptible roundness in the region of his midsection that points to a less austere regime. This suits him – he is tall enough to need a little extra bulk – and, still more surprising, there are lines around those cool grey eyes that might almost hint at laughter.

  He smiled – a shy, uncertain smile that has had too little practice. And with that smile, I understood what Armande meant when she wrote to me that Lansquenet would need my help.

  Of course, it was all in his colours. His outward appearance was that of a man firmly, completely in control. Still, I know him better than most, and I could see that beneath his apparent calm Reynaud was deeply agitated. To begin with, his collar was misaligned. A priest’s collar fastens at the back – in this case with a small clip. Reynaud’s collar had slipped to one side; the clip was clearly visible. To such a meticulous man as Reynaud, this was no trivial detail.

  What was it Armande said?

  Lansquenet will need you again. But I can’t count on our stubborn curé—

  Then there were the colours themselves; a turgid confusion of greens and greys, shot through with the scarlet of distress. And the look in his eyes; the careful blankness of a man who does not know how to ask for help. In short, Reynaud looked as if he were standing on the edge of a precipice, and now I knew I could not leave until I knew what was happening.

  And remember: everything returns.

  Armande’s voice was clear in my mind. Eight years dead, and still she sounds as stubborn as she did in life; stubborn and wise and mischievous. There’s no point trying to fight the dead; their voices are relentless.

  I smiled. I said, ‘Monsieur le Curé.’

  Then I prepared to ride the wind.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Sunday, 15th August

  MY GOD. SHE hasn’t changed at all. Long black hair; laughing eyes; bright red skirt and sandals. A half-eaten galette in one hand; jingling bracelets on one wrist; her daughter scampering in her wake. For a moment it was almost as if Time had stopped; even the child had scarcely aged.

  Of course, it wasn’t the same child. I realized that almost at once. For a start, this one has red hair, while the other one was dark. Besides which, looking closer now, I could see that Vianne Rocher has changed; there are fine lines around her eyes and she wears a guarded expression, as if eight years have taught her mistrust – or perhaps she’s expecting trouble.

  I tried a smile, though I am aware that my personal charm is somewhat lacking. I do not have the easy social graces of Père Henri Lemaître, the priest from Toulouse who now serves the neighbouring parishes of Florient, Chancy and Pont-le-Saôul. My manner has been described (by Caro Clairmont, among others) as dry. I neither attempt to woo my flock, nor flatter them into submission. Instead I try to be honest, which earns me little gratitude from Caro and her cronies, who much prefer the kind of priest who attends social functions, coos over babies and lets his hair down at church fêtes.

  Vianne Rocher raised an eyebrow. Perhaps my smile was a little forced. Given the circumstances, of course, it was to be expected.

  ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t—’

  It’s the soutane. I don’t suppose she’d ever seen me without it. I’ve always thought there was something comforting about the Church’s traditional black robe; a visible sign of authority. But nowadays, I simply wear the collar over a plain black shirt. I do not stoop to wear blue jeans, as Père Henri Lemaître so often does, but Caro Clairmont has made it clear that my wearing of the soutane (outside of religious ceremonies) is no longer entirely appropriate in these days of progress and enlightenment. Caro Clairmont has the Bishop’s ear, and in the light of recent events I’ve learnt that it pays to play the game.

  I felt Vianne’s eyes move over me, curious, but not unkind. I waited for her to say I’d changed. Instead, she smiled – a real smile, this time – and kissed me lightly on the cheek.

  ‘I hope that’s not inappropriate,’ she said, with a hint of mischief.

  ‘If it were, I doubt you’d care.’

  She laughed at that, and her eyes shone. The child at her side gave a gleeful hoot and blew into her plastic trumpet.

  ‘This is my little Rosette,’ she said. ‘And of course, you’ll remember Anouk.’

  ‘Of course.’ How could I have missed her? A dark-haired girl of fifteen or so, talking to the Drou boy. Standing out without meaning to in her faded jeans and daffodil shirt, with her dusty feet in their sandals and her hair tied back with a piece of string while the village girls in their festival gear walked past with a contemptuous eye—

  ‘She looks like you.’

  She smiled. ‘Oh dear.’

  ‘I meant it as a compliment.’

  She laughed again at my awkwardness. I never did quite understand what provokes her laughter. Vianne Rocher is one of those people who seem to laugh at everything – as if life were some kind of perpetual joke, and people endlessly charming and good, instead of being mostly stupid and dull, if not downright poisonous.

  Cordially: ‘What brings you here?’

  She shrugged. ‘Nothing special. Just catching up.’

  ‘Oh.’ She hadn’t heard, then. Or maybe she had, and was toying with me. We’d parted on uncertain terms, and it may be that she still bears a grudge. Perhaps I deserve it, after all. She has the right to despise me.

  ‘Where are you staying?’

  She gave a shrug. ‘I’m not sure if I’m staying at all.’ She looked at me, and I felt those eyes again, like fingers on my face. ‘You look well.’

