Joanne Harris is the author of three previous novels, Sleep, Pale
Sister, The Evil Seed and Chocolat. Chocolat was shortlisted for
the 1999 Whitbread Novel of the Year Award and is also
published by Black Swan. Her latest novel, Five Quarters of
the Orange, is now available from Doubleday. Joanne Harris lives
in Barnsley, Yorkshire, with her husband and small daughter.
Acclaim for Blackberry Wine:
'A lively and original talent'
Sunday Times
"Harris is at her best when detailing the sensual pleasures of
taste and smell. As chocoholics stand advised to stock up on
some of their favourite bars before biting into Chocoldt, so
boozers everywhere should get a couple of bottles in before
opening Blackberry Wine'
Helen Falconer, Guardian
'Joanne Harris has the gift of conveying her delight in the
sensuous pleasures of food, wine, scent and plants . . . [Blackberry
Wine] has all the appeal of a velvety scented glass of
vintage wine'
Lizzie Buchan, Daily Mail
"If Joanne Harris didn't exist, someone would have to invent her,
she's such a welcome antidote to the modern preoccupation with
the spare, pared down and non-fattening. Not for her the doubtful
merits of an elegant and expensive sparkling water or an undressed
rocket salad. In her previous novel, Chocolat, she invoked
the scent and the flavour of rich, dark, sweet self-indulgence. In
Blackberry Wine she celebrates the sensuous energy that can leap
from a bottle after years of fermentation . . . Harris bombards the
senses with the smells and tastes of times past . . . Harris's talent
lies in her own grasp of the quality she ascribes to wine, "layman's
alchemy, the magic of everyday things." She is fanciful and
grounded at the same time - one moment shrouded in mystery,
the next firmly planted in earth. Above all, she has wit'
Jenni Murray, Sunday Express
www.booksattransworld.co.uk
'Touching, funny and clever narrative . . . [Joanne Harris] is no
one-hit wonder — in fact she is so terrific, she can write about
anywhere, anything, anyone. And I hope she does so. Soon'
Susannah Herbert, Daily Telegraph
'Enchanting'
Woman's Journal
'An engrossing tale of mystery, self-discovery and romance ... A
hugely enjoyable read'
The Lady
'Blackberry Wine is going to appeal to all sorts of people'
Angela Lambert, Literary Review
'Both novels [Chocolat and Blackberry Wine] display immense
charm - an admirable lightness of touch and warmth of
characterization which make for a delightful read'
Michael Arditti, Independent
'Harris cleverly interweaves the two narratives and delves into
the realms of magic without ever threatening to destroy its
mystique'
The Big Issue
'This gentle love story is shot through with intoxicating images
and a bewitching hero'
She
AJso by Joanne Harris
SLEEP, PALE SISTER
THE EVIL SEED
CHOCOLAT
FIVE QUARTERS OF THE ORANGE
BLACKBERRY
WINE
Joanne Harris
BLACK SWAN
BLACKBERRY WINE
A BLACK SWAN BOOK : 0 552 99800 1
Originally published in Great Britain by Doubleday,
a division of Transworld Publishers
PRINTING HISTORY
Doubleday edition published 2000
Black Swan edition published 2001
13579108642
Copyright © Joanne Harris 2000
'God's Garden' by Dorothy Frances Gurney
reprinted courtesy of Burns and Oates Publishers.
The right of Joanne Harris to be identified as the author of
this work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77
and 78 of the Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All the characters in this book are fictitious,
and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead,
is purely coincidental.
Condition of Sale
This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not,
by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out or
otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other
than that in which it is published and without a similar
condition including this condition being imposed on the
subsequent purchaser.
Typeset in 11 on 13pt Melior by
Hewer Text Ltd, Edinburgh.
Black Swan Books are published by Transworld Publishers,
61-63 Uxbridge Road, London W5 5SA,
a division of The Random House Group Ltd,
in Australia by Random House Australia (Pty) Ltd,
20 Alfred Street, Milsons Point, Sydney, NSW 2061, Australia,
in New Zealand by Random House New Zealand Ltd,
18 Poland Road, Glenfield, Auckland 10, New Zealand
and in South Africa by Random House (Pty) Ltd,
Endulini, 5a Jubilee Road, Parktown 2193, South Africa.
Printed and bound in Great Britain by
Clays Ltd, St Ives pie.
To my grandfather, Edwin Short:
gardener, winemaker and poet at heart.
Acknowledgements
Many thanks go to the following: Kevin and Anouchka for
bearing with me, to G. J. Paul, and the Priory Old Boys'
Club, to Francesca Liversidge for her inspired editing, to
Jennifer Luithlen, to my splendid agent, Serafina Clarke, for
showing me the ropes, but not giving me enough to hang
myself with, and to Our Man in London, Christopher
Fowler. To all my colleagues and pupils at Leeds Grammar
School, goodbye, and good luck. I'll miss you.
WINE TALKS. EVERYONE KNOWS THAT. LOOK AROUND YOU. ASK
the oracle at the street corner; the uninvited guest at the
wedding feast; the holy fool. It talks. It ventriloquizes. It
has a million voices. It unleashes the tongue, teasing out
secrets you never meant to tell, secrets you never even
knew. It shouts, rants, whispers. It speaks of great things,
splendid plans, tragic loves and terrible betrayals. It
screams with laughter. It chuckles softly to itself. It weeps
in front of its own reflection. It opens up summers long past
and memories best forgotten. Every bottle a whiff of other
times, other places; every one, from the commonest
Liebfraumilch to the imperious 1945 Veuve Clicquot, a
humble miracle. Everyday magic, Joe called it. The transformation
of base matter into the stuff of dreams. Layman's
alchemy.
Take me, for instance. Fleurie, 1962. Last survivor of a
crate of twelve, bottled and laid down the year Jay was
born. 'A pert, garrulous wine, cheery and a little brash, with
a pungent taste of blackcurrant,' said the label. Not really a
wine for keeping, but he did. For nostalgia's sake. For a
special occasion. A birthday, perhaps a wedding. But his
birthdays passed without celebration; drinking Argentinian
red and watching old Westerns. Five years ago he laid
me out on a table set with silver candlesticks, but nothing
came of it. In spite of that he and the girl stayed together.
An army of bottles came with her - Dom Perignon, Sto-
lichnaya vodka, Parfait Amour and Mouton-Cadet, Belgian
beers in long-necked bottles, Noilly Prat vermouth and
Fraise des Bois. They talk, too, nonsense mostly, metallic
chatter, like guests mingling at a party. We refused to have
anything to do with them. We were pushed to the back of
the cellar, we three survivors, behind the gleaming ranks of these newcomers, and there we stayed for five years,
forgotten. Chateau-Chalon '58, Sancerre '71 and myself.
Chateau-Chalon, vexed at his relegation, pretends deafness
and often refuses to speak at all. 'A mellow wine of great
dignity and stature,' he quotes in his rare moments of
expansiveness. He likes to remind us of his seniority, of
the longevity of yellow Jura wines. He makes much of this,
as he does of his honeyed bouquet and unique pedigree.
The Sancerre has long since turned vinegary and speaks
even less, occasionally sighing thinly over her vanished
youth.
And then, six weeks before this story begins, the others
came. The strangers. The Specials. The interlopers who
began it all, though they too seemed forgotten behind the
bright new bottles. Six of them, each with its own small
handwritten label and sealed in candle wax. Each bottle
had a cord of a different colour knotted around its neck:
raspberry red,.elderflower green, blackberry blue, rosehip
yellow, damson black. The last bottle, tied with a brown
cord, was no wine even I had ever heard of. 'Specials, 1975,'
said the label, the writing faded to the colour of old tea. But
inside was a hive of secrets. There was no escaping them;
their whisperings, their catcalls, their laughter. We pretended
indifference to their antics. These amateurs. Not a
whiff of grape in any of them. They were inferiors, and we
begrudged them their place among us. And yet there was an
appealing impudence to these six freebooters, a hectic clash
of flavours and images to send more sober vintages reeling.
It was, of course, beneath our dignity to speak to them. But
oh I longed to. Perhaps it was that plebeian undertaste of
blackcurrant which linked us.
10
From the cellar you could hear everything that went on in
the house. We marked events with the comings and goings
of our more favoured colleagues: twelve beers Friday night
and laughter in the hallway; the night before a single bottle
of Californian red, so young you could almost smell the
tannin; the previous week -- his birthday, as it happened -- a
half-bottle of Moet, a demoiselle, that loneliest, most revealing
of sizes, and the distant, nostalgic sound of gunfire and
horses' hooves from upstairs. Jay Mackintosh was thirty-
seven. Unremarkable but for his eyes, which were pinot
noir indigo, he had the awkward, slightly dazed look of a
man who has lost his way. Five years ago Kerry had found
this appealing. By now she had lost her taste for it. There
was something deeply annoying about his passivity and the
core of stubbornness beneath. Precisely fourteen years ago
Jay wrote a novel called Three Summers with Jackapple Joe.
You'll know it, of course. It won the Prix Goncourt in
France, translated into twenty languages. Three crates of
vintage Veuve Clicquot celebrated its publication -- the '76,
drunk too young to do it justice, but then Jay was always
like that, rushing at life as if it might never run dry, as if
what was bottled inside him would last for ever, success
following success in a celebration without end.
In those days there was no wine cellar. We stood on the
mantelpiece above his typewriter, for luck, he said. When
he'd completed the book he opened the last of my companions of '62 and drank it very slowly, turning the glass round
and round in his hands when he'd finished. Then he came
over to the mantelpiece. For a moment he stood there. Then
he grinned and walked, rather unsteadily, back to his chair.
'Next time, sweetheart,' he promised. 'We'll leave it till
next time.' You see, he talks to me, as one day I will talk to
him. I'm his oldest friend. We understand each other. Our
destinies are intertwined.
Of course there was no next time. Television interviews,
newspaper articles and reviews succeeded each other into
silence. Hollywood made a film adaptation with Corey
Feldman, set in the American Midwest. Nine years passed.
Jay wrote part of a manuscript entitled Stout Cortez and
sold eight short stories to Playboy magazine, which were
later reprinted as a collection by Penguin Books. The
literary world waited for Jay Mackintosh's new novel,
eagerly at first, then restless, curious, then finally, fatally,
indifferent.
Of course he still wrote. Seven novels to date, with titles
like The G-sus Gene or Psy-Wrens of Mars or A Date with
d'Eath, all written under the pseudonym of Jonathan Wine-
sap, nice earners which kept him in reasonable comfort for
those fourteen years. He bought a computer, a Toshiba
laptop, which he balanced on his knees like the TV dinners
he made for himself on the nights - increasingly frequent
now - that Kerry worked late. He wrote reviews, articles,
short stories and newspaper columns. He lectured at
writers' groups, held creative-writing seminars at the university.
There were so many things to occupy him, he used
to say, that he had scarcely any time to do any work of his
own -- laughing without conviction at himself, the writer
who never writes. Kerry looked at him, narrow-lipped,
when he said this. Meet Kerry O'Neill - born Katherine
Marsden - twenty-eight, cropped blond hair and startling
green eyes, which Jay never suspected were coloured contact
lenses. A journalist made good in television by way of
Forum? a late-night talk show, where popular authors and
B-list celebrities discussed contemporary social problems
against a background of avant-garde jazz. Five years ago
she might have smiled at his words. But then, five years
ago there was no Forum.', Kerry was writing a travel column
for the Independent and working on a book entitled
Chocolate - a Feminist Outlook. The world was filled with
possibilities. The book came out two years later, on a wave
of media interest. Kerry was photogenic, marketable and
mainstream. As a result she appeared on a number of
lightweight chat shows. She was photographed for Marie
CJaire, TatJer and Me.', but was quick to reassure herself
12
that it hadn't gone to her head. She had a house in Chelsea,
a pied-o-terre in New York and was considering liposuction
on her thighs. She had grown up. Moved on.
But, for Jay, nothing had moved on. Five years ago he had
seemed the embodiment of the temperamental artist, drinking
half a bottle of Smirnoff a day, a doomed, damaged
figure of romance. He had brought out her maternal instincts.
She was going to redeem him, inspire him and, in
return, he would write a wonderful book, a book which
would illuminate lives and which would all be due to her.
But none of that happened. Trashy sci-fi was what paid
the rent; cheap paperbacks with lurid covers. The maturity,
the puckish wisdom of that first work, had never been
duplicated, or even attempted. And for all his brooding
silences Jay had no temperament to speak of. He had never
given in to an impulse. He never really showed anger, never
lost control. His conversation was neither brilliantly intelligent
nor intriguingly surly. Even his drinking - his one
remaining excess -- seemed ridiculous now, like a man who
insists upon wearing the outmoded fashions of his youth.
He spent his time playing computer games, listening to old
singles and watching old movies on video, locked in his
adolescence like a record in a groove. Maybe she was
mistaken, thought Kerry. He didn't want to grow up. He
didn't want to be saved.
The empty bottles told a different story. He drank, Jay
told himself, for the same reason he wrote second-rate
science fiction. Not to forget, but to remember, to open
up the past and find himself there again, like the stone in a
bitter fruit. He opened each bottle, began each story with
the secret conviction that here was the magic draught that
would restore him. But magic, like wine, needs the right
conditions in order to work. Joe could have told him that.
Otherwise the chemistry doesn't happen. The bouquet is
spoiled.
I suppose I expected it to begin with me. There would
have been poetry in that. We are linked, after all, he and I.
But this story begins with a different vintage. I don't really
mind that. Better to be his last than his first. I'm not even
the star of this story, but I was there before the Specials
came, and I'll be there when they've all been drunk. I can
afford to wait. Besides, aged Fleurie is an acquired taste,
not to be rushed, and I'm not sure his palate would have
been ready.
14
London, Spring 1999
IT WAS MARCH. MILD, EVEN FOR THE CELLAR. JAY HAD BEEN
working upstairs - working in his way, with a bottle at
his elbow and the television turned on low. Kerry was at a
party -- the launch of a new award for female authors under
twenty-five - and the house was silent. Jay used the typewriter
for what he thought of as 'real' work, the laptop for
his science fiction, so you could always tell what he was
writing by the sound, or lack of it. It was ten before he came
downstairs. He switched on the radio to an oldies station,
and you could hear him moving about in the kitchen, his
footsteps restless against the terracotta tiles. There was a
drinks cabinet next to the fridge. He opened it, hesitated,
closed it again. The fridge door opened, Kerry's taste
dominated here, as everywhere. Wheat-grass juice, couscous
salad, baby spinach leaves, yoghurts. What he really
craved, Jay thought, was a huge bacon-and-fried-egg sandwich
with ketchup and onion, and a mug of strong tea. The
craving, he knew, had something to do with Joe and Pog Hill
Lane. An association, that was all, which often came on
when he was trying to write. But all that was finished. A
phantom. He knew he wasn't really hungry. Instead he lit a
cigarette, a forbidden luxury reserved for when Kerry was
out of the house, and inhaled greedily. From the radio's
scratchy speaker came the voice of Steve Harley singing
'Make me smile' - another song from that distant, inescapable
summer of '75 - and for a moment he raised his voice to
sing along - 'Come up and see me, make me smi-i-i-ile' forlornly
in the echoing kitchen.
Behind us in the dark cellar the strangers were restless.
Perhaps it was the music, or perhaps something in the air of
this mild spring evening seemed suddenly charged with
possibility, for they were effervescent with activity, seething
in their bottles, rattling against each other, jumping at
shadows, bursting to talk, to open, to release their essence
into the air. Perhaps this was why he came down, his steps
heavy on the rough, unpolished stairs. Jay liked the cellar; it
was cool, secret. He was always coming down there, just to
touch the bottles, to run his fingers along the dust-furred
walls. I always liked it when he came to the cellar. Like a
barometer, I can sense his emotional temperature when he
is close to me. To some extent I can even read his thoughts.
As I said, there is a chemistry between us.
It was dark in the cellar, the only illumination a dim light
bulb hanging from the ceiling. Rows of bottles - most
negligible, chosen by Kerry - in the racks on the wall;
others in crates on the flagstones. Jay touched the bottles
fleetingly as he passed, bringing his face very close, as if to
catch the scent of those imprisoned summers. Two or three
times he pulled out a bottle and turned it in his hands
before replacing it in the rack. He moved aimlessly, without
direction, liking the dampness of the cellar and the silence.
Even the sound of the London traffic was stilled here, and
for a moment he seemed tempted simply to lie down on the
smooth, cool floor and go to sleep, perhaps for ever. No-one
would look for him here. But instead he felt very wide
awake, very alert, as if the silence had cleared his head.
There was a charged atmosphere in spite of the stillness,
like something waiting to happen.
The new bottles were in a box at the back of the cellar. A
16
broken ladder had been laid across the top of it, and he
moved this aside, dragging the box out with an effort across
the flagstones. He lifted out a bottle at random and held it
up to the light to decipher the label. Its contents looked
inky-red, with a deep layer of sediment at the base. For a
moment he imagined he saw something else inside there, a
shape, but it was only sediment. Somewhere above him, in
the kitchen, the nostalgia station was still tuned to 1975 -
Christmas now, 'Bohemian Rhapsody', faint but audible
through the floor - and he shivered.
Back in the kitchen he examined the bottle with some
curiosity — he had barely glanced at it since he brought it
back six weeks before - the wax seal at the neck, the brown
cord, the handwritten label - "Specials 1975' - the glass
grimed with the dust of Joe's root cellar. He wondered why
he had brought it back from the wreckage. Nostalgia
maybe, though his feelings for Joe were still too mixed
for that luxury. Anger, confusion, longing washed over him
in hot-cold waves. Old man. Wish you were here.
Inside the bottle something leaped and capered. The
bottles in the cellar rattled and danced in reply.
Sometimes it happens by accident. After years of waiting
- for a correct planetary alignment, a chance meeting, a
sudden inspiration - the right circumstances occasionally
happen of their own accord, slyly, without fanfare, without
warning. Jay thinks of it as destiny. Joe called it magic. But
sometimes all it is is simple chemistry, something in the air,
a single action to bring something which has long remained
inert into sudden, inevitable change.
Layman's alchemy, Joe called it. The magic of everyday
things. Jay Mackintosh reached for a knife to cut the seal.
HAD WITHSTOOD THE YEARS. HIS KNIFE SLICED IT OPEN AND THE
irk was still intact beneath. For a moment the scent was i immediately pungent that all he could do was endure it, ieth clenched, as it worked its will on him. It smelt earthy ad a little sour, like the canal in midsummer, with a
larpness which reminded him of the vegetable-cutter
ad the gleeful tang of fresh-dug potatoes. For a second
ie illusion was so strong that he was actually there in that
anished place, with Joe leaning on his spade and the radio 'edged in a fork in a tree, playing 'Send in the Clowns' or
'm Not in Love'. A sudden overwhelming excitement took
old of him and he poured a small quantity of the wine into
glass, trying not to spill the liquid in his eagerness. It was
usky-pink, like papaya juice, and it seemed to climb the
;des of the glass in a frenzy of anticipation, as if something
iside it were alive and anxious to work its magic on his
esh. He looked at it with mingled distrust and longing. A
art of him wanted to drink it - had waited years for just
lis moment - but all the same he hesitated. The liquid in
ie glass was murky and flecked with flakes of brownish
latter, like rust. He suddenly imagined himself drinking, Poking, writhing on the tiles in agony. The glass halted
alfway to his mouth.
He looked at the liquid again. The movement he thought
e saw had ceased. The scent was faintly sweetish, med;inal,
like cough mixture. Once again he wondered why he
18
had brought the bottle with him. There was no such thing
as magic. It was something else Joe had made him believe;
one more of the old fraud's trickeries. But there was something
in the glass, his mind insisted. Something special.
His concentration was such that he didn't hear Kerry
come in behind him.
'Oh, so you're not working.' Her voice was clear, with just
enough of an Irish accent to guard against accusations of
having a privileged background. 'You know, if you were
planning on getting pissed you could at least have come to
the party with me. It would have been a wonderful opportunity
for you to meet people.'
She put special emphasis on the word wonderful, extending
the first syllable to three times its natural length.
Jay looked back at her, the wineglass still in his hand. His
voice was mocking.
'Oh, you know. I'm always meeting wonderful people. All
literary people are wonderful. What I really like is when
one of your bright young things comes up to me at one of
these wonderful parties and says, "Hey, didn't you used to
be Jay somebody, the guy who wrote that wonderful
book?"'
Kerry crossed the room, her perspex heels tapping coolly
against the tiles, and poured herself a glass of Stolichnaya.
"Now you're being childish as well as antisocial. If you
actually made the effort to write something serious once in
a while, instead of wasting your talent on rubbish--'
'Wonderful.' Jay grinned and tipped the wineglass at her.
In the cellar the remaining bottles rattled boisterously, as if
in anticipation. Kerry stopped, listened.
'Did you hear something?'
Jay shook his head, still grinning. She came closer, looked
at the glass in his hand and the bottle still standing on the
table.
'What is that stuff, anyway?' Her voice was as sharp and
clear as her icicle heels. "Some kind of cocktail? It smells
disgusting.'
'It's Joe's wine. One of the six.' He turned the bottle
around to see the label. 'Jackapple, 1975. A wonderful
vintage.'
Beside us and around us the bottles were in gleeful
ferment. We could hear them whispering, singing, calling,
capering. Their laughter was infectious, reckless, a call to
arms. Chateau-Chalon muttered stolid disapproval, but in
that raucous, carnival atmosphere his voice sounded like
envy. I found myself joining in, rattling in my crate like a
common milk bottle, delirious with anticipation, with the
knowledge that something was on the way.
'Ugh! God! Don't drink it. It's bound to be off.' Kerry gave
a forced laugh. 'Besides, it's revolting. It's like necrophilia,
or something. I can't imagine why you wanted to bring it
home at all, in the circumstances.'
'I was planning to drink it, darling, not fuck it,' muttered
Jay-
'What?'
'Nothing.'
'Please, darling. Pour it away. It's probably got all kinds
of disgusting bacteria in it. Or worse. Antifreeze or something.
You know what the old boy was like.' Her voice was
cajoling. 'I'll get you a glass of Stolly instead, OK?'
'Kerry, stop talking like my mother.'
'Then stop behaving like a child. Why can't you just grow
up, for God's sake?' It was a perpetual refrain.
Stubbornly: 'The wine was Joe's. I don't expect you to
understand.'
She sighed, exasperated, and turned away.
'Oh, please yourself. You always do. The way you've
fixated on that old bugger for all these years, anyone would
think he was your father or something, instead of some
dirty old git with an eye for little boys. Go on, be a mature
adult and poison yourself. If you die they might even do a
commemorative reprint of Jackapple Joe, and I could sell my
story to the TLS--
But Jay was not listening. He lifted the glass to his face.
20
The scent hit him again, the dim cidery scent of Joe's house,
with the incense burning and the tomato plants ripening in
the kitchen window. For a moment he thought he heard
something, a clatter and glitzy confusion of glass, like a
chandelier falling onto a laid table. He took a mouthful.
'Cheers.'
It tasted as dreadful as it did when he was a boy. There
was no grape in this brew, simply a sweetish ferment of
flavours, like a whiff of garbage. It smelt like the canal in
summer and the derelict railway sidings. It had an acrid
taste, like smoke and burning rubber, and yet it was
evocative, catching at his throat and his memory, drawing
out images he thought were lost for ever. He clenched his
fists as the images assailed him, feeling suddenly lightheaded.

'Are you OK?' It was Kerry's voice, resonant, as if in a
dream. She sounded irritated, though there was an anxious
edge to her voice. 'Jay. I told you not to drink that stuff, are
you all right?'
He swallowed with an effort.
'I'm fine. Actually it's rather pleasant. Pert. Tart. Lovely
body. Bit like you, Kes.' He broke off, coughing, but laughing
at the same time. Kerry looked at him, unamused.
'I wish you wouldn't call me that. It isn't my name.'
'Neither is Kerry,' he pointed out maliciously.
'Oh well, if you're going to be vulgar I'm going to bed.
Enjoy your vintage. Whatever turns you on.'
The words were a challenge which Jay left unanswered,
turning his back to the -door until she had gone. He was
being selfish, he knew. But the wine had awakened something
in him, something extraordinary, and he wanted to
explore it further. He took another drink and found his
palate was becoming accustomed to the wine's strange
flavours. He could taste old fruit now, burnt to hard black
sugar, he could smell the juice from the vegetable-cutter
and hear Joe singing along to his old radio at the back of the
allotment. Impatiently he drained the glass, tasting the
21
zesty heart of the wine, feeling his heart beating with
renewed energy, pounding as if he had run a race. Below
stairs the five remaining bottles rattled and shook in a
frenzy of exuberance. Now his head felt clear, his stomach
level. He tried for a moment to identify the sensation he felt
and eventually recognized it as joy.
22
4
Pog Hill, Summer 1975
JACKAPPLE JOE. AS GOOD A NAME AS ANY. HE INTRODUCED HIMSELF
as Joe Cox, with a slanted smile, as if to challenge disbelief,
but even in those days it might have been anything,
changing with the seasons and his changing address.
'We could be cousins, you and me,' he said on that first
day, as Jay watched him in wary fascination from the top of
the wall. The vegetable-cutter whirred and clattered, throwing
out pieces of sour-sweet fruit or vegetable into the
bucket at his feet. 'Cox and Mackintosh. Both apples, aren't
we? That must make us nearly family, I reckon.' His accent
was exotic, bewildering, and Jay stared at him without
comprehension. Joe shook his head, grinning.
'Didn't know you was called after an apple, did you? It's
a goodun, an American red apple. Plenty of taste. Got a
young tree meself, back there.' He jerked his head towards
the back of the house. 'But it's not taken that well. I reckon
it needs a sight more time to get comfortable.' Jay continued
to watch him with all the wary cynicism of his twelve years,
alert for any sign of mockery.
"You make it sound like they've got feelings.'
Joe looked at him.
'Course they ave. Just like anythin else that grows.'
23
The boy watched the rotating blades of the vegetable-
cutter in fascination. The funnel-shaped machine bucked
and roared between Joe's hands, spitting out chunks of
white and pink and blue and yellow flesh.
'What are you doing?'
'What's it look like?' The old man jerked his chin at a
cardboard box lying by the wall which separated them.
'Pass us them jacks over there, will you?'
'Jacks?'
A slight gesture of impatience towards the box: 'Jack-
apples.'
Jay glanced down. The drop was easy, five feet at the most,
but the garden was enclosed, with only the scrub of waste
ground and the railway line at his back, and his city upbringing
had taught him wariness of strangers. Joe grinned.
'I'll not bite, lad,' he said mildly.
Annoyed, Jay dropped down into the garden.
The jackapples were long and red and oddly pointed at
one end. One or two had been cut open as Joe dug them up,
showing flesh which looked tropically pink in the sun. The
boy staggered a little under the weight of the box.
'Watch your step,' called Joe. 'Don't drop em. They'll
bruise.'
'But these are just potatoes.'
'Aye,' said Joe, without taking his eyes from the
vegetable-cutter.
'I thought you said they were apples, or something.'
'Jacks. Spuds. Taters. Jackapples. Poms de tai'r.'
'Don't look like much to me,' said Jay.
Joe shook his head and began to feed the roots into the
vegetable-cutter. Their scent was sweetish, like papaya.
'I brought these home from South America after the war,'
he said. 'Grew em from seed right here in my back garden.
Took me five years just to get the soil right. If you want
roasters, you grow King Edwards. If you want salads, it's
your Charlottes or your Jerseys. If it's chippers you're after,
then it's your Maris Piper. But these' - he reached down to
24
pick one up, rubbing the blackened ball of his thumb
lovingly across the pinkish skin - 'Older than New York,
so old it doesn't even have an English name. Seed more
precious than powdered gold. These aren't just potatoes,
lad. These are little nuggets of lost time, from when people
still believed in magic and when half the world was still
blank on the maps. You don't make chips from these.' He
shook his head again, his eyes brimful of laughter under the
thick grey brows. These are me Specials.'
Jay watched him cautiously, unsure whether he was mad
or simply making fun.
'So what are you making?' he asked at last.
Joe tossed the last jackapple into the cutter and grinned.
'Wine, lad. Wine.'
That was the summer of '75. Jay was nearly thirteen. Eyes
narrow, mouth tight, face a white-knuckle fist closing over
something too secret to be examined. Lately a resident of
the Moorlands School in Leeds, now with eight weeks of
holidays stretching strange and empty till the next term. He
hated it here already. This place with its bleak and hazy
skyline, its blue-black hills crawling with yellow loaders,
its slums and pit houses and its people, with their sharp
faces and flat Northern voices. It would be all right, his
mother told him. He would like Kirby Monckton. He would
enjoy the change. Everything would be sorted out. But Jay
knew better. The gulf of his parents' divorce opened up
beneath him, and he hated them, hated the place to which
they had sent him, hated the gleaming new five-speed
Raleigh bike delivered that- morning for his birthday bribery
as contemptible as the message which accompanied
it - 'With love from Mum and Dad' - so falsely normal, as if
the world wasn't coming softly apart around him. His rage
was cold, glassy, cutting him from the rest of the world so
that sounds became muffled and people were walking
trees. Rage was inside him, seething, waiting desperately
for something to happen.
They had never been a close family. Until that summer he
had only seen his grandparents half a dozen times, at
Christmases or birthdays, and they treated him with dutiful,
distant affection. His grandmother was frail and elegant,
like the china she loved and which adorned every
available surface. His grandfather was bluff and soldierly
and shot grouse without a licence on the nearby moors.
Both deplored the trade unions, the rise of the working
class, rock music, men with long hair and the admission of
women into Oxford. Jay soon understood that if he washed
his hands before meals and seemed to listen to everything
they said he could enjoy unlimited freedom. That was how
he met Joe.
Kirby Monckton is a small Northern town similar to many
others. Built on coal mining, it was in decline even then, with
two of the four pits shut and the remaining two struggling.
Where the pits have closed, the villages built to supply them
with labour died, too, leaving rows of pit houses staggering
towards dereliction, half of them empty, windows boarded
up, gardens piled with refuse and weeds. The centre was
little better - a row of shops, a few pubs, a mini-market, a
police station with a grille across its window. To one side, the
river, the railway, the old canal. To the other, a ridge of hills
reaching towards the feet of the Pennines. This was Upper
Kirby, where Jay's grandparents lived.
Looking towards the hills, over fields and woodland, it is
almost possible to imagine that there have never been any
mines. This is the acceptable face of Kirby Monckton,
where terraces are referred to as mews cottages. At its
highest point you can see the town itself a few miles away,
a smear of yellowish smoke across an uneven horizon, with
pylons marching across the fields towards the slaty scar of
the open-cast mine, but the hollow is relentlessly charming,
shielded by the ridge. The houses are for the most part
larger, more elaborate here. Deep Victorian terraces of
mellow Yorkshire stone, with leaded panes and mock-
Gothic doorways, and huge secluded gardens with fruit-
trees en espah'er and smooth, well-tended lawns.
26
Jay was impervious to these charms. To his London-
accustomed eyes Upper Kirby looked precarious, balanced
on the stony edge of the moor. The spaces - the distances
between buildings - dizzied him. The scarred mess of
Lower Monckton and Nether Edge looked deserted in its
smoke, like something during the war. He missed London's
cinemas and theatres, the record shops, the galleries, the
museums. He missed the people. He missed the familiar
accents of London, the sound of traffic and the smells. He
rode his bike for miles along the unfamiliar deserted roads,
hating everything he saw.
His grandparents never interfered. They approved of
outdoor pastimes, never noticing that he returned home
trembling and exhausted with rage every afternoon. The
boy was always polite, always well groomed. He listened
intelligently and with interest to what they said. He cultivated
a boyish cheeriness. He was the cleanest-cut comic-
book schoolboy hero imaginable, and he revelled sourly in
his deception.
Joe lived on Pog Hill Lane, one of a row of uneven terraces
backing on to the railway half a mile from the station. Jay
had already been there twice before, leaving his bike in a
stand of bushes and climbing up the banking to reach the
railway bridge. On the far side there were fields reaching
down to the river, and beyond that lay the open-cast mine,
the sound of its machinery a distant drone on the wind. For a
couple of miles an old canal ran almost parallel to the
railway, and there the stagnant air was green with flies
and hot with the scent of ash-and greenery. A bridle path ran
between the canal and the railway, overhung with tree
branches. Nether Edge to the townspeople, it was almost
always deserted. That was why it first attracted him. He
bought a packet of cigarettes and a copy of the Eagle from
the station newspaper stand and cycled down towards the
canal. Then, leaving his bike safely concealed in the undergrowth,
he walked along the canal path, pushing his way
through great drifts of ripe willowherb and sending clouds
of white seeds into the air. When he reached the old lock,
he sat down on the stones and smoked as he watched
the railway, occasionally counting the coal trucks as
they passed, or making faces at the passenger trains
as they clattered to their distant, envied destinations. He
threw stones into the clotted canal. A few times he walked
all the way to the river and made dams with turf and the
accumulated garbage it had brought with it: car tyres,
branches, railway sleepers and once a whole mattress with
the springs poking out of the ticking. That was really how it
began; the place got a hold on him somehow. Perhaps
because it was a secret place, an old, forbidden place. Jay
began to explore; there were mysterious raised concrete-
and-metal cylinders, which Joe later identified as capped
pitheads and which gave out strange resonant breathing
sounds if you went close. A flooded mineshaft, an abandoned
coal truck, the remains of a barge. It was an ugly,
perhaps a dangerous place, but it was a place of great
sadness, too, and it attracted him in a way he could neither
combat nor understand. His parents would have been horrified
at his going there, and that, too, contributed to its
appeal. So he explored; here an ash pit filled with ancient
shards of crockery, there a spill of exotic, discarded treasures
-- bundles of comics and magazines, as yet unspoiled by
rain; scrap metal; the hulk of a car, an old Ford Galaxie, a
small elder tree growing out of its roof like a novelty aerial; a
dead television. Living alongside a railway, Joe once told
him, is like living on a beach; the tide brings new jetsam
every day. At first he hated it. He couldn't imagine why he
went there at all. He would set out with the intention of
taking a quite different route and still find himself in Nether
Edge, between the railway and the canal, the sound of
distant machinery droning in his ears and the whitish
summer sky pushing down the top of his head like a hot
cap. A lonely, derelict place. But his, nevertheless. Throughout
all that long, strange summer, his. Or so he assumed.
28
London, Spring 1999
HE WOKE UP LATE THE NEXT DAY TO FIND KERRY ALREADY GONE,
leaving a short note, through which the disapproval
showed like a watermark. He read it idly, without interest,
and tried to remember what had happened the night before.
J - Don't forget the reception at Spy's tonight it's
very important for you to be there! Wear the
Armani - K.
His head ached, and he made strong coffee and listened
to the radio as he drank it. He didn't remember a great deal
- so much of his life seemed to be like this now, a blur of
days without anything to define them from each other, like
episodes of a soap he watched out of habit, even though
none of the characters interested him. The day stretched
out in front of him like an empty road in the desert. He had
a tutorial that evening, but was already considering
whether to miss it. It was all right; he'd missed tutorials
before. It was almost expected of him now. Artistic
temperament. He grinned briefly at the irony.
The bottle of Joe's wine was standing where he had left it
on the table. He was surprised to see it still over half full.
Such a small quantity seemed too little to account for his
pounding hangover and the dreams which finally chased
him into sleep as dawn bled into the sky. The scent from the
empty glass was faint but discernible, a sweetly medicinal

scent, soothing. He poured a glassful.

'Hair of the dog,' he muttered.

This morning it was only vaguely unpleasant, almost
tasteless. A memory stirred at the back of his mind, but it
was too distant to identify.

The door rattled suddenly and he turned round, feeling
obscurely guilty, as if caught out. But it was only the post,
half pushed through the letter box and spilling onto the
mat. Through the glass door a square of sunlight illuminated
the top envelope, as if marking it for his special
attention. Probably junk mail, he told himself. Nowadays
he rarely ever received anything else. And yet, by a trick of
the light, the envelope seemed to glow, giving the single
word stencilled across it a new, brilliant significance:
'ESCAPE'. As if a door could be opened from the London
dawn into another world, where every possibility remained
to be played out. He stooped to pick up the bright rectangle,
opened it.

His first thought was that it was indeed junk mail. A
cheaply produced brochure entitled HOLIDAY HIDEAWAYS,
GREAT ESCAPES, blurry snapshots of farmhouses and gites
interspersed with blocks of text. 'This charming cottage
only five miles from Avignon ... This large converted
farmhouse in its own grounds ... This sixteenth-century
barn in the heart of the Dordogne...' The pictures were all
the same: rustic cottages under Disney-coloured skies,
women in headscarves and white coiffes, men in berets
herding goats onto impossibly green mountainsides. He
dropped the brochure onto the table with an odd sense of
disappointment, feeling cheated, as if something as yet
unknown had passed him by. Then he caught sight of
the picture. The brochure had fallen open at the centre
page, a double-page spread of a house which looked
curiously familiar. A large square-built house, with pinkish,
faded walls and a red-tiled roof. Beneath it, the words,
'Chateau Foudouin, Lot-et-Garonne.' Above it, in red, like a
neon marker, 'FOR SALE'.

The surprise at seeing it there, so unexpectedly, made his
heart lurch. A sign, he told himself. Coming now, at this
moment, it had to be. It had to be a sign.

He looked at the picture for a long time. It was not exactly
Joe's chtteau, he decided after some scrutiny. The lines of
the building looked slightly different, the roof more sloping,
the windows narrower and set deeper into the stone. And it
was not in Bordeaux but in the next county altogether, a
few miles from Agen, on a small offshoot of the river
Garonne, the Tannes. Still, it was close. Very close. It
couldn't be a coincidence.

Below stairs the strangers had subsided into eerie, expectant
silence. Not a whisper, not a rattle or a hiss escaped
them.

Jay looked at the picture intently. Above it the neon sign

flashed relentlessly, enticingly.

FOR SALE..

He reached for the bottle and poured himself another
glass.




	30
	31



6


Pog Hill, July 1975


THAT SUMMER MOST OF lAY'S LIFE WENT ON UNDERCOVER, LIKE
a secret war. On rainy days he sat in his room and read
the Dondy or the/{ogle and listened to the radio with the
volume turned right down, pretendin§ he was doing homework,
or wrote b]isteringly intense short stories with titles
like Flesh-Eating Warriors of the Forbidden City' or The
Man who Chased the Lightning'.

He was never short of money. On Sundays he earned
twenty pee washing his grandfather's green Austin, the
same for mowing the lawn. His parents' brief, infrequent
letters were invariably accompanied by a postal order, and
he spent this unaccustomed wealth with gleeful, gloating
defiance. Comics, bubble gum, cigarettes if he could get
them; anything which might have incurred the disapproval
of his parents attracted him. He kept his treasures in a
biscuit tin by the canal, telling his grandparents he put his
money in the bank. Technically this was not a lie. A loose
stone by the remains of the old lock, worked carefully free, left a space maybe fifteen inches square, into which the tin
could be slotted. A square of turf, cut from the banking
with a penknife, concealed the entrance. For the first fortnight
of the holiday he went there almost every day,


32

basking on the flat stones of the jetty and smoking, reading,
writing stories in one of an endless series of close-scripted
notebooks, or playing his radio at full volume into the
bright sooty air. His memories of that summer were illumined
in sound: Pete Wingfield singing Eighteen with a
Bullet', or Tammy Winette and 'D.I.V.O.R.C.E.'. He sang
along much of the time, or played air guitar and pulled faces
at an invisible audience. It was only later that he realized
how reckless he had been. The dump was easily within
earshot of the canal, and Zeth and his gang might have
come upon him at any time during those two weeks. They
might have found him snoozing on the bank or cornered in
the ash pit - or worse, with the treasure box left carelessly
open. Jay never considered that there might be other boys in
his territory. Never imagined that this might already be
someone's territory, someone tougher and older and altogether
more streetwise than himself. He had never been in a
fight. The Moorlands School discouraged such marks of
poor breeding. His few London friends were distant and
reserved, ballet-class and pony girls, army-cadet boys with
perfect teeth. Jay never quite fitted in. His mother was an
actress whose career had dead-ended in a TV sitcom called Oooh! Mother! about a widower caring for his three teenage
children, lay's mother played the part of the interfering
landlady, Mrs Dykes, and much of his adolescence was
made hideous by people stopping them in the street and
yelling her screen catchphrase, 'Oooh, am I interruptin'
somethin'?'

lay's father, the Bread' Baron who made his fortune with
Trimble, a well-known slimmers' loaf, had never quite made
enough money to make up for his lack of pedigree, hiding
his insecurity behind a facade of bluff, cigar-smoking cheer.
He, too, embarrassed lay, with his East-End vowels and
shiny suits. Jay had always seen himself as a different
species, as something hardier, nearer to the raw. He
couldn't have been more wrong.

There were three of them. Taller than lay and older 33





fourteen, maybe fifteen - with a peculiar swing to their
walk as they strolled along the canal towpath, a cocky strut
which marked the territory as their own. Instinctively Jay
snapped off his radio and crouched in the shadows, resentful
of the proprietary air with which they lolled on the
jetty, one crouching to poke at something in the water with
a stick, another popping a match against his ieans to light
up a cigarette. He watched them warily from the shadow of
a tree, hackles pricking. They looked dangerous, clannish
in their jeans, zip-up boos and cut-off T-shirts, members of
a tribe to which Jay could never belong. One of them - a tall,
lanky boy - was carrying an air rifle, slung carelessly into
the crook of his arm. His face was broad and angry with
spots at the iawline. His eyes were ball-bearings. One of the
others had his back half turned, so that Jay could see the
roll of his paunch poking out from beneath his T-shirt, and
the broad band of his underpants above his low-slung
jeans. The underpants had little aeroplanes on them, and
for some reason that made Jay want to laugh, silently at
first into his curled fist, then with a high, helpless squawk
of mirth.

Aeroplanes turned round at once, his face slack with
surprise. For a second the two boys faced each other. Then

he shot out his hand and grabbed Jay by the shirt.
'What the fuck thar doin ere?'

The other two were watching with hostile curiosity. The
third boy - a spidery youth with extravagant sideburns took
a step forwards and poked Jay hard in the chest with
an extended knuckle.

'Asr thee a question, dinty?'

Their language sounded alien, almost incomprehensible,
a cartoonish babble of vowels, and Jay found himself

smiling again, close to laughter, unable to help himself.
'Atha deaf as well as daft?' demanded Sideburns.

'I'm sorry,' said Jay, trying to pull free. 'You just came out
of nowhere. I didn't mean to scare you.'

The three looked at him with even greater intensity. Their

eyes looked the same non-colour as the sky, a peculiar
shifting grey. The tall boy stroked the butt of his rifle in a
suggestive gesture. His expression was curious, almost
amused. Jay noticed he had tattooed letters on the back
of his hand, one letter pricked out across each of his
knuckles to form a name or nickname: ZETH. This was no
professional job, he understood. The boy had written it
himself, using a compass and a bottle of ink. Jay had a
sudden, startling vision of him doing it, with a dogged
grimace of satisfaction, one sunny afternoon at the back of
a maths or English class, with the teacher pretending not to
see, even though Zeth wasn't bothering to hide. It was
easier that way, the teacher thought. Safer.

'Scare us?' The bright ball-bearing eyes rolled in counterfeit
humour.

Sideburns sniggered.

'Astha gotta fag, mate?' Zeth's voice was still light, but
Jay noticed Aeroplanes had not yet released his shirt.

'A cigarette?' He began to fumble in his pocket, clumsy
with the need to get away, and pulled out a packet of
Player's. 'Sure. Have one.'

Zeth took two and passed the packet to Sideburns, then
to Aeroplanes.

'Hey, keep the packet,' said Jay, beginning to feel lightheaded.

'Matches?' He pulled the box from his jeans and held it
out.

'Keep them, too.'

Aeroplanes winked as he lit up, a somehow greasy,
appraising look. The other two drew a little closer.

'Astha got any spice, anall?' asked Zeth pleasantly.
Aeroplanes began to finger nimbly through Jay's pockets.

It was already too late to struggle. A minute earlier and
he might have had the advantage of surprise, might have
been able to duck between them towards the jetty and up
onto the railway. Now it was too late. They had scented
fear. Eager hands searched Jay's pockets with greedy,



delicate fingers. Chewing gum, a couple of wrapped sweets,
coins, all the contents of his pockets rolled into their
cupped hands.

'Hey, get off there! Those things are mine!'

But his voice was trembling. He tried to tell himself that it
didn't matter, that he could let them have the stuff- most of
it was worthless, anyway - but that didn't stop the bleak,

hateful feeling of helplessness, of shame.
Then Zeth picked up the radio.
'Nice,' he commented.

For a moment Jay had forgotten all about it; lying in the
long grass under the shade of the trees it was almost
invisible. A trick of the light, maybe, a freak reflection
on the chrome, or just plain bad luck, but Zeth saw it, bent
and picked it up.

'That's mine,' said Jay, almost inaudibly, his mouth filled

with needles. Zeth looked at him and grinned.

'Mine,' Jay whispered.

'Course it is, mate,' said Zeth amicably and held it out.
Their eyes met above the radio. Jay put out his hand,
almost pleadingly. Zeth withdrew the radio, just a little,
then drop-kicked it with incredible speed and accuracy
over their heads in a wide, gleaming arc into the air. For a
second it gleamed there, like a miniature spaceship, then it
crashed on the stone lip of the jetty and smattered into a
hundred plastic and chrome fragments.

'And it's a goo-aal!' shrieked Sideburns, beginning to
dance and caper amongst the wreckage. Aeroplanes
chuckled sweatily. But Zeth just looked at Jay with the
same curious expression, one hand resting on the butt of
his air rifle, his eyes cool and oddly sympathetic, as if to
say, What now, mate? What now? What now?

Jay could feel his eyes getting hotter and hotter, as if the
tears gathering there were made of molten lead, and he
struggled to stop them from spilling over onto his cheeks.
He glanced at the pieces of the radio twinkling on the
stones and tried to tell himself it didn't matter. It was just

an old radio, nothing worth getting beaten up for, but the
rage inside him wouldn't listen. He took a step towards the
lock, then turned back, without even thinking, and swung
as hard as he could towards Zeth's patient, amused face.
Aeroplanes and Sideburns were on Jay at once, punching
and kicking, but not before he had launched a good solid
kick into the pit of Zeth's stomach, which connected as his
first awkward punch had not. Zeth gave a wheezing scream
and curled up on the ground. Aeroplanes tried to grab Jay
again, but he was slippery with sweat and managed to
duck under the other boy's arm. Skidding on the remains of
his broken radio he made for the path, dodged Sideburns,
slid down the banking and across the bridle path towards
the railway bridge. Someone was shouting after him, but
distance and the thick local dialect made the words indistinguishable,
though the threat was clear. When he reached
the top of the banking, Jay kissed his middle finger at the
three distant figures, dug his bike out of the undergrowth
where he had hidden it, and in a minute was riding back
towards Monckton. His nose was bleeding and his hands
were torn from his dive through the bushes, but he was
singing inside with triumph. Even his dismay over the loss
of the radio was temporarily forgotten. Perhaps it was that
wild, almost magical feeling that drew him to Joe's house
that day. He told himself later that it was simply chance,
that there was nothing in his mind at all but the desire to
ride into the wind, but he thought later that it might have
been some kind of crazy predestination which pulled him
there, a kind of call. He felt it, too, a wordless voice of
exceptional clarity and tone, and for a moment he saw the
street sign - Poc HILL LANE -- light up briefly in the glow of
the reddening sun, as if somehow marked for his attention,
so that instead of cycling past the narrow mouth of the
street, as he had done so many times before, he stopped and
wheeled his bike slowly back to stare over the brick wall,
where an old man was cutting jackapples to make wine.


ture, touching it,
folding and unfolding the thin paper. He wanted to
show other people. He wanted to be there now, to take possession,
even though the paperwork was only half completed. His bank,
his accountant, his solicitors could deal with the formalities.
The signing of the papers was merely an afterthought. The essentials
were already in motion.
A few phone calls and it could all
be
arranged. A flight to Paris. A train to Marseilles.
By tomorrow he could be there.

London, March
1999

THE AGENT MUST HAVE SCENTED HIS EAGERNESS. THERE WAS already a bid on the house, he said. A
little below the asking price. The contracts had already been drawn up. But if
Jay was interested there were other properties available. The information, true
or false, made Jay reckless. It had to be this house, he
insisted. This house. Now. In cash, if they liked.

A discreet phone call. Then another. Rapid French into
the mouthpiece. Someone brought coffee and Italian pastries from
across the road as they waited. Jay suggested another
price, somewhat higher than the existing offer. He heard
the voice on the other end of the line rise
by half an octave. He toasted them in caf
-latte. It was so easy, buying a house. A few
hours' wait, a little paperwork and it was his. He
reread the short paragraph under the picture, trying to translate the words
into stone and mortar. Chateau Foudouin. It looked unreal,
a postcard from the past. He tried to
imagine standing outside the door, touching the pink stone, looking
over the vineyard towards the lake. Joe's dream,
he
told himself dimly, their dream fulfilled at last. It had to be fate.
It had to be.
And now he was fourteen again, gloating
over
his
pic

8


Pog Hill, July 1975


JOE'S HOUSE WAS A DARK, CROOKED TERRACE, LIKE MANY OF
the houses which lined the railway. The front gave directly
on to the street, with only a low wall and a window box
between the front door and the pavement. The back was all
crowded little yards hung with washing, a shanty town of
homemade rabbit hutches, hen houses and pigeon lofts. This
side looked over the railway, a steep banking sheared away
to form a cutting through which the trains passed. The road
went over a bridge at that point, and from the back of Joe's
garden you could see the red light of the railway signal, like a
beacon in the distance. You could see Nether Edge, too, and
the dim grey flanks of the slag heap beyond the fields.
Staggering unevenly down the steep little lane, those few
houses overlooked the whole of Jay's territory. Someone was
singing in a nearby garden, an old lady by the sound of it, in a
sweetly quavering voice. Somebody else was hammering
wood, a comforting, primitive sound.

'D'you want a drink?' Joe nodded easily in the direction
of the house. 'You look as if you wouldn't turn one down.'

Jay glanced towards the house, suddenly aware of his
torn jeans and the dried blood on his nose and upper lip.
His mouth was dry.

'OK.'

It was cool inside the house. Jay followed the old man
through to the kitchen, a large bare room with clean wooden
floorboards and a large pine table, scarred with the marks of
many knives. There were no curtains at the window, but the
entire window ledge was filled with leggy green plants,
which formed a lush screen for the sunlight. The plants had
a pleasant, earthy smell which filled the room.

'These are me toms,' remarked Joe, opening the larder, and
Jay saw that there were indeed tomatoes growing amongst
the warm leaves - small yellow ones, large misshapen red
ones, or striped orange and green ones, like croaker marbles.
There were more plants in pots on the floor, lining the walls
and growing against the doorpost. To the side of the room a
number of wooden crates contained fruit and vegetables, all
arranged individually to avoid bruising.

'Nice plants,' he said, not really meaning it.

Joe shot him a satirical look.

'You've got to talk to em if you want em to grow. And
tickle em,' he added, indicating a long cane propped up
against the bare wall. There was a rabbit's tail tied to its

extremity. 'This is me ticklin stick, see? Very ticklish, toms.'
Jay looked at him blankly.

'Looks like you ran into some trouble back there,' said
Joe, opening a door at the far side of the room to reveal a big
larder. 'Bin in a fight, or summat.'

Guardedly Jay told him. When he got to the part where
Zeth broke the radio he felt his voice jump into a higher
register, sounding childish and close to tears. He stopped,
flushing furiously.

Joe didn't seem to notice. He reached into the larder,
picking out a bottle of dark-red liquid and a couple of
glasses.

'You get some of this down yet,' said Joe, pouring some
out. It smelt fruity but unfamiliar, yeasty, like beer, but with
a deceptive sweetness. Jay looked at it with suspicion.

'Is it wine?' he asked doubtfully.



	40
	41


Joe nodded.

'Blackbry,' he said, drinking his with obvious relish.

'I don't think I'm supposed to--' began Jay, but Joe

pushed the glass at him with an impatient gesture.
'Try it, lad,' he urged. 'Put some art in yew
He tried it.

Joe clapped him on the back until he stopped coughing,
carefully removing the precious glass from the boy's hand
before he spilled it.

'It's disgusting!' managed Jay between coughing jags.
It certainly tasted like no wine he had ever tasted before.
He was no stranger to wine - his parents often gave him
wine with meals, and he had developed quite a fondness for
some of the sweeter German whites, but this was a completely
new experience. It tasted like earth and swamp
water and fruit gone sour with age. Tannin furred his

tongue. His throat burned. His eyes watered. Joe looked rather hurt. Then he laughed.
'Bit strong for yet, is it?'
Jay nodded, still coughing.

'Aye, I shoulda known,' said Joe cheerily, turning back to
the pantry. 'Takes a bit o gettin used to, I reckon. But it's got art,' he added fondly, replacing the bottle with care on the
shelf. 'And that's what matters.'

He turned round, this time with a bottle of Ben Shaw's
Yellow Lemonade in one hand.

'Reckon this'll do yer better for now,' he said, pouring a
glassful. 'And as for the other stuff, you'll grow into it soon
enough.'

He returned the wine bottle to the larder, hesitated, turned.

'I think I might be able to give you somethin for that other
problem, if you'd like, though,' he said. 'Come with me.'

Jay was not sure what he expected the old man to give
him. Kung-fu lessons, perhaps, or a bazooka left over from
some war, grenades, a Zulu spear from his travels, a special
invincible drop kick learned from a master in Tibet, guaranteed
never to fail. Instead Joe led him to the side of the

house, where a small red flannel bag dangled from a nail
protruding from the stone. He unhooked the bag, sniffed
briefly at the contents and handed it over.

'Take it,' he urged. 'It'll last a while yet. I'll make some

fresh for us later.' Jay stared at him.

'What is it?' he said at last.

'Just carry it with you,' said Joe. 'In yet pocket, if you like,
or on a bitta string. You'll see. It'll help.'

'What's in it?' He was staring now, as if the old man were
crazy. His suspicions, allayed for a moment, flared anew.

'Oh, this an that. Sandalwood. Lavender. Bit o High John
the Conqueror. Trick I learned off of a lady in Haiti, years
back. Works every time.'

That was it, decided Jay. The old boy was definitely
crazy. Harmless - he hoped - but crazy. He glanced
uneasily at the blind expanse of garden at his back and
wondered if he could make it to the wall in time if the old
man turned violent. Joe just smiled.

'Try it,' he urged. 'Just carry it in yer pocket. Happen
you'll even forget it's there.'

Jay decided to humour him.

'OK. What's it supposed to do, then?'
Joe smiled again.
'Praps nothin,' he said.

'Well, how will I know if it's worked?' insisted Jay.

'You'll know,' said Joe easily. 'Next time you go down
Nether Edge.'

'There's no way I'm going down there again,' said Jay
sharply. 'Not with those boys--'

'You goin to leave yet treasure chest for em to find, then?'
He had a point. Jay had almost forgotten about the treasure
box, still hidden in its secret place beneath the loose stone.
His sudden dismay almost overshadowed the certainty that
he had never mentioned the treasure box to Joe.

'Used to go down there when I were a lad,' said the old
man blandly. 'There were a loose stone at the corner of the
lock. Still there, is it?'



Jay stared at him.

'How did you know?' he whispered.

'Know what?' asked Joe, with exaggerated innocence.
'What's tha mean? I'm only a miner's lad. I don't know owt.'

Jay didn't go back to the canal that day. He was too
confused by everything, his mind racing with fights and
broken radios and Haitian witchcraft and Joe's bright,
laughing eyes. Instead, he took his bike and rode slowly
past the railway bridge three or four times, heart pounding,
trying to find the courage to climb the banking. Eventually
he rode home, depressed and dissatisfied, all his triumph
evaporated. He imagined Zeth and his friends going through
his treasures, rocking with dirty laughter, scattering comics
and books, stuffing sweets and chocolate bars into their
mouths, pocketing the money. Worse still, there were his
notebooks in there, the stories and poems he'd written.
Finally he rode home, jaw aching with rage, watched Saturday
Night at the Movies and went to bed to a late, unsatisfying
sleep, through which he ran ceaselessly from an unseen
enemy while Joe's laughter rang in his ears.

The next day he decided to stay at home. The red flannel
bag sat on his bedside table like a mute challenge. Jay
ignored it and tried to read, but all his best comics were still
in the treasure box. The absence of the radio filled the air
with a hostile silence. Outside the sun shone and there was
just enough breeze to stop the air from scorching. It was
going to be the most beautiful day of the summer.

He arrived at the railway bridge in a kind of daze. He
hadn't meant to go there; even as he pedalled towards town
something inside him knew he was going to turn round,
take a different route, leave the canal to Zeth and his gang-their
territory now. Perhaps he would go to Joe's house - he
hadn't asked him to come back, but he hadn't asked him to
keep away, either, as if Jay's presence was a matter of
indifference to him - or maybe drop by at the newsagent's
and buy some smokes. Either way, he certainly wasn't
going to go back to the canal. As he hid his bike in the

familiar stand of willowherb, as he climbed the banking, he
repeated it to himself. Only an idiot would risk that again.
Joe's red flannel bag was in his jeans pocket. He could feel
it, a soft ball no bigger than a rolled-up hanky. He wondered
how a bag full of herbs was supposed to help him. He
had opened it the previous night, laying the contents out on
his bedside table. A few pieces of stick, some brownish
powder and some bits of green-grey aromatic stuff filled the
bag. A part of him had expected shrunken heads. It was a
joke, Jay told himself fiercely. Just an old man having his
fun. And yet the stubborn part of him, which wanted
desperately to believe, just wouldn't leave the thing alone.
What if there was magic in the bag, after all? Jay imagined
himself holding out the charm, incanting a magical spell in
a ringing voice, Zeth and his mates cowering ... The bag
pressed comfortingly against his hip like a steadying hand.
With a lurch of the heart, he began to make his way down
the banking towards the canal. He probably wouldn't meet
anyone, anyway.

Wrong again. He crept along the bridle path, keeping to
the shade of the trees, his sneakers silent against the baked
yellow earth. He was shaking with adrenalin, ready to run
at the slightest sound. A lird flapped noisily out of its reed
bed as he passed and he froze, certain that an alarm had
been given for miles around. Nothing. Jay was almost at the
lock now, he could see the place in the banking where the
treasure box was hidden. Pieces of broken plastic still
littered the stones. He knelt down, removed the piece of
turf which concealed the stone and began to work it out.

He'd been imagining them for so long that for a second he
was sure the sounds were in his head. But now he could see
their dim shapes coming over from the ash-pit side of the
canal, shielded by bushes. There was no time to run. Half a
minute at most before they broke cover. The bridle path
was wide open from here, too far from the railway bridge to
be sure. In seconds he would be an open target.

He realized there was only one place to hide. The canal


itself. It was mostly dry, except in patches, choked with
reeds and litter and a hundred years' worth of silt. The little
jetty stood about four feet above it, and he might be hidden,
at least for a while. Of course, as soon as they stepped out
onto the jetty, or joined the path, or bent down to examine
something on the surface of the greasy water . . .

But there was no time to think of that now. Jay slid down
from his kneeling position into the canal, pushing the
treasure box back into place as he did so. For a moment
he felt his feet slide into the mud without resistance, then
he touched bottom, ankle-deep in the slime. It slid into his
sneakers and oozed between his toes. Ignoring it, he
crouched low, reeds tickling his face, determined to present
as small a target as possible. Instinctively he looked for
weapons: stones, cans, things to throw. If they saw him,
surprise would be his only advantage.

He'd forgotten about Joe's charm in his ieans pocket. It
got pulled out somehow as he crouched in the mud, and he
picked it up automatically, feeling suddenly scornful at
himself. How on earth could he have believed that a bag of
leaves and sticks could protect him? Why had he wanted to
believe it?

They were close now; ten feet away, he guessed. He could
hear the sounds of their boots. Someone threw a bottle or a
jar hard against the stones; it exploded, and he flinched as
glass showered his head and shoulders. The decision to
hide beneath their feet seemed ridiculous now; suicidal. All
they had to do was look down and he was at their mercy. He
should have run, he told himself bitterly, run when he had
the chance. The footsteps came closer. Nine feet. Eight.
Seven. Jay flattened his cheek against the wall's dank
stones, trying to be the wall. Joe's charm was moist with
sweat. Six feet. Five feet. Four.

Voices - Sideburns' and Aeroplanes' - sounding agonizingly
close.

'Tha dun't reckon he'll be back, then?'

'Will he heckers, like. He's a fuckin' dead man if he does.'

That's me, thought Jay dreamily. They're talking about
me.

Three feet. Two feet.

Zeth's voice, almost indifferent in its cool menace: 'I can
wait.'

Two feet. One. A shadow fell over him, pinning him to the
ground. Jay felt his hackles rising. They were looking down,
looking over the canal, and he didn't dare raise his head,
though the need to know was like a terrible itch, like nettle-rash
of the mind. He could feel their eyes on the nape of his
neck, hear the sound of Zeth's smoker's-corner breathing.
In a moment he wouldn't be able to bear it. He'd have to
look up, have to look--

A stone plapped into a greasy puddle not two feet away.
Jay could see it from the corner of his eye. Another stone.
Plap.

They had to be teasing him, he thought desperately. They
had seen him and they were prolonging the moment, stifling
mean laughter, silently picking up stones and missiles to
throw. Or maybe Zeth had lifted his air rifle, his eyes
pensive . . .

But none of that happened. Just as he was about to look
up, Jay heard the sound of their boots moving away.
Another stone hit the mud and skidded towards him,
making him flinch. Then their voices, already receding
lazily towards the ash pit, someone saying something about
looking for bottles for target practice.

He waited, oddly reluctant to move. It was a ruse, he said
to himself, a trick to make him break cover, there was no
way they could have missed him. But the voices continued
to recede, beyond the jetty, growing fainter as they took the
overgrown path back towards the ash pit. The distant
crack of the rifle. Laughter from behind the trees. It was
impossible. They had to have seen him. But somehow . ..

Carefully Jay pulled out the treasure box. The charm was
black with the sweat from his hands. It worked, he told
himself in astonishment. It was impossible, but it worked.




9


London, March 1999


'EVEN THE DULLEST AND COLDEST OF CHARACTERS', HE TOLD HIS
evening students, 'may be humanized by giving him someone
to love. A child, a lover, even, at a pinch, a dog.' Unless
you're writing sci-fi, he thought, with a sudden grin, in
which case you just give them yellow eyes.

He perched on his desk, next to his bulging duffel bag,
resisting the urge to touch it, to open it. The students looked
at him with awed expressions. Some took notes. 'Even' writing
laboriously, straining so as not to miss a single
word- 'even... at pinch ... dog'.

He taught them on Kerry's insistence, vaguely disliking
their ambition, their slavish obedience to the rules. There
were fifteen of them, dressed almost uniformly in black;
earnest young men and intense young women, with
cropped haircuts and eyebrow rings and clipped, public-school
vowels. One of the women - so like Kerry as she was
five years ago that they might have been sisters - was
reading aloud a short story she had written, an exercise in
characterization about a black single mother in a flat in
Sheffield. Jay touched the Escape brochure in his pocket
and tried to listen, but the girl's voice was no more than a
drone, a slightly unpleasant, waspish buzz of interference.


48

From time to time he nodded, as if he were interested. He
still felt slightly drunk.

Since last night the world seemed to have shifted slightly,
moving closer into focus. As if something he had been
staring at for years without seeing it had suddenly come
clear.

The girl's voice droned on. She scowled as she read and
kicked one foot complusively against the table leg. Jay
stifled a yawn. She was so intense, he told himself. Intense
and rather disgusting in her self-absorption, like an adolescent
looking for blackheads. She used the word 'fuck' in
every sentence, probably an attempt at authenticity. He felt
the urge to laugh. She pronounced it 'fark'.

He knew he wasn't drunk. He had finished the bottle
hours ago - even then he had barely felt dizzy. After that
day's business he had decided not to attend the tutorial, but
went after all, suddenly appalled at the thought of going
back to the house, to face the silent disapproval of Kerry's
things. Killing time, he told himself silently. Killing time.
Joe's wine really should have worn off, but still he felt oddly
exhilarated. As if the normal running of things had been
suspended for a day, like an unexpected holiday. Perhaps it
came of thinking so much about Joe. The memories kept
coming, too many to kep track, as if the bottle contained
not wine, but time, uncoiling smokily, like a genie from the
sour dregs, making him different, making him ... what?
Crazy? Sane? He could not concentrate. The oldies station,
permanently tuned to summers past, iangled aimlessly at
the back of his mind. He might be thirteen again, head filled
with visions and fantasies. Thirteen and in school, with the
smells of summer coming through the window and Pog Hill
Lane just around the corner and the thick tick of the clock
counting time to the end of term.

But he was the teacher now, he realized. The teacher
going crazy with impatience for the end of school. The
pupils wanted desperately to be there, drinking in every
meaningless word. He was, after all, Jay Mackintosh, the


49




man who wrote Three Summers with ]ackapple Joe. The

writer who never wrote. A teacher with nothing to teach.
The thought made him laugh aloud.

It must be something in the air, he thought. A whiff of
happy gas, a scent of the outlands. The droning girl stopped
reading - or maybe she had finished - and stared at him in
hurt accusation. She looked so like Kerry that he couldn't
help laughing again.

'I bought a house today,' he said suddenly.

They stared at him without reaction. One young man in a
Byron shirt wrote it down: 'Bought . . . house today'.

Jay pulled out the brochure from his pocket and looked at
it again. It was crumpled and grimy from so much handling,
but at the sight of the picture his heart leaped.

'Not a house exactly,' he corrected himself. 'A chatto.' He
laughed again. 'That's what Joe used to call it. His chatto in
Bordo.'

He opened the brochure and read it aloud. The students
listened obediently. Byron Shirt made notes.


Chateau Foudouin, Lot-et-Garonne. LansquenetsousTannes.
This authentic eighteenth-century chateau in
the heart of France's most popular wine-growing
region includes vineyard, orchard, lake and extensive
informal grounds, plus garage block, working distillery,
five bedrooms, reception and living room, original
oak-roof beaming. Suitable for conversion.


'Of course, it was a bit more than five thousand quid.
Prices have gone up since nineteen seventy-five.' For a
moment Jay wondered how many of those students were
even born in 1975. They stared at him in silence, trying to
understand.

'Excuse me, Dr Mackintosh.' It was the girl, still standing,
now looking slightly belligerent. 'Can you explain what this
has to do with my assignment?' Jay laughed again. Suddenly
everything seemed amusing to him, unreal. He felt

capable of doing anything, saying anything. Normality
had been suspended. He told himself that this was what
drunkenness was supposed to feel like. For all these years
he had been doing it wrong.

'Of course.' He smiled at her. 'This' - holding up the
leaflet so that everyone could see it -'This is the most
original and evocative piece of creative writing I've seen
from anyone since the beginning of the term.'

Silence. Even Byron Shirt forgot his notes to gape at him.
Jay beamed at the class, looking for a reaction. All were
carefully expressionless.

'Why are you here?' he demanded suddenly. 'What are
you expecting to get from these lessons?'

He tried not to laugh at their appalled faces, at their
polite blankness. He felt younger than any of them, a
delinquent pupil addressing a roomful of stuffy, pedantic
teachers.

'You're young. You're imaginative. Why the hell are you
all writing about black single mothers and Glaswegian
dope addicts and gratuitously using the word "fark"?'

'Well, sir, you set the assignment.' He had not won over
the belligerent girl. She glared at him, clutching the despised
assignment in her thih hand.

'Stuff the assignment!' he shouted merrily. 'You don't
write because someone sets assignments! You write because
you need to write, or because you hope someone
will listen, or because writing will mend something
broken inside you, or bring something back to life--'
To emphasize his words he slapped at the heavy duffel
bag standing on his desk, and it gave out the unmistakable
sound of bottles clinking together. Some of the
students looked at each other. Jay turned back to the
class, feeling almost delirious.

'Where's the magic, that's what I want to know?' he
asked. 'Where are the magic carpets and Haitian voodoo
and lone gunslingers and naked ladies tied to railway
lines? Where are the Indian trackers and the four-armed




goddesses and the pirates and the giant apes? Where are
the fucking space aliens?'

There was a long silence. The students stared. The girl
clutched her assignment so hard that the pages crumpled in
her fist. Her face was white.

'You're pissed, aren't you?' Her voice was trembling with
rage and disgust. 'That's why you're doing this to me.

You've got to be pissed.'

Jay laughed again.

'To paraphrase someone or other - Churchill it might
have been - I may be pissed, but you'll still be ugly in the
morning.'

'Fuck you!' she flung at him, pronouncing it properly this
time, and stalked towards the door. 'Fuck you and your
tutorial! I'm going to see the head of faculty about this!'

For a second there was silence in her wake. Then the
whisperings began. The room was awash with them. For a
moment Jay was not sure whether these were real sounds or
in his own head. The duffel bag clinked and clattered,
rattled and rolled. The sound, imaginary or not, was overwhelming.

Then Byron Shirt stood up and began to clap.

A couple of the other students looked at him cautiously,
then joined in. Several others joined them. Soon half the
class was standing up, and most were clapping. They were
still clapping as Jay picked up his duffel bag and turned
towards the door, opened it, and left, closing it very gently
behind him. The applause began to tail off, a number of
voices murmuring confusion. From inside the duffel bag
came the sound of bottles clinking together. Beside me, their work done, the Specials whispered their secrets.


10


Pog Hill, July 1975


HE WENT TO SEE JOE MANY MORE TIMES AFTER THAT, THOUGH HE never really got to like his wine. Joe showed no surprise
when he arrived, but simply went to fetch the lemonade
bottle, as if he had been expecting him. Nor did he ask
about the charm. Jay asked him about it a few times, with
the scepticism of one who secretly longs to be convinced,
but the old man was evasive.

'Magic,' he said, wirking to prove it was a joke. 'Learned
it off of a lady in Puerto Cruz.'

'I thought you said Haiti,' interrupted Jay.

Joe shrugged. 'Same difference,' he said blandly.
'Worked, didn't it?'

Jay had to admit that it worked. But it was just herbs,
wasn't it? Herbs and bits of stick tied into a piece of cloth.

And yet it had made him . ..

Joe grinned.

'Nah, lad. Not invisible.' He pushed the bill of his cap up
from his eyes.

'What then?'

Joe looked at him. 'Some plants have properties, don't
they?' he said.

Jay nodded.




'Aspirin. Digitalis. Quinine. What woulda been called

magic in the old days.'

'Medicines.'

'If you like. But a few hundred years ago there were no
difference between magic and medicine. People just knew
things. Believed things. Like chewin cloves to cure toothache,
or pennyroyal for a sore throat, or rowan twigs to
keep away evil spirits.' He glanced at the boy, as if to check
for any sign of mockery. 'Properties,' he repeated. 'You can
learn a lot if you travel enough, an you keep an open mind.'

Jay was never certain later whether Joe was a true
believer or whether his casual acceptance of magic was
part of an elaborate plan to baffle him. Certainly the old
man liked a joke. Jay's total ignorance of anything to do
with gardening amused him, and for weeks he had the boy
believing that a harmless stand of lemongrass was really a
spaghetti tree - showing him the pale soft shoots of
'spaghetti' between the papery leaves - or that giant
hogweeds could pull out their roots and walk, like triffids,
or that you really could catch mice with valerian. Jay was
gullible, and Joe delighted in finding new ways to catch him
out. But in some things he was genuine. Maybe he had
finally come to believe in his own fiction, after years of
persuading others. His life was dominated by small rituals
and superstitions, many taken from the battered copy of Culpeper's Herbal he kept by his bedside. He tickled
tomatoes to make them grow. He played the radio constantly,
claiming that the plants grew stronger with music.
They preferred Radio I - he claimed leeks grew up to two inches bigger after Ed Stewart's Junior Choice - and Joe
would be there, singing along to 'Disco Queen' or 'Stand By
Your Man' as he worked, his old-crooner's voice rising
solemnly above the redcurrant bushes as he picked and
pruned. He always planted when there was a new moon
and picked when the moon was full. He had a lunar chart in
his greenhouse, each day marked in a dozen different inks:
brown for potatoes, yellow for parsnips, orange for carrots.

Watering, too, was done to an astrological schedule, as was
the pruning and positioning of trees. And the funny thing
was that the garden thrived on this eccentric treatment,
growing strong, luxuriant rows of cabbages and turnips,
carrots which were sweet and succulent and mysteriously
free of slugs, trees whose branches fairly touched the
ground under the weight of apples, pears, plums, cherries.
Brightly coloured Oriental-looking signs Sellotaped to tree
branches supposedly kept the birds from eating the fruit.
Astrological symbols, painstakingly set into the gravel path
and constructed from pieces of broken pottery and coloured
glass, lined the garden beds. With Joe, Chinese medicine
rubbed shoulders companionably with English folklore,
chemistry with mysticism. For all Jay knew he may have
believed it. Certainly, Jay believed him. At thirteen anything
is possible. Everyday magic, that was what Joe called it.
Layman's alchemy. No fuss, no fireworks. Just a mixture of
herbs and roots, gathered under favourable planetary
conditions. A muttered incantation, a sketched air symbol
learned from gypsies on his travels. Perhaps Jay would not
have accepted anything less prosaic. But in spite of his beliefs - maybe even because of them - there was something
deeply restful about Joe, an inner calm which encircled
him and which filled the boy with curiosity and a
kind of envy. He seemed so tranquil, alone in his little
house, surrounded by plants, and yet he had a remarkable
sense of wonder and a gleeful fascination with the world.
He was almost without education, having left school at
twelve to go down the mines, but he was an endless source
of information, anecdotes and folklore. As the summer
passed, Jay found himself going to see Joe more and more
often. He never asked questions, but allowed Jay to talk to
him as he worked in his garden or his unofficial allotment
on the railway bank, occasionally nodding to show that
he'd heard, that he was listening. They snacked on slabs of
fruit cake and thick bacon and egg sandwiches - no
Trimble loaves for Joe - and drank mugs of strong, sweet




tea. From time to time Jay brought cigarettes and sweets or
magazines, and Joe accepted these gifts without especial
gratitude and without surprise, as he did the boy's presence.
As his shyness abated Jay even read him some of his
stories, to which he listened in solemn and, he thought,
appreciative silence. When Jay didn't want to talk he would
tell the boy about himself, about his work in the mines and
how he went to France during the war and was stationed in
Dieppe for six months before a grenade blew two fingers off
his hand - wiggling the reduced limb like an agile starfish then
how, being unfit for service, it was the mines again for
six years before he took off for America on a freighter.

'Cause you don't get to see much of the world from
underground, lad, and I allus wanted to see what else
there was. Have you done much travellin?'

Jay told him he had been to Florida twice with his
parents, to the south of France, to Tenerife and the Algarve
for holidays. Joe dismissed these with a sniff.

'I mean proper travellin, lad. Not all that tourist-brochure
rubbish, but the real thing. The Pont-Neuf in the early
morning, when there's no-one up but the tramps coming out
from under the bridges and out of the Metro, and the sun
shinin on the water. New York. Central Park in spring.
Rome. Ascension Island. Crossin the Italian alps by donkey.
The vegetable caique from Crete. Himalayas on foot.
Eatin rice off leaves in the Temple of Ganesh. Caught in a
squall off the coast of New Guinea. Spring in Moscow and a
whole winter of dogshit comin out under the meltin snow.'
His eyes were gleaming. 'I've seen all of those things, lad,'
he said softly. 'And more besides. I promised mesself I'd see everything.'

Jay believed him. He had his maps on the walls, carefully
annotated in his crabby handwriting and marked with
coloured pins to show the places he had been. He told
stories of brothels in Tokyo and shrines in Thailand, birds
of paradise and banyan trees and standing stones at the
end of the world. In the big converted spice cupboard next

to his bed there were millions of seeds, painstakingly
wrapped in squares of newspaper and labelled in his small
careful script: tuberosa rubra maritima, tuberosa panax
odarata, thousands and thousands of potatoes in their
small compartments and, with them, carrots, squash, tomatoes,
artichokes, leeks - over 300 species of onion alone sages,
thymes, sweet bergamots and a bewildering treasure
store of medicinal herbs and vegetables collected on his
travels, every one named and packaged and ready for
planting. Some of these plants were already extinct in
the wild, Joe said, their properties forgotten by everyone
but a handful of experts. Of the millions of varieties of fruit
and vegetables once grown, only a few dozen were still
commonly used.

'It's your intensive farming does it,' he would say, leaning
on his spade for long enough to take a mouthful of tea from
his mug. 'Too much specialization kills off variety. Sides,
people don't want variety. They want everythin to look the
same. Round red tomatoes, and never mind there's a long
yeller un that'd taste a mile better if they gave it a try. Red
uns look better on shelves.' He waved an arm vaguely over
the allotment, indicating the neat rows of vegetables rising
up the railway em[3ankment, the home-made cold frames in
the derelict signal box, the fruit trees pegged out against
the wall. 'There's things growin here that you wouldn't find
anywhere else in the whole of England,' he said in a low
voice, 'and there's seeds in that chest of mine that you might
not find anywhere else in the whole world.' Jay listened to
him in awe. He'd never been interested in plants before. He
could hardly tell the difference between a Granny Smith
and a Red Delicious. He knew potatoes, of course, but Joe's
talk of blue jackapples and pink fir apples was beyond any
experience of his. The thought that there were secrets, that
arcane, forgotten things might be growing right there on the
railway embankment with only an old man as their custodian
fired Jay with an enthusiasm he had never imagined.
Part of it was Joe, of course. His stories. His memories. The



energy of the man himself. He began to see in Joe something
he had never seen in anyone else. A vocation. A sense of
purpose.

'Why did you come back, Joe?' he asked him one day.
'After all that travelling, why come back here?'

Joe peered out gravely from under the bill of his miner's
cap.

'It's part of me plan, lad,' he said. 'I'll not be here for ever.

Some day I'll be off again. Some day soon.'

'Where?'

'I'll show you.'

He reached into his workshirt and pulled out a battered
leather wallet. Opening it, he unfolded a photograph
clipped from a colour magazine, taking great care not to
tear the whitened creases. It was a picture of a house.

'What's that?' Jay squinted at the picture. It looked
ordinary enough, a big house built of faded pinkish stone,
a long strip of land in front, with some kind of vegetation
growing in ordered rows. Joe smoothed out the paper.

'That's me chatto, lad,' he said. 'In Bordo, it is, in France.
Me chatto with the vineyard and me hundred-year-old
orchard with peaches and almonds and apples and pears.'
His eyes gleamed. 'When I've got me brass together I'll buy
it - five grand would do it - and I'll make the best bloody

wine in the south. Chatto Cox, 1975. How's that sound?'
Jay watched him doubtfully.

'Sun shines all year round down in Bordo,' said Joe
cheerily. 'Oranges in January. Peaches like cricket balls.
Olives. Kiwi fruit. Almonds. Melons. And space. Miles and
miles of orchards and vineyards, land cheap as dirt. Soil
like fruit cake. Pretty girls treadin out the grapes with their
bare feet. Paradise.'

'Five thousand pounds is a lot of money,' said Jay doubtfully.
Joe tapped the side of his nose with his forefinger.

'I'll get there,' he said mysteriously. 'You want somethin
badly enough, you allus get there in the end.'

'But you don't even speak French.'

Joe's only response was a stream of sudden, incomprehensible
gibberish, like no language Jay had ever heard
before.

'Joe, I do French at school,' he told him. 'That's not
anything like--'

Joe looked at him indulgently.

'It's dialect, lad,' he said. 'Learned it off of a band of
gypsies in Marseilles. Believe me, I'll fit right in there.' He
folded the picture carefully away again and replaced it in
his wallet. Jay gaped at him in awe, utterly convinced.

'You'll see what I mean one day, lad,' he said. 'Jus you
wait.'

'Can I come with you?' Jay asked. 'Will you take me with
you?' Joe considered it seriously, head to one side.

'I might, lad, if you want to come. I might anall.'
'Promise?'

'All right.' He grinned. 'It's a promise. Cox and Mackintosh,
best bloody winemakers in Bordo. That do yer?'

They toasted his dreams in warm Blackberry '73.





11


London, Spring 1999


BY THE TIME JAY ARRIVED AT SPY'S IT WAS TEN O'CLOCK AND THE party was well under way. Another of Kerry's literary
launches, he thought ruefully. Bored journalists and cheap
champagne and eager young things dancing attendance on
blas older things like himself. Kerry never tired of these
occasions, dropping names like confetti - Germaine and
Will and Ewan - flitting from one prestigious guest to the
other with the zeal of a high priestess. Jay had only just
realized how much he hated it.

Stopping at the house only long enough to pick up a few
things, he saw the red light on the answerphone blinking
furiously, but did not play the message. The bottles in his
duffel bag were absolutely still. Now he was the one in
ferment, jittering and rocking, exhilarated one moment,
close to tears the next, rummaging through his possessions
like a thief, afraid that if he stopped still for even a second
he would lose his momentum and collapse listlessly back
into his old life again. He turned on the radio and it was the
oldies station again, playing Rod Stewart and 'Sailing', one
of Joe's favourites - allus reminds me of them times I were
on me travels, lad - and he listened as he stuffed clothes
into the bag on top of the silent bottles. Amazing how little

he could not bear to leave behind. His typewriter. The
unfinished manuscript of Stout Cortez. Some favourite
books. The radio itself. And, of course, Joe's Specials.
Another impulse, he told himself. The wine was valueless,
almost undrinkable. And yet he could not shake the feeling
that there was something in those bottles he needed. Something
he could not do without.

Spy's was like so many other London clubs. The names
change, the dcor changes, but the places stay the same:
sleek and loud and soulless. By midnight most of the
guests would have abandoned any pretentions to intellectualism
that they might have had, instead settling
down to the serious business of getting drunk, making
advances to each other, or insulting their rivals. Getting
out of the taxi with his duffel bag slung across his
shoulder and his single case in his hand, Jay realized
that he had forgotten his invitation. After some altercation
with the doorman, however, he managed to get a message
to Kerry, who emerged a few minutes later wearing her
Ghost dress and steeliest smile.

'It's all right,' she flung at the doorman. 'He's just useless,
that's all.' Her green eyes flicked at Jay, taking in the jeans,
the raincoat, the duffel bag.

'I see you didn't wear the Armani,' she said.

The euphoria was finally gone, leaving only a kind of dim
hangover in its wake, but Jay was surprised to find his
resolve unchanged. Touching the duffel bag seemed to help
somehow, and he did $o, as if to test its reality. Under the
canvas the bottles clinked quietly together.

'I've bought a house,' said Jay, holding out the crumpled
brochure. 'Look. It's Joe's chteau, Kerry. I bought it this
morning. I recognized it.' Beneath that flat green stare he
felt absurdly childish. Why had he expected her to understand?
He barely understood his impulse himself. 'It's

called Chfiteau Foudouin,' he said. She looked at him.
'You bought a house.'
He nodded.



'Just like that, you bought it?' she asked in disbelief. 'You
bought it today?'

He nodded again. There were so many things he wanted
to say. It was destiny, he would have told her, it was the
magic he had searched for twenty years to recapture. He
wanted to explain about the brochure and the square of
sunlight and how the picture had leaped out at him from
the page. He wanted to explain about the sudden certainty
of it, the feeling that it was the house which chose him, and
not the other way around.

'You can't have bought a house.' Kerry was still struggling
with the idea. 'God, Jay, you dither for hours over
buying a shirt.'

'This was different. It was like ...' He struggled to
articulate what it had been like. It was an uncanny sensation,
that overriding feeling of must-have. He hadn't felt this
way since his teens. The knowledge that life could not be
complete without this one infinitely desirable, magical,
totemic object - a pair of X-ray spectacles, a set of Hell's
Angels transfers, a cinema ticket, the latest band's latest
single - the certainty that possession of it would change
everything, its presence in the pocket to be checked, tested,
retested. It wasn't an adult feeling. It was more primitive,
more visceral than that. With a jolt of surprise, he realized
he had not really wanted anything for twenty years.

'It was like ... being back at Pog Hill again,' he said,
knowing she wouldn't understand. 'It was as if the last

twenty years hadn't happened.'

Kerry looked blank.

'I can't believe you impulse-bought a house,' she said. 'A
car, yes. A motorbike, OK. It's the kind of thing you would
do, come to think of it. Big toys to play with. But a house?'
She shook her head, mystified. 'What are you going to do
with it?'

'Live in it,' said Jay simply. 'Work in it.'

'But it's in France somewhere.' Irritation sharpened her
voice. 'Jay, I can't afford to spend weeks in France. I'm due

to start the new series next month. I've got too many
commitments. I mean, is it even close to an airport?' She
broke off, her eyes moving again to the duffel bag, taking in,
as if for the first time, the suitcase, the travelling clothes.

There was a crease between her arched brows.

'Look, Kerry--'

Kerry lifted a hand imperiously.

'Go home,' she said. 'We can't discuss this here. Go home,
Jay, relax, and we'll talk it all through when I get back. OK?'
She sounded cautious now, as if she were addressing an
excitable maniac.

Jay shook his head. 'I'm not going back,' he said. 'I need to
get away for a while. I wanted to say goodbye.'

Even now Kerry showed no surprise. Irritation, yes.
Almost anger. But she remained untroubled, secure in
her convictions.

'You're pissed again, Jay,' she said. 'You haven't thought
any of this through. You come to me with this crazy idea
about a second home, and when I'm not instantly taken by
it--'

'It isn't going to be a second home.'

The tone of his voice surprised both of them. For a
moment he sourided almost harsh.

'And what the fuck is that supposed to mean?' Her voice
was low and dangerous.

'It means you're not listening to me. I don't think you've
ever actually listened to me.' He paused. 'You're always
telling me to grow up, to think for myself, to let go. But you're
happy to keep me a permanent lodger in your house, to keep
me dependent on you for everything. I don't have anything of
my own. Contacts, friends - they're all yours, not mine. You
even choose my clothes. I've got money, Kerry, I've got my

books, I'm not exactly starving in a garret any more.'
Kerry sounded amused, almost indulgent.

'So this is what it's all about? A little declaration of
independence?' She fluttered a kiss against his cheek. 'OK.
I understand you don't want to go to the party, and I'm



sorry I didn't realize that this morning, OK?' She put her
hand on his shoulder and smiled. The patented Kerry
O'Neill smile.

'Please. Listen. Just this once.'

Was this what Joe had felt, he wondered. So much easier
to leave without a word, to escape the recriminations, the
tears, the disbelief. To escape the guilt. But somehow he
just couldn't do that to Kerry. She didn't love him any more,
he knew that. If she ever had. All the same, he couldn't do it.
Perhaps because he knew how it felt.

'Try to understand. This place -' His gesture included the
club the neon-lit street, the low sky, the whole of London,
heaving, dark and menacing below it. 'I don't belong here
any more. I can't think straight when I'm here. I spend all
my time waiting for something to happen, some kind of
sign--'

'Oh, for Christ's sake, grow up!' She was suddenly
furious, her voice rising like an angry bird's. 'Is this your
excuse? Some kind of idiotic angst? If you spent less time
mooning on about that old bastard Joe Cox and looked
around you for a change, if only you took charge instead of
talking about signs and omens--'

'But I am,' he interrupted her. 'I am taking charge. I'm
doing what you've always told me to do.'

'Not by running away to France!' The note in her voice
was almost panic now. 'Not just like that! You owe me. You
wouldn't have lasted two minutes without me. I've introduced
you to people, used my contacts for you. You were
nothing but a one-book wonder, a has-been, a fucking fake--'

]ay looked at her dispassionately for a moment. Strange,
he thought remotely, how quickly gamine could shift to
plain meanness. Her red mouth was thin, vicious. Her eyes
were crescents. Anger, familiar and liberating, wrapped
around him like a cloak, and he laughed.

'Can the bullshit,' he told her. 'It always was a mutual
convenience. You liked to drop my name at parties, didn't

you? I was an accessory. It did you good to be seen with me.
It's just like people who read poetry on the tube. People saw
you with me and assumed you were a real intellectual,
instead of a media wannabe without a single original
thought in her head.'

She stared at him, astonished and enraged. Her eyes were
wide.

'What?'

'Goodbye.' He turned to go.

'Jay!' She snatched at him as he turned, slapping smartly
against the duffel bag with the flat of her hand. Inside, the
bottles whispered and snickered.

'How dare you turn your back on me?' she hissed. 'You
were happy enough to use my contacts when it suited you.
How dare you turn round and tell me you're leaving,
without even giving me a proper explanation? If it's personal
space you want, then say that. Go to your French
chfiteau, if that's what you want, go wallow in atmosphere,
if that's going to help.'

She looked at him suddenly. 'Is that it? Is it another
book?' She sounded hungry now, her anger sharpening into
excitement. 'If that's what it is you have to tell me, Jay. You
owe me that. AftEr all this time . . .'

Jay looked at her. It would be so easy to say yes, he told
himself. To give her something she would understand,
maybe forgive.

'I don't know,' he said at last. 'I don't think so.' A taxi
went by then and Jay flagged it down, throwing his luggage
onto the back seat and jumping in with it. Kerry gave a cry
of frustration and slapped the window of the taxi as if it
were his face.

'Go on then! Run away! Hide! You're just like him, you
know: a quitter! That's all you know how to do! Jay! lay!'

As the taxi pulled smoothly away from the kerb Jay
grinned and settled back against his duffel bag. Its contents
made small contented clicking sounds all the way to
the airport.



12
Pog Hill, Summer 1975
SUMMER STEERED ITS COURSE AND JAY CAME MORE OFTEN TO
Pog Hill Lane. Joe seemed pleased to see him when he came
by, but never commented when he did not, and the boy spent
days lurking by the canal or by the railway, watching over
his uncertain territory, ever on the lookout for Zeth and his
two friends. His hideout at the lock was no longer secure, so
he moved the treasure box from its place in the bank and
cast about for a safer place. At last he found one in the
derelict car on the dumping ground, taping it to the underside
of the rotten fuel tank. Jay liked that old car. He spent
hours lounging in its one remaining seat, smelling the musty
scent of ancient leather, hidden from sight by the rampant
greenery. Once or twice he heard the voices of Zeth and his
mates close by, but crouching in the low belly of the car --
Joe's charm held tightly in his hand - he was safe from any
but the closest investigation. He watched and listened,
intoxicated with the delight of spying on his enemies. At
such times he believed in the charm implicitly.
He realized, as summer drew inevitably to its close, that
he had grown fond of Kirby Monckton. In spite of his
resistance he had found something here that he never had
elsewhere. July and August sailed by like cool white
66
schooners. He went to Pog Hill Lane almost every day.
Sometimes he and Joe were alone, but too often there were
visitors, neighbours, friends, though Joe seemed to have no
family. Jay was sometimes jealous of their time together,
resentful of time given to other people, but Joe always
welcomed everyone, giving out boxes of fruit from his
allotment, bunches of carrots, sacks of potatoes, a bottle
of blackberry wine to one, a recipe for tooth powder to
another. He dealt in philtres, teas, sachets. People came
openly for fruit and vegetables but stayed in secret, talking
to Joe in low voices, sometimes leaving with a little packet
of tissue paper or a scrap of flannel tucked into hands and
pockets. He never asked for payment. Sometimes people
gave him things in exchange: a loaf or two, a homemade
pie, cigarettes. Jay wondered where he got his money, and
where the -£5,000 to pay for his dream chateau would come
from. But when he mentioned such things the old man just
laughed.
As September loomed closer, every day seemed to gain a
special, poignant significance, a mythical quality. Jay
walked the canal side in a haze of nostalgia. He took notes
of the things Joe said to him in their long conversations over
the redcurrant bushes and replayed them in his mind as he
lay in bed. He cycled for hours over deserted, now-familiar
roads and breathed the sooty warm air. He climbed Upper
Kirby Hill and looked out over the purple-black expanse of
the Pennines and wished he could stay for ever.
Joe himself seemed untouched. He remained the same as
ever, picking his fruit and laying it out in crates, making
jam from windfalls, pointing out wild herbs and picking
them when the moon was full, collecting bilberries from the
moors and blackberries from the railway banking, preparing
chutney from his tomatoes, piccalilli from his cauli-
flowers, lavender bags for sleeplessness, wintergreen for
rapid healing, hot peppers and rosemary in oil and pickled
onions for the winter. And, of course, there was the wine.
Throughout all that summer Jay smelt wine brewing, fer-
67
menting, ageing. All kinds of wine: beetroot, peapod, raspberry,
elderflower, rosehip, jackapple, plum, parsnip, ginger,
blackberry. The house was a distillery, with pans of
fruit boiling on the stove, demijohns of wine waiting on the
kitchen floor to be decanted into bottles, muslins for
straining the fruit drying on the washing line, sieves,
buckets, bottles, funnels, laid out in neat rows ready for
use.
He kept the still in his cellar. It was a big copper piece,
like a giant kettle, old but burnished and cared for. He used
it to make his 'spirits', the raw, eyewatering clear alcohol he
used to preserve the summer fruit which sat in gleaming
rows on shelves in the cellar. Potato vodka, he called it, jackapple juice. Seventy per cent proof. In it he placed equal
quantities of fruit and sugar to make his liqueurs. Cherries,
plums, redcurrants, bilberries. The fruit stained the liquor
purple and red and black in the dim cellar light. Each jar
carefully labelled and dated. More than one man could ever
hope to eat. Not that Joe minded; in any case, he gave away
much of what he made. Apart from his wine and a few licks
of strawberry jam with his morning toast, Jay never saw
him touch any of those extravagant preserves and spirits.
Jay supposed the old man must have sold some of these
wares during the winter, though he never saw him do it.
Most of the time he just gave things away.
Jay went back to school in September. The Moorlands
School was as he remembered it, smelling of dust and
disinfectant and polish and the bland, inescapable scent
of ancient cooking. His parents' divorce went through
smoothly enough, after many tearful phone calls from
his mother and postal orders from the Bread Baron. Surprisingly,
he felt nothing. During the summer his rage had
sloughed away into indifference. Anger seemed childish to
him somehow. He wrote to Joe every month or so, though
the old man never wrote back as regularly. He was not
much of a writer, he said, and contented himself with a card
at Christmas and a couple of lines near the end of term. His
68
silence did not trouble Jay. It was enough to know that he
was there.
In the summer Jay went back to Kirby Monckton. Part of
this was on his own insistence, but he could tell his parents
were secretly relieved. His mother was filming in Ireland at
the time, and the Bread Baron was spending the summer on
his yacht, in the company, rumour had it, of a young fashion
model called Candide.
Jay escaped to Pog Hill Lane without a second glance.
13
Paris, March 1999
JAY SPENT THE NIGHT AT THE AIRPORT. HE EVEN SLEPT A LITTLE
on one of Charles de Gaulle's contoured orange chairs,
though he was still too jumpy to relax. His energy seemed
inexhaustible, a ball of electricity punching against his
ribs. His senses felt eerily enhanced. Smells - cleaning
fluid, sweat, cigarette smoke, perfume, early morning coffee
- rolled at him in waves. At five o'clock he abandoned the
idea of sleep and went to the cafeteria, where he bought an
espresso, a couple of croissants and a sugar fix of Poulain
chocolate. The first Corail to Marseilles was at six ten. From
there, a slower train would take him to Agen, where he
could get a taxi to ... where was it? The map attached to
the brochure was only a sketchy diagram, but he hoped to
find clearer directions when he reached Agen. Besides,
there was something pleasing about this journey, this
blurring of speed to a place which was nothing yet but
a cross on a map. As if by drinking Joe's wine he could
suddenly become Joe, marking his passage by scratching
signs on a map, changing his identity to suit his whim. And
at the same time he felt lighter, freed of the hurt and anger
he had carried for so long, such useless ballast, for so many
years.
70
Travel far enough, Joe used to say, and all rules are suspended.
Now Jay began to understand what he meant. Truth,
loyalty, identity. The things which bind us to the places and
faces of home no longer applied. He could be anyone. Going
anywhere. At airports, railway stations, bus stations, anything
is possible. No-one asks questions. People reach a
state of near-invisibility. He was just another passenger
here, one of thousands. No-one would recognize him. No-
one had even heard of him.
He managed to sleep for a few hours on the train, and
dreamed - a dream of astonishing vividness - of himself
running along the canal bank at Nether Edge, trying vainly
to catch up with a departing coal train. With exceptional
clarity he could see the somehow prehistoric metal of the
train's undercarriage. He could smell coal dust and old
grease from the trucks' axles. And on the last truck he
could see Joe, sitting on top of the coal in his orange miner's
overalls and a British Railways engineer's cap, waving
goodbye with a bottle of home-brewed wine in one hand
and a map of the world in the other, calling in a voice made
tinny by distance words Jay could not quite hear.
He awoke, needing a drink, twenty miles from Marseilles,
with the countryside a long bright blur at the window. He
went to the minibar for a vodka and tonic and drank it
slowly, then lit a cigarette. It still felt like a forbidden
pleasure - guilt laced with exhilaration, like playing truant
from school.
He pulled the brochure out of his pocket once more.
Decidedly crumpled now, the cheap paper beginning to tear
at the folds. For a moment he almost expected to feel
differently, to find that the sense of must-have was gone.
But it was still there. In the duffel bag at his side the
Specials lolled and gurgled with the train's movement, and
inside the sediment of past summers stirred like crimson
slurry.
He felt as if the train would never reach Marseilles.
Pog Hill, Summer 1976
HE WAS WAITING ON THE ALLOTMENT. tTHE RADIO WAS PLAYING,
tied with a piece of string to the branch of a tree, and
Jay could hear him singing along - Thin Lizzy and 'The
Boys Are Back In Town' -- in his extravagant music-hall
voice. He had his back turned, leaning over a patch of
loganberries with secateurs in one hand, and he greeted Jay
without turning round, casually, as if he had never been
away. Jay's first thought was that he'd aged; the hair
beneath the greasy cap was thinner, and he could see
the sharp, vulnerable ridge of his spine through his old
T-shirt, but when the old man turned round he could see it
was the same Joe, jay-blue eyes above a smile more suited to
a fourteen-year-old than a man of sixty-five. He was wearing
one of his red flannel sachets around his neck. Looking
more carefully around the allotment Jay saw that a similar
charm adorned every tree, every bush, even the corners of
the greenhouse and the home-made cold frame. Small
seedlings protected under jars and bisected lemonade
bottles each bore a twist of red thread or a sign crayoned
in the same colour. It might have been another of Joe's
elaborate jokes, like the earwig traps or the sherbert plant
or sending him to the garden centre for a long weight, but
this time there was a dogged, sombre look to the old mai
amusement, like that of a man under siege. Jay asked h
about the charms, expecting the usual joke or wink, h
Joe's expression remained serious.
'Protection, lad,' he said quietly. 'Protection.'
It took the boy a long time to realize quite how serious
was.
Summer wound on like a dusty road. Jay called by P
Hill Lane almost every day, and when he felt in need
solitude he went over to Nether Edge and the can
Nothing much had changed. New glories on the dun
abandoned fridges, ragbags, a clock with a cracked cash
a cardboard box of tattered paperback books. The railwc
too, delivered riches: papers, magazines, broken recon
crockery, cans, returnable glass. Every morning he comb
the rails, picking up what looked interesting or valuab
and he shared his finds with Joe back at the house. Wi
Joe, nothing was wasted. Old newspapers went into t
compost. Pieces of carpet kept the weeds down in t
vegetable patch. Plastic bags covered the branches of I
fruit trees and protected them from the birds. He demo
strated how to make cloches for young seedlings from t
round end of a plastic lemonade bottle, and potato-plante
from discarded car tyres. They spent a whole afternoi
dragging an abandoned box freezer up the railway bankil
to make a cold frame. Scrap metal and old clothes we
piled into cardboard boxes and sold to the rag-and-bo:
man. Empty paint tins and plastic buckets were convert
into plant pots. In return, he taught Jay more about t,
garden. Slowly the boy learned to tell lavender fro
rosemary from hyssop from sage. He learned to taste si
- a pinch between the finger and thumb slipped under t.
tongue, like a man testing fine tobacco - to determine i
acidity. He learned how to calm a headache with crushi
lavender, or a stomach ache with peppermint. He learned
make skullcap tea and camomile to aid sleep. He learni
to plant marigolds in the potato patch to discourage par
73
sites, and to pick nettles from the top to make ale, and to
fork the sign against the evil eye if ever a magpie flew past.
There were times, of course, when the old man couldn't
resist a little joke. Like giving him daffodil bulbs to fry
instead of onions, or planting ripe strawberries in the
border to see if they'd grow. But most of the time he was serious, or so Jay thought, finding real pleasure in
his new role as a teacher. Perhaps he knew it was coming to
an end, even then, though Jay never suspected it, but it was
that year that he was happiest, sitting in the allotment with
the radio playing, or sorting through boxes of junk, or
holding the vegetable-cutter for Joe as they selected fruit for
the next batch of wine. They discussed the merits of 'Good
Vibrations' (Jay's choice) versus 'Brand New Combine
Harvester' (Joe's). He felt safe, protected, as if all this were
a little pocket of eternity which could never be lost, never
fail. But something was changing. Perhaps it was in Joe: a
new restlessness, the wary look he had, the diminishing
number of visitors - sometimes only one or two in a whole
week - or the new, eerie quiet in Pog Hill Lane. No more
hammering, no singing in the yards, less washing hanging
out to dry on clothes lines, rabbit hutches and pigeon lofts
abandoned and derelict.
Often Joe would walk to the outer edge of his allotment
and look over the railway in silence. There were fewer
trains, too, a couple of passenger trains a day on the fast
line, the rest shunters and coal trucks ambling slowly north
to the yard. The rails, so shiny and bright last year, were
beginning to show rust.
'Looks like they're plannin to close the line,' Joe remarked
on one of these occasions. "Goin to knock down Kirby
Central next month.' Kirby Central was the main signal
box down by the station. 'Pog Hill, anall, if I'm not mistaken.'
'But that's your greenhouse,' protested Jay. Since he had
known Joe, the old man had used the derelict signal box
fifty yards from his back garden as an unofficial greenhouse,
and it was filled with delicate plants, tomatoes, two
peach trees, a couple of vines branching out into the eaves,
escaping onto the white roof in a spill of broad, bright
leaves.
Joe shrugged.
'They usually knock em flat first off,' he remarked. 'I've
bin lucky so far." His eyes moved to the red charm bags
nailed to the back wall and he reached out to pinch one
between finger and thumb.
Thing is, we've bin careful,' he continued. 'Not drawn
attention to usselves. But if they shut that line, there'll be
men taking up the track all down Pog Hill and towards
Nether Edge. They might be here for months. And this here,
it's private property. Belongs to British Railways. You an
me, lad, we're trespassers.'
Jay followed his gaze across the railway cutting, taking in,
as if for the first time, the breadth of the allotment, the neat
straight rows of vegetables, the cold frames, the hundreds
of plastic planters, dozens of fruit trees, thick stands of
raspberries, blackcurrants, rhubarb. Funny, he'd never
thought of it as trespassing before.
'Oh. D'you think they'd want to take it back?'
Joe didn't look at him. Of course they would take it back.
He could see that in the old man's profile, in the calculating
look on his face - how long to replant? How long to rebuild?
Not because they wanted it, but because it was theirs to
take, their territory, wasteland or not, theirs. Jay had a
sudden, vivid memory of Zeth and his mates as Zeth booted
the radio into the air. There would be the same expressions
on their faces as they pulled up the railway, broke up the
greenhouse, tore up plants and bushes, bulldozed through
the sweet drifts of lavender and the half-ripened pears,
unearthed potatoes and carrots and parsnips and all the
arcane exotica of a lifetime's collection. Jay felt a sudden
brimming rage for the old man, and his fists clenched
painfully against the bricks.
'They can't do that!' he said fiercely.
Joe shrugged. Of course they could. Now Jay understood
75
the significance of the charm bags hanging on every surface,
every protruding nail, every tree, everything he
wanted to save. It couldn't make him invisible, but it might
. . . might what? Keep the bulldozers away? Impossible.
Joe said nothing. His eyes were bright and serene. For a
second he looked like the old gunslinger in a hundred
Westerns, strapping on his guns for a final showdown.
For a second everything - anything - seemed possible.
Whatever might have happened later, he believed in it then.
76
Marseilles, March 1999
THE TRAIN REACHED MARSEILLES AROUND NOON. IT WAS WARM
but cloudy, and Jay carried his coat over his arm as he
moved through the aimless crowds. He bought a couple of
sandwiches at a stand by the platform, but was still too
nervous, too energized to eat. The train to Agen was almost
an hour late, and slow; almost as long as the journey from
Paris. Energy drained away into exhaustion. He slept
uncomfortably as they nudged from one small station to
another, feeling hot and thirsty and slightly hungover. He
kept needing to take out the leaflet again, just to be sure he
wasn't imagining it all. He tried to get the radio to work, but
all he could get was white noise.
It was late afternoon when he finally reached Agen. He
was beginning to feel more alert again, more aware of his
surroundings. He could see fields and farms from the carriage,
orchards and ploughed chocolate-coloured earth.
Everything looked very green. Many of the trees were already
in flower, unusually early for March, he thought, though his
only experience of gardening was with Joe, a thousand miles
further north. He took a taxi to the estate agent's - the
address was on the leaflet - hoping to get permission to
view the house, but the place was already shut. Damn!
In the excitement of his escape Jay had never considered
what he would do if this happened. Find a hotel in Agen?
Not without seeing his house. His house. The thought lifted
the hairs on his forearms. Tomorrow was Sunday. Chances
were that the agency would be closed again. He would have
to wait until Monday morning. He stood, hesitating in front
of the locked door as the taxi driver behind him grew
impatient. How far exactly was LansquenetsousTannes?
Surely there would be something, even something basic like
a Campanile or an Ibis or, failing that, a chambre d'hote
where he could stay? It was half-past five. He would have
time to see the house, even if it was only from the outside,
before the light failed.
The urge was too strong. Turning back to the bored taxi
driver with unaccustomed decisiveness Jay showed him the
map.
"Vous pouvez m'y conduire tout de suite?'
The man considered for a moment, with the air of slow
reflection typical of that part of the country. Jay pulled out a
clip of banknotes from the pocket of his jeans and showed
them to him. The driver shrugged incuriously and jerked
his head towards the cab again. Jay noticed he didn't offer
to help with the luggage.
The drive took half an hour. Jay dozed again in the
leather-and-tobacco scented rear of the cab, whilst the
driver smoked Gauloises and grunted to himself in satisfaction
as he blared without indicating through files of
motorway traffic, then sped down narrow small lanes,
honking his horn imperiously at corners, occasionally
sending flurries of chickens squawking into the air. Jay
was beginning to feel hungry and in need of a drink. He had
assumed he would find a place to eat when they reached
Lansquenet. But now, looking at the dirt lane down which
the taxi jolted and revved, he was beginning to have serious
doubts.
He tapped the driver on the shoulder.
'C'est encore Join?'
78
H The driver shrugged, pointing ahead, and slowed the car po a rumbling halt.
'Ld.'
Sure enough, there it was, just behind a little copse of
es. The red slanting light of a modest sunset lit the tiled of and the whitewashed walls with almost eerie bright-
ss. Jay could see the gleam of water somewhere to the
Ie, and the orchard - green in the photograph - was now
roth of pale blossoms. It was beautiful. He paid the driver
» much of his remaining French money and pulled his ie out onto the road.
i'Attendez-moi ici. Je reviens tout de suite.'
|;The driver made a vague gesture, which he took to be
reement, and, leaving him to wait by the deserted roadie,
Jay began to walk quickly towards the trees. As he
iched the copse he found he could see more clearly down
vards the house and across the vineyard. The photo- aph in the brochure was deceptive, showing little of the ale of the property. Being a city boy Jay had no idea of the
reage, but it looked huge, bordered on one side by road id river, and on the other by a long hedge, which reached
yond the back of the house on to more fields. On the far ie of the river he could see another farmhouse, small and (w-roofed, and beyond that the village - a church spire, a »ad winding up from the river, houses. The path to the
house led past the vineyard - already green and leggy with
growth among drifts of weeds - and past an abandoned
vegetable plot, where last year's asparagus, artichokes and
cabbages reared hairy heads above the dandelions.
It took about ten minutes to reach the house. As he came closer Jay noticed that, like the vineyard and the vegetable plot, it was in need of some repair. The pinkish paint was peeling away in places, revealing cracked grey plaster beneath. Tiles from the roof had fallen and smashed onto the overgrown path. The ground-floor windows were shuttered
or boarded up, and some of the upstairs glass was broken, showing toothy gaps in the pale facing. The front
79
door was nailed shut. The whole impression was of a
building which had been derelict for years. And yet the
vegetable plot showed signs of recent, or fairly recent,
attention. Jay walked around the building once, noting
the extent of the damage, and told himself that most of
it looked superficial, the work of neglect and the elements.
Inside might be different. He found a place where a broken
shutter had come away from the plaster, leaving a gap large
enough to look through, and put his face to the hole. It was
dark inside, and he could hear a distant sound of water
dripping.
Suddenly something moved inside the building. Rats, he
thought at first. Then it moved again, softly, stealthily,
scraping across the floor with a sound like metal-capped
boots on cellar concrete. Definitely not rats, then.
He called out - absurdly, in English - 'Hey!' The sound
stopped.
Squinting through the gap in the shutter Jay thought he
could see something move, a dim shadow just in his line of
vision, something which might almost have been a figure in
a big coat with a cap pulled down over the eyes.
'Joe? Joe?'
It was crazy. Of course it wasn't Joe. It was just that he'd
been thinking of him so much in the past few days that he
had begun to imagine him everywhere. It was natural, he
supposed. When he looked again the figure - if there ever
was a figure - had gone. The house was silent. Jay knew a
fleeting moment of disappointment, of something almost
like grief, which he dared not analyse too closely in case it
should reveal itself to be something even crazier, a conviction,
perhaps, that Joe could have actually been there,
waiting. Old Joe, with his cap and miner's boots and his
baggy overcoat against the cold, waiting in the deserted
house, living off the land. Jay's mind crept remorselessly to
the recently abandoned vegetable plot - there must have
been someone to plant those seeds - with a mad kind of
logic. Someone had been there.
80
He looked at his watch and was startled to see that he
had been at the house for almost twenty minutes. He had
asked the taxi driver to wait at the roadside, and he didn't
want to spend the night in Lansquenet. From what he had
seen of the place it was unlikely that he would be able to
find a decent place to stay, and he was beginning to feel
very hungry. He broke into a run as he passed the orchard,
goosegrass clinging to the laces of his boots as he passed,
and he was sweating when at last he rounded the curve out
of the copse and back onto the track.
There was no sign of the taxi.
Jay swore. His case and duffel bag were lined up incongruously
by the roadside. The driver, tired of waiting for the
crazy Englishman, had gone.
Like it or not, he was staying.
Pog Hill, Summer 1976
KIRBY CENTRAL WENT IN LATE AUGUST. JAY WAS THERE WHEN
they closed it, hiding in a tall clump of seedy willowherb,
and when they had gone - taking with them the levers, light
signals and anything which might otherwise be stolen - he
crept up the steps and peered in through the window. Train
registers and route diagrams had been left in the box,
though the lever frame gaped emptily, and it looked
strangely inhabited, as if the signalman had just stepped
out and might return at any moment. Jay reckoned there
was plenty of usable glass left, if Joe and he came to fetch it.
'Don't bother, lad,' Joe said when he reported this. "I'll
already have me hands full this autumn.'
Jay needed no explanation for his words. Since the
beginning of August Joe had become more and more concerned
about the fate of his allotment. He rarely spoke
about it openly, but he would sometimes stop working and
gaze at his trees, as if measuring the time they had left.
Sometimes he lingered to touch the smooth bark of an apple
or a plum tree and spoke - to Jay, to himself - in a low voice.
He always referred to them by name, as if they were people.
'Mirabelle. Doin well, int she? That's a French plum, a
yeller gage, a goodun for jam or wine or just for eatin. She
likes it here on the bank, it's nicely drained and sunny.' He
paused. 'Too late to move fold girl, though,' he said regretfully.
'She'd never survive. Yer sink yer roots deep, thinkin
yer goin to stay for ever, and this is what happens. The
buggers.'
It was the closest he had come in weeks to mentioning
the allotment problem.
'Tryin to knock down Pog Hill Lane now, anall.' Joe's
voice was louder now, and Jay realized that this was the
first time he had ever seen him close to anger. 'Pog Hill
Lane, that's bin standin for a hundred year-a-more, that
were built when there were still a pit down Nether Edge,
and navvies workin down at canal side.'
Jay stared at him.
'Knock down Pog Hill Lane?' he asked. 'You mean the
houses?' Joe nodded.
'Got a letter int post tother day,' he told him shortly.
'Buggers reckon we're not safe any more. Goin to condemn
em all. All t'row.' His face was grim in its amusement.
'Condemned. After all this time. Thirty-nine years I've bin
here, since Nether Edge and Upper Kirby shut down.
Bought me own pit house offat council anall. Didn't trust
em, even then--' He broke off, holding up his reduced left
hand in a mocking three-fingered salute. 'How much more
do they want, eh? I left me fingers down that pit. I near as
buggery left me life. You'd think that'd be worth somethin.
You'd think they'd remember summat like that!'
Jay gaped at him. This was a Joe he had never seen
before. Awe, and a kind of fear, kept him silent. Then Joe
stopped as abruptly as he had begun, bending solicitously
over a newly grafted branch to examine the healing joint.
'I thought it was during the war,' said Jay at last.
'What?'
Gaudy red cotton joined the new graft to the branch. On
it Joe had smeared some kind of resin, which gave out a
pungent sappy scent. He nodded to himself, as if satisfied
with the tree's progress.
83
'You told me you'd lost your fingers in Dieppe,' insisted
Jay. 'During the war."
'Aye. Well.' Joe was unembarrassed. 'It were a kind of
war down there any road. Lost em when I were sixteen crushed
between two trucks back in 1931. Wouldn't take
me in the Army after that, so I signed up as a Bevan boy. We
had three cave-ins that year. Seven men trapped underground
when a tunnel collapsed. Not even grown men,
some of em - boys my age and younger; you could go
underground at fourteen on a man's wage. Worked double
shifts for a week tryin to get em out. We could hear em
behind the cave-in, yellin and cryin, but every time we tried
to get to em another bit of the tunnel came down on us. We
were workin in darkness because of the gas, knee-deep in
slurry. We were soaked an half suffocated, an we all knew
the roof could fall in again any minute, but we never
stopped tryin. Not till at last the bosses came and closed
down the shaft altogether.' He looked at Jay with unexpected
vehemence, his eyes dark with ancient rage. 'So
don't go tellin me I never went to war, lad,' he snapped. 'I
know as much about war - what war means - as any o
them lads in France.'
Jay stared at him, unsure of what to say. Joe looked off
into the middle distance, hearing the cries and pleading of
young men long dead from the quiet scar of Nether Edge.
Jay shivered.
'So what will you do now?'
Joe looked at him closely, as if checking for any sign of
condemnation. Then he relaxed and gave his old rueful smile, at the same time digging in his pocket to produce a
grubby packet of Jelly Babies. He chose one for himself,
then held out the packet to Jay.
'I'll do what I've allus done, lad,' he declared. 'I'll bloody
well fight for what's mine. I'll not let em get away with it.
Pog Hill's mine, an I'll not be moved onto some poxy estate
by them or anyone.' He bit off the head of his Jelly Baby
with relish and chose another from the packet.
84
"But what can you do?' protested Jay. "There'll be eviction
orders. They'll cut off your gas and electricity. Can't you--'
Joe looked at him.
'There's allus somethin you can do, lad,' he said softly. "I
reckon maybe it's time to find out what really works. Time
to bring out sandbags and batten down hatches. Time to
fatten up t'black cockerel, like they do in Haiti.' He winked
hugely, as if to share a mysterious joke.
Jay glanced around at the allotment. He looked at the
charms nailed to the wall and tied onto the tree branches, the signs laid out in broken glass on the ground and
chalked onto flower pots and he felt a sudden, terrible
hopelessness. It all looked so fragile, so touchingly doomed.
He saw the houses then, those blackened, mean little
terraces, with their crooked pointing and outside toilets
and windows sheeted over with plastic. Washing hanging
on a single line five or six houses down. A couple of kids
playing in the gutter in front. And Joe - sweet old crazy Joe,
with his dreams and his travels and his chotto and his
millions of seeds and his cellar full of bottles - preparing
himself for a war he could never hope to win, armed only
with everyday magic and a few quarts of home-brewed
wine.
'Don't take on, lad,' urged Joe. 'We'll be reight, you'll see.
There's more than one trick up me sleeve, as them buggers
from council'll find out.'
But his words sounded hollow. For all his talk it was
really just bravado. There was nothing he could do. Of
course Jay pretended, for his sake, to believe him. He
gathered herbs on the railway embankment. He sewed
dried leaves into red sachets. He repeated strange words
and made ritual gestures in imitation of his. They had to
seal the perimeter, as Joe called it, twice a day. This
involved walking around the property -- up the railway
embankment and round the allotment, past Pog Hill box,
which Joe counted as his, then into Pog Hill Lane and
through the ginnel which linked Joe's house to his neighhour's, past the front door and back over the wall to the
other side - carrying a red candle and burning bay leaves
steeped in scented oil while they solemnly incanted a string
of incomprehensible phrases, which Joe claimed were Latin.
From what Joe said, this ritual was supposed to shield the
house and its grounds from unwanted influences, deliver
protection and affirm his ownership of the territory, and as
the holidays came to an end it increased daily in length and
complexity, growing from a three-minute dash around the
garden to a solemn procession lasting fifteen minutes or
more. In other circumstances Jay might have enjoyed these
daily ceremonies, but whereas last year there had been an
element of mockery in everything Joe said, now the old man
had less time for jokes. Jay guessed that behind this screen
of unconcern his anxiety was growing. He spoke increasingly
about his travels, recounted past adventures and
planned future expeditions, announced his immediate decision
to leave Pog Hill Lane for his chateau in France, then
in the same breath swore he'd never leave his old home
unless they carried him out feet first. He worked frantically
in the garden. Autumn came early that year and there was
fruit to be harvested; jams, wine, preserves, pickles to be
made; potatoes and turnips to be dug and stored, as well as
the increasing demands of Joe's magical barrier, which now
took thirty minutes to complete and involved much gesticulating
and scattering of powders, as well as preparation
of scented oils and herbal mixtures. There was a haunted
look to Joe now, a stretched look to his features, a glittery
brightness in his eyes, which came of sleeplessness - or
drink. For he was drinking far more now than he had ever
done, not just wine or nettle beer but spirits, too, the potato
vodka from the pot-still in the cellar, last year's liqueurs
from his downstairs store. Jay wondered whether, at this
pace, Joe would survive the winter at all.
'I'll be reight,' Joe told him when he voiced his concern. 'It
just needs a bit more work, that's all. Come winter I'll be
reight again, I promise.' He stood up, hands in the small of
his back, and stretched. 'That's better.' He grinned then,
and for a moment he was almost the old Joe, eyes brimming
with laughter under his greasy pit cap. 'I've looked after
mesself for a few years before you came along, lad. It'd take
a sight more than a few council monkeys to get the better of
me.' And he immediately launched into a long, absurd story
from his travelling days about a man trying to sell cheap
trinkets to a tribe of Amazonian Indians.
'And the chief of the tribe - Chief Mungawomba, his
name were - handed back the stuff and said - I'd been
teachin him English in me free time - "Tha can keep thi
beads, mate, but I'd be really grateful if tha could fix me
toaster." '
They both laughed, and for a time the unease was
forgotten, or at least dismissed. Jay wanted to believe
Pog Hill was safe. On some days he looked at the arcane
jumble of the allotment and the back garden and he almost
did believe it. Joe seemed so sure, so permanent. Surely he
would be there for ever.
Lansquenet, March 1999
HE STOOD BESIDE THE ROADSIDE FOR A MOMENT, DISMAYED AND
disoriented. By then it was almost dark; the sky had
reached that luminous shade of deep blue which just
precedes full night, and the horizon beyond the house
was striated with pale lemon and green and pink. The
beauty of it - his property, he told himself again, with that
breathless, unreal feeling inside - left him feeling a little
shaken. In spite of his predicament he could not shrug off a
sensation of excitement, as if this, too, were somehow meant to happen.
No-one - no-one, he told himself - knew where he was.
The wine bottles rattled against each other as he picked
up the duffel bag from the side of the road. A scent - of
summer, of wild spinach or shale dust and stagnant water rose
briefly from the damp ground. Something fluttering
from the branch of a flowering hawthorn tree caught his
eye and he picked at it automatically, bringing it closer
towards him.
It was a piece of red flannel.
In the bag the bottles began to rattle and froth. Their
voices rose in a whispering, crackling, sighing, chuckling of
hidden consonants and secret vowels. Jay felt a sudden
breeze tug at his clothing, a murmur of something, a
throbbing deep in the soft air, like a heart. 'Home is where
the heart is.' One of Joe's favourite sayings. 'Where the art
is.'
Jay looked back at the road. It was not really so late. Not
too late, in any case, to find somewhere to stay the night
and to buy a meal. The village - a few lights now, winking
over the river, the distant sound of music from across the
fields -- must be less than half an hour's walk away. He
could leave his case here, safely hidden in the roadside
bushes, and take only his bag. For some reason - inside the
bottles joltered and chuckled - he felt reluctant to leave the
duffel bag. But the house drew him. Ridiculous, he told himself. He had already seen that the house was uninhabitable,
at least for the moment. Looked uninhabitable,
he amended, recalling Pog Hill Lane, the derelict gardens
and boarded-up windows and the secret, gleeful life behind.
What if, maybe, just behind the door . . .
Funny how his mind kept returning to that thought.
There was no logic in it and yet it was slyly persuasive.
That abandoned vegetable patch, the scrap of red flannel,
that feeling, that certainty, that there really was someone
inside the house.
Inside the duffel bag the carnival had begun again.
Catcalls, laughter, distant fanfare. It sounded like coming
home. Even I could feel it -- I, grown in vineyards far from
here, in Burgundy, where the air is brighter and the earth
richer, kinder. It was the sound of home fires and doors
opening and the smell of bread baking and clean sheets and
warm, friendly unwashed bodies. Jay felt it, too, but assumed
it came from the house; almost without thinking he
took another step towards the darkened building. It would
not hurt to have another look, he told himself. Just to be
sure.
89
18
Pog Hill, Summer 1977
SEPTEMBER CAME. JAY WENT BACK TO SCHOOL WITH A SENSE OF
finality, a feeling that something at Pog Hill had changed.
If it had, then Joe's short, infrequent letters gave no sign.
There was a card at Christmas - two lines, carefully inscribed
with the round printing of the barely literate - then another at
Easter. The terms crawled to an end as usual. Jay's fifteenth
birthday came and went - a cricket bat from his father and
Candide, theatre tickets from his mother. After that came
exams; dorm parties; secrets told and promises broken; a
couple of hot-weather fights; a school play, A Midsummer
Night's Dream, with all the parts played by boys, as in
Shakespeare's time. Jay played Puck, much to the chagrin
of the Bread Baron, but all the time he was thinking of Joe and
Pog Hill, and as the end of the summer term approached, he
grew jumpy and irritable and impatient. This year his mother
had decided to join him in Kirby Monckton for a few weeks,
ostensibly to spend more time with her son, but in reality to
escape the media attention following her most recent amorous
break-up. Jay wasn't looking forward to being the focus
of her sudden maternal interest, and said so clearly enough to
provoke an outburst of outraged histrionics. He was in
disgrace before the holidays had even started.
90
They arrived in late June, by taxi, in the rain. Jay's mother
was doing her Mater DoJorosa act, and he was trying to
listen to the radio as she passed between long, soulful
silences and girlish exclamations on seeing forgotten landmarks.