  ‘You look the same.’

  That concluded the pleasantries. I decided that she knew nothing of my circumstances, and that her arrival – today, of all days – was nothing but coincidence. Very well, I told myself. Perhaps it was better to keep it that way. What could she do, one woman, alone, especially on the eve of a war?

  ‘Is my chocolate shop still there?’

  The question I was dreading. ‘Of course it’s there.’ I looked away.

  ‘Really? Who runs it?’

  ‘A foreigner.’

  She laughed. ‘A foreigner from Pont-le-Saôul?’ The closeness of our communities has always been a joke to her. All our neighbouring villages are fiercely independent. Once, they were bastides, fortress towns in a fretwork of tiny dominions, and even now they tend to be somewhat wary of strangers.

  ‘You’ll be wanting to find somewhere to stay,’ I said, avoiding the question. ‘Agen has some good hotels. Or you could drive to Montauban—’

  ‘We don’t have a car. We hired a cab.’
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  ‘Oh.’

  The carnival was nearing its end. I could see the final char, decked with flowers from stem to stern, staggering down the main road like a drunken bishop in full regalia.

  ‘I thought we might stay at Joséphine’s,’ said Vianne. ‘Assuming the café still has rooms.’

  I pulled a face. ‘I suppose you might.’ I knew I was being ungracious. But to have her here at this sensitive time was to subject myself to unnecessary anxiety. And besides, she has always had the knack of arriving at just the wrong moment—

  ‘Excuse me, but is something wrong?’

  ‘Not at all.’ I tried to assume a festive air. ‘But this is Sainte-Marie’s festival, and it’s Mass in half an hour—’

  ‘Mass. Well, I’ll come with you, then.’

  I stared. ‘You never go to Mass.’

  ‘I thought I might look in at the shop. Just for old times’ sake,’ she said.

  I could see there was no stopping her. I prepared myself for the inevitable. ‘It isn’t a chocolate shop any more.’

  ‘I didn’t think it would be,’ she said. ‘What is it now, a bakery?’

  ‘Not exactly,’ I said.

  ‘Maybe the owner will show me around.’

  I tried to suppress a grimace.

  ‘What?’

  ‘I don’t think that’s a good idea.’

  ‘Why not?’ Her eyes were inquisitive. At her feet, the red-haired child was squatting in the dusty road. The trumpet had become a doll, and she was marching it to and fro, making little sounds to herself. I wondered if she was entirely normal, but then children seldom make much sense to me.

  ‘The people aren’t very friendly,’ I said.

  She laughed at that. ‘I think I can cope.’

  I threw down my last card. ‘They’re foreigners.’

  ‘So am I,’ said Vianne Rocher. ‘I’m sure we’ll get on like a house on fire.’

  And that was how, on the festival of Sainte-Marie, Vianne Rocher blew back into town, bringing with her her usual gift of mayhem, dreams and chocolate.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Sunday, 15th August

  THE PROCESSION WAS over. Sainte-Marie in her festival Robes was on her way back to her plinth in the church, her crown put away for another year, her wreath already fading. August is hot in Lansquenet, and the wind that blows across from the hills strips the land of moisture. By the time we arrived, the four of us, the shadows were already lengthening, with only the top of Saint-Jérôme’s tower still shining in the sunlight. The bells were ringing for Mass, and people were making their way to church; old women in black straw hats (with the occasional ribbon or bunch of cherries to relieve half a lifetime of mourning); old men in berets that gave them the look of schoolboys slouching to class, grey hair slicked hastily back with water from the pump in the square, Sunday shoes capped with yellow dust. No one looked at me as they passed. No one looked familiar.

  Reynaud glanced over his shoulder at me as he led the way to church. I thought there was something reluctant in the way he approached; although his movements were as precise as ever, he somehow seemed to be dragging his feet, as if to prolong the journey. Rosette had lost her exuberance, along with the plastic trumpet, discarded somewhere along the way. Anouk was walking ahead of us, iPod earpiece in one ear. I wondered what she was listening to, lost in a private world of sound.

  We passed the corner of the church and stepped into the little square, and faced the chocolaterie; the very first place Anouk and I had ever really called home—

  For a moment neither of us spoke. It was simply too much to register: the empty windows, gaping roof, the ladder of soot climbing the wall. The smell of it was still half fresh – a combination of plaster, charred wood and memories gone up in smoke.

  ‘What happened?’ I said at last.

  Reynaud shrugged. ‘There was a fire.’

  In that moment he almost sounded like Roux in the days that had followed the loss of his boat. The warily uninflected tone, the almost insulting neutrality. I wanted to ask if he’d started the fire – not because I believed he had, but just to break his composure.

  ‘Was anybody hurt?’ I said.

  ‘No.’ Again, that apparent detachment, though behind it his colours howled and spat.

  ‘Who lived there?’

  ‘A woman and her child.’

  ‘Foreigners,’ I said.

  ‘Yes.’

  His pale eyes held mine almost like a challenge. Of course, I too was a foreigner, at least by his definition. I too was a woman with a child. I wondered whether his choice of words had been intended to convey something else.

  ‘Did you know them?’

  ‘Not at all.’

  That, too, was unusual. In a place the size of Lansquenet, the parish priest knows everyone. Either Reynaud was lying, or the woman who had lived in my house had managed the near-impossible.

  ‘Where are they staying now?’ I said.

  ‘Les Marauds, I think.’

  ‘You think?’

  He shrugged. ‘There are lots of them now in Les Marauds,’ he said. ‘Things have changed since you were here.’

  I was beginning to think he was right. Things have changed in Lansquenet. Behind the half-known faces and the houses and the whitewashed church; the fields; the little streets staggering down towards the river; the old tanneries; the square with its strip of gravel for playing pétanque; the school; the bakery – all those landmarks that had seemed to me so comforting when I arrived, with their illusion of timelessness – all now coloured with something else; a shadow of disquiet, perhaps; the strangeness of familiarity.

  I saw him glance at the church door. The worshippers had all gone in. ‘Better get your robes,’ I said. ‘You don’t want to be late for Mass.’

  ‘I’m not the one saying Mass today.’ His tone was still perfectly neutral. ‘There’s a visiting priest, Père Henri Lemaître, who comes on special occasions.’

  That sounded rather odd to me, although, not being a churchgoer, I was reluctant to comment. Reynaud offered no further explanation, but remained, rather stiffly, at my side, as if awaiting judgement.

  Rosette had been watching with Anouk. Both seemed unable to keep their eyes from the chocolaterie. Anouk had taken off her iPod and was standing by the charred front door, and I knew that she was remembering us soaping and sanding the woodwork; buying the paint and the brushes; trying to wash the paint from our hair.

  ‘It might not be as bad as it looks,’ I said to Anouk, and pushed at the door. It was unlocked; it opened. Inside, there was worse: a jumble of chairs piled in the middle of the room, most of them charred and useless. A carpet, rolled up and blackened. The remains of an easel on the floor. A flaking blackboard on the wall.

  ‘It was a school,’ I said aloud.

  Reynaud said nothing. His mouth was set.

  Rosette pulled a face and said in sign language: Are we sleeping here?

  I shook my head and smiled at her.

  Good. Bam doesn’t like it.

  ‘We’ll find somewhere else,’ I told her.

  Where?

  ‘I know just the place,’ I said. I looked at Reynaud. ‘I don’t mean to intrude. But are you in some kind of trouble?’

  He smiled. It was a narrow smile, but this time it went all the way to his eyes. ‘I think you could probably say that.’

  ‘Did you ever intend to go to Mass?’

  He shook his head.

  ‘Then come with me.’

  Once more he smiled. ‘And where are we going, Mademoiselle Rocher?’

  ‘First, to put flowers on an old lady’s grave.’

  ‘And after that?’

  ‘You’ll see,’ I said.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Sunday, 15th August

  I SUPPOSE I’LL have to explain myself. I thought I might avoid it. But if she is staying in Lansquenet – and everything points to the fact that she is – then she will hear it eventually. Our gossips pull no pun
ches. For some strange reason she seems to believe that she and I can somehow be friends. I may as well tell her the truth before she gets too used to the idea.

  This was my thought as I followed her to the cemetery, pausing every few minutes as she and the children stopped to pick a handful of roadside flowers – weeds, for the most part – dandelions; ragwort; daisies; poppies; a stray anemone from the verge; a fistful of rosemary from someone’s garden, pushing its shoots through a drystone wall.

  Of course, Vianne Rocher likes weeds. And the children – the young one especially – lent themselves to the game with glee, so that by the time we reached the place, she had a whole armful of flowers and herbs tied together with bindweed and a straggle of wild strawberry—

  ‘What do you think?’

  ‘It’s – colourful.’

  She laughed. ‘You mean inappropriate.’

  Disorderly, colourful, inappropriate, wrong in every sense of the word – and yet with a curious appeal – a perfect description of Vianne Rocher, I thought, but did not say aloud. My eloquence – such as it is – is strictly limited to the page.

  Instead I said, ‘Armande would like it.’

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I think she would.’

  Armande Voizin’s is a family plot. Her parents and grandparents are there, and the husband who died forty years ago. There is a black marble urn at the foot of the grave – an urn she always greatly disliked, and a trough in which she would often slyly plant parsley, carrots, potatoes or other vegetables in defiance of the conventions of grief.

  It is very like her now to persuade her friend to bring weeds – Vianne Rocher had told me all about the letter she received from Luc Clairmont, and the note inside from Armande Voizin. Again, it is very like Armande to interfere – from beyond the grave! – to trouble my peace of mind in this way with memories of what once was. She says there is chocolate in Paradise. A blasphemous, inappropriate thought, and yet some hidden part of me hopes to God that she is right.