"Jay, darling, look! That little church - isn't it just the
sweetest?' He put it down to her being in so many sitcoms,
but maybe she had always talked like that. Jay turned the
radio up a fraction. The Eagles were playing 'Hotel California'.
She gave him one of her pained looks and thinned
her mouth. Jay ignored her.
The rain came down non-stop for the first week of the
holiday. Jay stayed in the house and watched it and listened
to the radio, trying to tell himself it couldn't last for ever.
The sky was white and portentous. Looking up into the
clouds, the falling raindrops looked like soot. His grandparents
fussed over both of them, treating his mother like
the little girl she had been, cooking all her favourite meals.
For five days they lived on apple pie, ice cream, fried fish
and scollops. On the sixth day Jay took his bike down to
Pog Hill, in spite of the weather, but Joe's door was locked
and there was no answer to his knocking. Jay left his bike
by the back wall and climbed over into the garden, hoping
to look in through the windows.
The windows were boarded up.
Panic washed over him. He hammered on one of the
sealed windows with his fist.
'Hey, Joe? Joe?'
There was no answer. He hammered again, calling Joe's
name. A piece of red flannel, bleached by the elements, was
nailed to the window frame, but it looked old, finished, last
year's magic. Behind the house a screen of tall weeds hemlock
and wormwood and rosebay willowherb - hid the
abandoned allotment.
Jay sat down on the wall, regardless of the rain which
glued his T-shirt to his skin and dripped from his hair into
his eyes. He felt completely numb. How could Joe have gone,
he asked himself stupidly. Why hadn't he said something?
Written a note, even? How could Joe have gone without
him?
"Don't take on, lad,' called a voice behind him. 'It's not as
bad as it looks.'
Jay whipped round so fast he almost fell off the wall. Joe
was standing some twenty feet behind him, almost hidden
from sight behind the tall weeds. He was wearing a yellow
sou'wester on top of his pit cap. He had a spade in one
hand.
'Joe?'
The old man grinned.
'Aye. What d'you think, then?'
Jay was beyond words.
'It's me permanent solution,' explained Joe, looking
pleased. 'They've cut off me lectrics, but I've wired mesself
up to bypass the meter, so I can still use em. I've bin diggin
a well round back so I can do waterin. Come over and tell
me what you think.'
As always, Joe behaved as if no time had passed, as if Jay
had never been away. He parted the weeds which separated
them and motioned the boy to follow him through. Beyond,
the allotment was as ordered as it had always been, with
lemonade bottles sheltering small plants, old windows
arranged to make cold frames, and tyres stacked up for
potato-planters. From a distance the whole thing might just
have been the accumulated detritus of years, but come a
little closer and everything was there, just as before. On the
railway banking, fruit trees - some shielded with sheets of
plastic — dripped rain. It was the best camouflage job Jay
had ever seen.
'It's amazing,' he said at last. 'I really thought you'd gone.'
Joe looked pleased.
'You're not the only one that thinks that, lad,' he said
mysteriously. 'Look down there.'
Jay looked down into the cutting. The signal box which
had been Joe's greenhouse was still standing, though in a
state of dereliction; vines grew out of the punctured roof
and tumbled down the peeling sides. The lines had been
taken up and the sleepers dug out - all but the fifty-yard
stretch between the box and Joe's house, as if overlooked
by some accident. Between the rust-red tracks weeds were
sprouting.
"Come next year no-one'll even remember there were a
railway down Pog Hill. Praps people'll let us alone then.'
Jay nodded slowly, still speechless with amazement and
relief.
'Perhaps they will.'
93
Lansquenet, March 1999
THE AIR SMELT OF NIGHTFALL, BITTER-SMOKY, LIKE LAPSANG TEA,
mild enough to sleep outside. The vineyard on the left
was filled with noises: birds, frogs, insects. Jay could still
see the path at his feet, faintly silvered with the last of the
sunset, but the sun had left the face of the house and it was
lightless, almost forbidding. He began to wonder whether
he should have postponed his visit till the morning.
The thought of the long walk to the village dissuaded
him. He was wearing boots, which had seemed like a good
enough idea when he left London, but which now, after so
many hours of travelling, had grown tight and uncomfortable.
If he could only get into the house - from what he'd
seen of security that wouldn't be difficult - he could sleep
there and make his way to the village in daylight.
It wasn't as if he were trespassing, really. After all, the
house was nearly his. He reached the vegetable patch.
Something on the side of the house - a shutter, perhaps
- was flapping rhythmically against the plaster, making a
nagging, mournful sound. On the far side of the building
shadows moved under the trees, creating the illusion of a
man standing there, a bent figure in cap and overcoat.
Something whipped across his path with a snapping noise
— a prickly artichoke stem, still topped with last year's
flower, now desiccated almost to nothing. Beyond it, the
overgrown remnants of the vegetable patch swayed briskly
in the freshening wind. Halfway across the abandoned
garden something fluttered, as if snagged on a stiff piece
of briar. A scrap of cloth. From where Jay was standing he
could see nothing more, but he knew immediately what it
was. Flannel. Red. Dropping his bag by the side of the path
he strode into the drift of weeds which had been the
vegetable garden, pushing aside the long stems as he
passed. It was a sign. It had to be.
Just as he stepped forward to take hold of the piece of
flannel something crunched briefly under his left foot and
gave way with an angry clatter of metal, punching through
the soft leather of his boot and into his ankle. Jay's feet gave
way, tipping him backwards into the greenery, and the
pain, bad enough at first, bloomed sickeningly. Swearing,
he grabbed at the object in the dim light, and his fingers
encountered something jagged and metallic attached to his
foot.
A trap, he thought, bewildered. Some sort of trap.
It hurt to think straight, and for precious seconds Jay
yanked mindlessly at the object as it bit deeper through his
boot. His fingers felt slick on the metal, and he realized he
was bleeding. He began to panic.
With an effort he forced himself to stop moving. If it was
a trap, then it would have to be forced open. Paranoid to
imagine someone had set it deliberately. It must have been
someone trying to catch rabbits, perhaps, or foxes, or
something.
For a moment anger dulled the pain. The irresponsibility,
the criminal carelessness of placing animal traps so close to
someone's house — to his house. Jay fumbled with the trap.
It felt ancient, primitive. It was a clam-shell design, fixed
into the ground by a metal peg. There was a catch at the
side. Jay cursed and struggled with the mechanism, feeling
the teeth of the trap crunching deeper into his ankle with
95
every move he made. Finally he managed the catch, but it
took several tries to push open the metal jaws, and when he
finally got it clear he pulled himself back, awkwardly, and
tried to assess the damage. His foot had already swollen
tight against the leather, so that the boot would be difficult
or impossible to remove in the normal way.
Trying not to think about the types of bacteria which
might even now be working their way into him, he pushed
himself upright and managed to hop clumsily back to the
path, where he sat down on the stones to try to remove his
boot.
It took him nearly ten minutes. By the time he had
finished he was sweating. It was too dark to see very
much, but even so he could tell it would be some time
before he dared to try walking.
96
Pog Hill, Summer 1977
IDE'S NEW DEFENCES WERE NOT THE ONLY CHANGE AT POG HILL
that year. Nether Edge had visitors. Jay still went to the
Edge every couple of days, attracted by its promise of gentle
dereliction, of things left to rot in peace. Even at the peak of
that summer he never abandoned his favourite haunts; he
still visited the canal side and the ash pit and the dump,
partly to look for useful things for Joe and partly because
the place still fascinated him. It must have attracted the
gypsies, too, because one day there they were, a shabby
foursome of caravans, squared together like pioneers'
wagons against the enemy. The caravans were grey and
rusting, axles sagging under the weight of accumulated baggage, doors hanging by a string, windows whitening
with age. The people were equally disappointing. Six adults
and as many children, clad in jeans or overalls or cheap
bright market-stall nylons, they gave off an air of distant
grubbiness, a visual extension of the smells which floated
from their camp, the permanent odour of frying grease and
dirty laundry and petrol and garbage.
Jay had never seen gypsies before. This drab, prosaic
group was not what his reading had prepared him to
expect. He had imagined horse-drawn wagons with outlandishly decorated sides, dark-haired dangerous girls
with daggers in their belts, blind crones with the gift of
far seeing. Certainly Joe's experiences with gypsies seemed
to confirm this, and as Jay watched the caravans from his
vantage point above the lock he felt annoyed at their
intrusion. These seemed to be ordinary people, and until
Joe confirmed their exotic lineage Jay was inclined to think
they were nothing but tourists, campers from the south
walking the moors.
'No, lad,' Joe said as he pointed out the distant camp, a
pale string of smoke rising from a tin chimney into the sky
of Nether Edge. 'They're not trippers. They're gypsies all
right. Mebbe not proper Romanies, but gyppos, you might
call em. Travellers. Like I was once.' He squinted curiously
through cigarette smoke at the camp. 'Reckon they'll stay
the winter,' he said. 'Move on when spring comes. No-one'll
bother em downt Edge. No-one ever goes there any more.'
Not strictly true, of course. Jay considered Nether Edge
his territory, and for a few days he watched the gypsies
with all the resentment he had felt against Zeth and his
gang that first year. He rarely saw much movement from the
caravans, though sometimes there was washing strung out
on nearby trees. A dog tethered to the nearest of the
vehicles yapped shrilly and intermittently. Once or twice
he saw a woman carry water in large canisters to her
vehicle. The water came from a kind of spigot, set into
the square of concrete by the dirt track. There was a similar
dispenser on the other side of the camp.
'Set it up years back,' explained Joe. 'Gypsy camp, with
water an lectricity laid on. There's a pay meter down there
that they use, an a septic tank. Even rubbish gets collected
once a week. You'd think more people'd use it, but they
don't. Funny folk, gypsies.'
The last time Joe remembered gypsies on the waste
ground was about ten years previously.
'Romanies, they were,' he said. 'You don't get many
proper Romanies nowadays. Used to buy their fruit and
98
'from me. There wasn't many that'd sell to em in them
. Said they were no better than beggars.' He grinned.
I, I'm not sayin everythin they did was dead-straight
st, but you've got to get by when you're on the road. ' worked a way to beat the meter. It took fifty pences,
Well, they used water and lectricity all summer, but
i they'd gone and council came round to empty the
r, all there was at bottom was a pool of water. They
r did find out how they'd done it. Lock hadn't been hed. Nothin seemed to have bin interfered with at all.' y looked at Joe with interest. ? how did they do it?' he enquired curiously.
e grinned again and tapped the side of his nose.
Ichemy,' he whispered, to Jay's annoyance, and would
ao more on the subject.
e's tales had renewed his interest in the gypsies. Jay ihed the camp for several days after that, but saw no
nice of secret goings-on. Eventually he abandoned his
But post at the lock to hunt more interesting game,
:hing for comics and magazines from the dump, comb- he railway for its everyday leavings. He worked out a
I way of getting free coal for Joe's kitchen stove. There
t two coal trains a day, rumbling slowly along the line
i'Kirby Main. Twenty-four trucks on each, with a man
»g on the last one to make sure no-one tried to climb
the wagons. There had been accidents in the past, Joe
; kids who'd dared each other to jump onto the trains.
bey might look slow,' he said darkly, "but every one of t trucks is a forty-tonner. Never try to get up on one,
y never did. Instead he found a better way, and Joe's
6 lived on it all through that summer into autumn,
a they finally closed down the line altogether.
Fery day, twice a day, just before the arrival of the train, would line up a row of old tin cans on the side of the
ray bridge. He arranged them in pyramids, like coco-
at a shy, for maximum appeal. The bored workman on
the last truck could never resist the challenge they presented.
Every time the train passed by he would lob chunks
of coal at the cans, trying to knock them off the bridge, and
Jay could always count on at least half-a-dozen good-sized
pieces of coal each time. He stored these in an empty three-
gallon paint tin, hidden in the bushes, and every few days,
when this was full, he delivered the coal to Joe's house. It
was on one of these occasions, when he was fooling about
by the railway bridge, that he heard the sound of gunfire
from Nether Edge and froze, the coalbox dropping from his
hand.
Zeth was back.
100
Lansquenet, March 1999
ULLED A HANDKERCHIEF OUT OF HIS DUFFEL BAG AND USED
sstaunch the blood, beginning to feel cold now and
ElQg he'd brought his Burberry. He also took out one of
B|»ndwiches he had bought at the station earlier that
|and forced himself to eat. It tasted foul, but the
|ess receded a little and he thought he felt a little
Iter. It was almost night. A sliver of moon was rising,
(Bough to cast shadows, and in spite of the pain in his
Ike looked around curiously. He glanced at his watch,
||t expecting to see the luminous dial of the Seiko he
&r Christmas when he was fourteen, the one Zeth broke
Og that last, most dreadful week of August. But the
X was not luminous. Trop tacky, mon cher. Kerry
iys went for class.
t^he shadows at the corner of the building something
|li. He called out, 'Hey!' hoisting himself up onto his
feteg and limping towards the house. 'Hey! Please! Wait!
|yone there?'
paething smacked against the side of the building
|sthe same flat sound he heard before. A shutter,
ftps. He thought he saw it outlined against the
|te-black sky, flapping loosely in the breeze. He
shivered. No-one there after all. If only he could get into
the house, out of the cold.
The window was about three feet from the ground. There
was a deep ledge inside, half blocked with debris, but he
found that he could clear enough space to push through.
The air smelt of paint. He moved carefully, feeling for
broken glass, swinging his leg over the ledge and into
the room, pulling the duffel bag in behind him. His eyes
had become accustomed to the dark and he could see that
the room was mostly clear, except for a table and a chair in
the centre and a pile of something - sacks, maybe - in one
corner. Using the chair for support, Jay moved over to the
pile and found a sleeping bag and a pillow rolled snugly
against the wall, along with a cardboard box which contained
paint tins and a bundle of wax candles.
Candles? What the hell . . . ?
He reached into his jeans pocket for a lighter. It was only
a cheap Bic, and almost out of fuel, but he managed to
strike a flame. The candles were dry. The wick spluttered,
then flared. The room was mellowly illumined.
That's something, I suppose.'
He could sleep here. The room was sheltered. There were
blankets and bedclothes and the remains of that lunchtime's
sandwiches. For a moment the pain in his foot was
forgotten, and he grinned at the thought that this was
home. It deserved a celebration.
Rummaging through the duffel bag, he pulled out one of
Joe's bottles, and cut open the seal and the green cord with
the tip of his penknife. The clear scent of elderflower filled
the air. He drank a little, tasting that familiar, cloying
flavour, like fruit left to rot in the dark. Definitely a vintage
year, he told himself, and despite everything he began to
laugh shakily. He drank a little more. In spite of the taste
the wine was warming, musky; he sat down on the rolled-
up bedding, took another mouthful and began to feel a little
better.
He reached into his bag again and took out the radio. He
102
turned it on, half expecting the white noise he had heard on
the train all the way from Marseilles, but surprisingly the
signal was clear. Not the oldies station, of course, but some
kind of local French radio, a low warble of music, something
he didn't recognize. Jay laughed again, feeling suddenly
lightheaded.
Inside the duffel bag the four remaining Specials began
their chorus again, a ferment of yahoos and catcalls and
war cries, redoubling in frenzy until the pitch was wild,
feverish, a vulgar champagne of sounds and impressions
and voices and memories, all shaken into a delirious cocktail
of triumph. It pulled me along, dragging me with it, so
that, for a moment, I was no longer myself - Fleurie, a
respectable vintage with just a hint of blackcurrant - but a
cauldron of spices, frothing and seething and going to the
head in a wild flush of heat. Something was getting ready to
happen. I knew it. Then, suddenly, silence.
Jay looked around curiously. For a moment he shivered,
as if a sudden breeze had touched him, a breeze from other
places. The paint on the wall was fresh, he noticed; beside
the box containing paint cans was a tray of paintbrushes,
washed and neatly aligned. The brushes were not yet dry.
The breeze was sharper now, smelling of smoke and the
| circus, hot sugar and apples and midsummer's eve. The
I radio crackled softly.
"Well, lad,' said a voice from the shadows. "You took yer time.' Jay turned round so fast that he almost overbalanced.
'Steady on,' said Joe kindly.
Joe?'
He had not changed. He was wearing his old cap, a Thin Lizzy T-shirt, his work trousers and pit boots. In one hand he held two wineglasses. In front of him, on the table, stood the bottle of Elderflower '76.
"I allus said you'd get used to it one day,' he remarked
|j with satisfaction. 'Elderflower champagne. Gotta bittova
kick, though, annit?'
'Joe?'
l flare of joy went through him, so strong that it made
bottles shake. It all made sense now, he thought
riously; it was all coming together. The signs, the
nories - all for this - all finally making sense.
'hen the realization slammed him back, like awakening
n a dream in which everything seems on the brink of
ig explained, but falls away into fragments with the
,t.
of course it wasn't possible. Joe must be over eighty
rs old by now. That is, if he was alive at all. Joe left, he I himself fiercely, like a thief in the night, leaving king behind but questions.
iy looked at the old man in the candlelight, his bright
s and the laugh-wrinkles beneath them, and for the first
s he noticed that everything about him was somehow
[ed - even the toes of his pit boots - with an eerie glow,
nostalgia.
fou're not real, are you?' he said. ie shrugged.
A/hat's real?' he asked carelessly. 'No such thing, lad.' leal, as in the sense of really here.' ie watched him patiently, like a teacher with a slow
>il. Jay's voice rose almost angrily. leal, as in corporeally present. As in not a figment of my
ided wine-soaked imagination, or an early symptom of id-poisoning or an out-of-body experience while the real
sits in a white room somewhere wearing one of those
ts with no arms.' ie looked at him mildly.
>o, you grew up to be a writer, then,' he remarked. 'Allus
I you were a clever lad. Write any gooduns, did yer?
<e any brass?'
'lenty of brass, but only one good one. Too long ago.
t, I can't believe I'm actually sitting here talking to
,elf.'
3nly one, eh?'
iy shivered again. The cold night wind sliced thinly
104
through the half-open shutter, bringing with it that feverish
draught of other places.
'I must really be sick,' said Jay softly to himself. 'Toxic
shock, or something, from that sodding trap. I'm delirious.'
Joe shook his head. Tha'll be reight, lad.' Joe always used
to slip into dialect when he was being satirical. 'It were only
a bit of a fox trap. Old feller used to live here kept hens.
Foxes were allus in an out at night. He even used to mark
where traps were with a bit o rag.' Jay looked at the piece of
flannel in his hand.
'I thought.. .'
'I know what yer thought.' Joe's eyes were bright with
amusement. 'You were allus same, jumpin in half cocked
before you knew what were goin on. Allus askin questions.
Allus needin to know summat an nowt.' He held out one of
the wineglasses, now filled with the yellow elderflower
wine. 'Get this down thi,' he suggested kindly. 'Do yer good.
' I'd tell yer to go out back an get yersen some bishop's
| leaves, but planets are all wrong for pickin.'
f Jay looked at him. For a hallucination, he seemed very
ideal. There was garden dirt under his fingernails and in the
It cracks in his palms.
I? "I'm sick,' whispered Jay softly. "You left that summer.
|iNever even said goodbye. You're not here now. I know
Ithat.'
^ Joe shook his head. 'Aye,' he said kindly. 'We'll talk
.'about that another time, when you're feelin more yerself.'
'When I'm feeling more myself, you won't be there.'
• Joe laughed and lit a cigarette. The scent was pungent in
the cold air. Jay noticed, with no surprise, that it came from
an old packet of Player's Number 6.
'Want one?' asked Joe, handing him the packet.
For a moment the cigarette felt almost real in Jay's hand.
He took a drag, but the smoke smelt of the canal and
bonfires burning. He flicked the butt against the concrete
floor and watched the sparks fly. He felt slightly dizzy.
'Why don't you lie down for a while?' suggested Joe.
'There's a sleeping bag and some blankets - pretty clean
anall. You look all-out knackered.'
Jay looked doubtfully at the pile of blankets. He felt
exhausted. His head ached and his foot hurt and he was
beyond confusion. He knew he should be worried. But for
the moment he seemed to have lost the ability to question.
He lay down painfully on the makeshift bed and pulled the
sleeping bag over himself. It was warm, clean, comforting.
He wondered fleetingly whether this might be a hallucination
brought on by hypothermia, some sick adult version of
The Little Match GirJ, and laughed softly to himself. The
Jackapple Man. Pretty funny, hey? They'd find him in the
morning with a red rag in one hand and an empty bottle of
wine in the other, frozen and smiling.
Tha's not goin to dee,' said Joe in amused tones.
'Old writers never do,' muttered Jay. 'They just lose their
marbles.' He laughed again, rather wildly. The candle
guttered and went out, though Jay's mind still insisted
he saw the old man blow it out. Without it the room was
very dark. A single bar of moonlight touched the stone
floor. Outside the window a bird loosed a brief, heartrending
warble of music. In the distance, something - cat,
owl - screamed. He lay in the dark, listening for a while.
The night was full of noises. Then came a sound from
outside the window, like footsteps, and he froze.
'Joe?'
But the old man was gone - if he had ever been there. The
sound came again, softly, furtively. It must be an animal,
Jay told himself. A dog, maybe, or a fox. He got up and
moved towards the shuttered window.
A figure was standing behind the shutter.
'Jesus!' He took a step backward and his injured ankle
gave way, almost spilling him onto the floor. The figure was
tall, its bulk exaggerated by the heavy overcoat and cap. He
had a brief glimpse of blurry features beneath the cap's
peak, of hair spilling out over the collar, of angry eyes in a
pale face. A flash of almost recognition. Then the moment
106
passed and the woman looking at him from outside the
shutter was a complete stranger.
'What the hell are you doing here?' He spoke English
automatically, not expecting her to understand. After that
night's events he wasn't even certain she was real at all.
'And who are you, anyway?'
The woman looked at him. The old shotgun in her hand
was not quite pointing at him, but by a tiny movement
could be made to do so.
'You are trespassing.' Her English was strongly accented
but good. This house is not abandoned. It is private
property.'
'I know. I—' This woman must be some kind of caretaker,
Jay told himself. Perhaps she was paid to ensure no damage
was done to the building. Her presence explained the
mysterious sounds, the candles, the sleeping bag, the smell
of fresh paint. The rest — the unexpected appearance of Joe,
for instance - had been his imagination. He smiled at the
woman in relief.
'I'm sorry I shouted at you. I didn't understand. I'm Jay
Mackintosh. The agency may have mentioned me.'
She looked at him blankly. Her eyes flicked momentarily
behind him, taking in the typewriter, the bottles, the
luggage.
'Agency?'
'Yes. I'm the man who bought the house. Over the phone.
The day before yesterday.' He gave a short, nervous laugh.
"On an impulse. The first I've ever had. I couldn't wait for
the paperwork. I wanted to see it straight away.' He
laughed again, but there was no returning smile in her eyes.
'You say you bought the house?'
He nodded. 'I wanted to come over and see it. I couldn't
get the keys. Somehow I managed to get stranded here. I
hurt my ankle—'
'That is impossible.' Her voice was flat. 'I would have
been told if there had been another buyer.'
'I don't think they were expecting me so soon. Look, it's
perfectly simple really. I'm sorry if I startled you. I'm
actually very glad you're looking after the building.'
The woman looked at him oddly but said nothing.
'I can see they've been doing the place up a little. I noticed
the paint pots. Did you do it yourself?'
She nodded, her eyes lightless. Behind her the sky was
hazy, troubled. Jay found her silence disconcerting. Clearly
his story hadn't convinced her.
'Do you ... I mean, is there a lot of that kind of work
hereabouts? Caretaking, I mean. Renovating old properties.'

She shrugged. The gesture might mean anything. Jay had
no idea what it was supposed to convey.
'Jay Mackintosh.' He smiled again. 'I'm a writer.'
That look again. Her eyes flicked over him in contempt or
curiosity.
'Marise d'Api. I work the vineyard across the fields.'
'Pleased to meet you.' Either shaking hands wasn't a
local custom, or her refusal was a deliberate insult.
Not a caretaker, then, Jay told himself. He should have
known it at once. That arrogance in her face, that harshness,
proved it. This was a woman who tended her own
farm, her vines. She was as stony as her land.
'I suppose we'll be neighbours.'
Again, no answer. Her face was a blind. No way to tell
whether, beneath it, lay amusement, anger or simple indifference.
She turned away. For a second her face, turning
towards the moonlight, was silvered with light, and he saw
that she was young - no older than twenty-eight or -nine her
features sharp and elfin beneath the big hat. Then she
was gone, curiously graceful in spite of her bulky over-
clothes, her boots kicking a swathe through the damp
weeds.
'Hey! Wait!' Too late Jay realized that this woman could
help him. She would have food, hot water, antiseptic,
perhaps, for his injured ankle. 'Wait a minute! Madame
d'Api! Perhaps you could help me!'
108
If she heard him she did not reply. For a moment he
thought he saw her, outlined briefly against the sky. The
sound in the undergrowth might have been that of her
passage, or something else altogether.
When he realized she was not coming back Jay returned
to his makeshift bed in the corner of the room and lit a
candle. The almost-empty bottle of Joe's wine was standing
by the bedside, though Jay was certain he had left it on the
table. He must have moved it himself, he thought, during
his fugue. It was understandable. He'd had a shock. By the
light of the candle he peeled away his sock to examine
the damage to his ankle. It was an ugly slash, the flesh
around it bruised and swelling. Bishop's leaves, the old
man had said, and in spite of himself Jay smiled. Bishop's
leaves - the Yorkshire name for water betony - had been a
common ingredient for Joe's protection sachets.
But for now the only available antiseptic was the wine.
Jay tilted the bottle and poured a thin stream of yellow
liquid onto the gash. It stung for a minute, releasing its
scent of summer and spice, and though he knew it was
absurd, such was the power of that scent that Jay felt a
little better.
The radio gave a sudden crackle of music and fell silent.
A breeze of other places - a scent of apples, a lullaby of
passing trains and distant machinery and the radio playing.
Funny how his mind kept going back to that song, that
winter song, 'Bohemian Rhapsody'.
Jay slept, a piece of red flannel still curled tightly in his
palm.
But the wine - raspberry red, blackberry blue, rosehip
yellow, damson black -- stayed awake. Talking.
22
Nether Edge, Summer 1977
;ETH HADN'T CHANGED. JAY WOULD HAVE RECOGNIZED HIM
nstantly, even without the rifle crooked into his arm,
hough in a year he seemed to have grown much taller, his
ong hair tied back now in a thin pigtail. He was wearing
i denim jacket, with grateful dead written across the
>ack in biro, and engineer's boots. From his hiding place
ibove the canal Jay could not tell if he was alone or not.
^s he watched, Zeth raised his rifle and took aim at
omething just beyond the towpath. Some ducks which
iad been sitting by the water sprayed upwards, their
rangs going like clapperboards. Zeth yelled and fired
gain. The ducks went crazy. Jay stayed where he was.
F Zeth wanted to shoot ducks, he thought, that was his
'usiness. He wasn't going to interfere. But as he watched
e began to have his doubts. Zeth seemed to be firing not
t the canal, but somewhere beyond. Past the trees and
iwards the river, though the terrain there was far too
pen for birds. Rabbits, maybe, thought Jay, though with
ie noise he was making, surely any animal would have
Iready fled. He narrowed his eyes against the lowering
un, trying to make out what Zeth was doing. The bigger
oy fired again, twice, and reloaded. Jay realized he was
110
standing in almost exactly the same place he himself
usually hid to watch . . .
The gypsies.
Zeth must have been firing at the washing line strung
between the nearest two caravans, for one end already
trailed limply into the grass, like a bird's broken wing,
flapping half-heartedly in the wind. The dog, tethered in its
usual place, set up a strident barking. Jay thought he
caught sight of something moving at the window of one
of the caravans, a curtain pulled aside briefly and a face,
pale, blurry, eyes wide in anger or dismay before the curtain
was yanked back in place. There was no further movement
; from the caravans, and Zeth laughed again and began to
Preload. Now Jay could hear what he was shouting.
I 'Gypp-o-oh! Gypp-o-oh?'
,x Well, Jay told himself, there was nothing he could do.
llEven Zeth wouldn't be crazy enough to actually hurt any-
|;6ne. Firing at a washing line, that was his style. Trying to
Sfrighten people. Making a fair job of it, too, he imagined. He
|sthought of himself that first summer, crouching under the
|lock,, and felt heat creep into his face.
1:; Dammit, there was nothing he could do.
|.;' The gypsies were safe enough in their caravan. They'd
psyait it out until Zeth got tired or ran out of ammunition. He
P»ad to go home sometime. Besides, it was only an air rifle.
l^you couldn't do any real damage with an air rifle. Not
^really. Even if you hit a person.
, I mean, what was he supposed to do, anyway?
; Jay turned to go and let out a yelp of surprise. There was a
'girl crouching in the bushes not five feet behind him. He had
; been so absorbed watching Zeth that he hadn't heard her
^approach. She looked about twelve. Under a bramble of red
1 curls her face was small and blotchy, as if her freckles had
kbeen stretched out of shape in an attempt to save on skin. She
i Was wearing jeans and a white T-shirt so large that the sleeves
;' flapped around her thin arms. In one hand she was carrying a
'; grubby red bandanna, which looked to be filled with stones.
The girl was on her feet as quickly and silently as an
Apache. Jay barely had time to react to her presence before
she sent a stone whizzing through the air with incredible
speed and accuracy to strike against his kneecap with an
audible, agonizing crack. He gave another yell and fell over,
clutching at his knee. The girl looked at him, a second stone
ready in her hand.
'Hey,' protested Jay.
'Sorry,' said the girl, without putting down the stone.
Jay rolled up the leg of his jeans to inspect the injured
knee. A bruise was already rising. He glared at the girl, who
returned his gaze with a flat, unrepentant look.
"You shouldn't have turned round like that,' said the girl. "You took me by surprise.'
'Took you . . . I' Jay struggled for speech.
The girl shrugged. 'I thought you was with him,' she said,
jerking her small chin fiercely in the direction of the lock.
'Using our caravan and poor old Toffee as target practice.'
Jay rolled back his trouser leg.
'Him! He's no friend of mine,' he said indignantly. "He's
crazy.'
'Oh. OK.'
The girl returned the stone to the bandanna. Another two
rifle shots sounded, followed by Zeth's ululating war cry,
'Gypp-o-ohf The girl peered down warily through the
bushes, then lifted a branch and prepared to slide underneath
and down the banking.
'Hey, wait a minute.'
'What?'
The girl barely glanced back. In the shadow of the bush
her eyes were golden, like an owl's.
'What are you doing?'
'What do you think?'
'But I told you already.' Jay's anger at her unprovoked
attack had been replaced by alarm. 'He's crazy. You don't
want to have anything to do with him. He'll get tired soon
enough. He'll leave you alone when that happens.'
112
The girl stared at him with undisguised contempt. 'Spect
that's what you'd do?' she demanded.
Well . . . yes.'
She made a sound which might have been amusement or
scorn, and passed effortlessly under the branch, steadying
herself with her free hand as she slid down the banking,
braking with her heels when she reached the scree. Jay
could see where she was heading. Fifty yards down the
slope there was a cutaway, which opened out right over
the lock. Red shale and loose stones smattered the banking ; where the hill had been opened. A screen of thin bushes
provided cover. A tricky place to reach -- if approached fast
Or carelessly you could ride the scree right off the edge onto filhe stones below - but it would provide her with a good ^place to launch her attack. If that was what she was planning. It was hard to believe that she was. Jay peered fadown the banking again and caught sight of her, much
tlurther down now, barely visible in the undergrowth ex^cept
for her hair. Let her do it if she wanted, he told himself.
tit wasn't as if he hadn't warned her.
f''
jn" None of this really had anything to do with him.
'jy It was none of his business. & Sighing, he picked up the coalbox with its three-day load
|and began to scramble down the rocky path behind the girl. jft He took the other path to the ash pit, shielded from view finest of the way by bushes. In any case, he thought, Zeth ^wasn't looking. He was too busy shooting and yelling. Easy '; enough, then, to get across the open expanse of the ash pit ; and under the concealed lip beyond. It wasn't as good a ^Aiding place as the girl's, but it would have to do, and with 'two of them against one even Zeth might have to concede defeat. If it was two against one. Jay tried not to think about
;: any friends Zeth might have in the area, maybe just within ^shouting distance.
| He put down the can of coal chunks and settled himself
close to the edge of the ash pit. Zeth sounded very close
now; Jay could hear his breathing and the snicking sound
f his rifle as he broke it to reload. Glancing swiftly over the
dge of the ash pit he could see him, too, the back of his
ead and a slice of profile, his neck glaring with acne, his
ag of greasy hair. Above the lock there was no sign of the
iri, and he wondered, in sudden anxiety, whether she had
ane. Then he saw a flicker of something red above the
Jtting and a stone zipped out of the bushes, hitting Zeth
a the arm. Jay knew a moment's amazement at the accu-
icy of the girl's aim before Zeth swung round with a roar
? pain and surprise. Another stone hit him in the solar
lexus, and as he whipped round towards the cutting Jay
irew two chunks of coal at his back. One hit, the other
issed, but Jay felt a hot rush of exhilaration as he ducked
iwn again.
'Kill you, you fucker!' Zeth's voice sounded both very
ose and horrifyingly adult, a teenage troll in disguise.
hen the girl fired again, hitting him on the ankle, missing
ice, then scoring a direct hit on the side of his head,
aking a sound like a pool cue potting the ball.
'You leave us alone, then!' yelled the girl from her eyrie
)ove the lock. 'Bloody well leave us alone, you bastard!'
Now Zeth had seen her. Jay saw him move a little closer
the cutting, his rifle in his hand. He could see what Zeth
as doing. He would try to move under the overhang and
it of sight, reload, then jump out firing. He'd be firing
ind, but all the same. Jay looked over the edge of the ash
t and took aim. He hit Zeth between the shoulder blades
hard as he could.
'Get lost!' he shouted deliriously, firing another coal
unk over the lip of the pit. 'Go pick on someone else!'
But it had been a mistake to show himself so openly. Jay
w Zeth's eyes widen in recognition.
'Well, well, well.' Zeth had changed after all. He'd broad-
ed out, his shoulders fulfilling the promise of his height.
• looked fully adult to Jay now, fully grown and ferocious.
' smiled and began to move closer to the ash pit, rifle
'elled. He kept under the overhang now, so that the girl
114
could not target him. He was grinning. Jay threw another
two pieces of coal, but his aim was off target and Zeth kept
on coming.
'Get away!'
'Or what?' Zeth was close enough to see clearly into the
ash pit now, with one eye on the overhang which shielded
him. His grin looked like a bone sickle. He levelled his rifle
with a quizzical, almost a gentle smile. 'Or what, eh? Or
what?' Desperately Jay lobbed the remaining chunks of coal
' at him, but his aim was gone. They bounced off the bigger
; boy's shoulders like bullets off a tank. Jay looked into the 5; barrel of Zeth's rifle. It was only an air rifle, his mind I repeated, only an air rifle, only a poxy pellet gun. It's not as
I' if it were a Colt or a Luger or anything, and anyway, he
| wouldn't dare shoot.
; Zeth's finger tightened on the trigger. There was a click.
At this range the gun didn't look poxy at all. It looked
deadly.
Suddenly there was a sound from behind him and a
flurry of small rocks slid from the cutaway, scattering down onto his head and shoulders. Zeth must have stepped ^ out of the shelter of the overhang, Jay realized, into The
| Girl's sights again. Funny, that leap into proper-noun
Istatus. He moved back towards the edge of the pit, never
| taking his eyes off Zeth. His assumption that it was The ^ Girl throwing stones from her bandanna had to be wrong:
. these were not isolated flung stones, but dozens -- make
that hundreds - of pebbles, shards, gravel chunks, small
rocks and the occasional larger one falling down the banking
in a cloud of ochre dust. Something had dislodged a
part of the overhang and scree was shooting off the edge in
a gathering rockslide. Above the scar he could see something
moving - an oversized T-shirt, no longer very white,
topped by a carroty tangle of hair. She was on her hands
and knees on the banking, rabbit-kicking at the scree for all
she was worth, dislodging chunks of rock and soil and
dust, which fragmented onto the stones below, pelting Zeth
with earth and stones and acrid orange powder. Behind the
sound of falling rubble Jay could just hear her thin, fierce
voice screaming triumphantly, 'Eat shit, you bastard.''
Zeth was taken completely off-balance by the attack.
Dropping his rifle, his first instinct was to take shelter
under the cutaway, but although the overhang protected
him from thrown missiles it did nothing against the rock-
fall, and he stumbled, choking, right into the thick of the
falling scree. He swore, holding his arms protectively above
his head, as chunks of rock suddenly came down on top of
him. One piece the size of a housebrick caught him on the
bony part of his elbow, and at that Zeth abruptly lost all
interest in the fight. Coughing, choking and blinded by
dust, clasping his injured arm to his stomach, he stumbled
out from under the overhang. There came a triumphant war
cry from above, followed by another avalanche of small
rocks, but the battle was already won. Zeth flung a single
murderous glance over his shoulder and fled. He ran up the
side path until he reached the top, and only then did he stop
to howl his defiance.
Thar fuckin dead, atha listenin?' His voice rolled off the
stones at the canal side. 'If I ever see thee again, tha fuckin
dead!'
The Girl gave a mocking yell from the trees.
Zeth fled.
116
Lansquenet, March 1999
AWOKE TO A SPILL OF SUNSHINE ON HIS FACE. THERE WAS A
Binge yellowish quality to the light, something strained
1 winey, unlike dawn's clear pallor, but he was amazed an, looking at his watch, he realized he had slept more in fourteen hours. He recalled being feverish, even deluQal,
that night, and he anxiously inspected his injured
k for signs of infection, but none were apparent. The
Idling had subsided as he slept, and though there was Ute gaudy bruising, as well as an ugly cut, on his ankle, fe seemed to be less damage than he remembered. The ig sleep must have done him good.
8e managed to replace his boot. With it on his foot was e, but not as much as he had feared. After eating his Raining sandwich -- very stale now, but he was ravenous --
Ipicked up his things and made his way slowly back »ards the road; He left his bag and case in the bushes and tan the long walk into the village. It took almost an hour, 8l many rest stops, to reach the main street, and he had
Bity of time to look at the scenery. Lansquenet is a tiny
See; a single main street and a few side roads, a square with ^w shops - a chemist's, a baker's, a butcher's, a florist's - a
arch between two rows of linden trees, then a long road
down to the river, a cafe and some derelict houses staggering
along the ragged banks towards the fields. He came up from
the river, having found a place to cross where the water ran
shallow over some stones, and so he came to the cafe first. A
bright red-and-white awning shielded a small window, and a
couple of metal tables were set out on the pavement. A sign
above the door read Cafe des Marauds.
Jay went in and ordered a blonde. The proprietaire
behind the bar looked at him curiously, and he realized
how he must look to her: unwashed and unshaven, wearing
a grubby T-shirt and smelling of cheap wine. He gave her a
smile, but she stared back at him doubtfully.
'My name is Jay Mackintosh,' he explained to her. "I'm
English.'
'Ah, English.' The woman smiled and nodded, as if that
explained everything. Her face was round and pink and
shiny, like a doll's. Jay took a long drink of his beer.
'Josephine,' said the proprietaire. 'Are you ... a tourist?'
She sounded as if the prospect amused her.
He shook his head. 'Not exactly. I had a few problems
getting here last night. I ... got lost. I had to sleep rough.'
He explained briefly.
Josephine looked at him with wary sympathy. Clearly she
couldn't imagine getting lost in such a small, familiar place
as Lansquenet.
'Do you have rooms? For the night?'
She shook her head.
'Is there a hotel, then? Or a chambre d'hote?'
Again that look of amusement. Jay began to understand
that tourists were not in plentiful supply. Oh well. It would
have to be Agen.
'Could I use your telephone, then? For a taxi?'
'Taxi?' She laughed aloud at that. 'A taxi, on a Sunday
night?' Jay pointed out that it was barely six o'clock, but
Josephine shook her head and laughed again. All the taxis
would be on their way home, she explained. No-one would
come this far for a pick-up. Village boys often made hoax
118
alls, she explained with a smile. Taxis, takeaway pizzas
. . They thought it was funny.
''Oh.' There was the house, of course. His house. He had
ilready slept there one night, and with the sleeping bag and
he candles he could surely manage another. He could buy
eod from the cafe. He would be able to collect wood and Ight a fire in the grate. There were clothes in his suitcase.
a the morning he would change and go to Agen to sign the yapers and collect the keys.
I, 'There was a woman, back there where I slept. Madame
||Api. I think she thought I was trespassing.'
glJosephine gave him a quick look.
1?I suppose she did. But if the house is yours now--'
|;S thought she was the caretaker. She was standing
ard.' Jay grinned. 'To tell the truth, she wasn't very
ndly.'
osephine shook her head. flo. I don't suppose she was.'
||Do you know her?' ^ot really.'
Aention of Marise d'Api seemed to have made Josephine
ry. The doubtful look was back on her face, and she was thing at a spot on the countertop with a preoccupied air. Bit least I know she's real now,' remarked Jay cheerfully. ^ttidnight last night I thought I'd seen a ghost. I suppose e comes out in the daytime?'
psephine nodded silently, still rubbing the countertop. & was puzzled at her reticence, but was too hungry to vsue the matter.
IpThe bar menu was not extensive, but the plat du your - a ?rous omelette with salad and fried potatoes - was i. He bought a packet of Gauloises and a spare lighter,
i Josephine gave him a cheese baguette wrapped in xed paper to take back with him, along with three
ties of beer and a bag of apples. He left while it was
I light, carrying his purchases in a plastic carrier, and Bde good time.
He brought the rest of his luggage from its hiding place
by the roadside into the house. He was feeling tired by now,
and his abused ankle was beginning to protest, but he
dragged the case to the house before he allowed himself to
rest. The sun was gone now, the sky still pale but beginning
to darken, and he gathered some wood from the pile at the
back of the house and stacked it in the gaping fireplace.
The wood looked freshly cut and had been stored beneath a
tarpaper cover to keep it from the rain. Another mystery. He
supposed Marise might have cut the wood, but could not
see why she might have done so. Certainly she hardly
seemed the neighbourly type. He found the empty bottle
of elderflower wine in a bin at the back of the house. He
didn't remember putting it there, but in the state he'd been
in last night he couldn't be expected to recall everything. He
hadn't been thinking rationally, he told himself. The hallucination
of Joe, so real he had almost believed it at the time,
was proof enough of his state of mind. The single cigarette
butt he discovered in the room where he'd spent the night
looked old. It might have been there for ten years. He
shredded it and threw it to the wind and closed the shutters
from the inside.
He lit some candles, then made a fire in the grate, using
old newspapers he had found in a box upstairs and the
wood from the back of the house. Several times the paper
flared furiously, then went out, but finally the split logs
caught. Jay fed the fire carefully, with a slight feeling of
surprise at the pleasure it gave him. There was something
primitive in this simple act, something which reminded him
of the Westerns he'd liked so much as a boy.
He opened his case and put his typewriter on the table
next to the bottles of wine, pleased with the effect. He
almost felt he might be able to write something tonight,
something new. No science fiction tonight. Jonathan Wine-
sap was on vacation. Tonight he would see what Jay
Mackintosh could do.
He sat at the typewriter. It was a clumsy thing, Spring120

actioned, hard on the fingers. He'd kept it out of affectation
at first, though it was years since he had used it regularly.
Now the keys felt good beneath his hands and he typed a
few lines experimentally across the ribbon.
It sounded good, too. But without paper . . .
The unfinished manuscript of Stout Cortez was in an
envelope at the bottom of his case. He took it out, and
reversed the first page as he slipped it into the slot. The
machine in front of him felt like a car, a tank, a rocket.
Around him the room buzzed and fizzled like dark champagne.
Beneath his fingers the typewriter keys jumped and
snapped. He lost track of time. Of everything.
Pog Hill, Summer 1977
THE GIRL'S NAME WAS GILLY. JAY SAW HER QUITE OFTEN AFTER
that, down at Nether Edge, and they sometimes played
together by the canal, collecting rubbish and treasures and
picking wild spinach or dandelions for the family pot. They
weren't really gypsies, Gilly told him scornfully, but travellers,
people who couldn't stay in one place for long and
who despised the capitalist property market. Her mother,
Maggie, had lived in a tepee in Wales until Gilly was born,
then had decided it was time for a more stable environment
for the child. Hence the trailer, an old fish van, renovated
and refurbished to accommodate two people and a dog.
Gilly had no father. Maggie didn't like men, she explained,
because they were the instigators of the JudaeoChristian
patriarchal society, hell-bent on the subjugation
of women. This kind of talk always made Jay a little
nervous, and he was always careful to be especially polite
to Maggie in case she ever decided he was the enemy, but
although she sometimes sighed over his gender, in the same
way that one might over a handicapped infant, she never
held it against him.
Gilly got on with Joe immediately. Jay introduced them
the week after the rock fight, and knew a tiny stab of
jealousy at their rapport. Joe knew many of the region's
itinerants, and had already begun to trade with Maggie,
swapping vegetables and preserves for the afghans she
knitted from thrift-shop bargains, with which Joe used to
cover his tender perennials - this said with a chuckle which
made Maggie squawk with laughter - on cold nights. She
knew a great deal about plants, and both she and Gilly
accepted Joe's talismans and perimeter-protection rituals
with perfect serenity, as if such things were quite natural to
them. As Joe worked in the allotment, Jay and Gilly would
help him with his other tasks and he would talk to them or
sing along to the radio as they collected seeds in jars or
sewed charms into red flannel bags or fetched old pallets
from the railway bank in which to store that season's
ripening fruit. It was as if Gilly's presence had mellowed
Joe somehow. There was something different in the way he
spoke to her, something which excluded Jay, not unkindly,
but palpably nevertheless. Perhaps because she, too, was a
traveller. Perhaps simply because she was a girl.
Not that Gilly conformed in any way to Jay's expectations.
She was fiercely independent, always taking the lead,
in spite of his seniority, physically reckless, cheerily foul-
mouthed to a degree which secretly shocked his conservative
upbringing, filled with bizarre beliefs and ideologies
culled from her mother's diverse store. Space aliens, feminist
politics, alternative religions, pendulum power, numerology,
environmental issues, all had their place in
Maggie's philosophy, and Gilly, in her turn, accepted them
all. From her Jay learned about the ozone layer and bread-
cakes mysteriously shaped like Jesus, or what she called
the New Killer Threat, or shamanism, or saving the whales.
In turn she was the ideal audience for his stories. They
spent days together, sometimes helping Joe, but often
simply loafing around by the canal, talking or exploring.
They saw Zeth once more after the rock fight, some
distance away by the dump, and were careful to avoid
him. Surprisingly enough, Gilly wasn't in the least afraid of
123
him, but Jay was. He hadn't forgotten what Zeth had
shouted the day they routed him from the lock, and he
would have been perfectly happy never to set eyes on him
again. Obviously, he was never going to be that lucky.
124
Lansquenet, March 1999
'WAS EARLY THE FOLLOWING MORNING WHEN HE GOT INTO AGEN.
s learned from Josephine that there were only two buses a
y, and after a quick coffee and a couple of croissants at
iCafe des Marauds he left, eager to collect his paperwork
i the agency. It took longer than Jay had expected. Legal
pletion had taken place the previous day, but electricity
gas had not yet been restored, and the agency was fetant to hand over keys without all the documentation
England. Plus, the woman at the agency told him,
' were additional complications. His offer on the farm
Itaken place at a time when another offer was under lideration - had, in fact, been accepted by the owner,
Ough nothing had yet been made official. Jay's offer -
Brior to this earlier one by about £5,000 - had effecty
scratched this previous arrangement, but the person
Ifhom the farm had been promised had called earlier that
'ning, making trouble, making threats.
l.'You see, Monsieur Mackintosh,' said the agent apoloirtically.
'These small communities -- a promise of land -- iey don't understand that a casual word cannot be said to
|B legally binding.' Jay nodded sympathetically. 'Besides,'
Iwitinued the agent, 'the vendor, who lives in Toulouse, is a
Polished and restored, he told himself, they would be beautiful,
exactly the type of furniture Kerry sighed over in
elegant Kensington antiques shops. Other things had been
stored in boxes in corners all over the house -- tableware in
an attic, tools and gardening equipment at the back of a
woodshed, a whole case of linen, miraculously unspoiled,
under a box of broken crockery. He pulled out stiff, starched
sheets, yellowed at the creases, each one embroidered with
an elaborate medallion, in which the initials D. F. twined
above a garland of roses - some woman's trousseau from a
hundred, two hundred, years back. There were other treasures
too: sandalwood boxes of handkerchiefs; copper saucepans
dulled with verdigris, an old radio from before the
war, he guessed, its casing cracked to reveal valves as big as
doorknobs. Best of all was a huge old spice chest of rough
black oak, some of its drawers still labelled in faded brown
ink - CanneJJe, Poivre Rouge, Lavande, Menthe Verte - the
long-empty compartments still fragrant with the scents of
those spices, some dusted with a residue which coloured his
fingertips with cinnamon, ginger, paprika and turmeric. It
was a lovely thing, fascinating. It deserved better than this
empty, half-derelict house. Jay promised himself that when
he could he would have it brought downstairs and cleaned.
Joe would have loved it.
Night fell: reluctantly Jay abandoned his exploration of
the house. Before retiring to his camp bed he inspected his
ankle again, surprised and pleased at the speed of his
recovery. He barely needed the arnica cream he had bought
from the chemist's. The room was warm, the fire's embers
casting hot reflections onto the whitewashed walls. It was
still early - no later than eight - but his fatigue had begun
to catch up with him, and he lay on his camp bed, watching
the fire and thinking over the next day's plans. Behind the
closed shutters he could hear the wind in the orchard, but
there was nothing sinister about the sound tonight. Instead
it sounded eerily familiar - the wind, the sound of distant
water, the night creatures calling and bickering, and,
128
beyond that, the church clock carrying distantly across the
marshes. A sudden surge of nostalgia came over him -- for
Gilly, for Joe, for Nether Edge and that last day on the
railway below Pog Hill Lane, for all the things he never
wrote about in JackappJe Joe because they were too mired
in disillusion to put into words.
He gave a sleepy, sour croak of laughter. JackappJe Joe
never even came close to what really happened. It was a
fabrication, a dream of what things should have been like, a
naive re-enactment of those magical, terrible summers. It
gave a meaning to what had remained meaningless. In his
book, Joe was the bluff, friendly old man who steered him
towards adulthood. Jay was the generic apple-pie boy,
rosily, artfully ingenuous. His childhood was gilded, his
adolescence charmed. Forgotten, all those times when the
old man bored him, troubled him, filled him with rage.
Forgotten, the times Jay was sure he was crazy. His disappearance,
his betrayal, his lies; papered over, tempered
with nostalgia. No wonder everyone loved that book. It was
the very triumph of deceit, of whimsy over reality, the
childhood we all secretly believe we had, but which none
of us ever did. JackappJe Joe was the book Joe himself might
have written. The worst kind of lie - half true, but lying in
what really matters. Lying in the heart.
Tha should ave gone back, tha knows,' said Joe matter-
of-factly. He was sitting on the table next to the typewriter,
a mug of tea in one hand. He'd swapped the Thin Lizzy T-
shirt for one from Pink Floyd's Animals tour. 'She waited
for you, and you never came. She deserved better than that,
lad. Even at fifteen, you should have known that.'
Jay stared at him. He looked very real. He touched his
forehead with the back of his hand, but the skin was cool.
'Joe.'
He knew what it was, of course. All that thinking about
Joe, his subconscious desire to find him there, his reenactment
of Joe's greatest fantasy.
'You never did find out where they went, did you?'
"No, I never did.' It was ridiculous, talking to a fantasy,
ut there was something oddly comforting in it, too. Joe
eemed to listen, head cocked slightly to one side, the mug
eld loosely between his fingers.
'You were the one left me. After everything you promised.
bu left me. You never even said goodbye.' Even though it ras a dream, Jay could feel anger crackling in his voice. You're one to tell me I should have gone back.'
Joe shrugged, unruffled. 'People move on,' he said calmly. eople go to find themselves, or lose themselves, whatever.
ick your own clee-shay. Anyroad, isn't that what you're
oing now? Runnin away?'
"I don't know what I'm doing now,' said Jay.
That Kerry, anall.' Joe continued, as if he hadn't heard. 'She 'ere another. You just never know when you've hit lucky.' He
ruined. 'Did you know she wears green contact lenses?'
'What?'
'Contact lenses. Her eyes are really blue. All this time and 3U never knew.'
'This is ridiculous,' Jay muttered. 'Anyway, you're not
/en here.'
'Here? Here?' Joe turned towards him, pushing his cap
ack from his face in the characteristic gesture Jay rememered.
He was grinning, the way he always did when he 'as about to say something outrageous. 'Who's to say
'here here is, anyroad? Who's to say you're here?'
Jay closed his eyes. The old man's after-image danced
riefly on his retina like a moth at a window.
'I always hated it when you talked like that,' said Jay.
'Like what?'
'All that Grasshopper mystical stuff.'
Joe chuckled.
'Philosophy of the Orient, lad. Learned it off of monks in
ibet, that time when I were on the road.'
'You were never on the road,' Jay said. 'Nowhere further
ian the Ml, anyhow.'
He fell asleep to the sound of Joe's laughter.
130
Poe Hill, Summer 1977
)E WAS IN SPLENDID FORM FOR THE FIRST PART OF THAT SUMMER.
Ie seemed more youthful than Jay had ever seen him, filled
rith ideas and projects. He worked on his allotment most
iays, though with more caution than of old, and they took
heir tea breaks in the kitchen, surrounded by tomato plants.
iilly came over every couple of days, and they would go down
prto the railway cutting and collect treasures in the usual way,
irhich they would then bring up the banking to Joe's house.
rThey had moved away from Monckton Town in May,
Hlly explained, when a group of local kids had begun
ftusing trouble at their previous camp.
'Bastards,' she said casually, dragging on the cigarette
tley were sharing and passing it back to Jay. 'First it was
.ame-calling. Big fucking deal. Then they kept banging on
tie doors at night, then it was stones at the windows, then
[reworks under the van. Then they poisoned our old dog,
nd Maggie said enough was enough.'
Gilly had started at the local comprehensive that year.
'he got on with most people, she said, but with these kids it
/as different. She was casual enough about the problem,
ut Jay guessed it must have got pretty bad for Maggie to
love the trailer so far away.
'The worst of them - the ringleader - is a girl called
Glenda,' she told him. 'She's in the year above me at school.
I fought her a couple of times. No-one else dares do anything
to her because of her brother.'
Jay looked at her.
'You know him,' said Gilly, taking another drag on the
cigarette. 'That big bastard with the tattoos.'
'Zeth.'
'Aye. At least he's left school now. I don't see him much,
except down by the Edge sometimes, shooting birds.' She
gave a shrug. 'I don't go there often,' she added with a touch
of defensiveness. 'Not really often, anyway. I don't like to.'
Nether Edge was theirs now, Jay gathered. A gang of six
or seven, aged twelve to fifteen and led by Zeth's sister. At
weekends they would go into the town and dare each other
to shoplift small items from the newsagent's - usually
sweets and cigarettes - then down to the Edge to hang
out or let off fireworks. Passers-by tended to avoid them,
fearing abuse or harassment. Even the usual dog-walkers
avoided the place now.
The news left Jay feeling strangely bereft. After the rock
fight he had remained wary of the Edge, always carrying
Joe's talisman in his pocket, always on the lookout for
trouble. He avoided the canal, the ash pit and the lock,
which seemed too risky now. He wasn't going to run into
Zeth if he could help it. But Gilly wasn't afraid. Not of Zeth,
or of Glenda. Her caution was for him, not for herself.
Jay felt a surge of indignation.
'Well, I'm not going to stay away,' he said hotly. "I'm not
afraid of a bunch of little girls. Are you?'
'Of course not!' Her denial confirmed his suspicions. Jay
felt a sudden impulse to prove to her that he could hold his
own as well as she could - ever since the rock fight in the
ash pit he had felt that, when it came to natural aggression,
she had him at a disadvantage.
'We could go tomorrow,' he suggested. 'Go to the ash pit
and dig up some bottles.'
132
Gilly grinned. In the sunlight her hair glowed almost as
brightly as the end of the cigarette. There was a pink stripe
of sunburn over her nose. Jay felt a wave of some emotion
he could not recognize wash over him, so strong that he felt
slightly sick. As if something had shifted inside him, tuning
into a frequency hitherto unknown and unguessed at. He
felt a sudden, incomprehensible urge to touch her hair.
Gilly looked at him derisively.
'You sure you're up for it?' she asked. 'You're not
chicken, are you, Jay?' She pumped her arms and
squawked, 'Bwrakka-bwraaak! Not even a teeny-tiny
bit?' The feeling, that moment of mysterious revelation,
had passed. Gilly flicked her cigarette butt into the bushes,
still grinning. Jay grabbed at her and mussed her hair to
hide his confusion, until she screamed and kicked him in
the shin. Normality - at least what passed for normal
between them - was resumed.
That night he slept badly, lying awake in the dark
thinking of Gilly's hair - that wonderful, gaudy shade
between maple leaf and carrot - and the red shale of the
scree above the ash pit, and Zeth's voice whispering I can
wait and You're dead in his ears, until at last he had to get
up and take out Joe's old red flannel talisman from its usual
place in his satchel. He gripped it - worn and shiny with
three years of handling - in the palm of his hand, and
immediately felt better.
Scared? Of course he wasn't.
He had magic on his side.
27
Lansquenet, March 1999
I'VE BECOME FOND OF JAY. WE HAVE MATURED TOGETHER, HE
and I, and in many ways we are very similar. We are
complex in ways which are not immediately apparent to
the casual observer. The uneducated palate finds in us a
brashness, a garrulousness which belies the deeper feelings.
Forgive me if I become pretentious with age, but that
is what solitude does to wine, and travel and rough handling
have not improved me. Some things are not meant to be
bottled for too long.
With Jay, of course, it was something else. With Jay it
was anger.
He did not remember a time when he was not angry at
someone. His parents. His school. Himself. And most of
all, there was Joe. Joe, who vanished thai day without
warning or reason, leaving only a packet of seeds, like
something out of a mad fairy tale. A bad vintage, that
anger. Bad for the spirit, mine and his. The Specials
sensed it, loo. On The table, the four remaining bottles
waited in subdued, ominous silence, their bellies filled
with dark fire.
When he awoke in the morning Joe was still there. Sitting
at the table with his mug of tea, elbows propped on the
wood, his cap at an angle, his little half-moon reading
glasses perched on the end of his nose. Dusty sunlight
came through a knot-hole in the shutters and gilded one
shoulder into almost-invisibility. He was made of the same
airy fabric which filled his bottles; I could see right through
him where the light hit him full-on, though he looked solid
enough to Jay, sitting bolt upright from one dream into
another.
'Morning,' said the old man.
"I see what this is,' whispered Jay hoarsely. 'I'm going
crazy.'
Joe grinned.
'You allus were a bit daft,' he said. 'Fancy throwin them
seeds out over the railway. You were supposed to keep em.
Use em. If you ad of done, like you were meant to, then none
of this would ever ave appened.'
'What do you mean?'
Joe ignored the question.
'You know, there's still a good old crop of tuberosa
rosifea growin under that railway bridge. Probly the only
place in the world with such a good crop. You ought to go
and see it some time. Make yerself some wine.'
'What do you mean, use them? They were only seeds.'
'Only seeds?' Joe shook his head in exasperation. 'Only
seeds, after everything I taught you? Them jackapples were
Specials, I telled you. I even wrote it on the packet.'
'I didn't see anything special about them,' Jay told him,
pulling on his jeans.
'You never? I tell you, lad, I put a couple of them ro.sifRas
in every single bottle of wine I ever made. Every bottle I ever
made, since I brought em back from South America. Took
me five years just to get the soil right. I tell you-"'
'Don't bother.' Jay's voice was harsh. 'You never went to
South America. I'd be surprised if you ever even made it out
of South Yorkshire.'
Joe laughed and brought out a packet of Player's from his
coat pocket.
'Mebbe not, lad,' he admitted, lighting one. 'But I saw it
all the same. Saw all of them places I felled you about.'
'Course you did.'
Joe shook his head sorrowfully.
'Astral travel, lad. Astral bloody travel, how the bloody
else d'you think I'd be able to do it if I was underground
half me bloody life?'
He sounded almost angry. Jay eyed the cigarette in his
hand with longing. It smelt like burning paper and Bonfire
Night.
"I don't believe in astral travel.'
Then how'd you bloody think I got here?'
Bonfire Night, licorice, frying grease, smoke and Abba
singing The Name of the Game' at Number One all that
month. Himself sitting in the empty dorm smoking - not out
of pleasure but just because it was against the rules. Not a
letter. Not a card. Not even a forwarding address.
'You're not here. I don't want to have this conversation.'
Joe shrugged.
'You allus were a stubborn beggar. Allus askin for
explanations. Never happy just to take things as they were.
Allus wantin' to know how it worked.'
Silence. Jay began to lace his boots.
'Remember them Romanies that beat the meter at Nether
Edge that time?'
Jay looked up for a moment. 'Yes, I remember.'
'D'you ever figure out how they did it?'
Jay shook his head slowly.
'Alchemy, you said.'
Joe grinned.
'Layman's alchemy.' He lit a Player's, looking smug.
'Made emselves some moulds shaped like fifty pences,
see? Made em out of ice. Lad fromt council thought them
fifties had melted into thin air.' He laughed hugely.
'He were right anall, wan't he?'
Nether Edge, Summer 1977
JAY WALKED TO THE EDGE, JOE'S TALISMAN TUCKED SNUGLY INTO
his pocket. The sun was veiled, as it was for most of that
summer, but the sky was hot and pale, bleeding the air of
oxygen and the countryside of colour. Fields, trees, flowers
all looked to be varying shades of grainy grey, like the
screen on Maggie's black-and-white portable. Above Nether
Edge a small bright blur hung in the sky like a beacon. A
warning, perhaps.
Gilly was wearing cut-off jeans and a striped T-shirt. Her
hair was tied back with a piece of red ribbon. She was
eating a sherbert fountain, and her tongue was black with
the licorice.
'I wasn't sure you'd make it,' she said.
Jay thought of the talisman in his pocket and shrugged.
They were safe, he told himself. Safe. Protected. Unseen. It
had worked dozens of times before.
•Why shouldn't I?'
Gilly shrugged.
'They've got some kind of a den over there,' she said,
jerking her head towards the canal. 'A tree house, I think,
where they keep their stuff. I've seen them going there a
couple of times. I dare you to go in.'
It's only a poxy den, Jay. Dare you.'
Her eyes gleamed slyly, that cat's-eye marble green
reflecting the colourless sky. She finished the sherbert
fountain and lobbed the packet into the canal, keeping
the licorice stub in her mouth, like a cigar butt.
'Unlesh you're yeller,' she said, doing a passable Lee
Marvin.
OK.'
They found the den close to the lock. It wasn't a tree
house, but a small shack built from assorted dump-rubbish:
corrugated cardboard, sheets of tarpaper and fibreglass. It
had windows of plastic sheeting and a door taken from
somebody's old shed. It looked deserted.
'Go on, then,' said Gilly. "I'll keep watch.'
Jay hesitated for a moment. Gilly grinned brashly; her
face looked stretched into one giant freckle. He felt suddenly
dizzy at the sight of her.
'Ah, get on with it, will you?' she urged.
Touching the talisman in his pocket, Jay walked resolutely
towards the den. It was bigger than it had looked
from the path and, despite its eccentric construction, it was
solid. The door was padlocked, a heavy industrial lock
which might have come from someone's coal cellar.
Try the window,' said Gilly from behind him. Jay
whipped round.
'I thought you were keeping watch!'
Gilly shrugged.
'Ah, there's nobody here,' she said. 'Go on, try the
window.'
The window was just big enough to crawl through. Gilly
pulled back the plastic sheeting and Jay squeezed inside. It
was dark, and there was a smell of sour earth and cigarette
smoke. A pile of blankets lay on the floor above a couple of
138
crates. A box of clippings. A dog-eared poster cut from a
girls' magazine was stapled to one wall. Gilly put her head
through the window.
'Find anything good?' she enquired pertly.
Jay shook his head. He was beginning to feel uncomfortable
in there, imagining himself trapped in the den as
Zeth and his friends rounded the corner.
'Look in the crates,' suggested Gilly. 'That's where they
keep their stuff. Magazines and cigarettes, stuff they've
lifted.'
Jay pushed over one of the crates. Assorted rubbish
spilled out across the floor. Make-up, empty lemonade
bottles, comics. A battered transistor radio, sweets in a
glass jar. A paper bag filled with fireworks, bangers and
jumping-jacks and Black Cats in their waxy casings. Two
dozen Bic lighters. Four unopened packets of Player's.
'Take something,' said Gilly. 'Take something. It's all
nicked anyway.' Jay picked up a shoebox of clippings.
Rather half-heartedly he scattered them across the earth
floor of the den. Then he did the same with the magazines.
'Take the cigs,' urged Gilly. 'And the lighters. We'll give
them to Joe.' Jay looked at her uneasily, but the thought of
her contempt was more than he could take. He pocketed
cigarettes and lighters, then, at Gilly's insistence, the
sweets and the fireworks. Fired by her enthusiasm he tore
down the poster from the wall, stamped the records,
stomped the jars. Remembering how Zeth had smashed
his radio, he took the transistor as well, telling himself they
owed it to him. He spilled cosmetics, crunched lipsticks
underfoot, threw a tin of face powder against the wall. Gilly
watched, laughing wildly.
'I wish we could see their faces,' she gasped. 'If only we
could!'
'Well, we can't,' Jay reminded her, climbing quickly out of
the den. 'Come on, before they get back.' He took her hand
and began to pull her after him up the path to the ash pit,
their stomachs suddenly filled with butterflies at the
thought of what they'd done; The sensation was not altogether
unpleasant, and suddenly they were both laughing
like drunks, clinging to each other as they stumbled up the
path.
'If only I could see Glenda's face,' spluttered Gilly. 'Next
time we'll have to bring a camera or something, so we can
have a permanent record.'
'Next time?' The thought killed the laughter.
'Well, of course.' She spoke as if it were the most natural
thing in the world. 'We've won the first skirmish. We can't
just leave it now.'
He supposed he should have told her, This is where it
ends, Gilly. It's too dangerous. But it was the danger which
attracted her, and he was too intoxicated by her admiration
to plead caution. That look in her eyes.
'What are you staring at me for?' she demanded belligerently.

'I'm not staring at you.'
'Yes, you are.'
Jay grinned. 'I'm staring at the great -- big -- earwig that
just landed in your hair from that bush,' he told her.
'Bastard.'' screamed Gilly, shaking her head.
'Wait a minute! It's just there,' he said, slyly knuckle-
rubbing the top of her head.
Gilly kicked him hard on the ankle. Again normality was
restored.
For a while.
140
Lansquenet, March 1999
THE NEXT THING JAY DID IN LANSQUENET WAS TO FIND A
builder's yard. The house needed extensive repairs, and
although he could probably manage some of the work
himself, most of it would have to be done by professionals.
Jay was lucky to find them to hand. He imagined it would
cost a great deal more to have them come over from Agen.
The yard was large and sprawling. Wood had been stacked
in towers at the back. Window frames and doors propped up
the walls. The main warehouse was a converted farm, low-
roofed, with a sign above the door which read, clairmont
MEUNUISERIEPANNEAUX-CONSTRUCTION.
Unfinished furniture, fencing, concrete blocks, tiles and
slates were piled messily by the door. The builder's name
was Georges Clairmont. He was a short, squat man, with a
mournful moustache and a white shirt, greyed with perspiration.
He spoke with the thick accent of the region, but
slowly, reflectively, and this gave Jay time to understand
his words. Somehow everyone here knew about him already.
He supposed Josephine had spread word. Clairmont's
labourers - four men in paint-spattered overalls
and caps turned down against the sun - watched with
wary curiosity as Jay passed. He caught the word Angh'she
in a rapid mutter of patois. Work - money - was limited in
the village. Everyone wanted a share in Chateau Foudouin's
renovation. Clairmont flapped his hand in annoyance as
four pairs of eyes followed them into the woodyard.
'Back to work, hell, back to work!'
Jay caught the eye of one of the labourers - a man with
red hair tied back with a bandanna - and grinned. The
redhead grinned back, one hand across his face to hide his
expression from Clairmont. Jay followed the manager into
the building.
The room was large and cool, like a hangar. A small table
near the door served as a desk, with papers, files and a
telephone-fax machine. Next to the telephone was a bottle
of wine and two small glasses. Clairmont poured out two
shots and handed one to Jay.
Thanks.'
The wine was red-black and rich. It was good, and he
said so.
'It should be,' said Clairmont. 'It was made on your land.
The old proprietor, Foudouin, was well known here once. A
good winemaker. Good grapes. Good land.' He sipped his
wine appreciatively.
'I suppose you'll have to send someone out to see the
house,' Jay told him.
Clairmont shrugged. 'I know the house. Went to see it
again last month. Even drew up some estimates.'
He saw Jay's surprise and grinned.
'She's been working on it since December,' he said.
'Painting this, plastering that. She was so sure of her
agreement with the old man.'
'Marise d'Api?'
'Who else, hell? But he'd already made a deal with his
nephew. A steady income - a hundred thousand francs a
year until his death -- in exchange for the house and the
farm. He was too old to work. Too stubborn to leave the
place. No-one else wanted it but her. There's no money in
farming nowadays, and as for the house itself, hellI' Clair-
142
Bourgeois. Number four. My wife is longing to meet our new
celebrity. It would make her very happy to meet you.' His
grin, part humble, part acquisitive, was oddly infectious.
Take dinner with us. Try my wife's gesiers farcis. Caro
knows everything there is to know in the village. Get to
know Lansquenet.'
IAY EXPECTED A SIMPLE MEAL. POT LUCK WITH THE BUILDER AND HIS
wife, who would be small and drab, in an apron and
headscarf, or sweet-faced and rosy, like Josephine at the
cafe, with bright bird's eyes. They would perhaps be shy at
first, speaking little, the wife pouring soup into earthenware
bowls, blushing with pleasure at his compliments.
There would be home-made terrines and red wine and
olives and pimentoes in their spiced oils. Later they would
tell their neighbours that the new Englishman was un mec
sympathique, pas du tout pretentieux, and he would be
quickly accepted as a member of the community.
The reality was quite different.
The door was opened by a plump, elegant lady, twin-
setted and stillettoed in powder-blue, who exclaimed as she
saw him. Her husband, looking more mournful than ever in
a dark suit and tie, waved to him over his wife's shoulder.
From inside Jay could hear music and voices, and glimpse
an interior of such relentless chintziness that he blinked. In
his black jeans and T-shirt, under a simple black jacket, he
felt uncomfortably underdressed.
There were three other guests as well as Jay. Caroline
Clairmont introduced them as she distributed drinks - 'our
friends Toinette and Lucien Merle, and Jessica Mornay, who
owns a fashion shop in Agen,' -- simultaneously pressing
one cheek against Jay's and a champagne cocktail into his
free hand.
'We've been so looking forward to meeting you, Monsieur
Mackintosh, or may I call you Jay?'
He began to nod, but was swept away into an armchair.
'And, of course, you must call me Caro. It's so wonderful
to have someone new in the village — someone with culture
— I do think culture is so important, don't you?'
'Oh yes,' breathed Jessica Mornay, clutching at his arm
with red nails too long to be anything but false. 'I mean,
Lansquenet is wonderfully unspoilt, but sometimes an
educated person simply longs for something more. You
must tell us about yourself. You're a writer, Georges tells
us?'
Jay disengaged his arm and resigned himself to the
inevitable. He answered innumerable questions. Was he
married? No? But there was someone, surely? Jessica
flashed her teeth and drew closer. To distract her he
feigned interest in banalities. The Merles, small and dapper
in matching cashmere, were from the north. He was a wine-
buyer, working for a firm of German importers. Toinette
was in some kind of local journalism. Jessica was a pillar of
the village drama group — 'her Antigone was exquisite' —
and did Jay write for the theatre?
He outlined Jackopple Joe, which everyone had heard of
but no-one had read, and provoked excited squeals from
Caro when he revealed that he had begun a new book.
Caro's cooking, like her house, was ornate; he did justice to
the souffle au champagne and the voJ-au-vents, the gesiers
farcis and the boeuf en croute — secretly regretting the
home-made terrine and olives of his fantasy. He gently
discouraged the ever more eager advances of Jessica Mor-
nay. He was moderately witty, anecdotal. He accepted many
undeserved compliments on his franpais superbe. After
dinner he developed a headache, which he attempted,
without success, to dull with alcohol. He found it difficult
to concentrate on the ever-increasing rapidity of their
French. Whole segments of conversation passed by like
clouds. Fortunately his hostess was garrulous - and self-
centred - enough to take his silence for rapt attention.
By the time the meal was over it was almost midnight.
Over coffee and petits fours the headache subsided and Jay
was able to grasp the thread of the conversation once more.
145
Clairmont, his tie pulled away from the collar, his face
mottled and sweaty: 'Well, all I can say is it's high time
something happened to put Lansquenet on the map, hell?
We've got as much going for us as Le Pinot down the road,
if we could only get everybody organized.'
Caro nodded agreement. Jay could understand her
French better than her husband's, whose accent had thickened
as his wineglass emptied. She was sitting opposite
him on the arm of a chair, legs crossed and cigarette in
hand.
'I'm sure that now Jay has joined our little community' she
bared her teeth through the smoke - 'things will begin
to progress. The tone changes. People begin to develop. God
knows I've worked hard enough - for the church, for the
theatre group, for the literary society. I'm sure Jay would
agree to address our little writers' group one day soon?'
He bared his own teeth noncommittally.
"Of course you would!' Caro beamed as if Jay had
answered aloud. 'You're exactly what a village like Lansquenet
needs most: a breath of fresh air. You wouldn't want
people to think we were keeping you all to ourseJves, would
you?' She laughed, and Jessica exclaimed hungrily. The
Merles nudged each other in glee. Jay had the strangest
feeling that the lavish dinner had been peripheral, that in
spite of the champagne cocktails and iced Sauternes and
foie gras he was the real main course.
'But why Lansquenet?' It was Jessica, leaning forwards,
her long blue eyes half shut against a sheet of cigarette
smoke. 'Surely you would have been happier in a bigger
place. Agen, maybe, or further south towards Toulouse?'
Jay shook his head. 'I'm tired of cities,' he said. 'I bought
this place on impulse.'
'Ah,' exclaimed Caro rapturously. 'Artistic temperament!'
'Because I wanted somewhere quiet, away from the city.'
Clairmont shook his head. 'Hell, it's quiet enough,' he
said. 'Too quiet for us. Property prices rock-bottom, while
in Le Pinot, only forty kilometres away--'
His wife explained rapidly that Le Pinot was a village on
the Garonne, much beloved by foreign tourists.
'Georges does a lot of work there, don't you, Georges? He
put in a swimming pool for that lovely English couple, and
he helped renovate that old house by the church. If only we
could generate the same kind of interest in our village.'
Tourists. Swimming pools. Gift shops. Burger bars. Jay's
lack of enthusiasm must have shown in his face, because
Caro nudged him archly.
'I can see that our Monsieur Mackintosh is a romantic,
Jessica! He loves the quaint little roads and the vineyards
and the lonely farmhouses. So very English!' Jay smiled and
nodded and agreed that his eccentricity was tout d fait
angJais.
'But a community like ours, hell, it needs to grow.'
Clairmont was drunk and earnest. 'We need investment.
Money. There's no money left in farming. Our farmers make
barely enough to keep alive as it is. The work is all in the
cities. The young move away. Only the old people and the
riff-raff stay. The itinerants, the pieds-noirs. That's what
people don't want to understand. We have to progress or
die, hell. Progress or die.'
Caro nodded. 'But there are too many people here who
can't see the way ahead,' she frowned. 'They refuse to sell
their land for development, even when it's clear they can't
win. When the plans were suggested to build the new
Intermarche up the road they protested for so long that
the Intermarche went to Le Pinot instead. Le Pinot was just
like Lansquenet twenty years ago. Now look at it.'
Le Pinot was the local success story. A village of 300
souls put itself on the map thanks to an enterprising couple
from Paris who bought and refurbished a number of old
properties to sell as holiday homes. Thanks to a strong
pound, and several excellent contacts in London, these
were sold or rented to wealthy English tourists, and little
by little a tradition was established. The villagers soon saw
the potential in this. Business expanded to serve the new
147
tourist trade. Several new cafes opened, soon followed by a
couple of bed and breakfasts. Then came a scattering of
speciality shops selling luxury goods to the summer trade, a
restaurant with a Michelin star, and a small but luxurious
hotel with a gym and a swimming pool. Local history was
dredged for items of interest, and the wholly unremarkable
church was revealed, by a combination of folklore and
wishful thinking, to be a site of historical significance. A
television adaptation of Clochemerle was filmed there, and
after that there was no end to the new developments. An
Intermarche within easy distance. A riding club. A whole
row of holiday chalets along the river. And now, as if that
wasn't enough, there were plans for an Aquadome and
health spa only five kilometres away, which would bring
trade all the way from Agen and beyond.
Caro seemed to take Le Pinot's success as a personal
insult.
'It could just as easily have been Lansquenet,' she
complained, taking a petit four. 'Our village is at least as
good as theirs. Our church is genuine fourteenth century.
We have the ruins of a Roman aqueduct down in Les
Marauds. It could have been us. Instead, the only visitors
we get are the summer farmhands and the gypsies down
the river.' She bit petulantly at her petit four.
Jessica nodded. 'It's the people here,' she told me. 'They
don't have any ambition. They think they can live exactly as
their grandfathers did.'
Le Pinot, Jay understood, had been so successful that the
production of its local vintage, after which the village was
named, had ceased altogether.
'Your neighbour is one of those people.' Caro's mouth
thinned beneath the pink lipstick. 'Works half the land
between here and Les Marauds, and still barely makes
enough from winemaking to keep body and soul together.
Lives holed up all year round in that old house of hers, with
never a word to anyone. And that poor child holed up
with her . . .'
148
the story itself, about the three women's faces drawn close
in identical expressions of vulpine enjoyment, eyes
squinched down, mouths lipsticked wide over white,
well-tended teeth. It was an old story - not even an original
story -- and yet it drew him. The feeling -- that sense of being
yanked forwards by an invisible hand in his gut - was not
entirely unpleasant.
'Go on,' he said.
'She was always at him.' Jessica took over the narrative.
'Even when they were first married. He was such an easygoing,
sweet man. A big man, but I'll swear he was
frightened of her. He let her get away with anything.
And when the baby was born she just got worse. Never
a smile. Never made friends with anyone. And the rows
with Mireille! I'm sure you could hear them right across the
village.'
'That's what drove him to it in the end: the rows.'
'Poor Tony.'
'She found him in the barn - what was left of him. His
head half blown away by the shot. She put the baby in the
crib and rode off to the village on her moped, cool as you
like, to fetch help. And at the funeral, when everyone was
mourning' ~ Caro shook her head - 'cold as ice. Not a word
or a tear. Wouldn't pay for anything more than the plainest,
cheapest funeral. And when Mireille offered to pay for
something better - Lord! The fight that caused!'
Mireille, Jay understood, was Marise's mother-in-law.
Almost six years later, Mireille, who was seventy-one
and suffered from chronic arthritis, had never spoken to
her granddaughter, or even seen her except from a distance.
Marise reverted to her maiden name after her husband's
death. She apparently hated everyone in the village so much
that she employed only itinerant labour -- and that on the
condition that they ate and slept at the farm for the
duration of their employment. Inevitably, there were rumours.

'I don't suppose you'll see much of her, anyway,' finished
Toinette. 'She doesn't talk to anyone. She even rides over to
La Percherie to buy her weekly shopping. I imagine she'll
leave you well alone.'
Jay walked home, despite offers from Jessica and Caro to
drive him back. It was almost two, and the night was fresh
and quiet. His head felt peculiarly light, and although there
was no moon there was a skyful of stars. As he skirted the
main square and moved downhill towards Les Marauds he
became aware, with some surprise, of how dark it really
was. The last street lamp stood in front of the Cafe des
Marauds, and at the bottom of the hill, the river, the
marshes, the little derelict houses teetering haphazardly
into the water dipped into shadow so deep that it was
almost blindness. But by the time he reached the river his
eyes had adapted to the night. He crossed in the shallows,
listening to the hisssh of the water against the banks. He
found the path across the fields and followed it to the road,
where a long avenue of trees stood black against the purple
sky. He could hear sounds all around him: night creatures,
a distant owl, mostly the sounds of wind and foliage, from
which vision distracts us.
The cool air had cleared his head of smoke and alcohol
and he felt alert and awake, able to walk all night. As he
walked, he found himself going over the last part of the
evening's conversation with increasing persistence. There
was something about that story, ugly as it was, which
attracted him. It was primitive. Visceral. The woman living
alone with her secrets; the man dead in the barn; the dark
triangle of mother, grandmother, daughter . . . And all
around this sweet, harsh land, these vines, orchards, rivers,
these whitewashed houses, widows in black headscarves,
men in overalls and drooping, nicotine-stained moustaches.
The smell of thyme was pungent in the air. It grew wild
by the roadside. Thyme improves the memory, Joe used to
say. He used to make a syrup out of it, keeping it in a bottle
in the pantry. Two tablespoonsful every morning before
breakfast. The clear greenish liquid smelt exactly like the
151
night air over Lansquenet, crisp and earthy and nostalgic,
like a summer day's weeding in the herb garden, with the
radio on.
Suddenly Jay wanted to be home. His fingers itched. He
wanted to feel the typewriter keys under them, to hear the
clack-clacking of the old machine in the starry silence. More
than anything he wanted to catch that story.
HE FOUND JOE WAITING FOR HIM, STRETCHED OUT ON THE CAMP
bed, hands laced behind his head. He had left his boots
by the foot of the bed, but he was wearing his old pit-
helmet, cocked at a jaunty angle on his head. A yellow
sticker on the front read, 'People will always need coal.'
Jay felt no surprise at seeing him. His anger had gone,
and instead he felt a kind of comfort, almost as if he was
expecting to see him -- the ghostly apparition becoming
familiar as he began to anticipate it, becoming . . .
Everyday magic.
He sat down at the typewriter. The story had him in its
hold now and he typed rapidly, his fingers jabbing at the
keys. He typed solidly for more than two hours, feeding
sheet after sheet of Stout Cortez into the machine, translating
it, reversing it with his own layman's alchemy. Words
pranced across the page almost too fast for him to keep
pace. From time to time he paused, vaguely conscious of
Joe's presence on the bed beside him, though the old man
said nothing while he worked. At one point he smelt smoke.
Joe had lit a cigarette. At about five in the morning he made
coffee in the kitchen, and when he returned to his typewriter
he noticed, with a curious feeling of disappointment,
that the old man had gone.
She never missed. She could break a jar at fifty feet without
even trying. Of course there were a few narrow escapes.
Once they almost cornered Jay near the place where he hid
his bike, close to the railway bridge. It was getting dark and
Gilly had already gone home, but he'd found a stash of last
year's coal -- maybe as much as a couple of sacksful -- in a
patch of weeds, and he wanted to shift it before anyone else
came across it by accident. He was too busy bagging coal
chunks for Joe to notice the four girls coming out from the
other side of the railway, and Glenda was almost on him
before he knew it.
Glenda was Jay's age, but big for a girl. Zeth's narrow
features were overlaid with a meatiness which squeezed
her eyes into crescents and her mouth into a pouty bud. Her
slabby cheeks were already raddled with acne. It was the
first time he had seen her so close, and her resemblance to
her brother was almost paralysing. Her friends eyed him
warily, fanning out behind Glenda, as if to cut off his
escape. The bike was ten feet away, hidden in the long
grass. Jay began to edge towards it.
'Iz on iz own today,' remarked one of the other girls, a
skinny blonde with a cigarette butt clamped between her
teeth. 'Wheer's tha girlfriend?'
Jay moved closer to the bike. Glenda moved with him,
skidding down the shingle of the banking towards the
road. Pieces of gravel shot out from under her sneakers. She
was wearing a cut-off T-shirt and her arms were red with
sunburn. With those big, fishwife's arms she looked troublingly
adult, as if she had been born that way. Jay feigned
indifference. He would have liked to say something clever,
something biting, but the words which would have come so
easily in a story refused to co-operate. Instead, he
scrambled down the bank to where he had hidden his
bike and pulled it out of the long grass onto the road.
Glenda gave a crow of rage and began to slide towards
him, paddling the shingle with large, spatulate hands. Dust
flew.
154
Lansquenet, March 1999
DURING THE WEEK THAT FOLLOWED JAY WROTE EVERY NIGHT.
On Friday the electricity was finally restored, but by then
he'd become accustomed to working by the light of the oil
lamp. It was friendlier somehow, more atmospheric. The
pages of his manuscript formed a tight wedge on the table
top. He had almost a hundred now. On Monday Clairmont
arrived with four workmen to make a start on the repairs to
the house. They began with the roof, which was missing a
great number of tiles. The plumbing, too, needed attention.
In Agen he managed to find a car-hire company and rented
a five-year-old green Citroen to carry his purchases and
speed up his visits to Lansquenet. He also bought three
reams of typing paper and some typewriter ribbons. He
worked after dark, when Clairmont and his men had gone
home, and the stack of typed pages mounted steadily.
He did not reread the new pages. Fear, perhaps, that the
block which had afflicted him for so many years might still
be waiting. But somehow he didn't think so. Part of it was
this place. Its air. The feeling of familiarity in spite of the
fact that he was a stranger here. Its closeness to the past.
As if Pog Hill Lane had been rebuilt here amongst the
orchards and vines.
On fine mornings he walked into Lansquenet to buy
bread. His ankle had healed quickly and completely, leaving
only the faintest of scars, and he began to enjoy the
walk and to recognize some of the faces he saw along the
way. Josephine told him their names, and sometimes more.
As the owner of the village's only cafe, she was in an
excellent position to know everything that happened. The
dry-looking old man in the blue beret was Narcisse, a
market gardener who supplied the local grocer and the
florist. In spite of his reserve, there was wry, hidden
humour in his face. Jay knew from Josephine that he
was a friend of the gypsies who came downriver every
summer, trading with them and offering them seasonal
work in his fields. For years he and a succession of local
cures battled over his tolerance of the gypsies, but Narcisse
was stubborn, and the gypsies stayed. The redhaired man
from Clairmont's yard was Michel Roux, from Marseilles, a
traveller from the river, who stopped for a fortnight five
years ago and never left. The woman with the red scarf was
Denise Poitou, the baker's wife. The wan-looking fat woman
in black, her eyes shaded from the sun by a wide-
brimmed hat, was Mireille Faizande, Marise's mother-in-
law. Jay tried to catch her eye as she passed the cafe
terrasse, but she did not seem to see him.
There were stories behind all of these faces. Josephine,
leaning over the counter with her cup of coffee in one hand,
appeared more than willing to tell them. Her early shyness
of him had vanished, and she greeted him with pleasure.
Sometimes, when there were not too many customers, they
talked. Jay knew very few of the people she mentioned. But
this did not seem to discourage Josephine.
'Do you mean I never told you about old Albert? Or his
daughter?' She sounded amazed at his ignorance. 'They
used to live next door to the bakery. Well, what used to be
the bakery, before it became the chocoioterie. Opposite the
florist's.' At first Jay simply allowed her to talk. He paid
little attention, letting names, anecdotes, descriptions wash
157
past him as he sipped his coffee and watched the people go
by.
'Didn't I ever tell you about Arnauld and the truffle pig?
Or the time Armande dressed up as the Immaculate Conception
and laid in wait for him in the churchyard?
Listen . . .'
There were many stories of her best friend, Vianne, who
left some years ago, and of people long dead, whose names
meant nothing to him. But Josephine was persistent. Perhaps
she, too, was lonely. The morning habitues of the cafe
were a silent lot for the most part, many of them old men.
Perhaps she welcomed a younger audience. Little by little
the ongoing soap opera of Lansquenet-sous-Tannes drew
him in.
Jay was aware he was still an oddity here. Some people
stared at him in frank curiosity. Some smiled. Most were
reserved, politely dour, a nod in greeting and a sidelong
glance as he walked past. Most days he called at the Cafe
des Marauds for a blonde or a cafe-cassis on the way back
from Poitou's. The walled terrasse was small, no more than
a wide piece of pavement on the narrow road, but it was a
good place to sit and watch as the village came to life. Just
off the main square, it was a vantage point from which
everything was visible: the long hill leading down towards
the marshes; the screen of trees'above the Rue des Francs
Bourgeois; the church tower whose carillon rang out across
the fields at seven every morning; the square, pink schoolhouse
at the road's fork. At the bottom of the hill the
Tannes was hazed and dimly gleaming, the fields beyond
barely visible. The early sunlight was very bright, almost
crude in comparison, cutting out the white fronts of the
houses against their brown shadow. On the river a boat
was moored, close to the huddle of derelict houses which
overhung the river on their precarious wooden stilts. From
the boat's chimney he could see a scrawl of smoke and
smell frying fish.
Between seven and eight o'clock several people, mostly
women, passed by carrying loaves or paper sants from Poitou's bakery. At eight the bells Jay always recognized the churchgoers. The^ solemn reluctance to their good spring coats|
shoes, their hats and berets, which defin
Clairmont was always there with her hus
ward in his tight shoes, she elegant in a scarves. She always greeted Jay as she p<
extravagant wave and a cry of, 'How's t
husband nodded briefly and hurried by, hu
While Mass was in progress, a number of o
themselves with tired defiance on the terra
des Marauds to drink cafe-creme and play
among themselves. Jay recognized Narcisi gardener, always in the same place by tl
was a tattered seed catalogue in his coat pc
read in silence, a cup of coffee at his elbo\ Josephine bought pains au chocolat and t.
ways took two, his big brown hands oddly
lifted the pastry to his mouth. He rarely sp(
himself with a brief nod in the directiol
customers before settling in his usual place.
the schoolchildren began to pass, incong
anoraks and fleeces, a procession of logos
scarlet, yellow, turquoise, lime-green. They
with open curiosity. Some of them laughed a]
cheery derision, 'Rosbif! Rosbif as they da
were about twenty children of primary-scho quenet, divided into two classes; the older 01
the school bus into Agen, its windows
curious noses and thick with finger-graffiti
During the day Clairmont had been owe
pairs to the house. Already the ground floo
and the roof was almost completed, thougl Georges was disappointed at his lack of a
mont dreamed of conservatories and ind
pools, Jacuzzis and piazzas and landscaped
159
he was philosophical enough when Jay told him that he had
no ambition to live in a St Tropez villa.
'Bof, ce que vous aimez, a ce que ;e comprends, c'est ]e
rustique,' he told Jay with a shrug. Already there was a
speculative look in his eyes. Jay understood that if he didn't
take a hard line with the man he would almost certainly be
deluged with unwanted objects - broken crockery, milking
stools, bad reproduction furniture, walking sticks, cracked
tiles, chopping boards and ancient farming utensils; all the
unloved and abandoned detritus of loft and cellar, granted
reprieve from the bonfire by the call of Ie rustique -- which
he would then be expected to buy. He should have withered
him on the spot. But there was something rather touching
about the man, something both humble and absurdly hopeful
in the ratty black eyes gleaming above the drooping
moustache, which made it impossible.
Sighing, Jay resigned himself to the inevitable.
On Thursday he caught sight of Marise for the first time
since their initial, brief meeting. He was coming home after
his morning walk, a loaf tucked under his arm. At the point at
which his field backed onto hers there was a blackthorn
hedge, along which a path ran parallel to the boundary. The
hedge was young, three or four years at the most, the new
March growth barely sufficient to form a screen. Behind it he
could see the broken line where the old hedge had been, an
uneven row of stumps and tussocks imperfectly hidden by a
new furrow. Mentally Jay calculated the distance. Clairmont
had been right. She had moved the boundary by about fifty
feet. Probably when the old man first fell ill. He looked more
closely through the hedge, faintly curious. The contrast
between her side and his was striking. On the Foudouin
side the vines were sprawling and untrimmed, their new
growth barely showing, except for a few hard brown buds on
the ends of the tendrils. Hers had been cut back hard, twelve
inches from the ground, in readiness for the summer. There
were no weeds on Marise's side of the hedge; the furrows neat
I! and clean-edged, a path running along each row wide enough
to allow easy passage for the tractor. On Jay's side the rows
had run into each other, the uncut vines clinging lasciviously
to one another across the paths. Gleeful spikes of ragwort,
mint and arnica poked through the tangle. Looking back
towards Marise's land, he found that he could just see the
gable-end of her farm at the edge of the field, screened from
full view by a stand of poplars. There were fruit trees there,
too - the white of apple blossom against bare branches - and
what might be a vegetable garden. A woodpile, a tractor,
something else which could only be the barn.
She must have heard the shot from the house. She had
put the baby in the crib. Gone out. Taken her time. The
image was so vivid that Jay could almost see her doing it:
pulling on her boots over thick socks, the oversized jacket
around her shoulders - it was winter - the frosty soil
crunching under her feet. Her face was impassive, as it had
been when they met that first morning. The image haunted
him. In this guise Marise had already walked more than
once across the pages of his new book; he felt as if he knew
her, and yet they had barely spoken. But there was something
in her which drew him, an irresistible air of secrecy.
He wasn't sure why she made him think of Joe. That coat,
perhaps, or the man's cap jammed too far over her eyes, that
confusing half-familiar silhouette just glimpsed behind an
angle of brick. Certainly there was no resemblance to Joe in
her features. Joe could never have had that bleak, empty
face. Half turning to go, Jay caught sight of something - a
figure moving quickly along the other side of the hedge a
few hundred yards from where he was standing. Shielded
by the thin screen of bushes, he saw her before she caught
sight of him. It was a warm morning and she had shed her
bulky outer clothes in favour of jeans and a striped fish-
erman's jumper. The change of clothing made her boyishly
slender. Her red hair had been cut off inexpertly at jaw level
- Jay guessed she'd probably done it herself. In that
unguarded moment her face was vivid, eager. For a moment
Jay barely recognized her.
161
Then her eyes flicked towards him, and it was as if a
blind had been slammed down, so fast that he was left
wondering if he had only imagined her before.
'Madame--'
For a second she halted, looked at him with a blankness
which was almost insolent. Her eyes were green, a curiously
light verdigris colour. In his book he'd coloured them
black. Jay smiled and reached out his hand over the hedge
in greeting.
'Madame d'Api. I'm sorry if I startled you. I'm--'
But before he could say anything else she had gone,
turning sharply into the rows of vines without a backward
glance, moving smoothly and quickly down the path towards
the farmhouse.
'Madame d'Api!' he called after her. 'Madame!'
She must have heard, and yet she ignored his call. He
watched her for a few minutes more as she moved further
and further away, then, shrugging, turned towards the
house. He told himself that his disappointment was absurd.
There was no reason why she should want to talk to him.
He was allowing his imagination too much freedom. In the
bland light of day she was nothing like the slate-eyed
heroine of his story. He resolved not to think of her again.
When Jay got home, Clairmont was waiting for him with
a truckload of junk. He winked as Jay turned into the drive,
pushing his blue beret back from his eyes.
'Hold, Monsieur Jay,' he called from the cab of his truck.
'I've found you some things for your new house!'
Jay sighed. His instincts had been right. Every few weeks
he would be badgered to take off Clairmont's hands a
quantity of overpriced brocante masquerading as country
chic. From what he could see of the truck's contents broken
chairs, sweeping brushes, half-stripped doors, a
really hideous papier-mache dragon head left over from
some carnival or other - his suspicions hardly began to
cover the dreadful reality.
'Well, I don't know,' he began.
Clairmont grinned.
'You'll see. You'll love this,' he announced, jumping down
from his cab. As he did, Jay saw he was carrying a bottle of
wine. 'Something to put you in the mood, hell? Then we can
talk business.'
There was no escaping the man's persistence. Jay wanted
a bath and silence. Instead there would be an hour's
haggling in the kitchen, wine he didn't want to drink, then
the problem of how to dispose of Clairmont's objets d'art
without hurting his feelings. He resigned himself.
'To business,' said Clairmont, pouring two glasses of
wine. 'Mine and yours.' He grinned. 'I'm going into antiques, hell ? There's good money in antiques in Le Pinot and
Montauban. Buy cheap now, clean up when the tourists
come.'
Jay tried the wine, which was good.
'You could build twenty holiday chalets on that vineyard
of yours,' continued Clairmont cheerily. 'Or a hotel. How'd
you like the idea of your own hotel, hell?'
Jay shook his head.
'I like it the way it is,' he said.
Clairmont sighed.
'You and 'La Paienne d'Api,' he sighed. 'Got no vision,
either of you. That land's worth a fortune in the right
hands. Crazy, to keep it as it is when just a few chalets
could--'
Jay struggled with the word and his accent.
'La Paienne? The godless woman?' he translated hesitantly.

Clairmont jerked his head in the direction of the other
farm.
'Marise as was. We used to call her La Parisienne. But the
other suits her better, hell? Never goes to church. Never had
the baby christened. Never talks. Never smiles. Hangs on to that land out of sheer stubborn spite, when anyone else . . .'
He shrugged. 'Bof. It's none of my business, hell? But I'd
keep the doors locked if I were you, Monsieur Jay. She's
163
crazy. She's had her eye on that land for years. She'd do you
an injury if she could.'
Jay frowned, remembering the fox traps around the
house.
"Nearly broke Mireille's nose once,' continued Clairmont.
'Just because she went near the little girl. Never came into
the village again after that. Goes into La Percherie on her
motorbike. Seen her going into Agen, too.'
'Who looks after the daughter?' enquired Jay.
Clairmont shrugged.
'No-one. I expect she just leaves her.'
'I'm surprised the social services haven't--'
'Bof. In Lansquenet? They'd have to come all the way
over from Agen or Montauban, maybe even Toulouse.
Who'd bother? Mireille tried. More than once. But she's
clever. Put them off the scent. Mireille would have
adopted the child if she'd been allowed. She's got the
money. The family would have stood by her. But at her
age, and with a deaf child on top of that, I suppose they
thought--'
Jay stared at him. 'A deaf child?'
Clairmont looked surprised.
'Oh yes. Didn't you know? Ever since she was tiny. She's
supposed to know how to look after her.' He shook his
head. 'That's what keeps her here, hell? That's why she
can't go back to Paris.'
'Why?' asked Jay curiously.
'Money,' said Clairmont shortly, draining his glass.
'But the farm must be worth something.'
'Oh, it is,' said Clairmont. 'But she doesn't own it. Why do
you think she was so anxious to get the Foudouin place?
It's on a lease. She'll be out the day it expires - unless she
can get it renewed. And there isn't much chance of that
after what's happened.'
'Why? Who owns the lease?'
Clairmont drained his glass and licked his lips with
satisfaction.
164
'Pierre-Emile Foudouin. The man who sold you your
house. Mireille's great-nephew.'
They went out onto the drive then, to inspect Clairmont's
offerings. They were as bad as he had feared. But Jay's
mind was on other things. He offered Clairmont 500 francs
for the whole truckload: the builder's eyes widened briefly,
but he was quickly persuaded. Winking slyly: 'An eye for a
good bargain, hell?'
The note disappeared into his rusty palm like a card
trick.
"And don't worry, hell. I can find you plenty more!'
He drove off, his exhaust blatting out pink dust from the
drive. Jay was left to sort out the wreckage.
Even then Joe's training held good: Jay still found it hard
to throw away what might conceivably be useful. Even as
he determined to use the entire truckload for firewood he
found himself looking speculatively over this and that. A
glass-panelled door, cracked down the middle, might make
a reasonable cold frame. The jars, each turned upside down
on a small seedling, would give good protection from late
frost. Little by little the oddments Clairmont had brought
began to spread themselves around the garden and the
field. He even found a place for the carnival head. He
carried it carefully to the boundary between his and
Marise's vineyard and set it on top of a fence post, facing
towards her farm. Through the dragon's open mouth a long
crepe tongue lolled redly, and its yellow eyes gleamed.
Sympathetic magic, Joe would have called it, like putting
gargoyles onto a church roof. Jay wondered what La
Pai'enne would make of it.
Pog Hill, Summer 1977
JAY'S MEMORIES OF THAT LATE SUMMER WERE BLURRY IN A WAY
the previous ones were not. Several factors were to blame
- the pale and troubling sky, for one thing, which made him
squint and gave him headaches. Joe seemed a little distant,
and Gilly's presence meant they did not have the long
discussions they'd had the year before. And Gilly herself
... it seemed that as July turned into August Gilly was
always at the back of his mind. Jay found himself dwelling
upon her more and more. His pleasure at her company was
coloured by insecurity, jealousy and other feelings he found
it difficult to identify. He was in a state of perpetual
confusion. He was often close to anger, without knowing
why. He argued constantly with his mother, who seemed to
get more deeply under his skin that summer than ever
before - everything got under his skin that year - he felt
raw, as if every nerve were constantly exposed. He bought
the Sex Pistols' 'Pretty Vacant' and played it in his room at
full volume, to the horror of his grandparents. He dreamed
of piercing his ears. Gilly and he went to the Edge and
warred with Glenda's gang and filled bags with useful
rubbish and took them over to Joe's. Sometimes they helped
Joe in the allotment, and occasionally he would talk to them
about his travels and his time in Africa with the Masai, or
his journeys through the Andes. But to Jay it seemed
perfunctory, an afterthought, as if Joe's mind were already
on something else. The perimeter ritual, too, seemed abbreviated,
a minute or two at most, with a stick of incense
and a sachet of sprinkler. It did not occur to him to question
it then, but afterwards he realized. Joe knew. Even then he
had already made the decision.
One day he took Jay into his back room and showed him
the seed chest again. It had been over a year since he had
last done so, pointing out the thousands of seeds packaged
and wrapped and labelled for planting, and in the semidarkness
- the windows were still boarded up - the chest
looked dusty, abandoned, the paper packages crisp with
age, the labels faded.
'It dun't look like owt, does it?' said Joe, drawing his
finger through the dust on the top of the chest.
Jay shook his head. The room smelt airless and damp,
like a place where tomatoes have been grown. Joe grinned a
little sadly.
"Never believe it, lad. Every one of them seeds is a
goodun. You could plant em right now an they'd go up
champion. Like rockets. Every one of em.' He put his hand
on the boy's shoulder. "Just you remember, it's not what
things look like that matters. It's what's inside. The art of
it.'
But Jay wasn't really listening. He never really listened
that summer -- too preoccupied by his own thoughts, too
sure that what he had would be there for ever. He took this
wistful little aside of Joe's as just another adult homily;
nodding vaguely, feeling hot and bored and choked in the
airless dark, wanting to get away.
Later it occurred to him that perhaps Joe had been saying
goodbye.
167
Lansquenet, March 1999
JOE WAS WAITING WHEN HE REACHED THE HOUSE, LOOKING
critically out of the window at the abandoned vegetable
plot.
'You want to do something with that, lad,' he told Jay as
he opened the door. 'Else it'll be no good this summer. You
want to get it dug over and weeded while you've still got
time. And them apple trees, anall. You want to check em for
mistletoe. Bloody kill em if you let it.'
During the past week Jay had almost become used to the
old man's sudden appearances. He had even begun, in a
strange way, to look forward to them, telling himself they
were harmless, finding ingenious post-Jungian reasons to
explain their persistence. The old Jay -theJayof'75- would
have relished this. But that Jay believed in everything. He
wanted to believe. Astral projection, space aliens, spells,
rituals, magic. Strange phenomena were that Jay's daily
business. That Jay believed - trusted. This Jay knew better.
And still he continued to see the old man, regardless of
belief. A part of it was loneliness, he told himself. Another
was the book - that stranger growing from the manuscript
of Stout Cortez. The process of writing is a little like
madness, a kind of possession not altogether benign. Back
in the days ofJackappJe Joe he talked to himself all the time,
striding back and forth in his little Soho bedsit, with a glass
in one hand, talking, arguing fiercely with himself, with Joe,
with Gilly, with Zeth and Glenda, almost expecting to see
them there as he looked up from the typewriter, his eyes
grainy with exhaustion, his head pounding, the radio
playing full blast. For a whole summer he was a little
insane. But this book would be different. Easier, in a
way. The characters were all around him. They marched
effortlessly across the pages: Clairmont the builder, Josephine
the cafe owner, Michel from Marseilles, with the red
hair and the easy smile. Caro in a Hermes headscarf.
Marise. Joe. Marise. There was no real plot. Instead there
were a multitude of anecdotes, loosely knitted together --
some remembered from Joe and relocated to Lansquenet,
some recalled by Josephine over the counter of the Cafe des Marauds, some put together from scraps. He liked to think
he had caught something of the air, of the light of the place.
Perhaps some of Josephine's bright, untrained narrative
style. Her gossip was never tainted by malice. Her anecdotes
were always warm, often amusing. He began to look
forward to his visits, enough to feel a dim sense of disappointment
on the days Josephine was too busy to talk. He
found himself going to the cafe every day, even when he had
no other excuse to be in the village. He made mental notes.
When he had been in the village for a little under three
weeks, he went into Agen and sent the first 150 pages of the
unfilled manuscript to Nick Horneli, his agent in London.
Nick handled Jonathan Winesap, as well as the royalties for
Jackapple Joe. Jay had always liked him, a wryly humorous
man who was in the habit of sending little cuttings from
newspapers and magazines in the hope of generating new
inspiration. He sent no contact address, but a posterestante
address in Agen, and waited for a reply.
To his disappointment, he found that Josephine would
not speak to him about Marise. In the same way, there were
people she rarely mentioned: the Clairmonts, Mireille Fai-
169
zande, the Merles. Herself. Whenever he tried to encourage
her to talk about these people, she would find work to do in
the kitchen. He felt more and more strongly that there were
things - secret things - she was reluctant to discuss.
'What about my neighbour? Does she ever come to the
cafe?'
Josephine picked up a cloth and began to polish the
gleaming surface of the bar.
"I don't see her. I don't know her very well.'
'I've heard she doesn't get on with people from the village.'
A shrug. 'Bof.'
'Caro Clairmont seems to know a lot about her.'
Again the shrug.
'Caro makes it her business to know everything.'
'I'm curious.'
Flatly: 'I'm sorry. I have to go.'
'I'm sure you must have heard something--'
She faced him for a second, her cheeks flushing. Her
arms were folded tightly against her body, the thumbs
digging into her ribs in a defensive gesture.
'Monsieur Jay. Some people like to pry into other people's
business. God knows, there was enough gossip about me
once. Some people think they can judge.' He was taken
aback by her sudden fierceness. Suddenly she was someone
else, her face tight and narrow. It occurred to him that
she might be afraid.
LATER THAT NIGHT, BACK AT THE HOUSE, HE WENT OVER THEIR
conversation. Joe was sitting in his usual spot on the bed,
hands laced behind his neck. The radio was playing light
music. The typewriter keys felt cold and dead under his fingertips.
The bright thread of his narrative had finally run out.
'It's no good.' He sighed and poured coffee into his half-
empty cup. 'I'm not getting anywhere.'
Joe watched him lazily, his cap over his eyes.
T can't write this book. I'm blocked. It doesn't make
sense. It isn't going anywhere.'
170
The story, so clear in his mind a few nights before, had
receded into almost nothing. His head was swimming with
wakefulness.
'You should get to know her,' advised Joe. 'Forget listening
to other people's talk and make up your own mind. That
or kick it into touch altogether.'
Jay made an impatient gesture.
'How can I do that? She obviously doesn't want to have
anything to do with me. Or anyone else, for that matter.'
Joe shrugged.
'Please yourself. You never did learn how to put yourself put much, did yer?' > That isn't true! I tried--'
: 'You could live next door to each other for ten years and
Beither of you'd make the first move.'
| This is different.'
Ill 'I reckon.'
|» Joe got up and wandered to the radio. He fiddled with the
dial for a moment before finding a clear signal. Somehow fine had the knack of locating the oldies station wherever he Happened to be. Rod Stewart was singing Tonight's the
|ighf.
|? 'You could try, though.' >^ "Maybe I don't want to try.'
t'i 'Happen you don't.'
I' Joe's voice was growing fainter, his outline fading, so that Jay could see the newly whitewashed wall behind him. At the same time the radio crackled harshly, the signal
breaking up. A burr of white noise replaced the music. ' 'Joe?'
The old man's voice was almost too faint to hear.
'I'll sithee, then.'
? It's what he always used to say as a sign of disapproval, or when signalling the end of a discussion.
Joe?'
But Joe had already gone.
171
Pog Hill, Summer 1977
IT REALLY STARTED WITH ELVIS. MID-AUGUST, THAT WAS, AND
Jay's mother grieved with a vehemence which was almost
genuine. Perhaps because they were the same age, he and
she. Jay felt it, too, even though he'd never been an especial
fan. That overcast sense of doom, the feeling that things
were coming apart at the centre, unravelling like a ball of
string. There was death in the air that August, a dark edge
to the sky, an unidentifiable taste. There were more wasps
that summer than he ever remembered before - long, curly,
brown wasps which seemed to scent the end coming and
turned spiteful early. Jay was stung twelve times - once in
the mouth as he swigged a bottle of Coke, lucky not to be
taken to Casualty - and together Gilly and he burned seven
nests. Gilly and Jay started a crusade against the wasps
that summer. On hot, moist afternoons, when the insects
were sleepy and more docile, the two of them went wasp-
ing. They would find the nests, stuff the hole with shredded
newspaper and firelighters and flame the whole thing. As
the fire took and smoke poured into the nest the wasps
would come flying out, some buzzing and burning like
German aircraft in old black-and-white war movies, darkening
the air and sighing, an eerie, chill sound, as they
spread, bewildered and enraged, over the war zone. Gilly
and Jay lay quiet in a hollow near by, far enough away from
the danger spot, but as close as they dared, watching.
Needless to say, this tactic was Gilly's idea. She would
squat, eyes wide and bright, as close as she could. No wasp
ever stung her. She seemed as immune to them as a honey
badger to bees, and as naturally lethal. Jay was secretly
terrified, crouching in the hollows with his head down and
pounding with black exhilaration, but the fear was addictive
and they sought it time and again, clinging to each
other and laughing in terror and excitement. Once, urged by
Gilly, Jay put two Black Cat bangers into a nest under a
dry-stone wall and lit the fuses. The nest blew apart, but
smokelessly, scattering stunned and angry wasps everywhere.
One managed to get into the T-shirt he was wearing
and stung him again and again. It felt like being shot, and
Jay screamed and rolled on the ground. But the wasp was
indestructible, twitching and stinging even as he crushed it
beneath his frantic body. They killed it at last by tearing off
the shirt and dousing it in lighter fluid. Later Jay counted
nine separate stings. Autumn loomed close, smelling of fire.
173
35
Lansquenet, April 1999
HE SAW HER AGAIN THE NEXT DAY. AS APRIL RIPENED TOWARDS
May the vines had grown taller, and Jay occasionally
saw her at work amongst the plants, dusting with fungicides,
inspecting the shoots, the soil. She would not speak
to him. She seemed enclosed in a capsule of isolation,
profile turned towards the earth. He saw her in a succession
of overalls, bulky jumpers, men's shirts, jeans, boots,
her bright hair pulled back severely under her beret.
Difficult to make out her shape beneath them. Even her
hands were cartoonish in overlarge gloves. Jay tried to talk
to her several times with no success. Once he called at her
farm, but there was no answer to his knock, though he was
sure he could hear someone behind the door.
'I'd have nothing to do with her,' said Caro Clairmont
when he mentioned the incident. 'She never talks to anyone
in the village. She knows what we all think of her.'
They were on the terrasse of the Cafe des Marauds. Caro
had taken to joining him there after church while her
husband collected cakes from Poitou's. In spite of her
exaggerated friendliness, there was something unpleasant
about Caro which Jay could not quite analyse. Perhaps her
willingness to speak ill of others. When Caro was there
174
Josephine kept her distance and Narcisse scrutinized his
seed catalogue with studied indifference. But she remained
one of the few people from the village who seemed happy to
answer questions. And she knew all the gossip.
'You should talk to Mireille,' she advised, sugaring her
coffee extravagantly. 'One of my dearest friends. Another
generation, of course. The things she's had to bear from that
woman. You can't imagine.' She blotted her lipstick carefully
on a napkin before taking the first sip. 'I'll have to
introduce you one day,' she said.
As it happened, no introduction was necessary. Mireille
Faizande sought him out herself a few days later, taking
him completely by surprise. It was warm. Jay had begun
work on his vegetable garden some days earlier, and now
that the major repairs to the house were completed, he was
spending a few hours a day in the garden. He hoped
somehow that physical exertion might give him the insight
he needed to finish his book. The radio was hanging from a
nail sticking out of the side of the house, and the oldies
station was playing. He had brought out a couple of bottles
of beer from the kitchen, which he had left in a bucket of
water to cool. Stripped to the waist, with an old straw hat
he had found in the house to keep the sun from his eyes, he
hadn't anticipated visitors.
He was hacking at a stubborn root when he noticed her
standing there. She must have been waiting for him to look
up.
'Oh, I'm sorry.' Jay straightened up, surprised. 'I didn't
see you.'
She was a large shapeless woman, who should have
looked motherly but did not. Huge breasts rolling, hips like
boulders, she looked curiously solid, the comfortable wadding
of fat petrified into something harder than flesh.
Beneath the brim of her straw hat her mouth turned
downwards, as if in perpetual grief.
'It's a long way out,' she said. 'I'd forgotten how long.' Her
local accent was very pronounced, and for a moment Jay
barely understood what she was saying. Behind him the
radio was playing "Here Comes the Sun', and he could see
Joe's shadow just behind her, the light gleaming off the bald
patch at his crown.
'Madame Faizande--'
'Let's not be formal, please. Call me Mireille. I'm not
disturbing you, hell?'
'No. Of course not. I was just about to call it a day,
anyhow.'
"Oh." Her eyes flicked briefly over the half-finished
vegetable patch. 'I didn't realize you were a gardener.'
Jay laughed.
'I'm not. Just an enthusiastic amateur.'
'You're not planning on maintaining the vineyard, hell?'
Her voice was sharp. He shook his head.
'I'm afraid that's probably beyond me.'
'Selling it, then?'
'I don't think so.'
Mireille nodded.
'Hell, I thought you might have come to some agreement,'
she said. 'With her.' The words were almost toneless.
Against the dark fabric of her skirt her arthritic hands
twisted and moved.
'With your daughter-in-law?'
Mireille nodded.
'She's always had her eye on this land,' she said. 'It's
higher above the marshes than her place. It's better
drained. It never floods in winter or dries up in summer.
It's good land.'
Jay looked at her uncertainly.
'I know there was a ... misunderstanding,' he said
carefully. 'I know Marise expected . . . perhaps if she spoke
to me we could arrange--'
'I will top any price she offers you for the land,' said
Mireille abruptly. 'It's bad enough that she has my son's
farm, hell, without having my father's land, too. My father's
farm,' she repeated in a louder voice, 'which should have
176
been my son's, where he should have raised his children. If
it hadn't been for her.'
Jay switched the radio off and reached for his shirt.
'I'm sorry,' he said. 'I didn't realize there was a family
connection.'
Mireille's eyes went almost tenderly to the facade of the
house.
'Don't apologize,' she said. 'It looks better now than it has
in years. New paintwork, new windows, new shutters.
After my mother died my father let it all go to ruin.
Everything but the land. The wine. And when my poor
Tony--' She broke off abruptly, her hands twisting. 'She
wouldn't live in the family house, hell, no. Madame wanted ' her own house, down by the river. Tony converted one of
| the barns for her. Madame wanted her flower garden, her
patio, her sewing room. Every time it seemed as if the house
was finished, Madame would think of something else. As if
she was stalling for time. And then, at last, he brought her
home.'
Mireille's face twisted. 'Home to me.'
| 'She's not from Lansquenet?' That would explain the
I physical differences. The light eyes, small features, exotic
| colouring and her accented but accurate English. ^, 'She is from Paris.' Mireille's tone conveyed all her
I mistrust and resentment of the capital. 'Tony met her there
, on holiday. He was nineteen.' She must not have been more
than a few years older, thought Jay. Twenty-three, maybe
twenty-four. Why had she married him? This farmer's boy
from the country? Mireille must have read the question in
his face.
'He looked older than that, Monsieur Jay. And he was
handsome, hell oui. Too much for his own good. An only
son. He could have had the farm, the land, everything. His
father never refused him a thing. Any girl from the village
would have thought herself lucky. But my Tony wanted
better. Deserved better.' She broke off with a shake of the
head.
'Enough, hell. I didn't come here to talk about Tony. I
wanted to know if you were planning to sell the land.'
'I'm not,' he told her. 'I like owning the land, even if I
don't have any serious plans for the vineyard. For a start,
I enjoy the privacy.'
Mireille seemed satisfied.
'You would tell me if you changed your mind, hell?'
'Of course. Look, you must be hot.' Now that she was
here Jay didn't want her to go without knowing more about
Tony and Marise. 'I have some wine in the cellar. Perhaps
you'd like to take a glass with me?'
Mireille looked at him for a moment and nodded.
'Perhaps a small glass,' she said. 'If only to be back in my
father's house again.'
'I hope you'll approve,' said Jay, leading her through the
doorway.
THERE WAS NOTHING OF WHICH TO DISAPPROVE. JAY HAD LEFT
the house much as it was, substituting modern plumbing
for the ancient waterworks, but keeping the porcelain
sinks, the woodstove, the pine cupboards, the scarred
old kitchen table as they were. He liked the feeling of
age in these things, the way each mark and scar told a
story. He liked the worn-shiny flagstones on the floor,
which he swept but did not attempt to cover with rugs,
and though he oiled and cleaned the wood, he made no
attempt to sand away the damage of years.
Mireille looked at everything with a critical eye.
'Well?' asked Jay, smiling.
'Hell,' replied Mireille. 'It could have been worse. I expected
plastic cupboards and a dishwasher.'
'I'll get the wine.'
The cellar was dark. The new electrics had not yet been
fitted, and the only lighting was a dim bulb on the end of a
bitten flex. Jay reached for a bottle from the short rack by
the stairs.
There were only five bottles left in the rack. In his haste
178
to offer hospitality he had forgotten this; a bottle of sweet
Sauternes was the last, finished the previous night as he
typed far into the early hours. But his mind was on other
things. He was thinking about Marise and Tony, and of
how he could ask Mireille for the conclusion of her tale. His
fingers tightened around my neck for a moment, then
moved on. He must have forgotten about the Specials.
He was certain there was another bottle of Sauternes in
there somewhere, maybe an extra he had overlooked. Beside
me the Specials moved imperceptibly, shifting, snugging,
rubbing up against each other like sleeping cats,
purring. The bottle next to me - its label read "Rosehip
'74' - began to rattle. A rich golden scent of hot sugar and ^syrup reached his nostrils. Inside the bottle I could hear ; soft laughter. Jay could not hear it, of course. All the same -shis hand stopped on the bottle's neck. I could hear it
1'beneath his fingers, whispering, cajoling, shifting its shape ;;and turning its label slyly downwards as it released that Secret scent. Sauternes, it whispered seductively, lovely
|yellow Sauternes from the other side of the river. Wine
po loosen an old woman's tongue, wine to cool a dry throat,
?f ine mellow oaaaoil the way down. Jay picked up the bottle
ith a small sound of satisfaction. ^ 'I knew I had one left.'
1^ The label was smeared, and in the dimness he did not try
"to read it. He carried it up the stairs and into the kitchen,
Opened, poured. A tiny chuckle emerged from the bottle's
throat as the wine filled the glass.
179
36
'MY FATHER USED TO MAKE THE BEST WINE IN THE REGION,' SAID
Mireille. 'When he died his brother Emile took over the
land. After that it should have been Tony's.'
'I know. I'm sorry.'
She shrugged.
'At least when he died it passed back to the male line,'
she said. "I would have hated to think it went to her, hell?'
Jay smiled, embarrassed. There seemed to be something
in her which went far beyond grief. Her eyes were flaming
with it. Her face was stone. He tried to imagine what it must
be like to lose an only son.
'I'm surprised she stayed,' he told her. 'Afterwards.'
Mireille gave a short laugh.
'Of course she stayed,' she said harshly. 'You don't know
her, hell? Stayed out of sheer spite and stubbornness. Knew
it was only a matter of time till my uncle died, then she'd
have the estate to herself, just as she'd always wanted. But
he knew what he was doing, hell. Kept her hanging on, the
old dog. Made her think she could have it cheap.' She
laughed again.
'But why should she want it? Why not leave the farm and
move back to Paris?'
Mireille shrugged.
'Who knows, hell? Maybe to spite me.' She sipped
curiously at her wine.
'What is this?'
180
"Sauternes. Oh. Damn!'
Jay couldn't understand how he had mistaken it. The
smudgy handwritten label. The yellow cord tied round the
neck. Rosehip, '74.
"Oh damn. I'm sorry. I must have picked up the wrong
bottle.'
He tried his own glass. The taste was incredibly sweet,
the texture syrupy and flecked with particles of sediment.
He turned to Mireille in dismay.
'I'll open another. I do apologize. I never meant to give
you this. I don't know how I could have mistaken the
bottles--'
'It's quite all right.' Mireille held on to her glass. 'I like it. It reminds me of something. I'm not sure what. A medicine
Tony had as a child, perhaps.' She drank again, and he \ caught the honeyed scent of the wine from her glass. i 'Please, modome. I really--' I Firmly: 'I like it.'
; Behind her, through the window, he could still see Joe jiunder the apple trees, the sun bright on his orange overalls. sJJoe waved as he saw him watching and gave him the thumbs
|up. Jay corked the bottle of rosehip wine again and took
lanother mouthful from his glass, reluctant somehow to gthrow it away. It still tasted terrible, but the scent was ^pungent and wonderful - waxy red berries bursting with
seeds, splitting their sides with juice into the pan by the
bucketful and Joe in his kitchen with the radio playing full
volume - 'Kung Fu Fighting' at Number One all that month pausing
occasionally to demonstrate some specious atemi
learned on his travels through the Orient, and the October
sunlight dazzling through the cracked panes . . .
It seemed to have a similar effect on Mireille, though her
palate was clearly more receptive to the wine's peculiar
flavour. She took the drink in small, curious sips, each time
pausing to savour the taste.
Dreamily: 'Hell, it tastes like . . . rosewater. No, roses. Red
roses.'
181
So he was not the only one to experience the special
effect of Joe's home-brewed wine. Jay watched the old
woman closely as she finished the glass, anxiously scanning
her expression for possible ill effects. There were
none. On the contrary, her face seemed to lose some of
its habitual fixed look, and she smiled.
'Hell, fancy that. Roses. I had my own rose garden once,
you know. Down there by the apple orchard. Don't know
what happened to it. Everything went to ruin when my
father died. Red roses, they were, with a scent, hellI I left
when I married Hugues, but I used to go there and pick my
roses every Sunday while they were in bloom. Then Hugues
and my father died in the same year - but that was the year
my Tony was born. A terrible year. But for my dear Tony.
The best summer for roses I ever remember. The house was
filled with them. Right to the eaves. Hell, but this is strong
wine. Makes me feel quite dizzy.'
Jay looked at her, concerned.
'I'll drive you home. You mustn't walk back all that way.
Not in this sun.' Mireille shook her head.
'I want to walk. I'm not so old that I'm afraid of a few
kilometres of road. Besides' - she jerked her head in the
direction of the other farm - 'I like to see my son's house
across the river. If I'm lucky I might catch sight of his
daughter. From a distance.'
Of course. Jay had almost forgotten there was a child.
Certainly he had never seen her, either in the fields or on
the way to school.
'My little Rosa. Seven years old. Haven't been close to her
since my son died. Not once.' Her mouth was beginning to
regain its customary sour tuck. Against her skirt her big
misshapen hands moved furiously. "She knows what that's
done to me. She knows. I'd have done anything for my son's
child. I could have bought back the farm, hell, I could have
given them money -- God knows I've no-one else to give it
to.' She struggled to stand up, using her hands on the table
top to hoist her bulk upwards.
'But she knows that for that she'd have to let me see the
child,' continued Mireille. 'I'd find out what's happening. If
they knew how she treated my Rosa; if I could only prove
what she's doing--'
'Please.' Jay steadied her with a hand under her elbow.
'Don't upset yourself. I'm sure Marise looks after Rosa as
well as she can.'
Mireille snapped him a contemptuous look. 'What do you
know about it, hell? Were you there? Were you perhaps
hiding behind the barn door when my son died?' Her voice
was brittle. Her arm felt like hot brick beneath his fingers.
'I'm sorry. I was only--'
Mireille shook her head effortfully. 'No, it is I who should
apologize. The sun and the strong wine, hell? It makes my
tongue run wild. And when I think of her my blood boils - hellI ' She smiled suddenly, and Jay caught an unexpected
glimpse of the charm and intelligence beneath the rough
exterior. 'Forget what I said, Monsieur Jay. And let me
invite you next time. Anyone can point you to my house.'
Her tone allowed no refusal.
'I'd be pleased to. You can't imagine how happy I am to
find someone who can bear my dreadful French.'
Mireille looked at him closely for a second, then smiled.
'You may be a foreigner, but you have the heart of a
Frenchman. My father's house is in good hands.'
Jay watched her go, picking her way stiffly along the
overgrown path towards the boundary, until she finally
vanished behind the screen of trees at the end of the
orchard. He wondered whether her roses still grew there.
He poured his glass of wine back into the bottle and
stoppered it once more. He washed the glasses and put away
the gardening tools in the shed. It was only then that he
realized. After days of inactivity, struggling to put together
the fugitive pieces of his unfinished novel, he could see it
again, bright as ever, like a lost coin shining in the dust.
He ran for the typewriter.
183
I RECKON YOU COULD START EM AGAIN IF YOU WANTED,' SAID ]OE,
eyeing the tangled rose hedge. 'It's been a while since they
were cut back, and some of em have run to wild, but you
could do it, with a bit of work.'
Joe always pretended indifference to flowers. He preferred
fruit trees, herbs and vegetables, things to be picked
and harvested, stored, dried, pickled, bottled, pulped, made
into wine. But there were always flowers in his garden all
the same. Planted as if on an afterthought: dahlias, poppies,
lavender, hollyhocks. Roses twined amongst the tomatoes.
Sweet peas amongst the beanpoles. Part of it was camouflage,
of course. Part of it a lure for bees. But the truth was
that Joe liked flowers and was reluctant even to pull weeds.
Jay would not have seen the rose garden if he had not
known where to look. The wall against which the roses had
once been trained had been partly knocked down, leaving
an irregular section of brick about fifteen feet long. Greenery
had shot up it, almost reaching the top, creating a dense
thicket in which he hardly recognized the roses. With the
secateurs he clipped a few briars free and revealed a single
large red rose almost touching the ground.
'Old rose,' remarked Joe, peering closer. 'Best kind for
cookin. You should try makin some rose-petal jam. Champion.'

Jay made with the secateurs again, pulling the clinging
tendrils away from the bush. He could see more rosebuds
now, tight and green away from the sun. The scent from the
open flower was light and earthy.
He had been writing half the night. Mireille had brought
enough of the story for ten pages, and it fitted easily with
the rest, as if it needed only this to carry on. Without this
central tale his book was no more than a collection of
anecdotes, but with Marise's story to bind them together it
might become a rich, absorbing novel. If only he knew
where it was leading.
In London he used to go to the gym to think. Here he made
for the garden. Garden work clears the mind. He remem-
184
bered those summers at Pog Hill Lane, cutting and pruning
under Joe's careful supervision, mixing resin for graftings,
preparing herbs for the sachets with Joe's big old mortar. It
felt right to do that here, too - red ribbons on the fruit trees to
frighten the birds, sachets of pungent herbs for parasites.
They'll need feeding, anall,' remarked Joe, leaning over
the roses. 'You want to get some of that rosehip wine onto
the roots. Do em no end of good. Then you'll want summat
for them aphids.'
Sure enough the plants were infested, the stems sticky
with insect life. Jay grinned at the persistence of Joe's
guiding presence.
i; 'Perhaps I'll just use a chemical spray this year,' he
Suggested.
t "You bloody won't, though,' exclaimed Joe. 'Buggerin
|teverything up with chemicals. That's not what you came
there for, is it?'
I" 'So what did I come here for?'
I Joe made a disgusted sound.
^ 'Tha knows nowt,' he said.
I 'Enough not to be caught out again,' Jay told him. 'You
jtod your magic bags. Your talismans. Your travels in the
JDrient. You really had me going, didn't you? You must have
|(»een splitting yourself laughing all the time.'
| Joe looked at him sternly over his half-moon glasses.
I- "I never laughed,' he said. 'An if you'd had any sense to
ilook further than the end o' yer nose—'
'Really?' Jay was getting annoyed now, tugging at the
loose brambles around the rose bed with unnecessary
violence. 'Then what did you leave for? Without even
saying goodbye? Why did I have to come back to Pog Hill
and find the house empty?'
'Oh, back to that again, are we?'
Joe settled against the apple tree and lit a Player's. The
radio lying in the long grass began to play 'I Feel Love', that
August's Number One.
'Cut that out,' Jay told him crossly.
185
Joe shrugged. The radio whined briefly and went off. 'If
only you'd planted them rosifeas, like I meant you to,' said
Joe.
'I needed a bit more than a few poxy seeds,' retorted Jay.
'You allus was hard work.' Joe flipped his cigarette butt
neatly over the hedge. 'I couldn't tell you I was going
because I didn't know mesself. I needed to get on the move
again, breathe a bit of sea air, see a bit of road. And besides,
I thought I'd left you provided for. I felled yer, if only you'd
planted them seeds. If only you'd had some faith.'
Jay had had enough. He turned to face him. For a
hallucination Joe was very real, even down to the grime
under his fingernails. For some reason that enraged him all
the more.
"I never asked you to come!' He was shouting. He felt
fifteen again, alone in Joe's cellar, with broken bottles and
jars all around. 'I never asked for your help! I never wanted
you here! Why are you here, anyway? Why don't you just
leave me alone!'
Joe waited patiently for him to finish. 'Ave you done?' he
said when Jay fell silent. 'Ave you bloody done?'
Jay began to cut away at the rose bushes again, not
looking at him. 'Get lost, Joe,' he said, almost inaudibly.
'I bloody might, anall,' said Joe. 'Think I've not got better
things to be doing? Better places to travel to? Think I've got allt time int bloody world, do yer?' His accent was thickening,
as it always did on the rare occasions Jay saw him
annoyed. Jay turned his back.
'Roighl,.' There was a heavy finality in the word, which
made him want to turn back, but he did not. 'Please
thyssen. I'll sithee.'
Jay forced himself to work at the bushes for several
minutes. He could hear nothing behind him but the singing
of birds and the shiush of The freshening wind across the
fields. Joe had gone. And this lime. Jay wasn't sure whether
he ever would see him again.
37
GOING INTO AGEN THE NEXT MORNING, JAY FOUND A NOTE FROM
his agent. In it Nick sounded plaintive and excited, the
words underscored heavily to emphasize their importance. 'Get in touch with me. It's urgent.' Jay phoned him from
Josephine's cafe. There was no phone at the farm, and he
had no plans to install one. Nick sounded very faint, like a
distant radio station. In the foreground Jay could hear cafe
sounds, the chinking of glasses, the shuffle of draughts
pieces, laughter, raised voices.
"Jay! Jay, I'm so glad to hear you. It's going crazy here. The
new book's great. I've sent it to half a dozen publishers
already. It's--'
'It isn't finished,' Jay pointed out.
That doesn't matter. It's going to be terrific. Obviously
the foreign climate is doing you good. Now what I urgently
need is a--'
'Wait.' Jay was beginning to feel disorientated. 'I'm not ready.'
Nick must have heard something in his voice, because he
slowed down then. 'Hey, take it easy. No-one's going to
pressure you. No-one even knows where you are.'
'That's fine by me,' Jay told him. 'I need some more lime
on my own. I'm happy here, pottering around the garden,
thinking about my book.'
He could hear Nick's mind clicking over the possibilities.
'OK. If that's what you want, I'll keep people away. I'll slow
187
things down. What do I tell Kerry? She's been on the phone
to me every other day, demanding to know what--'
'You definitely don't tell Kerry,' Jay told him urgently.
'She's the last person I want over here.'
'Oho,' said Nick.
'What do you mean?'
'Been doing a bit of cherchez la femme, have you?' He
sounded amused. 'Checking out the talent?'
'No.'
'You sure?'
'Positive.'
It was true, he thought. He had hardly thought about
Marise in weeks. Besides, the woman who first strode out
across the pages of his book was a far cry from the recluse
across the fields. It was her story he was interested in.
At Nick's insistence, he gave him Josephine's number in
case he needed to pass on an urgent message. Again, Nick
asked when he would be able to see the rest of the manuscript.
Jay couldn't tell him. He didn't even want to think
about it. He already felt uncomfortable that Nick had
shown it unfinished without his permission, even though
he was only doing his job. He put down the phone to find
that Josephine had already brought over a fresh pot of
coffee to his table. Roux and Poitou were sitting there with
Popotte, the postwoman. Jay knew a moment's complete
disorientation. London had never seemed so far away
before.
He came home as usual, across the fields. It had rained
during the night and the path was slippery, the hedges
dripping. He skirted the road and followed the river to the
border of Marise's land, enjoying the silence and the rain-
heavy trees. There was no sign of Marise in the vineyard.
Jay could see a small blur of smoke above the chimney of
the other farm, but that was the only movement. Even the
birds were silent. He was planning to cross the river at its
narrowest, shallowest point, where Marise's land joined
his. On either side there was a swell of banking topped by
trees; a screen of fruit trees on her side and a messy tangle
of hawthorn and elder on his. He noticed, as he passed, that
the red ribbons he had tied to the branches had gone blown
away by the wind again, most likely. He would have
to find a better way of securing them. The river flattened
and shallowed out at that point, and when it rained the water spread out, making islands of the clumps of reeds
and digging the red soil of the riverbank to make extravagant
shapes, which the sun baked hard as clay. There
were stepping stones at this crossing place, worn shiny by
the river and the passage of many feet, though only he
passed here now. At least, so he thought.
But when he reached the crossing place there was a girl
squatting precariously by the riverbank, poking a stick at
the silent water. At her side a small brown goat stared
placidly. The movement he made alerted the child, and she
stiffened. Eyes as bright and curious as the goat's fixed on
him.
For a moment they stared at each other, she frozen to the
spot, eyes wide; Jay transfixed with an overwhelming sense
of deJ'd vu.
It was Gilly.
She was wearing an orange pullover and green trousers
rolled up to her knees. Her discarded shoes lay a short
distance away in the grass. To her side lay a red rucksack,
its mouth gaping. The necklace of knotted red ribbons
around her neck solved the mystery of what had been
happening to Jay's talismans.
Looking at her more closely he could see now that she
wasn't Gilly after all. The curly hair was more chestnut
than red, and she was young, surely no more than eight or
nine, but all the same, the resemblance was more than
striking. She had the same vivid, freckled face, wide mouth, suspicious green eyes. She had the same way of looking, the
same knee cocked out at an angle. Not Gilly, no, but so like
her that it caught at the heart. Jay understood that this
must be Rosa.
189
She fixed him with a long unsmiling stare, then grabbed
for her shoes and fled. The goat shied nervously and
danced across towards Jay, stopping briefly to chew at
the straps of the abandoned rucksack. The girl moved as
quickly as the goat, using her hands to pull herself up the
slippery banking towards the fence.
'Wait!' Jay called after her. She ignored him. Quick as a
weasel she was up the banking, only turning then to poke
out her tongue at him in mute challenge.
'Wait!' Jay held out his hands to show her he meant no
harm. 'It's all right. Don't run away.'
The girl stared at him, whether in curiosity or hostility he
couldn't tell, her head slightly to one side, as if in concentration.
There was no way of knowing whether she had
understood.
'Hello, Rosa,' said Jay.
The child just stared.
'I'm Jay. I live over there.' He pointed to the farm, just
visible behind the trees.
She was not looking directly at him, he noticed, but at
something slightly to the left and down from where he was
standing. Her posture was tense, ready to pounce. Jay felt in
his pocket for something to give her - a sweet, perhaps, or a
biscuit - but all he could find was his lighter. It was a Bic,
made of cheap coloured plastic, and it shone in the sun.
'You can have this, if you like,' he suggested, holding it
out across the water. The child did not react. Maybe she
couldn't lip-read, he told himself.
On his side of the riverbank the goat bleated and butted
gently against his legs. Rosa glanced at him, then at the
goat, with a mixture of scorn and anxiety. He noticed her
eyes kept moving back to the discarded rucksack, abandoned
by the side of the river. He bent down and picked it
up. The goat transferred its interest from Jay's legs to the
sleeve of his shirt with unnerving rapidity. He held out
the rucksack.
'Is this yours?'
On the far bank the girl took a step forwards.
'It's all right.' }ay spoke slowly, in case she coul^
read, and smiled. 'Look. I'll bring it over.' He made
stepping stones, holding the heavy rucksack in hi
The goat watched him with a cynical expression. Ha
as he was with the rucksack his approach was cluij
looked up to smile at the girl, lost his footing on
slippery stone, skidded and almost fell. The goat,
was following him curiously across the stones, nudg
unexpectedly, and Jay took a blind step forwarc
landed squarely in the swollen river.
Rosa and the goat watched in silence. Both seeme
grinning.
'Damn.' Jay tried wading back to the bank. The:
more current than he had expected, and he moved
enly across the river stones, his boots skidding in th
The rucksack seemed to be the only dry thing on his ]
Rosa grinned again.
The expression transformed her. It was a cu:
sunny, sudden grin, her teeth very white in her d
face. She laughed almost soundlessly, stamping he
feet on the grass in a pantomime of mirth. Then she ^
again, picking up her shoes and clambering up the
towards the orchard. The goat followed her, ni
affectionately at a dangling shoelace. As they n
the top, Rosa turned and waved, though whetht
was a gesture of defiance or affection Jay could no
When she had gone he realized he still had her rue
On opening it he found inside a number of items
child could treasure: a jar of snails, some pieces of
river stones, string and a number of the red tali;
carefully tied together with their ribbons to form a
garland. Jay replaced all the treasures inside the ba;
he hung the rucksack up on a gatepost close to the he
the same place he had hung the dragon's head a fo
earlier. He was sure Rosa would find it.
191
I HAVEN'T SEEN HER FOR MONTHS,' SAID JOSEPHINE LATER IN THE
cafe. 'Marise doesn't send her to school any more. It's a pity.
A little girl like that needs friends.' Jay nodded.
'She used to go to the village playgroup,' remembered
Josephine. 'She must have been three, maybe a little younger.
She could still talk a little then, but I don't think she
could hear anything.'
'Oh?' Jay was curious. 'I thought she was born deaf.'
Josephine shook her head. 'No. It was some kind of
infection. It was the year Tony died. A bad winter. The
river flooded again, and half of Marise's fields were underwater
for three months. Plus there was that business with
the police . . .'
Jay looked at her enquiringly.
'Oh yes. Ever since Tony died Mireille has been trying to
pin the blame on Marise. There'd been some kind of a
quarrel, she said. Tony would never have killed himself.
She tried to make out there was another man, or something,
that together they'd conspired to murder Tony.' She shook
her head, frowning. 'Mireille was half out of her mind,' she
said. 'I think she would have said anything. Of course, it
never came to that. The police came round, asked some
questions, went away. I think they had the measure of
Mireille by then. But she spent the next three or four years
writing letters, campaigning, petitioning. Someone came
round once or twice, that's all. But nothing came of it.
She's been spreading rumours that Marise keeps the child
locked up in a back room, or something.'
'I don't think that's true.' The vivid, dappled child Jay
had seen gave no impression of having ever been shut up in
a back room.
Josephine shrugged. 'No, I don't think so either,' she said.
'But by that time the damage was done. Gangs of people
gathering at the gate of the farm and across the river. Do-
gooders, for the most part, harmless enough, but Marise
wasn't to know that, holed up in her house, with torches
burning outside and people letting off firecrackers and
throwing stones at the shutters.' She shook her
the time things settled down it was too late,' she e
'She was already convinced everyone was against
then when Rosa disappeared . . .'
Josephine poured a measure of cognac into hei
suppose she thought we were all in it. You can't h
in a village, and everybody knew that Mireille 1
staying with her. The child was three then, ar
thought they must have made it up between them s
and Rosa was there for a visit. Of course, Caro (
knew otherwise, and so did a few others, Joline E
was her best friend at the time, and Cussonnet tl
But the rest of us ... well, no-one asked. People
that after what had happened perhaps they ough
their own business. And no-one really knew N
course.'
'She doesn't make it easy,' observed Jay.
'Rosa was missing for about three days. Mir
tried taking her out of the house once. The first i
didn't last long. You could hear her screaming rij
to Les Marauds. Whatever else was wrong with
had a good pair of lungs. Nothing would make her
not sweets, or presents, or fussing, or shouting.
tried - Caro, Joline, Toinette - but still the child
stop screaming. Finally Mireille got worried and (
doctor. They put their heads together and took
specialist in Agen. It just wasn't normal for a chilc
to scream all the time. They thought she was distu]
perhaps she'd been mistreated in some way.' She
Then Marise came to pick up Rosa from the playg]
found that the doctor and Mireille had taken hei
instead. I've never seen anyone so angry. She folloi
on her moped, but all she could find out was tha
had taken Rosa to some kind of hospital. For tests,
I don't know what they were trying to prove.'
She shrugged again. 'If she'd been anyone else i
have counted on help from the village,' she said. 'B'
193
-- never says a word unless she has to, never smiles -- I
suppose people just minded their own business. That's all
it was really; there was no malice in it. She wanted to be left
alone, and that's what people did. Not that anyone really
knew where Mireille had taken Rosa - except maybe Caro
Clairmont. Oh, we heard all kinds of stories. But that was
afterwards. How Marise stamped into Cussonnet's surgery
with a shotgun and marched him out to the car. To hear
people talking you'd think half of Lansquenet saw that. It's
always the same, hellI All I can say is, I wasn't there. And
though Rosa was back at home before the end of that week,
we never saw her in the village again - not in the school, or
even at the firework display on the fourteenth of July, or the
chocolate festival at Easter.' Josephine drained her coffee
abruptly and wiped her hands on her apron. 'So that was
that,' she concluded with an air of finality. That was the
last we saw of Marise and Rosa. I see them from time to
time - perhaps once a month or so - on the road to Agen or
walking to Narcisse's nursery, or in the field across the
river. But that's all. She hasn't forgiven the village for what
happened after Tony's death, or for taking sides, or for
turning a blind eye when Rosa disappeared. You can't tell
her it was nothing to do with you; she won't believe it.'
Jay nodded. It was underslandable. 'It must be a lonely
life for them,' he said. Thinking of Maggie and Gilly, of the
way they always managed to make friends wherever they went, trading and fixing and doing odd jobs to make ends
meet, always on the move, fielding insults and prejudice
with the same cheery defiance. How different was this
dour, suspicious woman from Joe's friends of Nether Edge.
And yet the child looked so very like Gilly. He checked for
the rucksack on his way back to the farm, but, as he
expected, il had already been removed. Only the dragon's
hi'rid remained, still lolling its long crepe tongue, now
embellished with ;i garland of fluttering red ribbons, which
sat jauntily on the thick green mane. Coming closer, |ay
noticed that the stump of a clay pipe had been carefully
positioned between the dragon's teeth, from which a dandelion
clock protruded. And as he passed, hiding a grin, he
was almost sure he saw something move in the hedge next
to him, a brief flash of orange under the new green, and
heard the impudent bleating of a goat in the distance.
195
LATER, OVER HIS FAVOURITE GRAND CREME IN THE CAFE DES
Marauds, he was listening with half an ear to Josephine
as she told him the story of the village's first chocolate
festival and the resistance with which it had been met
by the church. The coffee was good, sprinkled with
shavings of dark chocolate and with a cinnamon biscuit
by the side of the cup. Narcisse was sitting opposite
with his usual seed catalogue and a cofe-cassis. In the
III afternoons the place was busier, but Jay noticed that
the clientele still consisted mainly of old men, playing
chess or cards and talking in their low rapid patois. In
the evening it would be full of workers back from the
fields and the farms. He wondered where the young
people went at night.
'Not many young people stay here,' Josephine explained.
There isn't the work, unless you want to go into farming.
And most of the farms have been divided so often between
all the family's sons that there isn't much of a livelihood left
for anyone.'
'Always the sons,' said Jay. 'Never the daughters.'
'There aren't many women who'd want to run a farm in
Lansquenet,' said Josephine, shrugging. 'And some of the
growers and distributors don't like the idea of working for
a woman.'
Jay gave a short laugh.
Josephine looked at him. 'You don't believe that?'
He shook his head. 'It's hard for me to understand,' he
explained. 'In London--'
'This isn't London.' Josephine seemed amused. 'People
hold close to their traditions here. The church. The family.
The land. That's why so many of the young people leave.
They want what they read about in their magazines. They
want the cities, cars, clubs, shops. But there are always
some who stay. And some who come back.'
She poured another cafe-creme and smiled. 'There was a
time when I would have given anything to get out of
Lansquenet,' she said. 'Once I even set off. Packed my bags
and left home.'
'What happened?'
'I stopped on the way for a cup of hot chocolate.' She
laughed. "And then I realized I couldn't leave. I'd never
really wanted to in the first place.' She paused to pick up
some empty glasses from a nearby table. 'When you've lived
here long enough you'll understand. After a time, people
find it hard to leave a place like Lansquenet. It isn't just a
village. The houses aren't just places to live. Everything
belongs to everybody. Everyone belongs to everyone else.
Even a single person can make a difference.'
He nodded. It was what had first attracted him to Pog
Hill Lane. The comings and goings. The conversations over
the wall. The exchange of recipes, of baskets of fruit and
bottles of wine. The constant presence of other people.
While Joe was still there Pog Hill Lane stayed alive. Everything
died with his departure. Suddenly he envied Josephine
her life, her friends, her view over Les Marauds. Her
memories.
'What about me?' he wondered. 'Will I make a difference?'

'Of course.'
He hadn't realized he had spoken aloud.
'Everyone knows about you, Jay. Everyone asks me about
you. It takes a little time for someone to be accepted here.
People need to know if you're going to stay. They don't
197
want to give themselves to someone who won't stay. And
some of them are afraid.'
'Of what?'
'Change. It may seem ridiculous to you, but most of us
like the village the way it is. We don't want to be like
Montauban or Le Pinot. We don't want tourists passing
through, buying up the houses at high prices and leaving
the place dead in the winter. Tourists are like a plague of
wasps. They get everywhere. They eat everything. They'd
clean us out in a year. There'd be nothing of us left but
guest houses and games arcades. Lansquenet - the real Lansquenet -- would disappear.'
She shook her head. 'People are watching you, Jay. They
see you so friendly with Caro and Georges Clairmont, and
they think perhaps you and they . . .' She hesitated. Then
they see Mireille Faizande going to visit you, and they think
how perhaps you might be planning to buy the other farm,
next year, when the lease expires.'
'Marise's farm? Why should I want to do that?' he asked,
curious.
'Whoever owns it controls all the land down to the river.
The fast road to Toulouse is only a few kilometres away.
Easy enough to develop. To build. It's happened before, in
other places.'
'Not here. Not me.' Jay looked at her evenly. 'I'm here to
write, that's all. To finish my book. That's all I'm interested
in.'
Josephine nodded, satisfied. 'I know. But you were
asking so many questions about her. I thought perhaps--'

'No!'
Narcisse shot him a curious glance from behind his seed
catalogue.
Lowering his voice quickly: 'Look. I'm a writer. I'm
interested in what goes on. I like stories. That's all.'
Josephine poured another coffee and sprinkled hazelnut
sugar on the froth.
198
'It's the truth,' insisted Jay. 'I'm not here to make any
changes. I like the place the way it is.'
Josephine looked at him for a moment, then nodded,
seemingly satisfied. 'All right, Monsieur Jay,' she said,
smiling. 'I'll tell them you're OK.'
They toasted her decision in hazelnut coffee.
199
SINCE THAT TIME AT THE STREAM JAY HAD SEEN ROSA ONLY
from a distance. A few times he thought he had caught
her watching from behind the hedge, and once he was sure
he heard quiet footfalls from behind an angle of the house,
and, of course, he had seen her leavings. The modifications to
the dragon head, for instance. The little garlands of flowers
and leaves and feathers left on gateposts and fences to
replace the red ribbons she had stolen. Once or twice a
drawing — a house, a garden, stick-children playing under
improbably purple trees — tacked to a stump, the paper
already curling and fading in the sunlight. There was no
way of telling whether these things were offerings, toys or
some way of taunting him. She was as elusive as her mother,
but as curious as her goat, and their meeting must have
convinced her that Jay was harmless. Once, he saw them
together. Marise was working behind the hedge. For a time
Jay was able to see her face. Again he realized how far this
woman differed from the heroine of his book. He had time to
notice the fine arch of her brows, the thin but graceful line of
her mouth, the sharp angle of cheekbone, barely grazed with
colour by the sun. Given the right circumstances she could be
beautiful. Not round and pretty-plump like Popotte, or brown
and sensual like the young girls of the village. No, hers was a
grave, pale, northern beauty, small-featured beneath the
blunt red hair. Something moved behind her. She sprang
to her feet, whipping round as she did, and in that instant he
had time to glimpse another change. She was quicker than a
cat, turning defensively - not towards him, but away though
even her speed didn't hide that look ... of what?
Fear?
It lasted less than a second. Rosa leaped at her, crowing,
arms outstretched, face split in a wide, delighted grin.
Another twist. Jay had imagined the child intimidated,
perhaps hiding amongst the vines as he hid from Zeth in
the old Nether Edge days, but that look held nothing but
adoration. He watched as she climbed Marise like a tree,
legs wrapped around her mother's waist, arms locked
around her neck. For a moment Marise held her and he
saw their profiles close together. Rosa's hands moved
softly, close to her mother's face, signing in the language
of the deaf. Marise snubbed Rosa's nose gently against
hers. Her face was illuminated more sweetly than he could
ever have imagined. Suddenly he felt ashamed at having
believed, or half believed, Mireille's suggestion that Marise
might be mistreating the child. Their love was something
which coloured the air between them like sunlight. The
interchange between them was completely, perfectly silent.
Marise put Rosa down and signed to her. Jay had never
watched anyone signing before, and he was struck by the
grace and animation of the movements, of the facial expressions.
Rosa signed back, insistently. His feeling of
intrusion increased. The gestures were too quick for him
to guess at the subject of the conversation. They were in
their circle of privacy. Their conversation was the most
intimate thing Jay had ever witnessed.
Marise laughed silently, like her daughter. The expression
illuminated her like sunlight through glass. Rosa
rubbed her stomach as she laughed and stamped her feet.
They held each other as they communicated, as if every part
of the body were a part of their talk, as if, instead of losing a
sense, they had gained something more.
Since then he thought about them both more often. It had
gone far beyond his curiosity for her story and into something he could not define. Josephine teased him about it.
Narcisse refrained entirely from comment, but there was a
knowing look in his eye when Jay talked about her. He did
so too often. He could not stop himself. Mireille Faizande
was the only person he knew who would talk about her
interminably. Jay had been to see her several times, but
could not bring himself to mention the intimate scene he
witnessed between mother and daughter. When he tried to
hint at a warmer relationship between them than she had
portrayed, Mireille turned on him in scorn.
'What do you know about it?' she snapped. 'How can you
possibly know what she's like?' Her eyes went to the fresh
vase of roses by the table. There was a framed photograph
beside it, showing a laughing boy sitting on a motorbike.
Tony.
'She doesn't want her,' she said in a lower voice. 'Just as
she didn't want my son.' Her eyes were hard. 'She took my
son as she takes everything. To spoil. To play with. That's
what my Rosa is to her now. Something to play with, to
discard when she's had enough.' Her hands worked. "It's
her fault if the child's deaf,' she said. 'Tony was perfect. It
couldn't have come from his side of the family. She's
vicious. She spoils everything she touches.'
She glanced again at the photograph by the side of the
vase.
'She'd been deceiving him all the time, you know. There
was another man all along. A man from the hospital.'
Jay remembered someone saying something about a
hospital. A nerve clinic in Paris.
'Was she ill?' he enquired.
Mireille made a scornful sound. '111? That's what Tony
said. Said she needed protecting. My Tony was a rock to
her, young as he was. Hell, he was strong, clear. He
imagined everyone was as clear and honest as he was.'
She glanced again at the roses. 'You've been busy,' she
commented without warmth. 'You've brought my poor rose
bushes back from the dead.'
The phrase hung between them like sm(
'I tried to feel sorry for her,' said Mirei
sake. But even then it wasn't easy. She'd ,
house, wouldn't talk to anyone, not even to f< no reason, rages. Terrible rages, screaming
things. Sometimes she'd hurt herself with
anything which came to hand. We had to h
which could be dangerous.'
'How long were they married?'
She shrugged. 'Less than a year. He cq
longer. He was twenty-one when he died.' I
Her hands moved again, clenching and ui|
'I can't stop thinking about it,' she said fine
about both of them. He must have followed
hospital. Settled somewhere close, where the Hell , I can't stop thinking that during all that ^ was married to Tony, when she was carrying
bitch was laughing at him. Both of them lai boy.' She glared at me. 'You think about tha
you go talking about things you don't und
think about what that did to my boy.'
'I'm sorry. If you'd prefer not to talk about
Mireille snorted. 'It's other people who'd fl
talk about it,' she said sourly. 'Prefer not to th hell , prefer to think it's only crazy old Mird
Mireille who's never been the same since hei himself. So much easier to mind your own bus
her get on with her life, and never mind that s) son and ruined him just because she could, h^ she's stolen my Rosa.' Her voice cracked, whethe or grief he could not tell. Then her face smool became almost smug with satisfaction.
'But I'll show her,' she went on. 'Come next'
when she needs a roof over her head. When the
out. She'll have to come to me then if she wants to hell ? And she does want to stay.' Her face was sly c
'Why should she?' It seemed that whomever r
zna
came back to this. 'Why should she want to stay here? She
has no friends. There's no-one for her here. If she wants to
get away from Lansquenet, how can anyone stop her?'
Mireille laughed. 'Let her want,' she said shortly. 'She
needs me. She knows why.'
Mireille refused to explain her final statement, and when
Jay visited her again he found her guarded and uncommunicative.
He understood that one of them had overstepped
the mark with the other, and he tried to be more cautious in
future, wooing her with roses. She accepted the gifts
cheerfully enough, but made no further move to confide
in him. He had to be content with what information he had
already gleaned.
What fascinated him most about Marise was the conflicting
views of her in the village. Everyone had an opinion,
though no-one, except Mireille, seemed any more informed
than the others. To Caro Clairmont she was a miserly
recluse. To Mireille, a faithless wife who had deliberately
taken advantage of a young man's innocence. To Josephine,
a brave woman raising a child alone. To Narcisse, a shrewd
businesswoman with a right to privacy. Roux, who had
worked her vendanges every year when he was travelling
on the river, remembered her as a quiet, polite woman who
carried her baby in a sling on her back, even when she was
working in the fields, who brought him a cooler of beer
when it was hot, who paid cash.
'Some people are suspicious of us, hell,' he said with a
grin. 'Travellers on the river, always on the move. They
imagine all kinds of things. They lock up their valuables.
They watch their daughters. Or they try too hard. They
smile too often. They slap you on the back and call you mon
pote. She wasn't like that. She always called me monsieur.
She didn't say much. It was business between us, man to
man.' He shrugged and drained his can of Stella.
Everyone he spoke to had their own image of her. Popotte
remembered a morning just after the funeral, when Marise
turned up outside Mireille's house with a suitcase and the
baby in a carrier. Popotte was delivering letters and arrived
at the house just as Marise was knocking at the door.
'Mireille opened it and fairly dragged Marise inside,' she
recalled. The baby was asleep in the carrier, but the
movement woke her and she started to scream. Mireille
grabbed the letters from my hand and slammed the door
behind them, but I could hear their voices, even through the
door, and the baby screaming and screaming.' She shook
her head. 'I think Marise was planning to leave that
morning — she looked all ready and packed to go — but
Mireille talked her out of it somehow. I know that after that
she hardly came into the village at all. Perhaps she was
afraid of what people were saying.'
The rumours began soon after. Everyone had a story. She
had an uncanny ability to arouse curiosity, hostility, envy,
rage.
Lucien Merle believed that her refusal to give up the
uncultivated marshland by the river had blocked his plans
for redevelopment.
'We could have made something of that land,' he repeated
bitterly. "There's no future in farming any more. The future's
in tourism.' He took a long drink of his diaboJo-menthe and
shook his head. 'Look at Le Pinot. One man was all it took to ij
begin the change. One man with vision.' He sighed. 'I bet that
man's a millionnaire by now,' he said mournfully.
Jay tried to sift through what he had heard. In some ways
he felt he had gained insights into the mystery of Marise
d'Api, but in others he was as ignorant as he had been from
the start. None of the reports quite tallied with what he had
seen. Marise had too many faces, her substance slipping
away like smoke whenever he thought he had captured it.
And no-one had yet mentioned what he saw in her that day,
that fierce look of love for her child. And that moment of
fear, the look of a wild animal which will do anything,
including kill, to protect itself and its young.
Fear? What could there be for her to fear in Lansquenet?
He wished he knew.
205
Pog Hill, Summer 1977
IT WAS AUGUST WHEN EVERYTHING SOURED FOR GOOD. THE TIME
of the wasps' nests, the den at Nether Edge, Elvis. Then the
Bread Baron wrote to say that he and Candide were getting
married, and for a while the papers were full of them both,
snapped getting into a limo on the beachfront at Cannes, at
a movie premiere, at a club in the Bahamas, on his yacht.
Jay's mother gathered these articles with a collector's zeal
and read and reread them, insatiably relishing Candide's
hair, Candide's dresses. His grandparents took this badly,
mothering his mother even more than before, and treating
Jay with cool indifference, as if his father's genes were a
time bomb inside him which might at any moment explode.
The grey weather grew hotter, mulchy and dull. There
was often rain, but it was warm and unrefreshing. Joe
worked cheerlessly in his allotment; the fruit was spoiled
that year, rotting on the branches and green from lack of
sunlight.
'Might as well not bother, lad,' he would mutter, fingering
the blackened stem of a pear or apple. 'Might as well just
bloody jack it in this year.'
Gilly's mother did well enough out of it, though; she'd
somehow got hold of a whole truckload of those transpar-
ent bell-shaped umbrellas which were so popular then and
was selling them at a mighty profit in the market. Gilly
reckoned they could live until December on the takings. The
thought merely accentuated Jay's sense' of doom. It was
only days to the end of August, and the return to school
was barely a week away. Gilly would move on in the
autumn - Maggie was talking about moving south to a
commune she'd heard of near Abingdon, and there was no
certainty she would ever come back. Jay felt prickly inside,
fey one moment and the next blackly paranoid, saying the
opposite of what he meant, reading mockery in everything
|fcthat was said to him. He quarrelled repeatedly with Gilly
? about nothing. They made up, cautiously and incompletely,
^circling each other like wary animals, their intimacy
^broken. A sense of doom coloured everything.
t On the last day of August he went to Joe's house alone,
|j;|aut the old man seemed distant, preoccupied. Although it
triwas raining, he did not invite Jay in, but stood with him by
|t;the door in an oddly formal manner. Jay noticed that he had
H?tpiled up a number of old crates by the back wall, and his
§<gaze kept moving towards these, as if he were eager to get
y .'hack to some job he had abandoned. Jay felt a sudden surge
| •6f anger. He deserved better than that, he thought. He
g thought Joe respected him. He ran down to Nether Edge
& with his cheeks flaring. He left his bike close to Joe's house
v:"— after the incident at the railway bridge that hiding place
^ was no longer secure - and walked down the abandoned
f railway track from Pog Hill, cutting down into the Edge and
; towards the river. He wasn't expecting to see Gilly - they
had made no plans to meet - and yet Jay was unsurprised
; .when he caught sight of her by the riverbank, her hair
| scrawling down towards the water, a long stick in one
; hand. She was on her knees, poking the stick at something
' in the water, and he got quite close to her before she looked
up.
Her face was pinkish and mottled, as if she'd been crying.
Jay rejected the thought almost instantly. Gilly never cried.
207
"Oh, it's you/she said indifferently.
Jay said nothing. He dug his hands into his pockets and
tried a smile, which felt stupid on his face. Gilly didn't smile
back.
'What's that?' He nodded at the thing in the water.
'Nothing.' She slung the stick into the current and it
washed away. The water was scummy, brownish. Gilly's
hair was starred with droplets, which clung to her curls
like burrs.
'Bloody rain.'
Jay would have liked to say something then, something
which might have made it all right between them. But the
sky felt heavy over them, and the smell of smoke and doom
was overwhelming, like an omen. Suddenly Jay was certain
he would never see Gilly again.
'Shall we go and have a look at the dump?' he suggested.
'I thought I saw some good new stuff there on the way
down. Magazines and stuff. You know.'
Gilly shrugged. 'Nah.'
'Good wasping weather.' It was a last, desperate ploy. He
had never known Gilly to refuse an offer of wasping.
Wasps are sleepy in wet weather, allowing easier, safer
access to the nest. 'Do you want to come and look for nests?
I've seen a place down by the bridge that might have a
couple.'
Again, the shrug. Gilly shook her damp curls. 'I'm not
that bothered.'
The silence was longer still this time, spinning out endlessly,
unravelling.
'Maggie's moving on next week,' said Gilly at last. 'We're
going to some bloody commune in Oxfordshire. She's got a
job waiting for her there, she says.'
'Oh.'
He had expected it, of course. This was nothing new. So
why then did his heart wrench when she said it? Her face
was turned towards the water, studiously watching something
on the brown surface. Jay's fists clenched in his
208
face and the crazy silver scrawl of the rain fanning down
from the hot summer sky.
'Fuck it then,' Jay repeated fiercely, wanting her to hear.
But she never turned, and at last it was he who turned
away and began to walk, feeling angry and somehow
deflated, towards the bridge.
He often wondered what might have happened if he had
gone back, or if she had looked up just at that moment.
What might have been saved or averted. Certainly the
events at Pog Hill might have been very different. Perhaps
he could even have said goodbye to Joe. As it was, though
he did not know it at the time, he would not see either of
them again.
210
'Oh, it's you,' she said indifferently.
Jay said nothing. He dug his hands into his pockets and
tried a smile, which felt stupid on his face. Gilly didn't smile
back.
'What's that?' He nodded at the thing in the water.
'Nothing.' She slung the stick into the current and it
washed away. The water was scummy, brownish. Gilly's
hair was starred with droplets, which clung to her curls like burrs.
'Bloody rain.'
Jay would have liked to say something then, something
which might have made it all right between them. But the
sky felt heavy over them, and the smell of smoke and doom
was overwhelming, like an omen. Suddenly Jay was certain
he would never see Gilly again.
'Shall we go and have a look at the dump?' he suggested.
'I thought I saw some good new stuff there on the way
down. Magazines and stuff. You know.'
Gilly shrugged. 'Nah.'
'Good wasping weather.' It was a last, desperate ploy. He
had never known Gilly to refuse an offer of wasping.
Wasps are sleepy in wet weather, allowing easier, safer
access to the nest. 'Do you want to come and look for nests?
I've seen a place down by the bridge that might have a
couple.'
Again, the shrug. Gilly shook her damp curls. 'I'm not
that bothered.'
The silence was longer still this time, spinning out endlessly,
unravelling.
'Maggie's moving on next week,' said Gilly at last. 'We're
going to some bloody commune in Oxfordshire. She's got a
job waiting for her there, she says.'
Oh.'
He had expected it, of course. This was nothing new. So
why then did his heart wrench when she said it? Her face
was turned towards the water, studiously watching something
on the brown surface. Jay's fists clenched in his
208
»ockets. As they did he felt something brush against his
land. Joe's talisman. It felt greasy, smooth with much
landling. He had become so accustomed to carrying it with him that he had forgotten it was even there. He
quatted next to her. He could smell the river, a sour,
aetallic smell, like pennies soaked in ammonia.
'Are you coming back?' he asked.
'Nah.'
There must have been something interesting on the
urface of the water. Her eyes refused to meet his.
'Don't think so. Maggie says I need to go to a proper
chool now. Don't need all this moving about.'
Again that flare of hateful, irrational rage. Jay looked at
be water in loathing. Suddenly he wanted to hurt someone ^Gilly, himself - and he stood up abruptly.
ta'Shit.' It was the worst word he knew. His mouth felt
Hnnb. His heart, too. He kicked viciously at the river's edge
|ad a clod of earth and grass tore free and plunked into the
later. Gilly didn't look at him.
||He let his temper run freely then, kicking again at the
(Silking so that earth and grass showered into the water.
||rae of it flew at Gilly, too, spattering her jeans and her
iSttbroidered shirt.
SS^Stop it, for crying out loud,' said Gilly flatly. 'Stop being
|>:sodding childish.'
sSIt was true, he thought, he was being childish, and to
l^ar it from her enraged him. That she should accept their
Isparation with such ease, such indifference. Something
lawned blackly inside Jay's head, yawned and grimaced. ^Fuck it, then,' he said. 'I'm off.'
Feeling slightly dizzy he turned and walked off up the ranking towards the canal towpath, sure she'd call him
>ack. Ten paces. Twelve. He reached the towpath, not
aoking back, knowing she was watching. He passed the
rees, where she couldn't see him, and turned, but Gilly was ;till sitting where she'd been before, not watching, not
ollowing, just looking down into the water, hair over her
Lansquenet, May 1999
I^HAD NOT SEEN JOE SINCE THE DAY AFTER MIREILLE'S VISIT,
Iffirst Jay felt relieved by his absence, then as days passed
tigrew uneasy. He tried to will the old man to appear, but
life-remained stubbornly absent, as if his appearances were
®t a matter of Jay's choosing. His leaving left a strangeness
|hind, a bereavement. At any moment Jay expected him to
|:there, in the garden, looking over the vegetable patch; in
|e kitchen, lifting the lid of a pan to find out what was
poking. He was aware of Joe's absence as he sat at his
Ipewriter, of the Joe-shaped hole in the centre of things, of
|e fact that, try as he might, he could not seem to get the
adio to pick up the oldies station which Joe found with
Bch everyday ease. Worse, his new book had no life
Without Joe. He no longer felt like writing. He wanted a
link, but drunkenness merely accentuated his feeling of
fss.
He told himself that this was ridiculous. He could not
uss what was never there in the first place. But still he
Ould not shake off the feeling of something terribly lost,
yribly wrong.
If only you'd had some faith.
That was really the problem, wasn't it? Faith. The old Jay
would have had no hesitation. He believed everything.
Somehow he knew he had to get back to the old Jay, to
finish what they had left unfinished, Joe and he, in the
summer of '77. If only he knew how. He would do anything,
he promised himself. Anything at all.
Finally, he brought out the last of Joe's rosehip wine. The
bottle was dusty from its time in the cellar, the cord at its
neck straw-coloured with age. Its contents were silent,
waiting. Feeling self-conscious, but at the same time oddly
•excited, Jay poured a glassful and raised it to his lips.
'I'm sorry, old man. Friends, OK?'
He waited for Joe to come.
He waited until dark.
In the cellar, laughter.
212
42
JOSEPHINE MUST HAVE SPREAD THE WORD ABOUT HIM AT LAST. JAY
Hound people becoming more friendly. Many of them teeeted him as he passed, and Poitou in the bakery, who
l(r&d spoken to him only with a shopkeeper's politeness
S|ifore, now asked about his book and gave him advice on
||h.atto buy.
llsS'The pain aux noix is good today. Monsieur Jay. Try it
|tth goat's cheese and a few olives. Leave the olives and the sEfiese on a sunny window-ledge for an hour before you eat
lem to release the flavours.' He kissed his fingertips. Jihat's something you won't find in London.'
IteiE'oitou 'had been a baker in Lansquenet for twenty-five ^e^rs. He had rheumatism in his fingers, but claimed that ^feitdling the dough kept them supple. Jay promised to
||aake him a grain pack which would help - another trick
||t;Joe's. Strange, how easily it all came back. With Poitou's
Hlpproval came more introductions - Guillaume the ex-
§S|Ehoolteacher, Darien who taught the infants' class, RoJSStoilphe
the minibus driver who took the children to school
|ahd brought them home every day, Nenette who was a tturse in the nearby old people's home, Briancon who kept ^Bees at the other side of Les Marauds - as if they were
merely waiting for the all-clear to indulge their curiosity.
Now they were all questions. What did Jay do in London?
Was he married? No, but surely someone, hell? No? Astonishment.
Now suspicions had been allayed they were in213
satiably curious, broaching the most personal of topics
with the same innocent interest. What was his last book?
How much exactly did an English writer earn? Had he been
on television? And America? Had he seen America? Sighs
of rapture over the reply. This information would be eagerly
disseminated across the village over cups of coffee and
bottles of blonde, whispered in shops, passed from mouth
to mouth and elaborated upon each time in the telling.
Gossip was currency in Lansquenet. More questions
followed, robbed of offence by their ingenuousness. And
I? Am I in your book? And I? And I? At first Jay hesitated.
People don't always respond well to the idea that they have
been observed, their features borrowed, their mannerisms
copied. Some expect payment. Others are insulted by the
portrayal. But here it was different. Suddenly everyone had
a story to tell. You can put it in your book, they told him.
Some even wrote them down - on scraps of notepaper,
wrapping paper, once on the back of a packet of seeds.
Many of these people, especially the older ones, rarely
picked up a book themselves. Some, like Narcisse, had
difficulty reading at all. But still the respect for books was
immense. Joe was the same, his miner's background having
taught him from an early age that reading was a waste of
time, hiding his National Geographies under the bed, but
secretly delighted by the stories Jay read to him, nodding
his head as he listened, unsmiling. And though Jay never
saw him read more than CuJpeper's Herbal and the odd
magazine, he would occasionally come out with a quote or a
literary reference which could only have come from extensive,
if secret, study. Joe liked poetry in the same way he
liked flowers, hiding his affection almost shamefacedly
beneath a semblance of disinterest. But his garden betrayed
him. Pansies stared up from the edges of cold frames. Wild
roses intertwined with runner beans. Lansquenet was like
Joe in this. There was a thick vein of romance running
through its practicality. Jay found that almost overnight he
had become someone new to cherish, to shake heads over in
214
^bewilderment - the English writer, dingue mais sympa,
^hehf - someone who provoked laughter and awe in equal
? doses. Lansquenet's holy fool. For the moment he could do
;hao wrong. There were no more cries of Rosbif! from the
^schoolchildren. And the presents. He was overwhelmed
^ With presents. A jar of comb honey from Briancon, with an
^anecdote about his younger sister and how she once tried to
Ilitprepare a rabbit - 'after over an hour in the kitchen she
j|ij|ung it out of the doorway shouting, "Take it back! I can't
||piick the damn thing!" ' and a note: 'You can use it in your
^Ook.' A cake from Popotte, carried carefully in her postbag
fcith the letters and balanced in her bicycle basket for the
l^lurney. An unexpected gift of seed potatoes from Narcisse,
1th mumbled instructions to plant them by the sunny side
Istbe house. Any offer of payment would have caused
Hence. Jay tried to repay this stream of small kindnesses
llybuying drinks in the Cafe des Marauds, but found he
||| .bought fewer rounds than anyone else.
|i|||t*s all .right,' explained Josephine when he mentioned
Hfc to her. 'It's how people are here. They need a little time
|get used to you. Then . . .' She grinned. Jay was carrying a
Ispping bag filled with gifts which people left for him
t;der Josephine's bar - cakes, biscuits, bottles of wine, a
tsjiion-cover from Denise Poitou, a terrine from Toinette
BBrnaiild. She looked at the basket and her grin widened. 'I
ynk we can say you've been accepted, don't you?'
llThere was one exception to this new-found welcome.
ll.rise d'Api remained as remote as ever. It was three
leeks since he had last tried to speak to her. He had seen
|iif since, but only from a distance, twice in the tractor and
||§|ace on foot, always at work in the field. Of the daughter,
lathing. Jay told himself that his feeling of disappointment
H^as absurd. From what he had heard Marise was hardly
IgllQing to be affected by what happened in the village.
Ip: "'He wrote back to Nick with another fifty pages of the
l^ew manuscript. Since then progress had been slower. Part
|iof this was to do with the garden. There was a great deal of
I11
I'- . 215
work to be done there, and now that summer was in sight
the weeds had begun to take over. Joe was right. He would
need to sort it out while it was still possible. There were
plenty of plants there worth saving, if he could only clear
the mess. There was a square of herbs about twenty feet
across, with the remains of a tiny thyme hedge around it.
Three rows each of potatoes, turnips, globe artichokes,
carrots and what might be celeriac. Jay seeded marigolds
between the rows of potatoes to eliminate beetles, and
lemon balm around the carrots for the slugs. But he needed
to consider the winter's vegetables and the summer's
salads. He went to Narcisse's nursery for seeds and seedlings:
sprouting broccoli for September, rocket and frisee
for July and August. In the cold frame he had made from
Clairmont's doors he had already seeded some baby vegetables
- Little Gem lettuces and fingerling carrots and
parsnips -- which might be ready in a month or so. Joe was
right, the land here was good. The soil was a rich russet, at
the same time moist and lighter than across the river. There
were fewer stones, too. The ones he found he slung onto
what would become his rockery. He had almost finished
restoring the rose garden. Pinned into place against the old
wall the roses had begun to swell and bud; a cascade of
half-opened flowers dripping against the pinkish brick to
release their winey scent. They were almost free of aphids
now. Joe's old recipe - lavender, lemon balm and cloves
stitched into red flannel sachets and tied onto the stems
just above the soil -- had worked its usual magic. Every
Sunday or so he would pick a bunch of the most open
blooms and take them to Mireille Faizande's house in the
Place Saint-Antoine after the service.
Jay was not expected to attend Mass. En tout cas, tous Jes
Anglais sont paiens. The term was used with affection. Not
so with La Pai'enne across the river. Even the old men on the
cafe's terrasse viewed her with suspicion. Perhaps because
she was a woman alone. When Jay asked outright, he found
he was politely stonewalled. Mireille looked at the roses for
216
: a long time. Lifting them to her face, she breathed the scent.
Her arthritic hands, oddly delicate in comparison with her
bulky body, touched the petals gently.
'Thank you.' She gave a formal little nod. "My lovely
roses. I'll put them into water. Come in, and I'll make some
tea.'
Her house was clean and airy, with the whitewashed
, walls and stone floors of the region, but its simplicity was ^deceptive. An Aubusson rug hung on one wall, and there
,iwas a grandfather clock in the corner of the living room Iwhich Kerry would have sold her soul for. Mireille saw him
Hooking. "That belonged to my grandmother,' she said. 'It
Used to be in my nursery when I was a child. I remember Stening to the chimes when I lay awake in bed. It plays a tfferent carillon for the hour, the half and the quarter. Bay loved it.' Her mouth tightened, and she turned away
larrange the roses in a bowl. 'Tony's daughter would have
Bfd it.'
|The tea was weak, like flower water. She served it in iisStt must have been her best Limoges, with silver tongs
|fcthe sugar and lemon.
|Tm sure she would. If only her mother were a little less
selusive.'
tNBreille looked at him. Derisively. 'Reclusive? Heh/ She's
i^isocial, Monsieur Jay. Hates everyone. Her family more
ISai anyone else.' She sipped her tea. 'I would have helped
|r if she'd let me. I wanted to bring them both to live with
e. Give the child what she needs most. A proper home. A
mily. But she--' She put down the cup. Jay noticed that
|||ie never called Marise by name. 'She insists on maintain-
S||aig the terms of the lease. She insists she will stay until
lllBiext July, when it expires. Refuses to come to the village.
IgRefuses to talk to me or to my nephew, who offers to help
|Aer. And afterwards, hell? She plans to buy the land from jpPierre-Emile. tWhy? She wants to be independent, she says. i^She doesn't want to owe us anything.' Mireille's face was a
ftclenched fist. 'Owe us! She owes me everything. I gave her
'I'' ^
fc 217
a home. I gave her my son! There's nothing left of him now
but the child. And even there she's managed to take her
from us. Only she can talk to her, with that sign language
she uses. She'll never know about her father and how he
died. She's even fixed that. Even if I could--'
The old woman broke off abruptly. 'Never mind, hellI' she
said with an effort. 'She'll come round eventually. She'll
have to come round. She can't hold out for ever. Not when
I--' Again she broke off, her teeth snapping together with a
small brittle sound.
"I don't see why she should be so hostile,' said Jay at last.
The village is such a friendly place. Look how friendly
everyone's been to me. If she gave people a chance I'm sure
they'd welcome her. It can't be easy, living on her own.
You'd think she'd be pleased to know people were concerned--'

'You don't understand.' Mireille's voice was contemptuous.
'She knows what sort of welcome she'd get if she ever
showed her face here. That's why she stays away. Ever
since he brought her here from Paris it's been the same. She
never fitted in. Never even tried. Everyone knows what she
did, hell. I've made sure of that.' Her black eyes narrowed in
triumph.
'Everybody knows how she murdered my son.'
218
43
WELL, SHE EXAGGERATES, YOU KNOW,' SAID CLAIRMONT
peaceably. They were in the Cafe des Marauds, which
was filling up rapidly with its after-work crowd, he in his
;i oil-stained overalls and blue beret, a group of his workers,
Roux amongst them, gathered around a table behind him.
The comfortable .reek of Gauloises and coffee filled the air. ^Someone behind them was discussing a recent football (natch. Josephine was busy microwaving pizza slices. 'Hell, Jose, un croque, to veux bien?'
On the counter stood a bowl of boiled eggs and a dish of t/salt. Clairmont took one and began to peel it carefully. 'I
I mean, everyone knows she didn't actually kill him. But
| there are plenty of other ways than pulling the trigger, hell?'
| 'Driven him to it, you mean?'
| Clairmont nodded. 'He was an easy-going lad. Thought
|she was perfect. Did everything for her, even after they
| were married. Wouldn't hear a word spoken against her. ;.- Said she was highly strung and delicate. Well, maybe she
was, hell?' He helped himself to salt from the dish. The
way he was with her, you'd have thought she was glass.
She'd just come out of one of those hospitals, he said.
Something wrong with her nerves.' Clairmont laughed.
'Nerves, hellI Wasn't anything wrong with her nerves. But
anyone dared say anything about her--' He shrugged.
'Killed himself trying to please her, poor Tony. Worked
himself half to death for her, then shot himself when she
219
tried to leave him.' He bit into his egg with melancholy
gusto.
'Oh yes, she was going to leave,' he added, seeing Jay's
surprise. 'Had her bags all packed and ready. Mireille saw
them. There'd been some row,' he explained, finishing the
egg and gesturing to Josephine for a second blonde. "There
was always some kind of a row going on in that place. But
this time it really looked as if she was going to go through
with it. Mireille--'
"What is it?' Josephine was carrying a tray of microwaved
pizzas, and looked flushed and tired.
Two Stellas, Jose.'
Josephine handed him the bottles, which he opened using
the bottle-opener fixed into the bar. She gave him a narrow
look before moving on with the pizzas.
'Well anyway, that was that,' finished Clairmont, pouring
the beers. 'They made out it was an accident, hell, as
you would. But everyone knows that crazy wife of his was
behind it.' He grinned. 'The funny thing was that she didn't
get a penny from his will. She's at the mercy of the family. It
was a seven-year lease -- they can't do anything about that --
but when it runs out, hellI' He shrugged expressively. 'Then
she'll be gone, and good riddance to her.'
"Unless she buys the farm herself,' said Jay. 'Mireille said
she might try.'
Clairmont's face darkened for a moment. 'I'd bid against
her myself if I could afford it,' he declared, draining his
glass. 'That's good building land. I could build a dozen
holiday chalets on that old vineyard. Pierre-Emile's an idiot
if he lets it go to her.' He shook his head. 'All we need is a bit
of luck and land prices in Lansquenet could rocket. Look at
Le Pinot. That land could make a fortune if you developed it
properly. But you'd never see her doing that. Wouldn't even
give up the marshland by the river when they were thinking
about widening the road. Blocked the plan out of sheer
meanness.' He shook his head.
'But things are on the up now, hell?' His good humour
was already restored, his grin oddly at variance with his
mournful moustache. 'In a year, maybe two, we could make
Le Pinot look like a Marseilles bidonville. Now that things
are beginning to change.' Once again he gave his humble,
eager grin. 'All it takes is one person to make a difference,
Monsieur Jay. Isn't that right?'
He tapped the rim of his glass against Jay's and winked.
•Sante.''
221
44
FUNNY, HOW EASILY IT ALL CAME BACK. FOUR WEEKS NOW
since his last sighting of Joe and still he felt as if the old
man might reappear at any moment. The red flannel sachets
were in place in the vegetable garden and at the corners of
the house. The trees at the land's boundary were similarly
adorned, though the wind kept stripping them off. Marigolds,
propagated in the home-made cold frame, were
beginning to open their bright petals amongst Narcisse's
seed potatoes. Poitou baked a special couronne loaf in
thanks for his grain pack, which, he claimed, had given
him more relief than any drug. Of course, Jay knew he
would have said that anyway.
Now his garden had the best collection of herbs in the
village. The lavender was still green, but already more
pungent than Joe's had ever been, and there was thyme
and cologne mint and lemon balm and rosemary and great
drifts of basil. He gave a whole basket of these to Popotte
when she came by with the mail, and another to Rodolphe.
Joe often gave out little charms - goodwill charms, he called
them - to visitors, and Jay began to do the same: tiny
bunches of lavender or mint or pineapple sage, tied with
ribbons of different colours -- red for protection, white for
luck, blue for healing. Funny how it all came back. People
assumed this was another English custom, the general
explanation for all his eccentricities. Some took to wearing
these little posies pinned to their coats and jackets - though
222
it was May it was still too cool for the locals to wear their
summer clothing, though Jay had long since turned to
shorts and T-shirts for everyday wear. Strangely enough
Jay found the return to Joe's familiar customs rather comforting.
When he was a boy Joe's perimeter rituals, his
incense, sachets, pig-Latin incantations and sprinklings of
herbs too often irritated him. He found them embarrassing,
like someone singing too fervently in school assembly. To
his adolescent self, much of Joe's everyday magic seemed
rather too commonplace, too natural, like cookery or gardening,
stripped of its mysteries. Serious though he was
about his workings, there was a cheery practicality to all of
it, which made Jay's romantic soul rebel. He would have
preferred solemn invocations, black robes and midnight ? ritual. That he might have believed. Reared on comic books ;, and trash fiction, that at least would have rung true. Now
|"that it was too late, Jay found he had rediscovered the peace
| of working with the soil. Everyday magic, Joe used to call it.
t Layman's alchemy. Now he understood what the old man
|\n»eant. But in spite of all this Joe stayed away. Jay prepared
fcthe land for his return like a well-raked seedbed. He
[Iplanted and weeded according to the lunar cycle, as Joe
Spyould have done. He did everything right. He tried to have
|faith.
I?' He told himself that Joe was never there at all, that it was
|to his imagination. But perversely, now Joe was gone he ^needed to believe it was otherwise. Joe was really there, a
Impart of him insisted. Really there, and he had blown it with
' his anger and disbelief. If only he could make him come
back, Jay promised himself, things would be different.
There were so many things left unfinished. He felt a helpless
rage at himself. He'd had a second chance, and stupidly
he'd blown it. He worked in the garden every day until
dusk. He was sure Joe would come. That he could make him
come.
223
45
PERHAPS AS A RESULT OF DWELLING SO CONSTANTLY ON THE
past, Jay found himself spending more and more time by
the river, where the cutaway dropped sharply into the
water. There he found a wasps' nest in the ground, under
the hedge close by, and he watched it with relentless
fascination, recalling that summer in 1977, and how he
was stung, and Gilly's laughter at the den at Nether Edge.
He lay on his stomach and watched the wasps shuttling in
and out of the hole in the ground and imagined he could
hear them moving just under the surface. Above them the
sky was white and troubling. The remaining Specials were
as silent, as troubling as the sky. Even their whispering
was suspended.
It was as he lay beside the riverbank that Rosa found
him. His eyes were open, but he did not seem to be looking
at anything. The radio, swinging from a branch overhanging
the water, was playing Elvis Presley. At his side
stood an opened bottle of wine. Its label, too far away for
her to read it, said "Raspberry '75'. There was a red cord
knotted around the neck of the bottle, which caught her
eye. As she watched, the Englishman reached for the bottle
and drank from it. He made a face, as if the taste were
unpleasant, but from across the river she caught the scent
of what he was drinking - a sudden bright flare of ripe
scarlet, wild berries gathered in secret. She studied him for
a moment from the other side of the river. In spite of what
224
maman told her, he looked harmless. And this was the man
who tied the funny little red bags on the trees. She wondered
why. At first her taking them was a defiant gesture,
erasing him as much as possible from her place, but she
had come to like them, their dangling shapes like small red
fruit on the shaken branches. She no longer minded sharing
her secret place with him. Rosa shifted her position to
squat more comfortably in the long weeds on the far side of
the river. She considered crossing, but the stepping stones
had submerged in recent showers, and she was wary of jumping to the far bank. At her side the curious brown goat
nuzzled restlessly at her sleeve. She pushed the goat away
with a flapping motion of her hand. Later, CJopette, later. ' She wondered whether the Englishman knew about the
; wasps' nest. He was, after all, less than a metre from its
; opening.
I Jay lifted the bottle again. It was over half empty, and
lalready he felt dizzy, almost drunk. It was in part the sky
| which gave him this impression, the raindrops zigzagging
l4own onto his upturned face like flakes of soot. The sky
|went on for ever.
IS From the bottle the scent intensified, became something
|which bubbled and seethed. It was a gleeful scent, a breath
|i@f high summer, of overripe fruit dripping freely from the
I'branches, heated from below by the sun reflecting from
I the chalky stones of the railbed. This memory was not
|entirely pleasant. Perhaps because of the sky he also
I'-associated it with his last summer at Pog Hill, the disas-
' trous confrontation with Zeth and the wasps' nests, Gilly
watching in fascination and himself crouching close by.
Gilly was always the one who enjoyed wasping. Without
her he would never have ventured near a wasps' nest at all.
The thought somehow disturbed him. This wine should
have brought back 1975, he told himself aggrievedly. That's
when it was made. A bright year, full of promise and
discovery. 'Sailing' playing on the radio. That's what happened
before, with the other bottles. But his time machine
225
was two years out, bringing him here instead, sending Joe
even further away. He poured the rest of the wine onto the
ground and closed his eyes.
A red chuckle from the bottom of the bottle. Jay opened
his eyes again, uneasy, certain that someone was watching
him. The dregs were almost black in this dull daylight,
black and syrupy, like treacle, and from where he was
lying there almost seemed to be movement around the
neck of the bottle, as if something were trying to escape.
He sat up and looked a little closer. Inside the bottle,
several wasps were gathered, attracted by the scent of
sugar. Two crawled stickily on the neck. Another had
flown right into the belly of the bottle to investigate the
residue at the bottom. Jay shivered. Wasps sometimes hide
in bottles and drinks cans. He knew from that summer. A
sting inside the mouth is both painful and dangerous. The
wasp crawled thickly against the glass. Its wings were
clotted with syrup. He thought he could hear the insect
inside the bottle, buzzing in a growing frenzy, but perhaps
that was the wine itself calling, its hot bright scent
distressing the air, rising like a column of red smoke, a
signal, perhaps, or a warning.
Suddenly his closeness to the wasps' nest appalled him.
He realized he could hear the insects beneath him under the
soil's thin crust. He sat up, meaning to move away, but a
recklessness seized him, and instead of retreating he moved
a little closer.
If Gilfy was here . . .
Nostalgia was upon him again before he could stop it. It
dragged at him like a caught bramble. Perhaps it was the
scent from the bottle, from the spilled wine on the ground
making him feel this way, this trapped summer scent, intoxicating,
overwhelming. The radio near by gave a quick
crackle of static and began to play 'I Feel Love'. Jay shivered.
This was ridiculous, he told himself. He had nothing to
prove. It was twenty years since he last fired a wasps' nest.
It seemed a reckless, lethal thing to do now, the kind of
226
thing only a child would do, oblivious of the risks.
Besides . . .
A voice - from the bottle, he thought, though it might still
be the wine talking - cajoling, a little scornful. It sounded
something like Gilly's voice, something like Joe's. It was
impatient, amused beneath the irritation. If Gilly was here
you wouldn't be so chicken.
Something moved in the long grass on the other side of
the river. For a second he thought he saw her, a blur of
russet which might be her hair, something else which might
be a stripy T-shirt or pullover.
'Rosa?'
No response. She stared out at him from the long grass,
her green eyes bright with curiosity. He could see her now
he knew where to look. From a short distance away, he
could hear the sound of a goat bleating.
Rosa seemed to look at him with encouragement, almost
with expectation. Beneath him he could hear the wasps
|i;buzzing, a strangely yeasty sound, as if something below |
Ijrthe earth were fermenting wildly. The sound, coupled with j
I^Rosa's expectant look, was too much for him. He felt a burst
t^of exhilaration, something which stripped the years away
1'^.and made him fourteen again, invulnerable.
| 'Watch this,' he said, and began to move closer to the
1 nest.
1 Rosa watched him intently. He moved awkwardly,
A inching towards the hole in the bank. He moved with
his head down, as if this would fool the wasps into thinking
him invisible. A couple of wasps settled momentarily on his
back. She watched as he pulled his handkerchief out of his
pocket. There was a lighter in one hand, the same lighter he
had offered Rosa that day by the stream. Carefully, he
opened the lighter and doused the handkerchief in the
fluid. Holding the object at arm's length, he moved closer
to the nest. There was a larger hole under the banking, a
hole which might once have housed rats. Around it, a
complex of mud honeycomb. A moment's hesitation,
227
choosing his spot, then he pushed the handkerchief right
into the nest, leaving a tag-end of fabric dangling down like
a fuse. As she watched, he looked at her and grinned.
Banzai.
He must have been drunk. That was the only explanation
he could think of later, but it didn't feel like being drunk at
the time. At the time it felt right. Good. Exciting. Amazing
how quickly these things came back. He only had to flip the
Bic once. The flame caught instantly, flaring with sudden,
incredible fierceness. There must have been plenty of
oxygen down the hole. Good. Briefly Jay wished he had
brought some firecrackers. For a second or two there was
no response from the wasps, then half a dozen came flying
out like hot cinders. Jay felt a surge of euphoria and jumped
to his feet, ready to run. That was the first mistake. Gilly
always taught him to keep low, to find a hiding place from
the start and to crouch low, under a root or behind a tree
stump, as the enraged wasps came flying out. This time Jay
was too busy watching Rosa. The wasps came out in a
dreadful surge, and he ran for the bushes. Second mistake.
Never run. The movement attracts them, excites them. The
best thing is to lie flat on the ground, covering the face. But
he panicked. He could smell burning lighter fluid and a
vicious stink like burnt carpet. Something stung him on the
arm and he slapped at it. Several wasps stung him then,
maddeningly, through his T-shirt and on his hands and
arms, zinging by his ears like bullets, darkening the air,
and Jay lost what cool he had. He swore and slapped at his
skin. Another wasp stung him just under the left eye,
driving a brilliant lance of pain into his face, and he
stepped out blindly, right over the edge of the cutaway
and into the water. If the river had been shallower he might
have broken his neck. As it was his fall saved him. He hit
the water face-first, sank, screamed, swallowed river water,
surfaced, sank again, made for the far banking and found
himself a minute later several yards downriver, his T-shirt
nubby with drowned wasps.
228
Under the nest, the fire he had lit was already out.
Jay regurgitated river water. He coughed and swore shakily.
Fourteen had never seemed so far away. From her
distant island in time he thought he could hear Gilly
laughing.
The water was shallow on that side of the river, and he
waded out onto the bank and flopped on all fours into the
grass. His arms and hands were already swelling from the
dozens of stings, and one eye was puffed shut like a
boxer's. He felt like a week-old corpse.
Gradually he became aware of Rosa watching from her
vantage point upstream. She had wisely moved back to
avoid the angry wasps, but he could see her, perched on the .top rung of the gatepost beside the dragon's head. She '[ looked curious but unconcerned. Beside her the goat
|<a'opped grass.
y 'Never again,' gasped Jay. 'God, never again.'
r. He was just beginning to consider the idea of getting up
|when he heard footfalls in the vineyard beyond the fence.
|He looked up, just in time to see Marise d'Api as she arrived
||breathlessly at the gate and swept Rosa into her arms. It
|itook her a few moments to register his presence, for she and
IRosa had begun a rapid interchange of signing. Jay tried to
|get up, slipped, smiled and made a vague gesture with one
|hand, as if by following the rules of country etiquette he jmight somehow make her overlook everything else. He felt suddenly very conscious of his swollen eye, wet clothes,
muddy jeans.
'I had an accident,' he explained.
Marise's eyes went to the wasps' nest in the banking. The
remains of Jay's charred handkerchief still protruded from
the hole, and he could smell lighter fluid across the water.
Some accident.
"How many times were you stung?' For the first time he
thought he heard amusement in her voice.
Jay looked briefly at his arms and hands. 'I don't know. I ... didn't know they'd come out so fast.'
229
He could see her looking at the discarded wine bottle,
drawing conclusions.
"Are you allergic?'
'I don't think so.' Jay tried to stand up again, slipped and
fell on the wet grass. He felt sick and dizzy. Dead wasps
clung to his clothes. Marise looked both dismayed and
almost ready to laugh.
'Come with me,' she said at last. 'I have a stings kit in the
house. Sometimes there can be a delayed reaction.'
Carefully Jay pulled himself up the banking towards the
hedge. Rosa trotted behind, closely followed by the goat.
Halfway to the house Jay felt the child's small cold hand slip
into his and, looking down, he saw that she was smiling.
The house was larger than it seemed from the road, a
converted barn with low gables and high, narrow windows.
Halfway up the front wall, a door stared out in midair from
the loft where bales of hay were once kept. An old tractor
was parked by one of the outbuildings. There was a neat
kitchen garden by the side of the house, a small orchard twenty
well-kept apple trees - at the back and a woodpile
at the other side, with cords of carefully stacked wood for
the winter. Two or three of the small brown goats wandered
skittishly across the vineyard's small paths. Jay followed
Marise along the rutted pathway between the rows of vines,
and Marise put out a hand to steady him as they approached
the gate, though he sensed this was less out of
concern for him than for the vines, which his clumsy
approach might have damaged.
'In here,' she told him shortly, indicating the kitchen
door. 'Sit down. I'll get the kit.'
Her kitchen was bright and tidy, with a shelf of stone
jugs above a porcelain sink, a long oak table, like the one at
his own farm, and a giant black stove. Bunches of herbs
hung from low beams above the chimney: rosemary, sage
and pennyroyal. Rosa went to the pantry and fetched some
lemonade, pouring a glassful and sitting at the table to
drink it, watching Jay with curious eyes.
To as mat?' she asked.
He looked at her. 'So you can talk,' he said.
Rosa smiled mischievously.
'Can I have some of that?' Jay gestured at the glass of
lemonade, and she pushed it across the table towards him.
So, he told himself, she can lipread as well as sign. He
wondered whether Mireille knew. Somehow he didn't think
so. Rosa's voice was childish but steady, without any of the
usual fluctuations of tone of the deaf. The lemonade was
home-made and good.
Thank you.'
Marise flicked him a suspicious look as she came into the
kitchen with the stings kit. She had a disposable syringe in one hand.
'It's adrenalin. I used to be a nurse.'
After a moment's hesitation Jay held out his arm and
closed his eyes.
There.'
He felt a small burning sensation in the crook of his
r'elbow. There was a second's light-headedness, then noth|ting.
Marise was looking at him in some amusement.
S& "You're very squeamish for a man who plays with
I'wasps.'
|i 'It wasn't quite like that,' said Jay, rubbing his arm,
I 'If you behave like that, you can expect to be stung. You
Is got away lightly.'
I He supposed that was true, but it didn't feel that way. ? His head was still pounding. His left eye was swollen tight
and shiny. Marise went to the kitchen cupboard and
brought out a shaker of white powder. She shook some
into a cup, added a little water and stirred it with a spoon.
Handing him the cup: 'Baking soda,' she advised. 'You
should put some of this onto the stings.'
She did not offer to help. Jay followed her advice, feeling
rather foolish. This wasn't how he'd envisaged their meeting
at all. He said so.
Marise shrugged and turned back to the cupboard. Jay
watched as she poured pasta into a pan, added water and
salt, placed the pan carefully on the hob.
'I have to make lunch for Rosa,' she explained. Take
what time you need.' In spite of her words, Jay got the
distinct impression she wanted him out of her kitchen as
soon as possible. He struggled with the baking soda, trying to reach the stings on his back. The brown goat poked its
head around the door and bleated.
'Clopette, non! Pas clans la cuisine.'' Rosa jumped from her
place and shooed the goat away. Marise shot her a look of
fierce warning, and the child put her hand over her mouth,
subdued. Jay looked at her, puzzled. Why should Marise not
want her child to speak in front of him? She motioned
towards the table, asking Rosa to set the plates out. Rosa
took out three plates from the cupboard. Marise shook her
head again. Reluctantly the child replaced one of the plates.
'Thanks for the first aid,' said Jay carefully.
Marise nodded, busy chopping tomatoes for the sauce.
There was fresh basil in a window box on the ledge and she
added a fistful.
'You have a lovely farm.'
'Oh?' He thought he detected an edge in her voice.
"Not that I was thinking of buying it,' added Jay quickly. 'I mean, it's just a nice farm. Pretty. Unspoilt.'
Marise turned and looked at him.
'What do you mean?' Her face was vivid with suspicion.
'What do you mean, buying it? Have you been talking to
someone?'
'No!' he protested. 'I was just trying to make conversation.
I swear--'
'Don't,' she said flatly. The fleeting warmth he had
glimpsed in her was gone. 'Don't say it. I know you've
been talking to Clairmont. I've seen his van parked outside
your house. I'm sure he's been giving you all kinds of ideas.'
'Ideas?'
She laughed.
'Oh, I know about you, Monsieur Mackintosh. Sneaking
232
around, asking questions. First, you buy the old Chateau
Foudouin, then you show a great curiosity about the land
down to the river. What are you planning? Holiday chalets?
A sports' complex, like Le Pinot? Something even more
exciting?'
Jay shook his head.
'You've got it wrong. I'm a writer. I came here to finish my book. That's all.'
She looked at him cynically. Her eyes were lasers.
'I don't want to see Lansquenet turned into Le Pinot,' he
insisted. 'I told Clairmont right from the start. If you've seen
his van, it's just that he keeps delivering brocante to the
farm; he's got it into his head that I'm interested in buying
junk.'
Marise began to add chopped shallots to the pasta sauce,
seemingly unconvinced, but Jay thought the curve of her ^ spine relaxed, just a little. ^ 'If I ask questions,' he said, 'it's just because I'm a writer;
H-I'm curious. I was blocked for years, but when I came to
S* I Lansquenet--' He was hardly aware of what he was saying
I'jBow, his eyes fixed on the hollow of her back beneath the
feaaan's shirt. 'The air's different here, somehow. I've been
pwriting like crazy. I've left everything to be here--'
||' She turned then, a red onion in one hand, the knife in the
either.
I"* He persisted: 'I promise I'm not here to develop anything.
I^.For Christ's sake, I'm sitting in your kitchen soaked to the
| skin and covered in baking soda. Do I look like an en\
trepreneur?'
: She considered this for a moment. 'Perhaps not,' she said
at last.
'I bought the place on impulse. I didn't even know you
were ... I didn't think you ... I don't usually have
impulses,' he finished lamely.
'I find that hard to believe,' said Marise, smiling. "For a
It was a small smile, maybe two on a scale of one to ten,
but it was there anyway.
They talked after that. Jay told her about London and
Kerry and JachappJe Joe. He talked about the rose garden
and the vegetable patch beside the house. Of course he
didn't mention Joe's mysterious presence and subsequent
disappearance, or the six bottles, or the way she herself had
infiltrated his new book. He didn't want her to think he was
crazy.
She made lunch - pasta with beans - and invited him to
join them. Then they drank coffee and Armagnac. She let
him change his wet clothes for a pair of Tony's overalls
while Rosa played outside with Clopette. Jay found it
strange that she did not refer to Tony as her husband,
but as 'Rosa's father', but the rapport between them was
too new, too tenuous, for him to endanger it by asking
questions. When - if - she wanted to discuss Tony, she
would do it in her own time.
So far, she was giving little away. A fierce independence,
tenderness for her daughter, pride in her work, in the
house, the land. A way of smiling, grave-seeming, but with
a kernel of sweetness. A way of listening in silence, an
economy of movement which belied the quick mind, the
occasional wry twist of humour beneath the practicality.
Thinking back to his first glimpse of her, to his previous
assumptions, to the way he had listened to, and half
believed, the opinions of people like Caro Clairmont and
Mireille Faizande he felt a rush of shame. The heroine of his
novel - unpredictable, dangerous, possibly mad - bore no
relation to this quiet, calm woman. He had let his imagination
run far ahead of the truth. He drank his coffee,
abashed, and resolved to pry no further into her affairs. Her life and his fiction had nothing in common.
It was only later, much later, that the unease resurfaced.
Oh, Marise was charming. Clever, too, in the way she had
led him to talk about himself whilst evading all mention of
her own background. By the end of the afternoon she knew
everything about him. But even so there was something
more. Something about Rosa. He considered Rosa. Mireille
was convinced she was being ill-treated, but there were no
signs of that. On the contrary, the love between mother and
daughter was clear. Jay remembered the time he had seen
them together by the hedge. That unspoken rapport. Unspoken.
That was it. But Rosa could talk, spontaneously
and with ease. The way she had shouted at the goat in the
kitchen proved it, that quick, excited outburst. CJopette,
non! Pas clans Ja cuisine? As if she talked to the goat
habitually. And the way Marise looked at her, as if warning her to be quiet.
Why should she warn her? He went over the question
again and again. Was it something Marise didn't want him 'to hear? And the child - hadn't she been sitting with her ^back to the door when the goat made its entrance? m So how could she have known it was there?
46
Nether Edge, Summer 1977
AFTER HE LEFT GILLY, JAY SAT BY THE BRIDGE FOR A WHILE,
feeling angry and guilty and certain she would come after
him. When she didn't appear, he lay in the wet grass for a
while, relishing the bitter smells of earth and weeds, and
looked into the sky until the falling drizzle made him dizzy.
He began to feel cold, so he got up and began to make his
way back to Pog Hill along the disused railbed, stopping
every now and then to examine something by the side of the
tracks, more out of habit than real interest. He was so lost
in his brooding that he completely failed to hear, or see, the
four figures which emerged silently from the trees at his
back and fanned out behind him in pursuit.
By the time he saw them it was too late. Glenda was
there, and two of her mates: the skinny blonde - he thought
her name was Karen - and a younger girl, Paula - or was it
Patty? -ten or eleven, maybe, with pierced ears and a mean,
sulky mouth. They were already moving across his path to
cut him off, Glenda to one side, Karen and Paula to the
other. Their faces shone with rain and eagerness. Glenda's
eyes met his across the track and they were gleaming. For a
moment she looked almost pretty.
Worse still, Zeth was with her.
236
For a second or two Jay froze. The girls were nothing
special. He had outrun, outtalked and outbluffed them
before, and there were only three of them. They were
familiar, part of the Edge, like the open-cast mine or the
scree above the canal lock; a natural hazard, like the wasps
- something to be treated with caution but not fear.
Zeth was another matter.
He was wearing a Status Quo T-shirt with the sleeves
rolled up. A pack of Winstons was tucked in one sleeve. His
hair was long, flapping around his thin, clever face. His acne had cleared up, but there were deep marks on his cheeks
where it had been - initiation scars, channels for crocodile ^tears. He was grinning. * I 'Astha been pickin on my sister?' j
s. Jay was already running before he finished his sentence. ;
Ht was the worst possible place to be cornered; high above '' §|he canal and its many hiding places, the straight, open ;
pailbed lay in front of him like a desert. The bushes on , ' 'Aer side were too thick to squeeze through, too small to
Eer protection. A deep ditch and a screen of bushes hid
m from even the closest houses. His sneakers skidded
ingerously on the gravel. Glenda and her mates were in
int of him, Zeth was a heartbeat behind. Jay took the best rtion, dodging the two girls and making straight for
ienda. She stepped out to intercept him, her meaty arms
Id out as if fielding a wide ball, but he pushed her with all
s strength, shouldering her aside like an American foot-
iller, and hurtled free down the abandoned tracks. Behind
iim he heard Glenda wail. Zeth's voice pursued him,
|Mninously close: Tha little bastard!'
I" Jay didn't look round. There was a railway bridge and a i-'eutting about a quarter of a mile from Pog Hill, with a path pleading up onto the street. There would be other paths, too,
| leading to the cutaway and waste ground beyond. If he
| Could only get there . . . The bridge wasn't far. He was
| younger than Zeth, and lighter. He could outrun him. If he
could reach the bridge there would be places to hide.
He glanced over his shoulder. The gap between them had
widened. Thirty or forty yards separated them. Glenda was
back on her feet and running, but in spite of her size Jay
wasn't worried about her. She looked out of breath already,
her overlarge breasts bobbing ludicrously under her straining
shirt. Zeth was jogging quite slowly next to her, but as
Jay looked round he put on a sudden, terrifying burst of
speed, his arms pumping, gravel spraying up fiercely
around his ankles.
Jay was beginning to feel dizzy now, his breath a hot
stone. He could see the bridge just around the curve of the
line, and the row of poplars which marked the abandoned
points. Five hundred yards would do it.
Joe's talisman was still in his pocket. He could feel it
against his hip as he ran, and he felt dim relief that he'd
brought it along. He could just as easily have forgotten it.
He had been too busy that summer, too snarled up in
himself to think very much about magic.
He just hoped it still worked.
He reached the bridge, with the gap between them
widening, and cast about for somewhere to hide. Too risky
to try the steep path up towards the road. Jay was winded
by now, and there was maybe fifty feet of twisting dirt path
before the road and safety. He clenched his fist over Joe's
talisman and took the opposite direction, the one they
wouldn't expect him to take, under the bridge and behind,
towards Pog Hill. There was a swathe of willowherb gone
to seed behind the rail arch, and he bobbed down in it, head
pounding, heart tight with dark exaltation.
He was safe.
From his hideout he could hear voices. Zeth's sounded
close, Glenda's more remote, thickened by distance, rebounding
over the empty space between the bridge and
the cutaway.
'Wheer the bleedinell izzy?'
Jay could hear him on the other side of the arch, imagined
him checking the path, measuring distances. He made
238
himself small under the waving white heads of the willow-
herb.
Glenda's voice, breathy with running.
Thaz lost 'im, tha beggar!'
' 'Ave not. He's here somewhere. He can't have gone far.'
Minutes passed. Jay clung to the talisman as they went
over the area. Joe's talisman. It had worked before. He had
not fully believed in it then, but he knew better now. He
believed in magic. He truly believed in magic. He heard a
sound as someone crunched over the accumulated litter in
the space underneath the bridge. Footsteps crossed the
gravel. But he was safe. He was invisible. He believed.
^ 'Iz ere!'
i^ It was the ten-year-old, Paula-or-Patty, standing waist-
K^eep in the foamy weeds.
; 'Quick, Zeth, gettim! Gettim!'
Jay began to back off towards the bridge, clouds of white
eeds puffing away with every move he made. The talisman
angled loosely from his fingers. Glenda and Karen
Bunded the curve of the arch, faces sweaty. There was
»'deep ditch just beyond the arch, ripe with late-summer
iBttles. No escape that way. Then Zeth came from under the
sridge, took his arm, drew Jay towards him by the
boulders in a dreadfully matey, not-to-be-refused gesture
I welcome, and smiled.
'Gotcha.'
The magic had finally run out.
Jay didn't like to think about what happened after that. It
|existed in a curious silence, like some dreams. First they
jlpulled off his T-shirt and pushed him, kicking and scream-
King, into the ditch where the nettles bloomed. He tried to
'"climb out, but Zeth kept pushing him back, the leaves
praising welts which would itch and burn for days. Jay put
I his arms up to cover his face, thinking remotely, How come
pi; this never happens to Ch'nt, before someone yanked him up
| by the hair and Zeth's voice said, very gently, 'Now it's my
|; turn, yer bastard.'
239
In a story he would have fought back. He didn't. He
would at least have shown defiance, some hint of desperado
swagger. His heroes all did.
Jay was no hero.
He began to scream before he felt the first blow. Perhaps
that was how he escaped a serious beating. It could have
been worse, he thought as he assessed the damage later. A
bloody nose, some bruises, both the knees of his jeans
taken out from a skid across the railbed. The only thing
broken was his watch. Later he came to understand that
there had been something more, something more serious,
more permanent than a watch, or even a bone broken that
day. It was to do with faith, he thought dimly. Something
inside had been broken and could not be mended.
As Joe might have said, the art was gone.
He told his mother he'd fallen off his bike. It was a
plausible lie - plausible enough, anyway, to explain his
shredded jeans and swollen nose. She didn't fuss as much
as Jay had feared; it was late, and everyone was watching a
rerun of Blue Hawaii, part of the Elvis post-mortem season.
Slowly he put his bike away. He made himself a sandwich
and took a can of Coke from the fridge, then he went
to his room and listened to the radio. Everything seemed
speciously normal, as if Gilly, Zeth and Pog Hill were
already a long time in the past. The Stranglers were playing
'Straighten Out'.
Jay and his mother left that weekend. He didn't say
goodbye.
240
47
Lansquenet, May 1999
jfcY WAS AT WORK IN THE GARDEN WHEN POPOTTE ARRIVED
Nth her postbag. She was a little, round, pansy-faced
roman in a scarlet jumper. She always left her ancient
|cycle at the side of the road and brought any mail along he footpath.
^ *Heh, Monsieur Jay,' she sighed, handing over a packet of
liters. "If only you lived a little closer to the road! My
Bmrnee is always half an hour longer when there's some-
ling for you. I lose ten kilos every time I come over here. It
Hn't go on! You must put up a postbox!'
''Jay grinned. 'Come in and have one of Poitou's fresh
feoussons oux pommes. I have some coffee on the stove. I BBS just going to have some myself.'
Popotte looked as severe as her merry face would allow. \re you trying to bribe me, Rosbif?'
'No, madame.' He grinned. "Just lead you astray.'
She laughed. 'Maybe one. I need the calories.'
Jay opened the letters as she ate her pastry. An electricity 'ill; a questionnaire from the town hall in Agen; a small flat package , wrapped in brown paper, addressed to him in
mall, careful, almost-familiar script.
It was postmarked Kirby Monckton.
241
Jay's hands began to tremble.
'I hope they're not all bills,' said Popotte, finishing her
pastry and taking another. 'Don't want to wear myself out
bringing you unwanted post.'
Jay opened the packet with difficulty.
He had to pause twice for his hands to stop shaking. The
wrapping paper was thick and stiffened with a sheet of card.
There was no note inside. Instead there was a piece of yellow
paper carefully folded over a small quantity of tiny black
seeds. One word was inscribed in pencil on the paper.
'Specials.'
'Are you all right?' Popotte seemed concerned. He must
have looked strange, the seeds in one hand, the paper in the
other, gaping.
"Just some seeds I was expecting from England,' said Jay
with an effort. 'I ... I'd forgotten.'
His mind was dizzied with possibilities. He felt numbed,
shut down by the enormity of that tiny packet of seeds. He
took a mouthful of coffee, then laid the seeds out on the
yellow paper and examined them.
'They don't look like much,' observed Popotte.
'No, they don't, do they?' There were maybe a hundred of
them, barely enough to cover the palm of his hand.
'For God's sake, don't sneeze,' said Joe behind him, and
Jay nearly dropped the lot. The old man was standing
against the kitchen cupboard, as casually as if he had
never left, wearing improbable madras shorts and a
Springsteen 'Born to Run' T-shirt with his pit boots and
cap. He looked absolutely real standing there, but Popotte's
gaze never flickered, even though she seemed to be staring
right at-him. Joe grinned and lifted a finger to his lips.
'Take your time, lad,' he advised kindly. Think I'll go and
have a look at the garden while I'm waiting.'
Jay watched helplessly as he sauntered out of the kitchen
and into the garden, fighting back an almost uncontrollable
urge to run after him. Popotte put down her coffee mug and
looked at him curiously.
242
'Have you been making jam today. Monsieur Jay?'
He shook his head. Behind her, through the kitchen
indow, he could see Joe leaning over the makeshift cold
ame.
'Oh.' Popotte still looked doubtful, sniffing the air. 'I
lought I could smell something. Blackcurrants. Burning
igar.'
So she too could sense his presence. Pog Hill Lane had
ways had that scent of yeast and fruit and caramelized
igar, whether or not Joe was making wine. It was steeped
i the carpets, the curtains, the wood. The scent followed
an around, clinging to his clothes, even permeating the fug
I cigarette smoke which so often surrounded him.
'I should really get back to work,' said Jay, trying to keep
i8 voice level. "I want to get these seeds into the ground as
(on as I can.'
|*0h?' She peered at the seeds again. 'Something special,
'« they?'
'That's right,' he told her. 'Something special.'
243
Pog Hill, Autumn 1977
SEPTEMBER WAS NO BETTER. ELVIS WAS IN THE CHARTS AGAIN
with 'Way Down'. Jay studied listlessly for next year's 0
levels. Normality seemed restored. But that sense of doom
was still there, accentuated, if anything, by the humdrum
continuation of things. He heard from neither Joe nor Gilly,
which surprised him, even though it was unsurprising, given
that he'd left Kirby Monckton without saying goodbye to
either of them. His mother was snapped by Sun photographers
on the arm of a twenty-four-year-old fitness instructor
outside a Soho nightclub. Marc Bolan died in a car accident,
then, only a few weeks later, Ronnie Van Zant and Steve
Gaines of Lynyrd Skynyrd were wiped out in a plane crash.
It seemed suddenly as if everything and everyone around
him was dying, coming apart. No-one else seemed to notice.
His friends smoked illicit cigarettes and sneaked off to the
pictures after hours. Jay watched them with contempt. He'd
practically stopped smoking. It seemed so pointless, almost
childish. The gulf between himself and his classmates
broadened. On some days he felt ten years older.
Bonfire night came. The others lit a bonfire and roasted
potatoes in the quad. Jay stayed in the dorm and watched
from a distance. The scent of the air was bitter, nostalgic.
[lowers of sparks puffed up from the bonfire into the
noke and the mild sky. He could smell the hot scent of
ease frying and the cigarette-paper reek of bangers. For
ie first time he realized how much he missed Joe.
In December he ran away.
He took his coat and his sleeping bag, his radio and some
oney, which he stuffed into his sports' bag. He forged his
ceat and left school just after breakfast, to give himself
[enty of time to get as far as possible. He hitched a lift from
iwn to the motorway, then another down the Ml towards lieffield. He knew exactly where he was going.
It took him two days to reach Kirby Monckton. He
alked most of the way after leaving the motorway, cutting 3'oss fields onto the higher ground of the moor. He slept in
bus shelter until a police patrol car drew up, then lost his Srve and dared not stop again in case he was picked up. It
as cold but not snowing, the sky sullen, and Jay put on all
ie spare clothing he had brought, without managing to feel »y warmer. His feet were blistered, his boots clotted with
Xid, but throughout it all he clung to the memory of Pog I'll Lane, to the knowledge that Joe was waiting for him
tere. Joe's house, with its warm kitchen and the scent of
it jam and oven-dried apples and the radio playing on the
indow ledge above the tomato plants.
it was late afternoon when he arrived. He pulled himself
p the last few feet to the back of Pog Hill Lane, slung his torts bag over Joe's wall and himself after it. The yard was iserted.
Beyond it the allotment looked bare, abandoned. Joe had srtainly done a fine camouflage job on it. Even from the
ird it looked as if no-one had lived there for months. ^eeds had sprouted between the flagstones and died there
the cold, silvered with frost. The windows were nailed tut. The door was locked.
'Joe!' He knocked on the door. 'Joe? Open up, will you?'
Silence. The house looked blind, stolid beneath its winter
leen. Under Jay's fist the door handle rattled meaning245
lessly. From inside his voice returned to him, a dim echo in a
hollow chamber.
'Joe!'
'It's empty, lad.'
The old woman was peering over the wall, black eyes
curious beneath a yellow headscarf. Jay recognized her
vaguely; she had been a frequent visitor that first summer,
and she would sometimes make strawberry pies,
which she brought to Joe in exchange for allotment
produce.
'Mrs Simmonds?'
"Aye, that's right. You'll be wantin Mester Cox, will yer?'
Jay nodded.
"Well, iz gone. Thought he'd passed on, like, but our
Janice sez he just upped an left one day. Upped an left,' she
repeated. 'You'll not find im ere now,'
Jay stared at her. It wasn't possible. Joe hadn't gone. Joe
had promised--
'They're knockin down Pog Hill Lane, you know,' said
Mrs Simmonds conversationally. 'Goin to build some luxury
flats. Could do with a bit of luxury after everythin
we've bin through.'
Jay ignored her. 'I know you're in there, Joe! Come out!
Bloody come out!'
"There's no call for that kind of language,' said Mrs
Simmonds.
'Joe! Joe! Open up! Joe?'
'You watch it, lad, or I'm callin the police.'
Jay spread his hands placatingly. 'OK. OK. I'm sorry. I'm
going. I'm sorry.'
He waited until she was gone. Then he crept back and
made his way around the house, still certain Joe was in
there somewhere, angry at him perhaps, waiting for him to
give up and leave. After all, he had been taken in before. He
searched the overgrown allotment, expecting to see him
checking his trees or in his greenhouse at the signal box,
but there was no sign of any recent presence but his own. It
s only when he realized what had gone that the truth of
ame home. Not a rune, not a ribbon, not a scrawled sign
a tree trunk or a stone. The red sachets had disappeared
n the sides of the greenhouse, from the wall, from the
nches of the trees. The careful arrangements of pebbles
the paths had been scattered to meaningless debris. The
ar charts tacked to the wall of the shed and the green-
ise, the arcane symbols Sellotaped to the trees - all the
as Joe had put up as part of his permanent solution were
ie. The cold frames had been tumbled, leaving the plants
ide to fend for themselves. The orchard was strewn with
amer's windfalls, grey-brown and half melted into the
d ground now. Hundreds of them. Pears, apples, plums,
rries. That was when he really knew. Those windfalls.
oe had gone.
'he back door was imperfectly closed. Jay managed to
$r it open and let himself into the empty house. It smelt
1, like fruit gone to rot in a cellar. In the kitchen, tomato
Bts had grown monstrously leggy in the dark, reaching
"pale, fragile fingerlings towards the thin edge of light at
window before dying, stretched out and waterless,
^nst the sink top. Apparently Joe had left everything
t" as it was: his kettle on the hob, his biscuit box - still
h a few biscuits in it, stale but edible - his coat hanging
On the peg behind the door. The light in the cellar was
, but there was enough daylight from the kitchen to see
rows of bottles, jars and demijohns ranked neatly on
shelves there, gleaming like buried gems in the under-
light.
ay searched the house. There was little enough to find;
's possessions had not been extensive, and as far as he
Id see the old man had taken practically nothing with
i. His old kitbag was missing, his Culpeper's Herbal and
few clothes - his pit cap and boots among them. The
d chest was still there by his bed, but when Jay opened it
Found its contents had been removed. The seeds, roots,
'kages, envelopes and neatly labelled twists of crinkly
247
brown newspaper were gone. Inside the chest nothing but
dust remained.
Wherever Joe had gone, he'd taken his seeds with him.
But where had he gone? His maps were still hanging in
place on the walls, labelled and marked in Joe's small
painstaking script, but there was no clue as to where he
might be heading. There was no pattern to his many
itineraries, the coloured lines joining at a dozen different
points: Brazil, Nepal, Haiti, French Guyana. Jay searched
under his bed, but found nothing but a cardboard box filled
with old magazines. He pulled them out, curious. Joe had
never been a great reader. Except for CuJpeper's Herbal and
the occasional paper, Jay rarely saw him read anything, and
when he did it was with the frowning slowness of a man
who had left school at fourteen, following the script with
his finger. But these magazines were old, faded but kept
tidily away in the box and covered with a piece of card so
that the dust would not damage them. The dates on the
covers were a revelation: 1947, 1949, 1951, 1964 . . . Old
magazines, their covers coloured the same distinctive yellow
and black. Old copies of National Geographic.
Jay sat on the ground for a few minutes, turning pages
gone crispy with age. There was something comforting
about those magazines, as if by simply touching them he
could bring Joe closer. Here were the places Joe had seen,
the people among whom Joe had lived -- mementoes, perhaps,
of his long years on the road.
Here was French Guyana, Egypt, Brazil, South Africa, New
Guinea. The once-bright covers lay side by side on the dusty
floor. Jay saw that he had marked some passages in pencil,
annotated others. Haiti, South America, Turkey, Antarctica.
These were his travels, this the itinerary of his wandering
years. Each one dated, signed, coded in many colours.
Dated and signed.
A cold finger of suspicion traced its way down his back.
Slowly at first, then turning the pages with growing,
dreadful certainty, he began to understand. The maps. The
248
necdotes. The back copies of National Geographic, dating
ight back to the war . . .
He stared at the magazines, trying to find another reason,
omething to explain. But there could only be one explanalon.

There had never been any years on the road. Joe Cox was
miner and had always been a miner, from the day he left
chool to the moment he retired. When Nether Edge pit
losed down he'd gone to his council pit house on Pog Hill
ane on his miner's pension - maybe with invalidity, too,
ecause of his maimed left hand - and dreamed of travel-
gag. All his experiences, his anecdotes, his adventures, his sear-misses, his swashbucklings, his ladies in Haiti, his tevelling gypsies - all taken from this pile of old maga(oes,
all as fake as his magic, his layman's alchemy, his
ecious seeds, no doubt collected from growers or mail-
fler suppliers while he wove his dreams - his Jies - alone.
Lies. All of it. Fakery and lies.
Sudden, overwhelming anger shot through him. It was and reason - it was all the hurt and confusion of the
t few months; it was Gilly's abandonment and Joe's
ayal; it was his parents, himself, his school; it was Zeth;
sbs Glenda and her gang; it was the wasps; it was his I at everything, coalesced for a moment into a single bolt Bin and fury. He flung the magazines across the floor, &ig and stamping on the pages. He tore off the covers, ding the pictures into the mingled dust and mud. He rid down the maps from the walls. He tipped over the tty seed chest. He ran down into the cellar and smashed
ything he could see - the bottles, the jars, the fruit and
Inspirits. His feet crunched on broken glass. low could Joe have lied?
low could he?
fc forgot that it had been he who had run away, he who
I lost his faith. All he could think of was Joe's deception. tides, he had come back, hadn't he? He had come back.
if there had been magic, it was long gone.
249
His back hurt - he must have strained it when he greyed
out in the cellar - and he went back into the kitchen feeling
leaden and useless. He had cut his hand on a piece of glass.
He tried to rinse it in the sink, but the water had already
been turned off. That was when he saw the envelope.
It had been propped up neatly against the draining board
by the window, next to the dried-up bar of coal tar soap.
His name was written across the top in small, shaky
capitals. Too large to be simply a letter, it looked plump,
like a small packet. Jay tore the envelope clumsily, thinking
perhaps this was it, Joe hadn't forgotten him after all; this
had to be some kind of explanation, a sign . . .
A talisman.
There was no letter in the envelope. He looked twice, but
there wasn't even a slip of paper. Instead there was a small
packet - he recognized it as one of Joe's seed packets from
the chest, faintly labelled in red pencil. 'Specials'.
Jay tore open a corner. There were seeds inside, tiny
blackfly seeds, a hundred or more, rolling between his
clumsy fingers as he tried to understand. No note. No
letter. No instructions. Just seeds.
What was he supposed to do with them? Anger lashed
him again. Plant them in his garden? Grow a beanstalk to
the Land of Make-Believe? He gave a furious croak of
laughter. Just what exactly was he supposed to do with
them?
The seeds rolled meaninglessly between his fingers.
Tears of angry, desolate laughter squirted from his eyes.
Jay went outside and climbed up onto the back wall.
He tore the packet open and let the seeds float down into
the cutting, blackfly on the damp winter wind. He sent the
shredded envelope fluttering after them. He felt sourly
exultant.
Later he thought that maybe he shouldn't have done it,
that maybe there was magic in those seeds after all, but it
was too late. Whatever Joe had left for him to find, he hadn't
found it.
49
Lansquenet, Summer 1999
CAME IN LIKE A SHIP, BLUE SAILS UNFURLED AND SWELLING.
good time for writing - Jay's book lengthened by another
pages - but even better for planting, picking out the
seedlings and setting them in their raked beds, thin!
out potato plants and putting them in rows, or weed-
stripping garlands of goosegrass and ground elder
l the currant bushes, or picking strawberries and aberries from their green hollows to make jam. Joe
I especially pleased by this.
'here's nothin like pickin yer own fruit from yer own
len,' he pointed out, teeth clamped around the stub of a
itette. The strawberries were abundant this year - three
|i»8 fifty metres long, enough to sell if he had a mind to ^'Jay
was uninterested in selling. Instead he gave them
Sy to his new friends, made jam, ate strawberries by the Vad, sometimes straight from the field, with the pink soil
I dusting the flesh. Joe's crow-scarers - flexible canes
Orated with foil streamers and the inevitable red talis- i - were enough to discourage the bird population.
(o\i should make some wine, lad,' advised Joe. 'Never Ie any strawberry mesself. Never grew enough of 'em to tier. I'd like to see what it turns out like.' Jay found he
251
could accept Joe's presence without question now, though
not because he had no questions to ask. It was simply that
he could not bring himself to ask them. Better to remain as
he was, to accept it as another everyday miracle. Too much
investigation might open up more than he was willing to
examine. Nor was his anger entirely gone. It remained a
part of him, like a dormant seed, ready to sprout in the right
conditions. But in the face of everything else it seemed less
important now, something which belonged to another life.
Too much ballast, Joe always said, slows you down. Besides,
there was too much to do. June was a busy month.
The vegetable patch needed attention: new potatoes to dig
and store in pallets filled with dry earth, young leeks to peg
out, endives to cover with black plastic shells to protect
them from the sunlight. In the evenings, when the day
cooled, he worked on his book as Joe watched from the
corner of the room, lying on the bed with his boots against
the wall, or smoking and watching the fields with bright,
lazy eyes. Like the garden and the orchard, the book needed
more work than ever at this stage. As the last hundred
pages drew to a close, he began to slow, to falter. The
ending was still as hazy in his mind as when he first
started. He spent more and more of his time staring at the
typewriter, or out of the window, or looking for patterns in
the shadows against the whitewashed walls. He went over
the typed pages with correcting fluid. He renumbered
sheets, underlined titles. Anything to fool himself that he
was still working. But Joe was not fooled.
Tha's not written much tonight, lad,' he commented on
one unproductive evening. His accent had broadened, as it
did when he was at his most satirical. Jay shook his head.
'I'm doing all right.'
Tha wants to get it finished,' continued Joe. 'Get it out of
your system while you still can.'
Irritably: 'I can't do that.'
Joe shrugged.
'I mean it, Joe. I can't.'
252
"No such bloody word.' It was another of Joe's sayings.
Does tha want to finish that bloody book or not? I'm not join to be here for ever, tha knows.'
It was the first time Joe had hinted that he might not stay.
[ay looked up sharply.
'What do you mean? You've only just come back.'
Again Joe gave his loose shrug. "Well . . .' As if it were ibvious. Some things did not need to be said. But Joe was more blunt. 'I wanted to get you started,' he said at last. 'See f0\i in, if you like. But as for stayin . . .'
'You're going away.'
'Well, probably not just yet.'
Probably. The word was like a stone dropping into still water.
'Again.' The tone was more than accusing.
'Not just yet.'
'But soon.'
Joe shrugged. Finally: "I don't know.' b Anger, that old friend. Like a recurring fever. He could
Itel it in him, a blush and prickle at the nape of his neck.
linger at himself, at this neediness never to be satisfied. a "Got to move on sometime, lad. Both of us have. You more
han ever.' ' Silence.
;; 'I'll probly hang on for a while, though. Till autumn, at
feast.'
v It occurred to Jay that he had never seen the old man in
(rinter. As if he were a figment of the summer air. 'Why are you here, Joe, anyway? Are you a ghost? Is that
t? Are you haunting me?'
Joe laughed. In the slice of moonlight needling from
»ehind the shutters he did look ghostly, but there was nothing ghoulish in his grin.
'Tha allus did ask too many questions.' The thickening of us accent was a mockery of itself, a dig at nostalgia. Jay suddenly wondered how much of that, too, was a fake. "I
elled yer first off, didn't I? Astral travel, lad. I travel in me
253
sleep. Got it down to an art, anall. I can do anywhere. Egypt,
Bangkok, the South Pole, dancin girls in Hawaii, northern
lights. I've done em all. That's why I do so much bloody
sleepin.' He laughed, and flicked the stub of his cigarette
onto the concrete floor.
'If that's true, where are you now?' Jay's tone was suspicious,
as it always was when he thought Joe was mocking
him. 'I mean, where are you, really? The seed packet was
marked Kirby Monckton. Are you . . .'
"Aye, well.' Joe lit another cigarette. Its scent was eerily
strong in the small room. 'That dun't matter. Thing is, I'm
here now.'
He would say no more. Beneath them, in the cellar, the
remaining Specials rubbed together in longing and anticipation.
They made barely any sound, but I could feel their
activity, a fast and yeasty ferment, like trouble brewing.
Soon, they seemed to whisper from their glassy cradles in
the dark. Soon. Soon. Soon. They were never silent now.
Beside me in the cellar they seemed more alive, more alert
than ever before, their voices swelling to a cacophony of
squeaks, grunts, laughter and shrieking which rocked the
house to its foundations. Blackberry blue, damson black.
Only these remained, but still the voices had grown louder.
As if the spirit released from the other bottles were still
active, lashing the remaining three to greater frenzies. The
air sparkled with their energy. They had even penetrated
the soil. Joe, too, was here all the time, rarely leaving, even
when other people were present. Jay had to remind himself
that others could not see Joe, though their reactions showed
that they usually felt something in his presence. With
Popotte it was a smell of cooking fruit. With Narcisse, a
sound like a car backfiring. With Josephine, something like
a storm coming, which raised the hairs on her arms and
made her prickle like a nervous cat. Jay had a great many
visitors. Narcisse, delivering garden supplies, had become
quite friendly. He looked at the newly restored vegetable
garden with gruff approval.
254
'Not bad,' he said, thumbing a shoot of basil to release the
scent. "For an Englishman. You might make a farmer yet.'
Now that Joe's special seeds had been planted, Jay began
work on the orchard. He needed ladders to climb high
enough to strip the invasive mistletoe and nets to protect
the young fruit from birds. There were maybe a hundred
trees there, neglected in recent years but still good: pears,
apples, peaches, cherries. Narcisse shrugged dismissively.
'There's not much of a living in fruit,' he said dourly.
I'Everyone grows it, but there's too much and you end up ^feeding it to the pigs. But if you like preserves . . .' He shook
||us head at the eccentricity. 'There's no harm in it, I
lauppose, hell?'
'I might try and make some wine,' admitted Jay, smiling.
Narcisse looked puzzled. 'Wine from fruit?'
Jay pointed out that grapes were also a fruit, but Narcisse
hook his head, bewildered.
!'Bof, if you like. C'est bien anglais, pa.' ^Humbly Jay admitted that it was indeed very English. Herhaps Narcisse would like to try some? He gave a sudden, malicious grin. The remaining Specials rubbed against each
H&er in anticipation. The air was filled with their carnival
^Blackberry 1976. A good summer for blackberries, ripe |||ld purple and swimming in crimson juice. The scent was jtaetrating. Jay wondered how Narcisse would respond to
H18 taste.
^}The old man took a mouthful and rolled it on his tongue.
glor a moment he thought he heard music, a brash burst of
|ppes and drums from across the water. River gypsies, he pbeught vaguely, though it was a little early in the year for
IJIypsies, who came mostly for the seasonal work in the JBtUtumn. With it came the smell of smoke, fried potatoes
jknd boudin the way Marthe used to make it, though Marthe
ad been dead for ten years, and it must be thirty or more
ice she came with the gypsies that summer.
'Not bad.' His voice was a little hoarse as he put the
255
empty glass back onto the table. 'Tastes of . . .' He could
hardly recall what it did taste of, but that scent remained
with him, the scent of Marthe's cooking and the way the
smoke used to cling to her hair and make the apples of her
cheeks stand out red. Combing it out at night, loosening the
brown curls from the tight bun in which she kept them, all
the day's cooking smells would be trapped in the tendrils at
the nape of her neck - olive bread and boudin and baking
and woodsmoke. Freeing the smoke with his fingertips, her
hair tumbling free into his hands.
Tastes a little of smoke.'
Smoke. It must be the smoke which made his eyes water
as they did, thought Narcisse dimly to himself. That or the
alcohol. Whatever the Englishman put in his wine, it's . . .
'Strong.'
256
50
}'
|;AS JULY VEERED INTO SIGHT THE WEATHER GREW HOTTER, THEN
fescorching. Jay found himself feeling grateful that he had
pmly a few rows of vegetables and fruit to care for, for in [rite of the closeness of the river the earth had become dry nd cracked, its usual russet colour paling into pink and
en almost white under the sun's attack. Now he had to iter everything for two hours every day, choosing the cool
enings and early mornings so the soil's moisture would Bt be lost. He used equipment he found in Foudouin's tandoned shed: large metal watering cans to carry the tier and, to bring it up from the river, a handpump which
i installed close to the dragon head at the boundary
estween his land and Marise's vineyard.
'She'll be doing well enough from this weather," confided
cisse over coffee in Les Marauds. 'That land of hers
er dries out, even in high summer. Oh, there was some id of drainage put in years ago, when I was a boy, pipes ad tiling, I think, but that was before old Foudouin even aught of buying it. Now it's fallen into disrepair, though. I ubt she's ever thought of restoring the drainage.' There was no rancour in his voice. 'If she can't do it herself,' he aid bluntly, 'then she won't have it done at all. It's the way
|^he is, hellI'
| . Narcisse was suffering from July's intense heat. His
Inursery garden was at its most delicate, with gladioli
|and peonies and camellia just ready to be sold to the shops,
^.i,

I 257
with baby vegetables at their most tender and fruit just
forming on the branches of his trees. The sudden clap of
heat would wither the flowers -- each one needed a whole
canful of water every day - burn the fruit from the
branches, scorch the leaves.
'Bof.' He shrugged, philosophical. 'It's been looking that
way all year. No rain to speak of since February. Maybe
enough to wet the soil, hell, but not enough to go deep,
where it matters. Business will be bad again.' He gestured
towards the basket of vegetables beside him - a gift for
Jay's table - and shook his head. 'Look at that,' he said. The
tomatoes looked as large as cricket balls. 'I feel ashamed to
sell them. I'm giving them away.' He drank his coffee
mournfully. 'I might as well give it up now,' he said.
Of course, he meant no such thing. Narcisse, once so
monosyllabic, had become quite garrulous in recent weeks.
There was a kindly heart beneath his dour exterior, and a
gruff warmth which made him liked by people who took the
time to get to know him. He was the only person from
the village with whom Marise did business, perhaps
because they used the same workers. Once every three
months he delivered supplies -- fertilizer, insecticide powder
for the vines, seeds for planting - to the farm.
'She keeps herself to herself,' was his only comment.
'More women should do the same.' Last year she installed a
sprinkler at the far edge of her second field, using water
from the nearby river. Narcisse helped her carry it and put
it together, though she installed the thing herself, digging
trenches across the field to the water, then burying the
pipes deep. She grew maize there, and sunflowers every
third year. These crops do not withstand dryness as vines
do.
Narcisse offered to help her with the installation, but she
refused.
'If it's worth doing, it's worth doing yourself,' she commented.
The sprinkler was working all night by then - it
was useless in the daytime, the water evaporating in midair
258
before it even touched the crop. Jay could hear it from his
open window, a dim whickering in the still air. In the
moonlight the white spume from the pipes looked ghostly,
magical. Her main crop was the grapes, Narcisse said. She
grew the maize and sunflowers for cattle feed, the vegetables
and fruit for her personal use and Rosa's. There were
a few goats, for cheese and milk, and these roamed free
: around the farm, like pets. The vineyard was small, yielding
; only 8,000 bottles a year. It sounded a lot to Jay, and he said
I- so. Narcisse smiled.
I 'Not enough,' he said shortly. 'Of course, it's good wine.
H;01d Foudouin knew what he was doing when he put in Ahose vines. You've noticed how the land tilts sharply down
towards the marshes?' f Jay nodded.
|v "That's how she can grow those vines. Chenin grapes.
ie picks them very late, in October or November, sorts
em, one by one, by hand on the vine. They're almost dried A by then, hell. But as the mist rises from the marshes
ery morning, it dampens the vine and encourages the
lumture nobie, the rot which gives the grape its sweet-
ss and flavour.' Narcisse looked thoughtful. 'She must
,Ve a hundred barrels of it by now, maturing in oak, in
it cellar of hers. I saw them when I made last year's
ivery. Eighteen months on, that wine's worth a hundred
ncs a bottle, maybe more. That's how she could afford to
I for your farm.'
'She must really want to stay here,' commented Jay. 'If
ie has money, I would have thought she'd have been only
0 pleased to leave. I've heard she doesn't get on well with sople from the village.'
Narcisse looked at him. 'She minds her own business,' he
rd sharply. That's all.' fhen the talk turned once again to farming.
259
51
SUMMER WAS A DOOR SWINGING OPEN INTO A SECRET GARDEN. HIS
book remained incomplete, but he rarely thought about it
now. His interest in Marise had gone further than merely
the need to collect material. Until the end of July the heat
intensified, made worse by a brisk, hot wind which dried
out the maize so that its husks rattled wildly in the fields.
Narcisse shook his head glumly and said he'd seen it
coming. Josephine doubled her sales of drinks. Joe consulted
tidal and lunar charts, and gave Jay specific instructions
on when to water in order to achieve the best effect.
'It'll change soon enough, lad,' he said. 'You'll see.'
Not that there was a great deal to lose. A few rows of
vegetables. Even with the drought the orchard would yield
more fruit than Jay could possibly use. In the cafe, Lucien
Merle shook his head in dark relish.
'You see what I mean,' he said. 'Even the farmers know it.
There's no future in it any more. People like Narcisse carry
on because they don't know anything else, but the new
generation, hellI They know there's no money in it. Every
year the crop sells for less. They're living from Government
subsidies. All it takes is for one year to be bad, and then
you're taking out loans from the Credit Mutuel so you can
plant next year. And the vines are no betler.' He gave a
short laugh. 'Too many small vineyards, too little money.
There's no living to be made in a small farm any more.
That's what people like Narcisse don't understand.' He
260
lowered his voice and came closer. 'All that's going to
change, though,' he said slyly.
'Oh?' Jay was getting a little bored with Lucien and his
great plans for Lansquenet. His only topic of conversation
nowadays seemed to be about Lansquenet and how it could
be made more like Le Pinot. He and Georges Clairmont had
put up signs on the main road and the Toulouse road near
by, which were supposed to encourage the influx of tourists.

Visitez LANSQUENETsousTannes!
Visitez notre egJise historique
Notre viaduc romain
Goutez nos specialites
Most people viewed this with indulgence. If it brought
business, good. Mostly they were indifferent, as Georges
and Lucien were known for hatching grandiose schemes
which never came to anything. Caro Clairmont had tried several times to invite Jay to dinner, though so far he had
managed to delay the inevitable. She hoped that he would
address her literary group in Agen. The thought appalled
him.
That day it rained for the first time in weeks. A fierce rain
from a hot white sky, barely refreshing. Narcisse grumbled
that, as usual, it had come too late and that it would never
last long enough to wet the ground, but in spite of this, it
endured late into the night, pouring out of the gutterings
and onto the baked ground with lively plashing sounds.
The next morning was foggy. The heavy rain had
stopped, to be replaced by a dull drizzle. Jay could see
from the waterlogged state of the garden how heavy the
downpour must have been, but even without sunlight to
dry it out the standing water had already begun to dissipate,
drawing the cracks in the earth together, sinking
ine some seedlings. 'Good job you got these jackapples
covered, otherwise they'd have been washed away.' The
Specials were in a cold frame, carefully snugged against the
side of the house, and remained unharmed. Jay noticed they
were a remarkably quick-growing plant; the ones he seeded
first were twelve inches tall now, their heart-shaped leaves
fanning out against the glass. He had about fifty seedlings
ready to be bedded out, an excellent success rate for such a
demanding species. Joe was fond of saying how it took him
five years just to get the soil right.
'Aye.' Joe looked at the plants with satisfaction. 'Mebbe
the soil's right just as it is.'
That morning, too, another letter from Nick arrived, with
news of two more offers from publishers for Jay's incomplete
novel. These were not final offers, he said, though
already the sums involved seemed extravagant, almost
ridiculous, to Jay. His life in London, Nick, the university,
even the negotiations on the novel seemed abstract here,
eclipsed by even the small damage caused by an unexpected
rainstorm. He worked in the garden for the rest of
the morning, thinking of nothing at all.
52
AUGUST WAS FREAKISHLY WET FOR LANSQUENET. RAIN EVERY
other day, overcast the rest of the time, and with winds
which lashed at crops and stripped their leaves. Joe shook
his head at this and said he expected it. He was the only
one. The rain was merciless, stripping away topsoil and
washing tree roots bare. Jay went to the orchard in the rain
and used pieces of carpet to wrap around the bases of his
trees to protect them from water and rot. It was another old
trick from Pog Hill Lane, and it worked well. But without
adequate sunshine the fruit would fall unformed and
unripened from the branches. Joe shrugged. There would be other years. Jay was not so sure. After the old man's
return he had become preternaturally sensitive to the
changes in Joe, marking every change of expression, going
over every word. He noticed that Joe spoke less than he had
before, that sometimes his outline was blurry, that the
radio, tuned permanently to the oldies station since May,
sometimes played white noise for minutes before finding a
signal. As if Joe, too, were a signal, gradually fading into
oblivion. Worse, he had the feeling that it was somehow his
fault that it was happening, that Lansquenet was somehow
taking over - eclipsing Joe. The rain and the falling temperature
dampened the scents which were so characteristic
of the old man's appearances, the scents of sugar and fruit
and yeast and smoke. During the past few weeks these too
had faded, so that for unbearable moments Jay felt abso-
lutely alone, bereaved, a man sitting at a dying friend's
bedside, listening for the next breath.
Since the wasp incident Marise no longer avoided him.
They greeted each other over the fence or the hedge, and
though she was rarely exuberant or forthcoming, Jay
thought Marise had begun to like him a little. Sometimes
they talked. September was a busy time for her, with the
grapes fully formed and beginning to turn yellow, but
the rain, which had not really given up since last month,
was causing renewed problems. Narcisse blamed the
disastrous summer on global warming. Others muttered
vaguely about El Nino, the Toulouse chemical plants, the
Japanese earthquake. Mireille Faizande curled her lip and
talked about Last Times. Josephine remembered the dreadful
summer of '75, when the Tannes dried up and rabid
foxes came running out of the marshes into the village. It
did not rain every day, but even so the sun was barely
present, a tarnished coin in the sky, giving little warmth.
'If it goes on like this there won't be any fruit for anyone
this autumn,' said Narcisse dourly. Peaches and apricots
and other soft-skinned fruit were already done for. The rain
ate through the tender flesh and they dropped, rotten, to the
ground, before they had even finished developing. Tomatoes
failed to ripen. Apples and pears were hardly any
better. Their waxy skin might protect them to some extent,
but not enough. Vines were the worst.
At this stage the grapes needed sunlight, Joe said especially
for the later harvests, the Chenin grapes for
the noble wines, which had to be sun-dried, like raisins.
These grapes rely on the exceptional conditions of Lansquenet's
marshland: the hot, long summers, the mists
which the sun brings from across the river. This year,
however, the pourriture nobJe had nothing noble about
it. Rot, pure and simple, set in. Marise did what she could.
She ordered plastic coverings from town, which she fixed
into place over the rows of vines with the help of metal
hoops. This saved the vines from the worst of the rain, but
did nothing to protect the exposed roots. Any sunlight was
hampered by the presence of the sheets, and the fruit
sweated inside the plastic. The earth had long since been
trodden into mud soup. Like Joe, she laid pieces of carpeting
and cardboard between the rows to avoid further
damage to the ground. But it was a futile gesture.
Jay's own garden fared a little better. Further from the
marshland, raised above the water level, his land had
natural drainage channels, which carried excess water
down to the river. Even so the Tannes rose higher than
ever, spilling out across the vineyard on Marise's side, and
cutting dangerously close on Jay's, eroding the banking so
sharply that great slices of earth had already fallen into
the river. Rosa was under instructions not to approach the
damaged banking.
The barley was a disaster. Fields all around Lansquenet
had already been abandoned to the rain. In one of Brian-
con's fields a crop circle appeared, and the more gullible of
Josephine's drinkers began to speculate about space aliens,
though Roux thought it more likely that Clairmont's mischievous
young son and his girlfriend knew more than they
were telling. Even the bees were less productive this year,
|tBriancon reported, with fewer flowers and poor-grade rhoney. Belts would have to be tightened throughout the
hwinter.
| "It's hard enough getting the money from this year's crop
|"l0 plant next spring,' explained Narcisse. 'When the crop's gbad, you have to plant on credit. And with rented land
| becoming less and less viable, hellI' He poured Armagnac
| carefully into the hot dregs of his coffee and downed it in a
p; Single mouthful. 'There's not enough money in sunflowers or maize any more,' he admitted. 'Even flowers and nursery
produce aren't making what they used to. We need something
new.'
H' "Rice, maybe,' suggested Roux.
Clairmont was less downcast, in spite of poor business
throughout the summer. Recently, he had been north with
Lucien Merle for a few days, returning full of enthusiasm
for his Lansquenet project. It transpired that he and Lucien
were planning to go into partnership on a new scheme to
promote Lansquenet in the Agen region, though both of
them seemed unusually secretive about the matter. Caro,
too, was arch and self-satisfied, calling at the farm twice 'in
passing', though it was miles out of her way, and staying
for coffee. She was full of gossip, delighted with the way Jay
had renovated the farm, intensely curious about the book
and hinting that her influence with the regional literary
societies would be certain to make it a success.
'You really should try to get yourself some French contacts,'
she told him naively. Toinette Merle knows a lot of
people in the media, you know. Perhaps she could arrange
for you to give an interview to a local magazine?'
He explained, with an attempt not to smile, that one of
the main reasons for escaping to Lansquenet had been to
avoid his media contacts.
Caro simpered and said something about the artistic
temperament.
'Still, you really should consider it,' she insisted. 'I'm sure
the presence of a famous writer would give us all the boost
we need.'
At the time Jay barely paid attention. He was close to
completing the new book, for which he now had a contract
with Worldwide, a large international publisher, and had
set himself a deadline of October. He was also working on
improving the old drainage channels on his land, with the
aid of some concrete piping supplied by Georges. His roof,
too, had developed a leak, and Roux had offered to help him
mend it and repoint the brickwork. His days were too busy
to give much time to Caro and her plans.
That was why the newspaper article took him completely
by surprise. He would have missed it altogether if Popotte
hadn't spotted it in an Agen paper and cut it out for him to
read. Popotte was touchingly pleased by the whole thing,
but it immediately made Jay uneasy. It was, after all, the
266
first sign that his whereabouts were known. He could not
remember the exact words. There was a great deal of
nonsense about his brilliant early career. There was some
crowing about the way he had fled London and rediscovered
himself in Lansquenet. Much of it consisted of secondhand
platitudes and vague speculation. Worse, there was a
photograph, taken in the Cafe des Marauds on 14 July,
showing Jay, Georges, Roux, Briancon and Josephine sitting
at the bar with bottles of blonde in their hands. In the
picture Jay was wearing a black T-shirt and madras shorts,
Georges was smoking a Gauloise. He did not remember
who took the photograph. It could have been anyone. The
caption read, 'Jay Mackintosh and friends at the Cafe des
Marauds, LansquenetsousTannes.'
'Well, tha couldn't have kept it quiet for ever, lad,'
observed Joe when Jay told him. 'It had to get out some time.'
He was at his typewriter in the living room, a bottle of
wine at one elbow, a cup of coffee at the other. Joe was
wearing a T-shirt which read 'Elvis is alive and well and
living in Sheffield'. Jay noticed that now, more and more
often, his outline seemed translucent at the edges, like an
i overdeveloped photograph.
I 'I don't see why,' he said. 'If I want to live here it's my
^business, isn't it?'
Joe shook his head.
'Aye. Mebbe. But you're not goin to carry on like this for paver, are you?' he said. 'There's papers to sort out. Permits.
Practical things. Brass, anall. You'll be short of that soon.' It
a was true that four months of living in Lansquenet had cut
heavily into his savings. The repairs to the house, furniture,
tools, supplies for the garden, drainage pipes, the day-to-
day expenses of food and clothing, plus, of course, the
purchase of the farm itself, had eroded them beyond his
expectations.
'There'll be money soon enough,' he replied. 'I'm signing
the book contract any time now.' He mentioned the sum
53
STILL THE RAIN CONTINUED UNRELENTING. ODDLY, THE TEMPERAture
remained high and the wind was hot and unrefreshing. At night there were often storms, with lightning dancing on
stilts across the horizon and ominous red lights in the sky. A
church in Montauban was hit by lightning and burnt down.
Since the incident with the wasps' nest Jay wisely kept away
from the river. In any case, it was dangerous, Marise told
him. The banks, sharply eroded by the current, had a habit of
slicing away into the slipstream. Easy to fall, to drown.
Accidents happen. She did not mention Tony in their conversations.
When Jay touched on the subject she shied away.
Rosa, too, was only mentioned in passing. Jay began to think
that his suspicions that day were unfounded. He had been,
after all, feverish and in pain. A delusion induced by wasp
venom. Why should Marise deceive him? Why should Rosa?
In any case, Marise was preoccupied. The rain had ruined
the maize, working wet fingers of rot into the ripening ears.
The sunflowers were soft and heavy with water, their heads
bowed or broken. But the vines were the biggest disaster. On
13 September the Tannes finally broke its banks and flooded
the vineyard. The top end of the field suffered less because of
the sharp incline, but the lower end was a foot below water.
Other farmers suffered, too, but it was Marise, with her
marshy pastures, who was the worst affected. Standing
pools of rainwater surrounded the house. Two goats were
lost in the flood water from the Tannes. She had to bring the
lutely alone, bereaved, a man sitting at a dying friend's
bedside, listening for the next breath.
Since the wasp incident Marise no longer avoided him.
They greeted each other over the fence or the hedge, and
though she was rarely exuberant or forthcoming, Jay
thought Marise had begun to like him a little. Sometimes
they talked. September was a busy time for her, with the
grapes fully formed and beginning to turn yellow, but
the rain, which had not really given up since last month,
was causing renewed problems. Narcisse blamed the
disastrous summer on global warming. Others muttered
vaguely about El Nino, the Toulouse chemical plants, the Japanese earthquake. Mireille Faizande curled her lip and
talked about Last Times. Josephine remembered the dreadful
summer of '75, when the Tannes dried up and rabid
foxes came running out of the marshes into the village. It
did not rain every day, but even so the sun was barely
present, a tarnished coin in the sky, giving little warmth.
'If it goes on like this there won't be any fruit for anyone
this autumn,' said Narcisse dourly. Peaches and apricots
and other soft-skinned fruit were already done for. The rain
ate through the tender flesh and they dropped, rotten, to the
ground, before they had even finished developing. Tomatoes
failed to ripen. Apples and pears were hardly any
better. Their waxy skin might protect them to some extent,
but not enough. Vines were the worst.
At this stage the grapes needed sunlight, Joe said especially
for the later harvests, the Chenin grapes for
the noble wines, which had to be sun-dried, like raisins.
These grapes rely on the exceptional conditions of Lansquenet's
marshland: the hot, long summers, the mists
which the sun brings from across the river. This year,
however, the pourriture noble had nothing noble about
it. Rot, pure and simple, set in. Marise did what she could.
She ordered plastic coverings from town, which she fixed
into place over the rows of vines with the help of metal
hoops. This saved the vines from the worst of the rain, but
264
53
STILL THE RAIN CONTINUED UNRELENTING. ODDLY, THE TEMPERAture
remained high and the wind was hot and unrefreshing.
H, At night there were often storms, with lightning dancing on ^j Stilts across the horizon and ominous red lights in the sky. A
Bhurch in Montauban was hit by lightning and burnt down. Since the incident with the wasps' nest Jay wisely kept away from the river. In any case, it was dangerous, Marise told
n. The banks, sharply eroded by the current, had a habit of cing away into the slipstream. Easy to fall, to drown. accidents happen. She did not mention Tony in their con-
rersations. When Jay touched on the subject she shied away. ^osa, too, was only mentioned in passing. Jay began to think
hat his suspicions that day were unfounded. He had been,
ifter all, feverish and in pain. A delusion induced by wasp
jJifenom. Why should Marise deceive him? Why should Rosa?
|Nn any case, Marise was preoccupied. The rain had ruined
the maize, working wet fingers of rot into the ripening ears.
The sunflowers were soft and heavy with water, their heads
bowed or broken. But the vines were the biggest disaster. On
13 September the Tannes finally broke its banks and flooded
the vineyard. The top end of the field suffered less because of
the sharp incline, but the lower end was a foot below water.
Other farmers suffered, too, but it was Marise, with her
marshy pastures, who was the worst affected. Standing
pools of rainwater surrounded the house. Two goats were
lost in the flood water from the Tannes. She had to bring the
269
Lucien Merle for a few days, returning full of enthusiasm
for his Lansquenet project. It transpired that he and Lucien
were planning to go into partnership on a new scheme to
promote Lansquenet in the Agen region, though both of
them seemed unusually secretive about the matter. Caro,
too, was arch and self-satisfied, calling at the farm twice 'in
passing', though it was miles out of her way, and staying
for coffee. She was full of gossip, delighted with the way Jay
had renovated the farm, intensely curious about the book
and hinting that her influence with the regional literary
societies would be certain to make it a success.
'You really should try to get yourself some French contacts,'
she told him naively. Toinette Merle knows a lot of
people in the media, you know. Perhaps she could arrange
for you to give an interview to a local magazine?'
He explained, with an attempt not to smile, that one of
the main reasons for escaping to Lansquenet had been to
avoid his media contacts.
Caro simpered and said something about the artistic
temperament.
'Still, you really should consider it,' she insisted. 'I'm sure
the presence of a famous writer would give us all the boost
we need.'
At the time Jay barely paid attention. He was close to
completing the new book, for which he now had a contract
with Worldwide, a large international publisher, and had
set himself a deadline of October. He was also working on
improving the old drainage channels on his land, with the
aid of some concrete piping supplied by Georges. His roof,
too, had developed a leak, and Roux had offered to help him
mend it and repoint the brickwork. His days were too busy
lo give much time to Caro and her plans.
That was why the newspaper article took him completely
by surprise. He would have missed il altogether if Popotte
hadn't spotted it in an Agen paper and cut it out for him to
read. Popotte was touchingly pleased by thn whole thing,
but it immediately made Jay uneasy. It was, after all, the
first sign that his twhereabouts were known. He could not
remember the exact words. There was a great deal of
nonsense about his brilliant early career. There was some
crowing about the way he had fled London and rediscovered
himself in Lansquenet. Much of it consisted of secondhand
platitudes and vague speculation. Worse, there was a
photograph, taken in the Cafe des Marauds on 14 July,
showing Jay, Georges, Roux, Briancon and Josephine sitting
at the bar with bottles of blonde in their hands. In the
picture Jay was wearing a black T-shirt and madras shorts,
Georges was smoking a Gauloise. He did not remember
who took the photograph. It could have been anyone. The
caption read, 'Jay Mackintosh and friends at the Cafe des
i Marauds, LansquenetsousTannes.'
;„ 'Well, tha couldn't have kept it quiet for ever, lad,'
iobserved Joe when Jay told him. 'It had to get out some
(time.'
I He was at his typewriter in the living room, a bottle of Wine at one elbow, a cup of coffee at the other. Joe was ^wearing a T-shirt which read 'Elvis is alive and well and
Hiving in Sheffield'. Jay noticed that now, more and more
I'often, his outline seemed translucent at the edges, like an
loverdeveloped photograph.
1; 'I don't see why,' he said. 'If I want to live here it's my
business, isn't it?'
Joe shook his head.
'Aye. Mebbe. But you're not goin to carry on like this for
ever, are you?' he said. 'There's papers to sort out. Permits.
Practical things. Brass, anall. You'll be short of that soon.' It
was true that four months of living in Lansquenet had cul
heavily into his savings. The repairs to the house, furniture,
tools, supplies for the garden, drainage pipes, the day-to-
day expenses of food and clothing, plus, of course, the
purchase of the farm itself, had eroded them beyond his
expectations.
There'll be money soon enough,' he replied. 'I'm signing
the book contract any time now.' He mentioned the sum
267
involved, expecting Joe to be awed into silence. Instead he
shrugged.
"Aye. Well, I'd rather have a quid in me hand than a
cheque int post,' he said dourly. 'I just wanted to see you
sorted, that's all. Make sure you're all right.'
Before I go. He didn't have to say it. The words were as
clear as if he'd spoken aloud.
268
53
STILL THE RAIN CONTINUED UNRELENTING. ODDLY, THE TEMPERAture
remained high and the wind was hot and unrefreshing.
At night there were often storms, with lightning dancing on
stilts across the horizon and ominous red lights in the sky. A
church in Montauban was hit by lightning and burnt down.
Since the incident with the wasps' nest Jay wisely kept away
from the river. In any case, it was dangerous, Marise told
him. The banks, sharply eroded by the current, had a habit of
([slicing away into the slipstream. Easy to fall, to drown. ^Accidents happen. She did not mention Tony in their conversations.
When Jay touched on the subject she shied away. feRosa, too, was only mentioned in passing. Jay began to think
fethat his suspicions that day were unfounded. He had been,
|After all, feverish and in pain. A delusion induced by wasp
i|iVenom. Why should Marise deceive him? Why should Rosa?
|?In any case, Marise was preoccupied. The rain had ruined ^{the maize, working wet fingers of rot into the ripening ears.
| The sunflowers were soft and heavy with water, their heads
jj. bowed or broken. But the vines were the biggest disaster. On
13 September the Tannes finally broke its banks and flooded
the vineyard. The top end of the field suffered less because of
the sharp incline, but the lower end was a foot below water.
Other farmers suffered, too, but it was Marise, with her
marshy pastures, who was the worst affected. Standing
pools of rainwater surrounded the house. Two goats were
lost in the flood water from the Tannes. She had to bring the
remaining goats into the barn to avoid further damage to the
ground, but the fodder was wet and unappetizing, the roof
III began to leak and the stores were suffering from damp.
She told no-one of her predicament. It was a habit with
her, a matter of pride. Even Jay, who could see some of the
damage, did not guess at the full extent. The house was in
the hollow, below the vineyard. Water from the Tannes
now stood around it like a lake. The kitchen was flooded,
She used a broom to sweep the water from the flags. But
it always returned. The cellar was knee-deep in water. The
oak barrels had to be moved, one by one, to safety.
The electricity generator, which was housed in one of
the small outbuildings, short-circuited and failed. The rain
continued unabated. Finally Marise contacted her builder
in Agen. She ordered fifty thousand francs' worth of
drainage pipes, and asked for them to be delivered as soon
as possible. She planned to use the existing drainage
channels to install a system of piping, which would channel
the water away from the house and back towards the
marshes, where it would drain away naturally into the
Tannes. A bank of earth, like a dyke, would be raised to
give some protection to the farmhouse. But it would be
difficult. The builder was unable to spare any of his workers
until November - there was a big project to finish in Le
Pinot -- and she refused to enlist Clairmont's help. Even if
she asked, he would be unlikely to help her. And besides,
she did not want him on her land. To call him in would be to
admit defeat. She began the job herself, digging out channels
while she waited for the delivery of pipes. It was a slow
business, like digging war trenches. She told herself that it
was indeed a war, herself against the rain, the land, the
people. The thought cheered her a little. It was romantic.
On 15 September Marise took another decision. Until now Rosa had slept with Clopette, in her little room under the
eaves of the house. But now, with no electricity and hardly
any dry firewood, she had little choice. The child must leave.
The last time the Tannes flooded, Rosa contracted the
270
infection which had left her deaf in both ears. She was three
then, and there was no-one to whom Marise could send her.
They had slept together in the room under the eaves for a
whole winter, with the fire gouting black smoke and rain
streaming down the panes. The child developed abscesses in
both ears and screamed incessantly during the night. Nothing,
not even penicillin, seemed to offer any relief. Never
again, Marise told herself. This time Rosa must go away until
the rain stopped, until the generator could be fixed, until the
drainage could be put into place. This rain would not last for
ever. Its end was already overdue. Even now, if the work
could be completed, some of the crop might be salvaged.
There .was no choice. Rosa must go away for a few days.
But not to Mireille. Marise felt her heart tighten at the
thought of Mireille. Who, then? No-one from the village. She ^did not trust any of them. Mireille spread the rumours, yes.
|But everyone listened. Well, maybe not everyone. Not Roux,
||r newcomers like him. Not Narcisse. She trusted both of
|jhem to some extent. But to leave Rosa with either of them
prould be impossible. People would find out. In the village,
||othing could remain a secret for long.
y She considered a pension in Agen, a place where Rosa
Ipight be left in safety for a while. But that, too, was
IShngerous. The child was very young to be left alone. People
llffould ask questions. And besides, the thought of Rosa so
par away was like a pain in her chest. She needed to be close.
I? Only the Englishman remained. The location was ideal:
|lar enough from the village for privacy, but close enough to ;fcer own farm for her to see Rosa every day. He could make up a room for Rosa in one of the old bedrooms. Marise
remembered a blue room under the south gable, which must
have been Tony's, a child's bed shaped like a boat, a blue
glass ball which was a lamp. It would only be for a few
days, maybe a week or two. She would pay him. It was the
only solution.
271
54
SHE ARRIVED UNANNOUNCED ONE EVENING. JAY HADN'T SPOKEN
to her for several days. In fact, he hadn't really gone out,
except to the village to buy bread. The cafe was mournful in
the rain, the terrasse reverting to a road as the tables and
chairs were taken in, rain dripping steadily from parasols bleached colourless by the weather. In Les Marauds the
Tannes had begun to stink, hot foul waves rolling off
the marshes towards the village. Even the gypsies moved
on, taking their houseboats to calmer, sweeter waters.
Arnauld was talking about calling in a weatherworker
to solve the rain problem - there were still a few in this
part of the country - and the idea met with less scorn than
it would have a few weeks before. Narcisse scowled and
shook his head and repeated that he had never seen anything
like it. Nothing in living memory even came close.
It was nearly ten o'clock. Marise was wearing a yellow
slicker. Rosa was standing behind her in her sky-blue mac
and red boots. Rain silvered their faces. Behind them the
sky was a dull orange, occasionally lit by the dim flare of
distant lightning. Wind shook the trees.
'What's wrong?' Their appearance surprised Jay so much
that at first he didn't even think to invite them in. 'Has
something happened?'
Marise shook her head.
'Come in, please. You must be freezing.' Jay cast an
automatic glance behind him. The room was tidy enough
272
to pass muster. Only a few empty coffee cups littered the
table. He caught Marise looking curiously at his bed in the
corner. Even after the roof had been fixed he'd never quite
got round to moving it.
'I'll make you a drink,' he suggested. "Here, take your
coats off.' He hung their slickers in the kitchen to drip and
put on some water to boil. 'Coffee? Chocolate? Wine?'
"Some chocolate for Rosa, thank you,' said Marise. 'Our
electricity is down. The generator shorted.'
'Jesus.'
'It doesn't matter.' Her voice was calm and businesslike.
'I can fix it. We've had this kind of problem before. The
marshland is very prone to flooding.' She looked at him. T
have to ask you for help,' she said reluctantly.
Jay thought it was an odd way of putting it. I have to ask
you.
'Of course,' he said. 'Anything.'
: Marise sat down stiffly at the table. She was wearing
Keans and a green jumper, which brought out the green in
Ifcer eyes. She touched the typewriter keys tentatively. Jay
jUaw that her nails were cut very short, and that there was
jSstt under them.
'You don't have to say yes,' she said. 'It's just an idea I
•Go on.'
'Do you write with this?' She touched the typewriter
|asgain. 'Your books, I mean?'
1 Jay nodded. 'I always did have a retrogressive streak,' he
.'admitted. 'Can't stand computers.'
She smiled. She looked tired, he noticed, her eyes
strained and bruised-looking. For the first time, and with
a feeling of surprise, he saw her as vulnerable.
'It's Rosa,' she said at last. 'I'm worried she might catch
cold - fall ill - if she stays in the house. I wondered if you
would perhaps find room for her in your farm for a few
days. Only a few days,' she repeated. 'Until I can get the
house back into shape. I'll pay you.' She pulled out a bundle
273
of notes from the pocket of her jeans and pushed them
across the table. 'She's a good girl. She wouldn't interfere
with your work.'
'I don't want money,' said Jay.
'But I--'
'I'd be happy to take Rosa. You, too, if you like. I have
plenty of room for both of you.' She looked at him with an
air of bewilderment, as if in surprise that he had given in so
easily.
'I can imagine the problems the flooding has caused,' he
told her. "You're very welcome to use the farm for as long as
you like. If you want to bring some clothes--'
'No,' she said quickly. 'I have too many things to do at
home. But Rosa . . .' She swallowed. 'I would be very
grateful. If you would.'
Rosa was exploring the room. Jay could see her looking at
the pile of typed sheets he had arranged in a box on the end
of his bed.
'Is this English?' she enquired curiously. 'Is this your
English book?' Jay nodded. 'See if you can find some
biscuits in the kitchen,' he told her. The chocolate will
be ready soon.' Rosa scampered off through the doorway.
'Can I bring Clopette with me when I come?' she called
from the kitchen.
"I don't see why not,' said Jay mildly.
From the other room Rosa gave a crow of triumph. Marise
looked at her hands. Her face was careful and expressionless.
Outside the wind rattled the shutters.
'Perhaps you'd like that wine now,' Jay suggested.
55
AND THEN THERE WAS ONE. THE LAST OF JOE'S SPECIALS. NO
more after that, not ever. As he reached for it in the rack
he felt a sudden reluctance to open it, but it was already
alive in his hand, black-corded Damson '76, releasing its
scent as he touched it, effervescent. Joe made himself
scarce, as he often did when Jay had company, but Jay
could just see him, standing in the shadows beside the
I kitchen door, the light from the table lamp gleaming on his
I bald forehead. He was wearing a Grateful Dead T-shirt and
holding his pit cap in his hand. His face was little more than
a blur, but Jay knew he was smiling.
'I don't know if you'll like it,' said Jay, pouring the wine.
'It's a special kind of home-brew.' The purple scent was
|;thick, almost cloying. To Jay it had an aftertaste which
I reminded him of the sherbert fountains Gilly had enjoyed
| so much. To Marise it was more like a jar of jam which has
| remained sealed for too long and has become sugar. The
;•' taste was tannic, penetrating. It warmed her.
'It's strange,' she said through numbed lips. 'But I think I
like it.' She sipped again, feeling the heat crawl down her
throat and into her body. A scent like distilled sunlight
filled the room. To Jay it felt suddenly right that they should
drink it together, this last of Joe's bottles. Strange, too, that
the taste, though peculiar, should be oddly pleasant. Maybe
at last, as Joe had predicted, he was getting used to it.
"I've found the biscuits,' announced Rosa, appearing at
the doorway with one in each hand. 'Can I go upstairs and
look at my room?'
Jay nodded.
'You do that. I'll call you when the chocolate's ready.'
Marise looked at him. She knew she should feel wary, but
instead there was a softness working through her, smoothing
away all tension. She felt very young again, as if the
scent of the strange wine had released something from her
childhood. She remembered a party dress precisely the
colour of the wine, a velvet party dress cut down from
an old skirt of Memee's, a tune played on the piano, a night
sky wide with stars. His eyes were exactly the same colour.
She felt as if she had known him for years.
'Marise,' said Jay quietly. 'You know you can talk to me.'
It was as if she had been dragging something heavy
behind her for the past seven years and had only just
realized it. It was as simple as that. You can talk to me. Joe's
bottle was a hive of secrets, uncoiling like busy vines in the
still air, peopling the shadows.
'There's nothing wrong with Rosa's hearing, is there?' It
was barely a question. She shook her head. She forced the
words out like bullets.
'It was a bad winter. She developed ear infections. There
was a complication. She was deaf for six months. I took her
to see specialists. There was an operation - very expensive.
I was told not to expect too much.' She drank a little more of
Joe's wine. It was rough with sugar. There was a syrupy
residue at the bottom of the glass which tasted like damson
jelly. 'I paid for special lessons for her,' she continued. 'I
learned sign language and continued to teach her myself.
There was another operation - even more expensive. Within
two years ninety per cent of her hearing was restored.'
Jay nodded. 'But why the pretence? Why not simply--'
'Mireille.' Strange that this wine, which should have
made her garrulous, should instead have made her terse.
'She's already tried to take her from me. All she has left of
Tony, she says. I knew that if she once managed to get hold
276
of Rosa I'd never get her back. I wanted to stop her. It was
the only way I could think of. If she couldn't talk to her, if
she thought she was damaged in some way . . .' She
swallowed. "Mireille can't bear imperfection. Less than
perfect doesn't interest her. That's why when Tony—'
She stopped abruptly.
She should not trust him, Marise thought to herself. The
wine was drawing more out of her than she was prepared
to give. Wine talks, and talk is dangerous. The last man she
had trusted was dead. Everything she touched - the vines,
Tony, Patrice - died. Easy enough to believe that it was
.something she carried, passing it on to everyone with whom
she came into contact. But the wine was strong. It rocked
her gently in a cradle of scents and memories. It teased out
her secrets.
Trust me. The voice from the bottle snickered and
crooned. Trust me.
' She poured another glassful and downed it recklessly.
,y 'I'll tell you,' she said.
277
•I MET HIM WHEN I WAS TWENTY-ONE,' SHE BEGAN. 'HE WAS MUCH
older than me. He was a day patient in the psychiatric ward
in Nantes hospital, where I was a student nurse. His name
was Patrice.'
He was tall and dark, like Jay. He spoke three languages.
He told her he was a lecturer at the Universite de Rennes.
He was divorced. He was funny and wry and wore his
depression with style. There was a ladder of cuts up
his right wrist from an unsuccessful suicide attempt. He
drank. He'd taken drugs. She'd thought he was cured.
Marise did not look up as she spoke of him, but instead
watched her hands climb up and down the stem of the
wineglass, as if playing a glass flute.
'At twenty-one you're so eager to find love that you see it
in every stranger's face,' she said softly. 'And Patrice was a
real stranger. I saw him several times outside the hospital. I
slept with him once. That was enough.'
After that he changed almost instantly. As if a steel cage
had come down over them, they were trapped together. He
became possessive, not in the charming, slightly insecure
way which had first attracted her, but in a cold, suspicious
manner, which frightened her. He quarrelled with her
constantly. He followed her to work and harangued her
on the ward. He tried to make up for his rages with lavish
presents, which frightened her even more. Finally, he broke
into her flat one evening and tried to rape her at knifepoint.
That was it,' she remembered. 'I'd had enough. I played
along for a while, then made an excuse to go to the bathroom.
He was full of plans. We were going to go away
together to a place he knew in the country, where I'd be
safe. That was what he said. Safe.' She shivered.
Marise locked herself in the bathroom and climbed out of
the window onto the roof, using the fire escape to reach the
street. But by the time the police arrived, Patrice was gone.
She changed the locks on her doors and secured the
windows.
'But it didn't stop there. He would park his car outside
the flat and watch me all the time. He would have things
delivered to my door. Presents. Threats. Flowers.' He was
persistent. Over weeks his harassment escalated. A funeral
wreath, delivered to her workplace. The locks forced and
the entire flat redecorated in black while she was at work.
A parcel of excrement, gift-wrapped in silver paper, on her
birthday. Graffiti on her door. A mountain of unwanted ^mail-order items in her name: fetishwear, farm equipment,
|orthopaedic supplies, erotic literature. Little by little her ^courage was eroded. The police were powerless to help. ^Without proof of physical harm, they would have had little
19/ith which to charge him. They called on the address IPatrice had given to the hospital, only to find it was that
Df a timber yard outside Nantes. No-one there had even fceard of him.
' 'Finally I moved out,' she said. 'I left the flat and bought a ticket to Paris. I changed my name. I rented a little apart|ment
in Rue de la Jonquiere, and I found a job in a clinic in
jiMarne-la-Vallee. I thought I was safe.' ( It took him eight months to find her.
'He used my medical records,' explained Marise. 'He must
have managed to talk someone at the hospital into giving
them to him. He could be very persuasive. Very plausible.'
She moved again, changed her name again and dyed her
hair. For six months she worked as a waitress in a bar in
Avenue de Clichy before finding another nursing job. She
279
tried to erase herself from all official documentation. She
allowed her medical insurance to lapse and did not transfer
her records. She cancelled her credit card and paid all her
bills in cash. This time it took Patrice almost a year to find
her new address.
He had changed in a year. He had shaved his head and
wore army surplus clothes. His siege of her flat had all the
precision of a military campaign. There were no more
practical jokes, no unwanted pizzas or begging notes.
Even the threats stopped. She saw him twice, sitting in
a car beneath her window, but when two weeks passed
and there was no further sign of him she began to believe
she had been mistaken. A few days later she awoke to the
smell of gas. He had bypassed the main supply somehow,
and she could find no way to turn it off. She tried the
door, but it was jammed shut, wedged from the outside.
The windows, too, were nailed shut, though her flat was
on the third floor. The phone was out. She managed to
break a window and scream for help, but it had been too
close. She fled to Marseilles. Began again. That was where
she met Tony.
'He was nineteen,' she remembered. 'I was working on
the psychiatric ward of Marseilles general hospital, and he
was a patient. From what I understood he had been
suffering from depression following his father's death.'
She smiled wryly. 'I should have known better than to
involve myself with another patient, but we were both
vulnerable. He was so young. His attention flattered me,
that was all. And I was good with him. I could make him
laugh. That flattered me, too.'
By the time she had realized how he felt it was too late.
He was infatuated with her.
'I told myself I could love him,' she said. 'He was funny
and kind and easy to manipulate. After Patrice, I thought
that was all I wanted. And he kept telling me about this
farm, this place. It sounded so safe, so beautiful. Every day I
would wake up and wonder if this was going to be the day
Patrice found me again. It would have been easy enough if
he'd traced me to Marseilles. There were only so many
hospitals and clinics he could check. Tony offered me a
kind of protection from that. And he needed me. That
already meant a lot.'
She allowed herself to be persuaded. At first Lansquenet
seemed everything she had ever wanted. But soon there
were clashes between Marise and Tony's mother, who
refused to accept the truth about his illness.
'She wouldn't listen to me,' explained Marise. 'Tony was
up and down all the time. He needed medication. If he
didn't take it he got worse, locking himself up in the house
for days at a time, not washing, just watching TV and
drinking beer and eating. Oh, he looked all right to outsiders.
That was part of the problem. I had to keep him in
check all the time. I played the part of the nagging wife. I
. had to.'
h Jay poured the last of the wine into her glass. Even the k dregs were highly scented, and for a moment he thought
|he could distinguish all the rest of Joe's wines in that
Hfinal glassful, raspberry and roses and elderflower and Blackberry and damson and jackapple, all in one. No
Ignaore Specials, he told himself with a tug of sadness,
|No more magic. Marise had stopped talking. Her maple-
Sred hair obscured her face. Jay had the sudden feeling that
J'-he'd known her for years. Her presence at his table was as natural, as familiar as that of his old typewriter. He put his
, hand on hers. Her kiss would taste of roses. She looked up,
| and her eyes were as green as his orchard. I 'Mamanf
Rosa's voice cut through the moment with shrill insistence.

'I've found a little room upstairs! There's a round window ' and a blue bed, shaped like a boat! It's a bit dusty, but I could clean it up, couldn't I, Maman? Couldn't I?'
Her hand moved away.
'Of course. If monsieur ... if Jay . . .' She looked con281
fused, awoken in the middle of a dream. She pushed the
half-empty wineglass away from her.
'I should go,' she said quickly. 'It's getting late. I'll bring
Rosa's things across. Thank you for--'
'It's all right.' Jay tried to put his hand on her arm, but she
pulled away. 'You can both stay if you like. I have plenty
of--'
'No.' Suddenly she was the old Marise again, the confidences
at an end. 'I have to bring Rosa's sleeping things.
It's time she was in bed,' She hugged Rosa briefly but
fiercely. 'You be good,' she advised. 'And please' - this was
to Jay - 'don't mention this in the village. Not to anyone.'
She unhooked her yellow slicker from the peg behind the
kitchen door and pulled it on. Outside, the rain was still
falling.
'Promise,' said Marise.
'Of course.'
She nodded, a curt, polite nod, as if concluding the
business between them. Then she was gone into the rain.
Jay closed the door behind her and turned to Rosa.
'Well? Is the chocolate ready?' she asked.
He grinned. 'Let's see, shall we?'
He poured the drink into a wide-mouthed cup with
flowers on the rim. Rosa curled up on his bed with the cup and watched curiously as he tidied away the cups and
glasses and put the empty bottle aside.
'Who was he?' she asked at last. 'Is he English, too?'
'Who's that?' Jay called from the kitchen, running water
into the sink.
'The old man,' said Rosa. 'The old man from upstairs.'
Jay turned off the tap and looked at her.
'You saw him? You talked to him?'
Rosa nodded.
'An old man with a funny hat on,' she said. 'He told me to
tell you something.' She took a long drink of her chocolate,
emerging from the cup with a frothy foam moustache. Jay
felt suddenly shivery, almost afraid.
'What did he say?' he whispered.
Rosa frowned.
'He said to remember the Specials,' she said. 'That yo
low what to do.'
'Anything else?' Jay's mouth was dry, his head poundi
'Yes.' She nodded energetically. 'He told me to say go
'e;
283
57
Pog Hill Lane, February 1999
IT WAS TWENTY-TWO YEARS BEFORE IAY WENT BACK TO POG HILL.
Part of it was anger, another part fear. He had never felt as
if he belonged before. London certainly wasn't home. The
places he'd lived all looked the same to him, with small
variations in size and design. Flats. Bedsits. Even Kerry's
Kensington house. Places in passing. But this year was
different. Pick your own cliche, as Joe would have said.
Perhaps it was simply that for the first time there were
greater fears than going back to Pog Hill. Nearly fifteen
years since Jackapple Joe. Since then, nothing. This went
beyond writer's block. He felt as if he were stuck in time,
forced to write and rewrite the fantasies of his adolescence.
Jackapple Joe was the first - the only - adult book he had
written. But instead of releasing him it had trapped him in
childhood. In 1977 he had rejected magic. He had had
enough, he told himself. Enough and enough and enough.
He was on his own, and that was the way he wanted it. As
if when he dropped Joe's seeds into the cutting at Pog Hill
he was also letting go of everything he'd clung to during
those past three years; the talismans, the red ribbons, Gilly,
the dens, the wasps' nests, the treks along the railway lines
and the fights at Nether Edge. Everything blowing away
284
into the cutting with the litter and the ash of the railbed.
Then Jackapple Joe put it to rest at last. Or so he had
thought. But there must have been something left. Curiosity,
perhaps. An itch at the back of his mind which refused
to be scratched. Some remnant of belief.
Perhaps he'd mistaken the signs. After all, what evidence
had he found? A few boxes of magazines? A map marked in
coloured pencils? Perhaps he had jumped to a false conclusion.
Perhaps Joe was telling the truth after all.
Perhaps Joe hod come back.
It was something he hardly dared imagine. Joe back at
Pog Hill? In spite of himself it brought his heart into his
throat. He imagined the house as it was, overgrown perhaps,
but with the allotment still well ordered behind the
camouflage of Joe's permanent solution, the trees decorated
with red ribbons, the kitchen warm with the scent of
brewing wine ... He waited several months before he made
the move. Kerry was supportive, cloyingly so, imagining
perhaps a renewed source of inspiration, a new book which
would propel him back into the limelight. She wanted to
come with him; was so persistent that he finally agreed.
It was a mistake. He knew it the moment they arrived.
Rain the colour of soot scrawling from the clouds. Nether
Edge reclaimed as a riverside building development; bulldozers
and tractors crawling across the disused railbed and
neat identical bungalows. Fields had become car showrooms,
supermarkets, shopping centres. Even the newsagent's,
where Jay had gone so many times to buy cigarettes
and magazines for Joe, had become something else.
Kirby's remaining mines had been closed for years. The
canal was being renovated, and with the help of millennium
funding there were ongoing plans for the development of a
visitors' centre, where tourists could go down a specially
converted mine shaft or ride a barge on the newly cleaned
canal.
Needless to say, Kerry thought it was charming.
But that wasn't the worst.
285
In spite of everything, he was expecting Pog Hill at least
to have survived. The main road was still more or less
unchanged, with its graceful if slightly blackened Edwardian
houses and its avenue of lindens. The bridge,
too, was as he remembered it, a new pedestrian crossing
at one end, but the same line of poplars which marked the
entrance to Pog Hill Lane, and Jay's heart played a funny
little riff against his ribs as he pulled the car up to the
yellow line and looked up the hill.
'Is that it?' Kerry was checking her reflection in the
passenger-seat mirror. 'I don't see any sign or anything.'
Jay said nothing and got out of the car. Kerry followed
him.
'So this is where it all began.' She sounded a little
disappointed. 'Funny. I thought it would be more atmospheric,
somehow.'
He ignored her and took a few steps forward up the hill.
They had changed the name of the lane. You won't find
Pog Hill on any map now, or Nether Edge, or any of the
places around which his life had revolved for those three
long-ago summers. It's called Meadowbank View now, the
houses knocked down to give way to a row of brick-built
two-storey flats with little balconies and geraniums in
plastic planters. A sign on the nearest building read,
'Meadowbank Quality Retirement Flats'. Jay went to stand
where Joe's house would have been. There was nothing. A
small tarmacked parking area - residents only - to the side.
Behind the flats, where Joe's garden had once stood, was a
bland square of lawn with a single small tree. Of Joe's
orchard, of the herb garden, the rows of blackcurrants and
raspberries and gooseberries, the vines, plums, pears, the
carrots, parsnips, the Specials, nothing remained.
'Nothing.'
Kerry took his hand. 'Poor darling,' she whispered in his
ear. 'You're not too terribly upset, are you?' She sounded
almost pleased, as if the prospect appealed to her. Jay
shook his head.
286
'Wait for me in the car, OK?'
Kerry frowned. 'But Jay--'
'Two minutes, OK?'
Just in time. He felt as if he might explode if he held it in
any more. He ran to the back of the garden and looked over
the wall down into the cutting. It was filled with rubbish.
Sacks of household waste covered the ground: discarded
fridges, car tyres, crates, pallets, tin cans, stacks of magazines
tied together with twine. Jay felt a kind of laughter
welling in his throat. Joe would have loved this. His dream
come true. Rubbish sprawled down the steep hill, as if
; flung there by passers-by. A baby's pram. A shopping r trolley. The frame of an ancient bicycle. Pog Hill cutting
i; had been converted into a landfill site. With an effort. Jay
I pulled himself up so that he could straddle the wall. The
hidden railbed looked a long way down from here, a sheer
;drop for most of the way into a scrub of bushes and a
Icontinent of litter. On the far side of the wall graffiti artists
ihad been at work. A scree of broken glass sparkled in the
Bun. One unbroken bottle lay against a protruding stump, pie light gleaming on its dusty base. A red cord, grubby 9/ith age, was knotted around its neck. He knew at once it
t?as Joe's.
1|' How it had escaped the demolition of Joe's house Jay Bouldn't imagine, still less how it could have remained
itact since then. But it was one of Joe's bottles, all right. "he coloured cord proved it, as did the label, still legible in
tie old man's painstaking handwriting: "Specials'. As he
lade his way down towards the bridge he thought he saw lore of Joe's belongings strewn down the banking. A
|broken clock. A spade. Some buckets and pots in which plants had once grown. It looked exactly as if someone had
stood at the top of the hill and simply hurled the contents of
Joe's house into the cutting below. Jay picked his way
across the sad wreckage, trying to avoid broken glass.
There were ancient copies of National Geographic and
pieces of a kitchen chair. And finally, a little further down,
287
he found the seed chest, its legs broken off, one door
hanging. Sudden, white rage pumped through him. It
was a complex feeling, directed as much at himself and
his foolish expectations as at Joe for letting this happen, or
at the person who had stood at the top of the hill and
dumped an old man's life into the gap, as if it were just
rubbish to be disposed of. Worse, there was fear, the
dreadful knowledge that he should have come here sooner,
that there had been something here for him to find, but that,
as always, he had come too late.
He searched until Kerry came to find him, almost an hour
later. He was filthy, muddied to the knees. In a cardboard
box he carried six bottles, discovered in various places on
the way down and miraculously unbroken.
Specials.
288
58
Lansquenet, Summer 1999
THAT WAS IT. JAY KNEW AT ONCE HE WAS GONE. THERE WAS A
finality in that goodbye which could not be ignored. As
yf, with the last drop of his wine, the old man had vanished
Icompletely. For several days he denied the certainty, telling
jhimself Joe would come back, that he hadn't left for good,
Jthat he wouldn't have gone away a second time. But the
Iheart had gone. The house no longer smelt of his smoke.
iFhe oldies station had stopped broadcasting, to be replaced
|by a local radio on the same frequency, blasting out modern
|hits. And there were no more glimpses of Joe just around
Hhe corner of a cold frame, or behind the shed, or in the
S&rchard inspecting the trees. No-one sat and watched him
Jawork at his typewriter, unless it was Rosa, who sometimes
|fcrept downstairs and watched him from his bed. Wine was
^ust wine, with no special effects. This time he felt no anger.
Instead, there was a sense of inevitability. Once again, the
magic had run out.
A week passed. The rain began to taper off, leaving more
damage in its wake. Jay and Rosa stayed mostly indoors.
Rosa was easy to please. She occupied herself. She stayed
reading in her newly furnished room under the eaves or
played Scrabble on the floor or went for splashy walks
289
around the field with Clopette. Sometimes she listened to
the radio or played with dough in the kitchen. Sometimes
she baked small, hard, floury biscuits. Every evening Mar-
ise joined them and made dinner, staying just long enough
to eat and check on Rosa before returning to work. The
generator had been restored. The drainage ditches were
taking time, but would be complete in a few more days. She
had enlisted Roux and some other workers from Clairmont's
yard to help her. Even so the vineyard remained half
flooded.
Jay had few visitors. Popotte called by twice with the
mail and once with a cake from Josephine, but Rosa was
round the back of the house and went unnoticed. Once
Clairmont came by with another load of bric-a-brac, but did
not stay. Now that the worst of the weather was past, most
of the others had work of their own to do.
Rosa's presence filled the house. After Joe's departure
this was more than welcome, for the house seemed oddly
bereft, as if something familiar had been taken away. For a
child of her age she was very silent, however, and sometimes
Jay could almost believe that she belonged more to
Joe's world than to his. She missed her mother. Except on
one occasion, they had never been apart. She greeted
Marise every evening with a fierce, wordless hug. Their
meals together were cheerful and animated, but there was a
reserve in Marise which Jay had not yet managed to
penetrate. She rarely talked about herself. She did not
mention Tony, or offer to finish the story she began on
the day of the flood. Jay did not try to press her. It could
wait.
A few days later Popotte brought a package from Nick,
containing the contracts from Jay's new publisher and a
number of newspaper clippings, dated from July to September.
A brief note from Nick read, 'I thought you might be
interested in this.'
Jay pulled out the clippings.
They all related to him in some way. He read them. Three
290
small news items from British papers speculating about his
disappearance. A piece from Publishers Weekly outlining
his return to the writing scene. A retrospective from The
Sunday Times entitled whatever happened to jackapple )oe?
with pictures of Kirby Monckton. Jay turned the page.
There, staring out at him with an impudent smile, was a
photograph of Joe.
was this the original jackapple man? queried the headline.

He stared at the picture. In it, Joe was fifty, maybe fifty-
five. Bareheaded, a cigarette at the corner of his mouth, his small half-moon glasses perched on the end of his nose. In
his hands he was holding a large pot of chrysanthemums
adorned with a rosette. The caption read, 'Local eccentric'.
'Mackintosh, with his usual reticence, has never chosen to reveal the identity of the original Joe,' continued the
article, 'though sources suggest that this man may have
been the inspiration for the nation's favourite gardener.
Joseph Cox, born in Sheffield in 1912, worked first as head
jgardener at a stately home, then for thirty years at Nether Bdge Coalworks in Kirby Monckton before ill-health forced
him to retire. A well-known local eccentric, Mr Cox lived
|pr many years in Pog Hill Lane, but was not available for Interview at his residence, now the Meadowbank Retire- dent Home. Miss Julie Moynihan, a day nurse at the home,
tescribed him to our reporter. "He's really a lovely old jentleman, with such a wonderful store of anecdotes. I'm
hrilled to think he might have been the original Joe." '
Jay barely looked at the rest of the article. Conflicting emotions raked through him. Amazement that he should
have come so close to him and not known, not sensed his
Ipresence somehow. Most of all, an overwhelming sense of
relief, of joy. The past could be redeemed after all. Joe was
still living at Pog Hill. Everything could be remade.
He forced himself to read the rest of the article. There
was nothing especially new. A summary of Jackapple Joe,
with a picture of the original cover. A small photograph of
291
the Bread Baron with Candide on his arm, taken two years
before their divorce. The journalist's name at the bottom
was K. Marsden and was slightly familiar. It took him
several minutes to recognize Kerry's pre-television name.
Of course. Kerry. That made sense. She knew about Pog
Hill Lane, and about Joe. And, of course, she knew a great
deal about Jay. She had access to photographs, diaries,
papers. Five years of listening to his ramblings and reminiscences.
He knew a fleeting moment of anxiety. What
exactly had he told her? What had he given away? He
didn't suppose that after the way he'd walked out he had a
right to expect any loyalty or discretion from her. He could
only hope that she would stay professional and keep his
private life private. He realized that he really didn't know
Kerry well enough to know what she'd do.
But none of that seemed important then. What mattered
was Joe. He could be on a plane to London within a few
hours, he told himself giddily, then catch the express north.
He could be there by that evening. He could see him again.
He could even bring him back with him, if that's what the
old man wanted. He could show him Chateau Foudouin. A
strip of newsprint, barely the size of a book of stamps,
fluttered free of the rest and came to land on the floor. Jay
picked it up and turned it over. It was too small to be an
article. He must have missed it among the other cuttings.
A note in biro at the top of the paper read, 'Kirby
Monckton Post'.
Obituaries - ctd.
Joseph Edwin COX, on 15 September 1999, quietly,
after a long illness.
'The kiss of the sun for pardon,
The song of the birds for mirth,
One is nearer God's Heart in a garden
Than anywhere else on earth.'
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Jay looked at it for a long time. The paper slipped from
)etween his fingers, but he could still see it, brightly
Humiliated in his mind's eye, in spite of the dullness of
he day. His mind refused to process the information.
ilanked. Refused. Jay stared at nothing, thought nothing.
293
THE NEXT FEW DAYS WERE A KIND OF VACUUM. HE SLEPT, ATE AND
drank in a daze. The Joe-shaped hole in things had become
something monstrous, blotting out the light. The book lay
abandoned, close to completion, gathering dust in a box
under his bed. Even though the rain had stopped he could
not bear to look at the garden. The Specials grew leggy,
unattended in their pots, awaiting transferral. What fruit
had survived the weather fell unregarded to the ground.
The weeds, which had grown hungrily throughout the wet
weather, were beginning to take over. In a month there
would be no sign of any of his work.
The hiss of the sun for pardon--
The worst of it was not knowing. To have been within reach of the mystery and to have lost it again, stupidly,
without explanation. It all seemed so pointless. He imagined
Joe watching from the wings, waiting to jump out.
Surpri-iseJ All a joke, after all. An elaborate deception,
friends lined up behind the curtain with party-favours
and streamers, Gilly and Maggie and Joe and everyone
from Pog Hill Lane, masks drawn aside to reveal their real
faces. Distress turning to laughter as the truth was revealed.
But this was a party to which Jay had not been
invited. No more Specials. All run dry - blackberry and
elderflower, jackapple and rosehip. No more magic. Ever.
And yet I could still hear them. As if some part of their
essence had evaporated into the air, become a part of this
place, ingrained, like the scent of cigarettes and burning
sugar, in the woodwork and plaster. Everything was buzzing
with that vanished presence, buzzing and singing and
laughing louder than ever before, stone and tile and polished
wood, all whispering with agitation and excitement;
never still, never silent. Only Jay did not hear it. He had
gone beyond nostalgia, into a bleakness from which he felt
nothing could drag him. He remembered all the times he
hated Joe. All the times he raged against the old man's
desertion; the things he said to himself, to others. The
dreadful things. He thought of the years when he could
have traced Joe but made no real effort to do so. He
could have hired a detective. He could have paid someone
to find him if he couldn't do it himself. Instead, he sat and
waited for Joe to find him. All those wasted years, sacrificed to pride. And now it was too late.
There was a quote he could not quite remember, something
about the past being an island surrounded by time. ,;He had missed the last boat to the island, he told himself ^bitterly. Pog Hill was now relegated to the list of places ^irretrievably lost to him, worse than lost. With Joe gone, it fwas as if Pog Hill had never existed.
I; The hiss of the sun for pardon--
|f But what he had done was beyond that. Joe was there, he
|told himself. Joe was alive at Pog Hill throughout that
|iBUmmer. Astral travel, he'd said. That's why I do so much
INbioody sJeepm. Joe had come to him after all. Joe had tried
|to make amends. And still Joe had died alone.
|t It was good for him that Rosa was still here. Marise's
|visits, too, lifted him temporarily. At least this way he had
j"to stay sober during the daytime. Routines needed to be 'observed, even if they had become meaningless.
Marise half noticed a change in him, but there was
already too much to think about at the farm for her to give
him more than passing attention. The drainage work was
almost completed, the vineyard free of standing water, the
Tannes shrinking back to normality at last. She had to give
295
up a proportion of her savings to pay for the work and the
new supplies, but she felt heartened. If the harvest could be salvaged there was still hope for next year. If only she could
raise enough money to buy the land - poor enough land for
building, most of it too marshy to plant. She knew PierreEmile
was uninterested in leasing the property: there was
too little profit in such an arrangement. He had a family in
Toulouse. No. He would sell. She knew he would. There
was a good chance that the price would be low, she told
herself. After all, this was not Le Pinot. Even now there was
a good chance she would be able to raise the money.
Twenty per cent was all she needed. She only hoped
Mireille would not interfere. After all, the old woman
had no interest in seeing her leave. Quite the opposite.
But Marise needed to be in charge of the property. She
would not be at the mercy of a lease arrangement. Mireille
understood why. They needed each other, however much
the old woman loathed the thought. Balanced on a bridge,
each one holding one end of the rope. If one fell, they both
fell.
Marise had no qualms about lying. She had, after all,
done Mireille a favour. The lie protected them, like a
weapon too terrible to be used in war. But time was running
out for both of them. For herself, the lease's end. For
Mireille, age and illness. The old woman wanted her off
the farm because it made her vulnerable. Marise only
wondered whether the old threat would hold fast. Perhaps
it meant nothing to her now. The thought of losing Rosa
had once kept them both silent. But now . . . She wondered
what Rosa still meant to Mireille.
She wondered what each of them still had to lose.
296
60
JAY AWOKE TO BIRDSONG. HE COULD HEAR ROSA MOVING AROUND
upstairs, straw-coloured sunlight was coming through the
shutters. For a fleeting moment, he had a sensation of well-
being. Then the recollection of Joe's death hit him, a bolt of
grief he was unable to field, taking him by surprise. Every
; day he woke up expecting things to be different, but every i morning it was the same.
? He stumbled out of bed half-dressed and put some water
| on to boil. He splashed cold water on his face from the
|kitchen tap. He made coffee and drank it scalding. Upstairs
|fae could hear Rosa running a bath. He put food and milk on
|lhe table for her breakfast. One bowl of cafe au Jait, with
I three wrapped sugar lumps on the side. A slice of melon.
|dereal. Rosa had a healthy appetite.
|6: 'Rosa! Breakfast!' His voice sounded hoarse. There
|were a number of cigarette butts in a saucer on the
|teble, though he could not recall having bought or
|lHnoked any. For a second he felt a stab of something
|which might have been hope. But none of the butts were
| Player's.
;. There was a knock at the door. Popotte, he thought dimly,
probably bringing another bill, or an anxious letter from
Nick demanding to know why Jay hadn't returned the
contracts. He drank another mouthful of stale-tasting coffee
and made for the door.
' Someone was standing outside, immaculate in grey
297
slacks and cashmere cardigan, smart new crop, J. P. Tod's,
Burberry and red Louis Vuitton document case.
'Kerry?'
For a second he saw himself through her eyes: barefoot,
unshaven, harried. She gave him a brilliant smile.
'Poor Jay. You look absolutely derelict. Can I come in?'
Jay hesitated. It was too smooth. He'd always mistrusted
Kerry's smoothness. It was too often the signal for warfare.
'Yeah. Sure. OK.'
'What a wonderful place.' Drifting past on a wave of
Envy. 'I absolutely adore the spice chest. And the dresser.'
She hovered elegantly, looking for an uncluttered place to
sit. Jay pulled some dirty clothes off the back of a chair and
nodded to her.
'Sorry it's such a mess,' he began. Too late he realized his
apologetic tone gave her the advantage. She gave him the
patented Kerry O'Neill smile and sat down, crossing her
legs. She looked like a very beautiful Siamese cat. Jay had
no idea what she was thinking. He never did. The smile
might have been genuine. Who could know?
'How did you find me?' Again he tried to get the apology
out of his voice. 'I didn't exactly go out of my way to
advertise where I was staying.'
'What do you think? Nicky told me.' She smiled. 'Of
course, I had to persuade him. You know everyone's been
very worried about you? Running off like that. Keeping this
new project to yourself.'
She looked at him archly and put her hand on his
shoulder. He noticed her eyes had changed colour - blue
instead of green. Joe was right about the contact lenses.
He shrugged, feeling graceless.
'Of course, I understand completely.' Her hand moved to
his hair, smoothing it from his forehead. Jay remembered
she'd always been at her most dangerous when she was
being maternal. 'But you look positively wasted. What have
you been doing to yourself? Too many late nights?'
Jay brushed away her hand.
298
'I read your article,' he said.
Kerry shrugged. 'Yes, I've been writing a few pieces for
the literary supplements,' she said. 'I couldn't help thinking
that Forum! was getting to be just that little bit too cliquey,
don't you think? Too restrictive?'
'What's wrong? Didn't they offer you another series?'
Kerry raised her eyebrows.
'Darling, you've learned sarcasm,' she said. 'I'm so pleased
for you. But now Channel Five have come up with a wonderful
idea.' She glanced at the cereal, coffee and fruit laid out on
the table. 'May I? I'm absolutely starving.' Jay watched her
pour a bowlful of cafe au Jait, and her eyes flicked again to the
cup in his hand. 'You've really gone native, haven't you? I
mean. Coffee in bowls and Gauloises for breakfast. Were you
expecting company, or am I not supposed to ask?'
< 'I'm looking after a neighbour's child,' Jay told her, trying
| not to sound defensive. 'Just for a few days until the floods ;' go down.'
| Kerry smiled. 'How lovely. I'm sure I can guess which
I' Child, too. After reading your manuscript--'
S 'You've read it?' So much for defensiveness. She would
I have had to be blind to miss the way his arm jerked,
| slopping hot coffee onto the floor. She smiled again.
| 'I glanced at it. That kind of naive style is very refreshing.
| 'Very now. And there's such an amazing sense of place -- I
|;|ust had to see it all for myself. Then, when I saw how well
I; it could tie in - your book, and my programme -' Jay shook
|:"'his head. It was aching, and he couldn't help thinking that ^ he'd missed something important.
1 'What do you mean?'
j Kerry looked at him in mock impatience. 'Well, I was
-.'. about to tell you. The Channel Five programme, of course,' < she said. 'Pastures New. It's going to be all about British
people living abroad. One of those lifestyle-travelogue
f shows. And when Nicky mentioned this wonderful place
| - plus everything that's happening with your book - it just t seemed like serendipity, or something.'
^ 299
'Wait a minute.' Jay put down the coffee cup. 'You're not
thinking of getting me involved in this scheme of yours, are
you?'
"Why, of course,' replied Kerry impatiently. 'The place is
ideal. I've already spoken to a few of the locals, and there's
terrific interest. And you're ideal. I mean, just think of the
publicity. When the new book comes out--'
Jay shook his head. 'No. I'm not interested,' he said.
'Look, Kerry, I know you're trying to help, but the last
thing I want right now is publicity. I came here to be alone.'
'Alone?' said Kerry ironically. Jay saw that she was
looking beyond him into the kitchen. He turned round.
Rosa was standing behind the door in her red pyjamas,
eyes bright with curiosity, hair corkscrewing in all directions.

'Saluf said Rosa, grinning. 'C'est qui, cette dame? C'est
une AngJaise?'
Kerry's smile grew a little broader. 'You must be Rosa,'
she said. 'I've heard so much about you. And do you know,
sweetheart, I always imagined you'd be deaf?'
'Kerry.' Jay was looking edgy and uncomfortable. 'We can
talk later. Right now it's really not a good time. OK?'
Kerry sipped her coffee lazily. 'You really don't have to
stand on ceremony with me,' she said. 'What a lovely little
girl. I'm sure she takes after her mother. I feel I know them both already, of course. So sweet of you to have based all
the characters on real people. It's almost like a roman-d-clef.
I'm sure that will come out marvellously in the programme.'
Jay looked at her. 'Kerry, I'm not going to do any programme.'

'I'm sure you'll change your mind when you've had the
chance to have a think about it,' she said.
'I won't,' said Jay.
Kerry raised her eyebrows. 'Why ever not? It's just
perfect. Plus it could relaunch your career.'
'And yours,' he said drily.
'Perhaps. Is that so bad? After all, after everything I've
300
done for you -- the work I've put into you -- perhaps you owe
me a little something in return. Maybe when all this is
settled I could write your biography, giving my insights into
Jay Mackintosh. I could still do your career a great deal of
good, you know, if you'd let me do it.'
'Owe you?' Once he might have felt angry at that. Even
guilty. Now it was almost funny. 'You've used that on me too often, Kerry. It doesn't work any more. Emotional
blackmail is no basis for a relationship. It never was.'
'Oh, please.' She controlled herself with an effort. 'What
would you know about that? The only relationship you've
ever cared about was with an old faker who took you for a
ride and dumped you when it suited him. It was always Joe
this, Joe that. Maybe now he's dead you'll grow up enough
to appreciate that it's money, and not magic, that makes the
world go round.'
Jay smiled. 'That's quite a little soundbite,' he said mildly.
'But as you pointed out, Joe's dead. This isn't about him any
more. Maybe it was when I first came here. Maybe I was
trying to recreate the past. Trying to be Joe somehow. But
not now.'
She looked at him. 'You've changed,' she said.
'Perhaps.'
'At first I thought it was this place,' she continued. 'This
pathetic little place with its single stop sign and its wooden
houses on the river. It would have been just like you to fall
in love with it. To make it another Pog Hill. But that isn't it,
is it?'
He shook his head. 'Not entirely, no.'
'It's worse than that. And it's so obvious.' She gave a
brittle laugh. 'It's exactly the kind of thing you would do.
You've found your muse here, haven't you? Here among the
ridiculous goats and scraggy little vineyards. How wonderfully
gauche. How fucking like you.'
Jay looked at her. 'What do you mean?'
Kerry shrugged. She managed to look amused and vicious
at the same time. 'I know you, Jay. You're the most
301
selfish person I've ever met. You never put yourself out for
anyone. So why are you looking after her child? Anyone can
see it isn't just this pJace you've fallen in love with.' She
gave an angry titter. 'I knew it would happen some time,'
she declared. 'Someone would manage to light the fuse. At
one point I even thought it was going to be me. God knows,
I did enough for you. I deserved for it to be me. I mean, what
has she done for you? Does she even know about your
work? Does she even care about it?'
Jay poured himself a second coffee and lit a cigarette.
'No,' he said. "I don't think she does. She cares about the
land. The vines. Her daughter. Real things.' He smiled at the
thought.
'You'll tire of that quickly enough,' predicted Kerry
scornfully. 'You never were one for living in the real world.
You've never had a problem yet that you couldn't run away
from. Just wait till things get a bit too real for you. You'll be
off like a shot.'
'Not this time.' His voice was level. 'Not this time.'
'We'll see,' she said coolly. 'Won't we? After we finish
Pastures New.'
AS SOON AS KERRY HAD LEFT, JAY DROVE INTO LANSQUENET,
leaving Rosa with strict instructions not to leave the house,
and blew off some of his anger on the phone to Nick
Horneli. Nick was less receptive than he'd hoped.
'I thought it would be a good bit of promotion for you,' he
said blandly. 'It isn't often you get a second chance in the
publishing business, Jay, and I have to say, I thought you'd
be a bit more keen to make the most of this one.'
'Oh.' It wasn't what he'd expected to hear, and for a
moment he was taken off-balance. He wondered what
exactly Kerry had been saying.
'Plus, I don't like to rush you, but I'm still waiting for
your signed contracts and the last part of the new manuscript.
The publishers are getting edgy, wondering when
you're going to finish. If I could only have a first draft--'
'No.' Jay could hear the strain in his voice. 'I'm not going
to be pressured, Nick.'
Nick's tone was suddenly, terrifyingly indifferent. 'Remember
you're an unknown quantity nowadays, Jay. A bit
of a legend, sure. That's no bad thing. But you've got a
reputation, too.'
'What reputation?'
'I don't think it's very constructive at this--'
'What fucking reputation?'
Nick's shrug was audible. 'OK. You're a risk, Jay. You're
full of great ideas, but you haven't produced anything of
real value in years. You're temperamental. You don't meet
deadlines. You're always late to meetings. You're a bloody
prima donna living on a reputation ten years out of date,
who doesn't understand that in this business you can't
afford to be precious about publicity.'
Jay tried to keep his voice level. 'What are you trying to
say, Nick?'
Nick sighed. 'All I'm saying is be a little flexible,' he said.
'Publishing has moved on since Jackapple Joe. In those days
it was OK for you to be eccentric. It was expected. Even a
little cute. But nowadays you're just another product, Jay,
and you can't afford to let anyone down. Least of all me.'
So?'
'So I'm telling you that if you don't sign the contract and
finish the manuscript within a reasonable time -- say a
month or so - then Worldwide will pull out and I'll have
blown my credibility for nothing. I have other clients, Jay. I
have to think about them, too.'
Heavily, Jay replied, 'I see.'
'Look, Jay. I'm on your side, you know.'
'I know.' Suddenly he wanted to get away. 'I've had a bad
week, Nick. Too much has been happening. And when
Kerry turned up on my doorstep--'
'She wants to help, Jay. She cares about you. We all do.'
'Sure. I know.' He made his voice gentle, though he was
burning with rage. 'I'll be OK, Nick. You'll see.'
303
'Sure you will.'
He hung up with the definite feeling that he'd had the
worst of that interchange. Something had shifted. As if
with the removal of Joe's protective influence he had
become suddenly vulnerable again. Jay clenched his fists.
'Monsieur Jay? Are you all right?'
It was Josephine, her face pink with concern.
He nodded.
'You'll have some coffee? A slice of my cake?'
Jay knew he ought to be getting back to check on Rosa,
but the temptation to stay awhile was too strong. Nick's
words had left a nasty taste in his mouth, not least because
they were true.
Josephine was full of news.
'Georges and Caro Clairmont have been in touch with an
English lady, someone from the television. She says she
might want to make a film here, something about travel.
Lucien Merle is full of it, too. He thinks it could be the
making of Lansquenet.'
Jay nodded wearily. 'I know.'
"You know her?'
He nodded again. The cake was good, glazed apple on
almond pastry. He concentrated on eating. Josephine explained
that Kerry had been talking to people for several
days, making notes with her little tape recorder, taking
snapshots. There was a photographer with her, too, an
Englishman, tres comme il faut. Jay read disapproval of
Kerry in Josephine's expression. No wonder. Kerry wasn't
the kind of woman other women took to. She only made an
effort with men. It seemed that both of them had been in the
region for some time, staying with the Merles. He remembered
Toinette Merle was in journalism. That explained the
photograph and the article in the Courrier d'Agen.
'They're here because of me.'
He explained the situation, from his hasty departure
from London to Kerry's arrival. Josephine listened in silence.

'How long will they stay, do you think?'
Jay shrugged indifferently. 'As long as it takes.'
'Oh.' Pause. 'Georges Clairmont is already talking about
buying up derelict properties in Les Marauds. He thinks
land prices will go up when word gets out.'
'They probably will.'
She looked at him oddly. 'It is a good time to buy now,
after the wet summer,' she continued. 'People need the
money. There's been no harvest to speak of. They can't
afford to keep unproductive land. Lucien Merle has already
spread word in Agen.'
Jay couldn't shake the idea that her eyes were disapproving.
'It won't harm your business, though, will it?'
he said, with an attempt at lightness. 'All those thirsty
people hanging around the place.'
She shrugged. 'Not for 1-ong,' she said. 'Not here.'
Jay could see what she meant. Le Pinot had twenty cafes,
restaurants, a McDonald's and a leisure centre. Local
businesses had closed down to be replaced by more enterprising
outfits from the cities. Locals had moved away,
unable to change rapidly enough with the times. Farms had
become unviable. Rents doubled, trebled. He wondered if
Josephine could handle the competition. On the whole, it
was unlikely.
Did Josephine blame him? Impossible to tell from her
expression. Her face, usually so flushed and smiling,
seemed closed now. Her hair fell lankly across her brow
as she fussed with the empty cups.
He drove back to the farm with a feeling of unease which
Josephine's lukewarm goodbye did nothing to alleviate. He
saw Narcisse on the road and waved at him, but he did not
wave back.
IT WAS ALMOST AN HOUR LATER WHEN JAY GOT BACK TO
Chateau Foudouin. He parked the car on the drive and
went in search of Rosa, who, he supposed, must be getting
hungry. The house was empty. Clopette was wandering
305
about at the edge of the vegetable patch. Rosa's raincoat
and hat were hanging on the back of the kitchen door. He
called her. There was no reply. Feeling slightly worried
now, he went around the back of the house, then to Rosa's
favourite spot by the river. Still nothing. What if she had
fallen in the water? The Tannes was still dangerously swollen, its banks eroded to the point of near collapse.
What if she had wandered into one of the old fox traps? Or
fallen down the cellar steps?
He searched the house again, then the grounds. The
orchard. The vineyard. The shed and the old barn. Nothing.
Not even footprints. Finally he crossed Marise's field,
hoping the child might have gone to see her mother. But
Marise was putting the finishing touches to her newly dry
and repainted kitchen, her hair bound up in a red scarf,
paint on the knees of her jeans.
'Jay!' She seemed pleased to see him. 'Is everything all
right? How's Rosa?'
He couldn't tell her.
'Rosa's fine. I wondered if you needed anything from the
village.' Marise shook her head. She seemed not to have
noticed his unease.
'No, I'm all right,' she said cheerfully. 'I've almost finished
here. Rosa can come back in the morning.'
Jay nodded. 'Great. I mean . . .'
She flashed him one of her rare, warm smiles. 'I know,'
she said. 'You've been very kind and patient. But I know
you'll be pleased to have the house to yourself again.'
Jay grimaced. His head was beginning to hurt again. He
swallowed. 'Look, I should be getting back,' he said awkwardly.
'Rosa . . .'
She nodded. 'I know,' she said. 'You've been very good
with her. You can't imagine--' Jay couldn't bear her
gratitude. He ran all the way back to the farm.
HE SPENT ANOTHER HOUR GOING OVER POSSIBLE HIDING PLACES.
He knew he should never have left her. Rosa was a mis306

chievous child, subject to all kinds of whims and fancies.
She might even now be hiding from him, as she had often
hidden during his first weeks on the farm. All this might
easily be her idea of a joke. But as time passed and Rosa
was nowhere to be found, he began to consider other
options. It was all too easy, for example, to imagine her
climbing the banks of the Tannes and sliding in, being
taken downriver for a couple of kilometres to be washed up
against a mudbank, or even as far as Les Marauds. Easy,
too, to imagine her simply wandering off down the road to
Lansquenet, perhaps being picked up by some stranger in a
car.
Some stranger? But there were no strangers in Lansque-
net. Everyone knew everyone else. Doors were left unlocked.
Unless . . . Suddenly he remembered Patrice, Marise's stalker
from her Paris days. Surely not - in seven years. But that
would explain many things. Her reluctance to come into the
village. Her refusal to leave the place which had become a
safe haven for her. Her fierce protectiveness of Rosa. Could
Patrice have somehow traced them to Lansquenet? Had he
been watching the farm, waiting for an opportunity to make
his move? Could he be one of the villagers themselves,
keeping close, biding his time? The idea was ridiculous,
pure comic-book fiction; the kind of thing he himself might
have written, aged fourteen, on a lazy afternoon by the canal.
All the same he felt his chest contract at the thought. He
imagined Patriee looking a little like Zeth, grown taller and
meaner with age, his tribal cheeks thinner, his eyes mad and
clever. Zeth, with a real shotgun this time, waiting at the gate
with that look of mean appraisal in his eyes. It was ridiculous
but it seemed very possible then, a logical conclusion to the
rest of that summer, to Joe's final disappearance, to the way
events had slipped back relentlessly towards that last October
and to Pog Hill Lane. No more ridiculous, in any case,
than the rest of it.
He thought of taking the car, but rejected the idea. Rosa
might be hiding in a bush or by the roadside, too easy to
miss for even a slow driver. Instead he walked along the
road towards Lansquenet, stopping occasionally to call her
name. He looked in ditches and behind trees. He detoured
to a welcoming duckpond, which might possibly have
tempted an inquisitive child, then to a deserted barn.
But there was no sign of her. Finally, on reaching the
village, he tried his last realistic option. He made for
Mireille's house.
The first thing he noticed on arrival was the car parked
in front: a long grey Mercedes, with a smoked-glass wind|!
screen and hire-car plates. A gangster's car, he thought, or
that of a game-show host. Heart pounding in sudden
realization, Jay made for the door. Without pausing to
knock, he opened it, calling harshly, 'Rosa?'
She was sitting on the landing in her orange jumper and
jeans, looking at an album of photographs. Her Wellingtons
were parked by the door. She looked up as Jay called her
name, and grinned. Relief almost brought him to his knees.
'What did you think you were playing at? I've been
looking everywhere for you. How did you get here?'
Rosa looked at him, unabashed. 'But your friend came to
fetch me. Your English friend.'
'Where is she?' Jay could feel the relief washing away
into black rage. 'Where the fuck is she?'
'Jay, darling.' Kerry was standing in the kitchen doorway,
very much at home with a glass of wine in one hand. 'That's
hardly the kind of language you want to be using in front of
a child in your care.' She gave one of her winsome smiles.
Behind her stood Mireille, monumental in her black house-
dress.
'I called to have another word with you, but you'd gone
out,' explained Kerry sweetly. 'Rosa answered the door. She
and I have been having a lovely talk, haven't we, Rosa?'
This last utterance was in French, presumably to include
Mireille, who stood wordlessly behind her. 'I have to say
you've been frightfully secretive about everything. Jay
darling. Poor Madame Faizande had absolutely no idea.'
Jay glanced at Mireille, who was watching, hands
crossed over her enormous bosom.
'Kerry,' he began. She gave another of her hard, brilliant
smiles.
'Charming reunion,' she remarked. 'You know, I'm beginning
to understand what you see in this place. So many
secrets. So many fascinating characters. Madame d'Api, for
example. Madame Faizande has been telling me all about
her. Not quite the way she comes across in your book,
though.'
Jay looked upstairs at Rosa. 'Come here, Rosa,' he said
quietly. 'Time to go home.'
'You're very popular here, by all accounts,' said Kerry. 'I
imagine you'll be quite the local hero when Pastures Neiv
takes off. Give the place a boost.'
Jay ignored her. 'Rosa,' he said again. The child sighed
theatrically and stood up.
'Are we really going to be on television?' queried Rosa
smartly, stepping into her Wellingtons. 'Maman and you
and everyone? We've got a television at home. I like
Cocoricoboy and Nos Amis Les Animaux. But Maman
doesn't let me watch Cinema de Minuit.' She made a face.
'Too much kissing.'
Jay took her hand. 'No-one's going to be on television,' he
told her.
Oh.'
*I don't think you'll have the option,' remarked Kerry
blandly. 'I have the makings of an excellent programme
already, with or without you. The artist, his influences, you
know the thing. Forget Peter Mayle, Before you know it
people will be flocking here to Jay Mackintosh Country.
You really ought to be grateful.'
'Please, Kerry.'
'Oh, for Christ's sake! Anyone would think I had a gun to
your head. Anyone else would give their right arm for this
kind of free publicity!'
'Not me.'
She laughed. 'I always did have to do all the work
myself,' she remarked cheerily. 'Meetings, interviews. Getting
you to the right kind of parties. Pulling strings. And
now you're turning your nose up at a terrific opportunity --
for what? Grow up, sweetheart. No-one finds gauche endearing
any more.'
She sounded so like Nick that, for a moment, Jay had the
dreadful conviction that they were in it together, that they'd
planned it between them.
"I don't want people rushing here,' he said. 'I don't want
tourists and burger bars and souvenir shops springing up
in Lansquenet. You know what that kind of publicity does
to a place.'
Kerry shrugged. 'Seems to me that's exactly what this
place needs,' she said reasonably. 'It looks half dead.' She
scrutinized her nails for a second, frowning. 'Anyway, it's
hardly up to you to decide, is it? I don't see anyone turning
business away.'
She was right, of course. That was the worst of it. The
momentum sweeps everything away in front of it, welcome
or not. He imagined Lansquenet, like Pog Hill, relegated to
the growing ranks of things which only existed in the past.
'Not here. It's not going to happen here.'
Kerry's laughter followed him down the street.
310
61
MARISE ARRIVED AT SEVEN AS USUAL, CARRYING A BOTTLE OF
wine and a closed wicker basket. She had washed her
hair, and for the first time since he'd known her she was
wearing a long red skirt with her black sweater. It made her
look different, gypsylike, and there was a touch of colour on
her lips. Her eyes were shining.
'I feel like celebrating,' she announced, putting the bottle
on the table. 'I've brought some cheese and foie gras and
nut bread. There's a cake, too, and some almond biscuits.
And some candles.'
She brought out two brass candlesticks from the hamper
and stood them on the table.
Then she fixed a pair of candles into the sockets.
'It looks nice, doesn't it?' she said. 'I can't remember
when we last had dinner by candlelight.'
'Last year,' replied Rosa pertly. 'When the generator
broke down.'
Marise laughed. That doesn't count.'
That evening she was more relaxed than Jay had ever
seen her. She and Rosa laid the table with brightly painted
plates and crystal wineglasses. Rosa picked flowers from
the garden for a centrepiece. They had foie gras on nut
bread with Marise's own wine, which tasted of honey and
peaches and toasted almonds, then salad and warm goat's
cheese, then coffee, cakes and petits fours. Throughout the
little party Jay tried hard to concentrate his thoughts. Rosa,
311
under instructions not to mention their visit to Lansquenet,
was cheery, insisting on her canard -- a sugar lump dipped
in wine - surreptitiously feeding Clopette scraps under the
table, and then, when the goat was banished to the garden,
through the half-open window. Marise was bright and
talkative and lovely in the golden light. It should have been perfect.
He told himself he was waiting for the right time. Of
course he knew there was no right time, simply a delaying
tactic. He had to tell her before she found out for herself.
Worse still, before Rosa let something slip.
But as the evening passed it became harder and harder to
make the move. His conversation died. His head began
to ache. Marise seemed not to notice. Instead she was full of
details about the next phase of her drainage plan, the
extension to the cellar, relief that there would still be a
wine crop, though much reduced, optimism for next year.
She was planning to buy out the land when the lease ran
out, she said. There was money in the bank, plus fifty
barrels of cuvee speciale in her cellar, just waiting for the
right market. Land was cheap in Lansquenet, especially
poorly drained problem land like hers. After the bad
summer prices might drop still more. And PierreEmile,
who had inherited the estate, was no businessman. He
would be happy to get what he could for the farm and the
vineyard. The bank would make up the rest with a long-
term loan.
The more she said, the worse Jay felt. Remembering what
Josephine had told him about land prices his heart sank.
Tentatively he asked what might happen if, by chance,
perhaps . . . Her face hardened a little. She shrugged.
'I would have to leave,' she said simply. 'Leave everything,
go back to Paris or to Marseilles. Somewhere big. Let
Mireille--' She bit off the rest of the sentence and made her
expression resolutely cheerful. 'But that won't happen,' she
said firmly. 'None of that will happen. I've always dreamed
of a place like this,' she went on, her face softening. 'A farm,
312
land of my own, trees, perhaps a little river. Somewhere
private. Safe.' She smiled. 'Perhaps when I have the land to
myself and there is no lease to hang over my head, things
will be different,' she said unexpectedly. 'Perhaps I could
begin again with Lansquenet. Find Rosa some friends
her own age. Give people another chance.' She poured
another glass of the sweet golden wine. 'Give myself
another chance.'
Jay swallowed with difficulty. 'But what about Mireille?
Wouldn't she cause problems for you?'
Marise shook her head. Her eyes were half closed, catlike,
sleepy. 'Mireille won't live for ever,' she said. 'After that - I
can handle Mireille,' she said at last. 'Just as long as I have
the farm.'
For a while the conversation turned to other things. They
drank coffee and Armagnac, and Rosa fed petits fours to
the goat through the gap in the shutters. Then Marise sent
Rosa to bed with only a token complaint - it was almost
midnight and she had been up for much longer than she
was used to. Jay could hardly believe that the child had not
given him away during the course of the meal. In a way he
regretted it. As Rosa vanished upstairs - with a biscuit in
.each hand and a promise of pancakes for breakfast - he
^•turned on the radio, poured another glass of Armagnac and
|passed it to Marise.
| 'Mmm. Thanks.'
I- 'Marise,'
•E She glanced at him lazily.
I "Why does it have to be Lansquenet?' he asked. 'Couldn't
^you have moved somewhere else after Tony died? Avoided
fiall this . . . this business with Mireille?'
ft She reached for the last petit four. 'It has to be here,' she
^Saaid at last. 'It just has to be.'
;?' 'But why? Why not Montauban or Nerac or one of the
jwllages near by? What is there in Lansquenet which you
|can't have anywhere else? Is it because Rosa grew up here?
s it ... is it because of Tony?'
She laughed then, not unkindly, but on a note he couldn't
quite identify. 'If you like.'
Jay's heart tightened suddenly. 'You don't talk about him
much.'
'No. No, I don't.'
She looked into her drink in silence.
'I'm sorry. I shouldn't interfere. Forget I said it.'
Marise gave him an odd look, then stared back into her
drink. Her long fingers moved nervously. 'It's all right.
You've helped me. You've been kind. But it's complicated,
you know? I wanted to tell you. I've wanted to for a long
time.'
Jay tried to say that she was wrong, that he didn't want
to know, that there was something else he desperately
needed to tell her. But nothing came out.
'For a long time I had a problem with trust,' said Marise
slowly. 'After Tony. After Patrice. I told myself I didn't need
anyone else. That we would be safer on our own, Rosa and
I. That no-one would believe the truth if I told it anyway.'
She paused, tracing a complicated figure on the dark table
top. 'Truth is like that,' she went on. 'The more you want to
tell someone, the harder it gets. The more impossible it
seems.'
Jay nodded. He understood that perfectly.
'But with you . . .' She smiled. 'Maybe it's because you're
a foreigner. I feel I've known you for a long time. Trusted
you. Why else should I have trusted you with Rosa?'
'Marise.' He swallowed again. 'There's something I
really—'
'Shh.' She looked languid, flushed with the wine and the
warmth of the room. 'I need to tell you. I need to explain. I
tried before, but—' She shook her head. 'I thought it was so
complicated,' she said softly. 'It's really very simple. Like all
tragedies. Simple and stupid.' She took a breath. 'I was
caught up in it all before I knew it. Then I realized it was too
late. Pour me some more Armagnac, please.'
He did.
314
"I liked Tony. I didn't love him. But love doesn't sustain
anything for long anyway. Money does. Security, the farm,
the land. That was what I needed, I told myself. Escape
from Patrice. Escape from the city, and from loneliness. I
fooled myself it was OK, that I didn't need anything else.'
It had been all right for a time. But Mireille was becoming
increasingly demanding, and Tony's behaviour more and
more erratic. Marise tried to talk to Mireille about it, but
without success. As far as Mireille was concerned there
was nothing wrong with Tony.
"He's a strong, healthy boy,' she would repeat stubbornly.
"Stop trying to wrap him in cotton. You'll make him as
neurotic as you are.'
From then on every peculiarity in Tony's behaviour was
attributed to Marise: the rages, the bouts of depression, the
fixations.
"Once it was mirrors,' she said. 'Every mirror in the
house had to be covered up. He said it was because
1 the reflection took all the light out of his head. He used
;, to shave without a mirror. He was always cutting himself
shaving. Once he shaved his eyebrows off, too. Said it was
. more hygienic.'
g When he learned Marise was pregnant Tony entered a
^different phase. He became extremely protective. He would
|- follow her everywhere she went, including to the bathroom.
^ He waited on her constantly. Mireille saw this as evidence
1. of his devotion. Marise felt stifled. Then the letters started
| coming.
'I knew it was Patrice straight away,' admitted Marise. "It
was his style. The usual abuse. But somehow here he didn't
frighten me. We had guard dogs, guns, space. I thought
Patrice knew it, too. Somehow he'd found out about my
pregnancy. The letters were all about it. Get rid of the baby
and I'll forgive you, that kind of thing. I ignored them.'
Then Tony found out.
'I told him everything,' she said wryly. T thought I owed it
to him. Besides, I wanted him to understand that we were
315
safe, that it was all in the past. Even the letters weren't
coming as often. It was dying down.'
She sighed. 'I should have known better. From then on
we lived a siege. Tony would go into town once a month for
supplies, that was all. He stopped going to the cafe with his
friends. That was no bad thing, I thought. At least he was
sober. He hardly slept at night. He spent most of the time on
guard. Of course, Mireille blamed me.'
I Rosa was born at home. Mireille helped deliver her. She
was disappointed Rosa wasn't a boy, but there would be
plenty of time for that later. She expressed surprise that
Rosa looked so small and delicate. She gave advice on
feeding, changing and care. Often the advice came close to
tyranny.
'Of course, he'd already told her everything,' Marise
remembered. T should have expected it. He was incapable
of hiding anything from her. In her mind I quickly became
the villain of the story, a woman who led men on then
expected her husband to protect her from the consequences.'

A fierce cold sprang up between the two women. Mireille
was always at the house, but rarely addressed Marise
directly. Whole evenings would pass, with Tony and Mireille
talking animatedly of events and people of which
Marise knew nothing. Tony never seemed to notice her
silence. He was always cheery and animated, allowing his
mother to fuss over him, as if he were still a boy instead of a
married man with a newborn baby. Then, out of the blue,
Patrice came to call.
'It was late summer,' Marise recalled. 'About eight in the
evening. I'd just fed Rosa. I heard a car on the drive. I was
upstairs and Tony went to the door. It was Patrice.' He had
changed since the last time she had seen him. Now he was
plaintive, almost humble. He did not demand to see Marise.
Instead he told Tony how sorry he was about what had
happened, that he had been ill, that only now had he been
able to face up to that fact. Marise listened from upstairs.
He had brought money, he explained, 20,000 francs. Not
enough to pay for the harm he had done, but perhaps
enough to start a trust fund for the baby.
'He and Tony went out back together. They were gone a
long time. When Tony returned it was dark, and he was
alone. He told me it was over, that Patrice wouldn't trouble
us again. He was more loving than he'd been for a long time.
I began to think things were going to be OK.'
For a few weeks they were happy together. Marise looked
after Rosa. Mireille kept her distance. Tony no longer stood
guard at night. Then one day, as she went to pick some
herbs by the side of the house, Marise found the barn door
half open. Going to shut it, she found Patrice's car, ill-
concealed behind some bales of straw.
"At first he denied it,' she said. 'Just like a boy. Refused to
admit I'd seen it at all. Then he went into one of his rages.
Called me a whore. Accused me of seeing Patrice behind his
back. At last he admitted it. He'd taken Patrice into the barn
that day and killed him with a spade.'
He showed no remorse. He'd had no choice. If anyone
was at fault it was Marise herself. Grinning like a guilty
schoolboy, he explained how he had brought the car into
the barn and hidden it, then buried Patrice somewhere on
the estate.
'Where?' asked Marise.
Tony grinned again and shook his head slyly. 'You'll
never know,' he said.
After that Tony's behaviour worsened rapidly. He would
spend hours alone with his mother, then would lock
himself in his room with the television blaring. He would
not even look at Rosa. Marise, recognizing the symptoms of
schizophrenia, tried to persuade him to return to his
medication, but he no longer trusted her. Mireille had seen
to that. He killed himself soon afterwards, and Marise had
felt nothing but a guilty kind of relief.
'I tried to leave after that,' she said in a flat voice. 'There
was nothing left for me in Lansquenet but bad memories. I
317
packed my bags. I even booked a train ticket to Paris for
myself and Rosa. But Mireille stopped me. Tony had left her
a letter, she said, telling her everything. Patrice was buried
somewhere on the Foudouin estate, at our end or across the
river. Only she knew where.'
'You'll have to stay here now, hell,' said Mireille in
triumph. 'I won't let you take my Rosa away. Otherwise
I'll tell the police you killed the man from Marseilles, that
my son told me about it before he died, that he killed
himself because he couldn't stand the burden of protecting
you.'
|i 'She was very persuasive,' said Marise, with a touch of
bitterness. 'Made it clear that she was keeping quiet for
Rosa's sake. Keeping it in the family.'
After that came the campaign to separate Marise from the
rest of the village. It wasn't difficult; in the course of that
year she had hardly spoken to anyone and had spent most
of her time isolated on the farm. Mireille released all her
hidden resentment. She spread rumours around the village,
hinted at dark secrets. Tony had been popular in Lansque-
net. Marise was only an outsider from the city. Soon the
reprisals began.
'Oh, nothing too serious,' said Marise. 'Letting off fireworks
under my windows. Letters. General harassment. I'd
had worse with Patrice.'
But it soon became clear that Mireille's campaign was
designed for more than simple spite.
'She wanted Rosa,' explained Marise. 'She thought that,
if she could drive me out of Lansquenet, she might be able
to keep Rosa for herself. I'd have to let her keep her, you see.
Because of what she knew. And if I were arrested for
murdering Patrice, she would have had Rosa anyway, as
her only close relative.'
She shivered.
And so she'd kept them at bay. All of them. She holed
herself up in her farm, deliberately isolating herself from
everyone in Lansquenet. Isolating Rosa by using her termporary deafness to deceive Mireille. Patrice's car she
dumped in the marshes, letting it sink deep under the
reeds and standing water. Its presence incriminated her
still further, she understood. But she needed it to be close.
On her land. Where she knew where it was. Remained the
body.
'At first I looked for it,' she told me. 'I searched the
buildings. Under the floors. Methodically. But it was no use.
All the land right down to the marshes belonged to the
estate. I couldn't search every metre.'
Plus there was old Emile. It was always possible that
Tony had gone as far as his place. In fact, Mireille had
hinted at it already, in her sour, gleeful way, relishing her
power and her hold. It was this which made Marise so eager
to bid for the Foudouin farm. Jay tried to imagine what she
must have felt, seeing him in the house, watching him dig
up the beds, wandering round the orchard. Wondering
every day whether maybe today--
Impulsively he took her hand. It was cold. He could feel a
thin tremor through her fingertips, almost imperceptible. A
wave of admiration for her dizzied him. For her courage.
'That was why you didn't want anyone working on your land,' he said. That was why you didn't give up the
marshland for the new hypermarket. That's why you have to stay here.'
She nodded. "I couldn't let anyone find what he'd hidden,'
she said. 'So long after the event no-one would believe I had
nothing to do with it. And I knew Mireille wouldn't back me
up. She'd never admit that her precious Tony--' She took a
deep breath.
'So now you know,' she said with an effort. 'Now someone
else knows.' She smelt of thyme and rain. Her hair was
a fall of flowers. Jay imagined himself telling her what had
happened today, seeing the light go out of her green eyes,
seeing her face tighten, stony, forbidding.
Someone else might have told her then. Someone of equal
courage, equal clarity. Instead he pulled her towards him,
319
feeling her hair against his face, her lips against his, her
eager softness in his arms and her breath against his cheek.
Her kiss tasted exactly how he'd imagined it: raspberries
and smoky roses. They made love there, on Jay's unmade
bed, with the goat looking curiously through the half-closed
shutters, and the sweet golden light kaleidoscoping across
the dim blue walls.
For a while that seemed enough.
320
62
SOCW. SOON. THEY WERE IN EVERYTHING NOW, THE SPECIALS - IN
the air, the ground, the lovers; he lying on his bed, staring at
the ceiling; she asleep, her face turned into the pillow like a
child's, her bright hair a pennant against the linen. More
potent than ever now, I could feel them, hear their eager
voices urging, coaxing. Soon, they whispered. It has to be
soon. It has to be now.
Jay looked at Marise asleep beside him. She looked
trusting, secure. She murmured something quiet and wordless
in her sleep. She smiled. Jay pulled the blanket closer
around her and she buried her face in it with a long sigh.
Jay watched her and thought about the morning. There
must be something he could do. He could not let her lose the
farm. He could not abandon Lansquenet to developers. The
film crew was arriving tomorrow. That gave him what? Six
hours? Seven?
To do what? What could he do in seven hours? Or
seventy, for that matter? What could anyone do?
Joe couJd do something.
The voice was almost familiar. Cynical, hearty, a little
amused.
You know he coujd.
Sure. He almost spoke aloud. But Joe was dead. Grief
surprised him again, as it always did when he thought of
Joe. Joe was dead. No more magic. Like the Specials, it had
finally run out for good.
321
Tho never did have much sense, lad.
This time it really was Joe's voice. For a second his heart
leaped, but he realized that Joe's voice was in his mind, in
his memory. Joe's presence - his real, independent presence
- was gone. This was just a substitute. A game. A conceit,
like whistling in the dark.
Remember the Specials, I telled you. Don't you remember?

'Of course I do,' whispered Jay helplessly. 'But there are
no Specials any more. They're all gone. I finished them. I
wasted them on trivial stuff, like getting people to tell me
things. Like getting Marise--'
Why don't you bloody listen? Joe's voice, if it was Joe's
voice, was everywhere now - in the air, in the light from the
dying embers, in the glow of her hair spread out across
the pillow. Where were you when I was teaching you all those times at Pog Hill? Didn't you learn anything?
'Sure.' Jay shook his head, puzzled. 'But without Joe none
of that stuff works any more. Like that last time at Pog
Hill--'
From the walls, laughter. The air was rich with it. A
phantom scent of apples and smoke seemed to rise from the
coals. The night sparkled.
Put your hand often enough in a wasps' nest, said Joe's
voice, and you're going to get stung. Even magic won't stop
that. Even magic doesn't go against nature. You've got to
give magic a hand sometimes, Jail. Give it summat to use. A
chance to work for itself. You've got to create the right conditions for magic to work.
'But I had the talisman. I believed--'
Never needed any talisman, replied the voice. You could
have helped yourself. You could have fought back, couldn't
you? But no. All you did was run away. Call that faith? Sounds like plain daft to me. So don't come that faith bullshit with me.
Jay thought about that for a moment.
You've already got all you need, continued the voice
cheerily. It's inside you, lad. AJIus has been. You don't need
some old bloke's home-brew to do that work for you. You
can do it all on your own.
'But I can't—'
No such bloody word, lad, said the voice. No such bloody
word.
Then the voices were gone, and suddenly his head was
ringing, not with dizziness but with sudden clarity. He
knew what he had to do.
Six hours, he told himself. He had no time to lose.
NO-ONE SAW HIM LEAVE THE HOUSE. NO-ONE WAS WATCHING.
Even if they were no-one would question his presence,
or find it odd. Nor was the deep basket of herbs which he
carried in any way unusual. The broad-leaved plants which
filled it might be a present for someone, a gift for a flagging
garden. Even the fact that he was muttering something
under his breath, something which sounded a little like
Latin, would not surprise them. He was, after all, English,
therefore a little crazy. Un peu fada. Monsieur Jay.
He found he remembered Joe's perimeter ritual very well
indeed. There was no time to make incense, nor to prepare
any new sachets, but he did not think that mattered now.
Even he could sense the Specials around him, hear their
whispering voices, their fairground laughter. He took the
seedlings carefully from the cold frame, as many as he
could carry, along with a trowel and a tiny fork. He planted
them at intervals on the roadside. He planted several at the
intersection with the Toulouse road, two more at the stop
sign, two more on the road to Les Marauds. Fog, Lansque-
net's special fog, which rolls off the marshes and into the
vineyards, rose about him like a bright sail in the early sun.
Jay Mackintosh hurried on his circuit, half running in his
haste to make the deadline, planting Joe's tuberosa rosifea
wherever there was a branch in the road, a gateway, a sign.
He turned round roadsigns or covered them with greenery
when he could not dig them out of the soil. He removed
323
Georges' and Lucien's welcome placard altogether. By the
time he had finished there was not a single signpost for
Lansquenet-sous-Tannes remaining. It took him almost
four hours to complete the fourteen-mile circuit, looping
around the village towards the Toulouse road, then back
across Les Marauds. By the end he was exhausted. His
head ached, his legs felt shaky as stilts. But he had finished.
It was done.
As Joe hid Pog Hill Lane, he thought in triumph, he had
hidden the village of LansquenetsousTannes.
Marise and Rosa had gone by the time he got back. The
sky began to lighten. The mist cleared.
324
IT WAS ELEVEN O'CLOCK BEFORE KERRY ARRIVED. CRISP AND COOL
in a white blouse and grey skirt, her document case in one
hand. Jay was waiting for her.
'Good morning, Jay.'
'You're back.'
She looked over his shoulder into the room, noting the
empty glasses and the wine bottles.
'We should have started earlier,' she said, 'but would you
believe it? We got lost in the fog. Great blankets of white
fog, just like the dry ice at a heavy-metal concert.' She
laughed. 'Can you imagine? Half a day wasted already. And
on our budget. I'm still waiting for the camera crew. Seems
they took some kind of a wrong turning and ended up
halfway back to Agen. These roads. It's a good thing I
already knew the way.'
Jay looked at her. It hadn't worked, he thought bleakly. In
spite of everything, in spite of his faith.
'So you're still going ahead with it?'
'Well, of course I'm going ahead,' replied Kerry impatiently.
'It's too good an opportunity to miss.' She examined
her nails. 'You're a celebrity. When the book comes out I
can show the world where you got your inspiration.' She
smiled brightly. "It's such a wonderful book,' she added.
'It's going to be a terrific success. If anything, it's even
better than fackapple Joe.'
Jay nodded. She was right, of course. Pog Hill and
Lansquenet; two sides of the same tarnished coin. Both
sacrificed, each in its own way, to the writing career of Jay
Mackintosh. After publication the place just wouldn't be
the same. Inevitably, he would move on. Narcisse, Josephine,
Briancon, Guillaume, Arnauld, Roux, Poitou, Rosa even
Marise - all reduced to the status of words on a page,
glib fictions to be passed over and forgotten, while in his
absence, the developers moved in, planning and demolishing,
rethinking and modernizing . . .
'I don't know why you're looking like that,' said Kerry.
'After all, you've got the Worldwide contract. That's a very
generous sum you're looking at. More than generous. Or am
I being vulgar?'
'Not at all.' A most peculiar feeling of calm, almost of
drunkenness, was beginning to steal over him. His head felt
as if it were filled with bubbles. The yeasty air seethed and
hissed.
'They must want you very much,' remarked Kerry.
'Yes,' said Jay slowly. 'I think they do.'
Put your hand often enough in a wasps' nest, Joe had
said, and you're going to get stung. Even magic won't stop
that. You've got to give magic a hand sometimes, lad. Give it
summat to use . . . the right conditions.
That was it, he thought dazedly. So simple. So ... simple.
Jay laughed. All at once his head was full of light. He
could smell smoke and swampy water and the sweet heady
scent of ripe blackberries. The air was elderflower champagne.
He knew Joe was with him, that Joe had never left.
Not even in '77. Joe had never left. He could almost see him
standing by the door in his old pit cap and boots, grinning
in that way he had when he was especially pleased with
something, and though Jay knew it was in his imagination,
he knew it was real, too. Sometimes real and imaginary are
the same thing after all.
Two paces took him to the bed where the manuscript and
the Worldwide contracts were still lying in their box. He
pulled it out. Kerry turned towards him curiously.
326
'What are you doing?'
Jay picked up the manuscript in his arms and began to
laugh.
'Do you know what this is?' he asked her. 'It's the only
copy I have of the book. And this' — holding out the signed
contract for her to see - 'is the paperwork. Look. It's all
completed. Ready to be sent off.'
'Jay, what are you doing?' Her voice was sharp.
Jay grinned and took a step towards the fireplace.
'You can't—' began Kerry.
Jay looked at her.
'No such bloody word,' he said.
And behind Kerry's sudden shriek he thought he could
hear the sound of an old man's chuckle.
She shrieked because she suddenly knew what he was
going to do. It was crazy, ridiculous, the kind of impulse to
which he had never been prone, and yet there was also a
strange light in his eyes which had never been there before.
As if someone had lit a fuse. His face was illuminated. He
took the contracts in his hands, crumpled them and pushed
them into the back of the grate. Then he began to do the
same with the pages of the typescript. The paper began to
catch, first crisping, then turning brown, then leaping into
gleeful flame. The air was whirling with black butterflies.
'What are you playing at?' Kerry's voice rose shrilly, 'Jay,
what the fuck are you doing now?'
He grinned at her, breathless with laughter.
'What do you think? Wait a day or two, till you can get in
touch with Nicky, and you'll be sure.'
'You're crazy,' said Kerry sharply. 'You're not going to
make me believe you don't have copies of that typescript.
Plus the contracts can be replaced—'
'Sure they can.' He was relaxed, smiling. 'But it isn't
going to be replaced. None of it is. And what use to anyone
is a writer who never writes? How long can you sustain
public interest in that? What's it worth? What am I worth
without it?'
Kerry looked at him. The man who left six months ago
was unrecognizable. The old Jay was vague, sullen, directionless.
This man was driven, illuminated. His eyes were
shining. In spite of what he was throwing away - stupid,
criminal, mad - he looked happy.
'You really are crazy,' she said in a strangled voice.
Throwing everything away - and for what? Some gesture?
It isn't you, Jay. I know you. You'll regret it.'
Jay just looked at her, smiling a little. Patiently.
'I don't see you staying here beyond a year.' Behind the
scorn her voice was shaking. 'What are you going to do?
Run the farm? You've hardly any money. You've blown it all
on this place. What will you do when the money runs out?'
"I don't know.' His tone was cheery, indifferent. 'Do you care?'
No!'
He shrugged. 'You'd better page your film crew and tell
them to meet you somewhere else,' he told her quietly.
'There's no story for you here. Better try Le Pinot, just
across the river. I'm sure you'll get something suitably
upbeat and entertaining there.'
She stared at him, amazed. Just for a moment she thought
she smelt something, a strange, vivid scent of sugar and
apples and blackberry jelly and smoke. It was a nostalgic
scent, and for a second she could almost understand why
Jay loved this place so much, with its little vineyards and its
apple trees and its roaming goats on the marsh flats. For
that instant she was a little girl again, with her grandmother
in the kitchen making pies and the wind from the
coast making the telephone wires sing. Somehow, she felt
the scent was a part of him, something which clung to him
like old smoke, and as she looked at him for a moment he
looked glided somehow, as if lit from behind, filaments of
brightness shooting from his hair, his clothes. Then the
scent was gone, the light was gone, and there was nothing
but the staleness of the unaired room and the dregs of the
wine on the table in front of them. Kerry shrugged.
'It's your loss,' she said sullenly. 'Do what you like.'
He nodded. 'And the series?'
'I might just drive out to Le Pinot,' she said. "Georges
Clairmont tells me there was a production of Clochemerie
filmed there recently. It might make a decent feature.'
He smiled. 'Good luck, Kerry.'
WHEN SHE HAD GONE HE WASHED AND PUT ON A CLEAN T-SHIRT
and jeans. He considered for a moment what to do next.
Even now there were no certainties. In life, the happy
ending is never assured. Around us now the house was
absolutely still. The buzz of energy which permeated the
walls had vanished.. No phantom scent of sugar and smoke
remained. Even the cellar was quiet, the bottles of wine new
wine, Sauternes and Saint-Emilion and a dozen young
Anjou - still and silent. Waiting.
329
64
AROUND NOON POPOTTE BROUGHT A PARCEL AND THE NEWS
from the village. The film crew never arrived, she reported excitedly. The English lady interviewed no-one. Georges
and Lucien were furious. En tout cas, she shrugged, it was
probably for the best. Everyone knew that their plans never
came to anything. Georges was already talking about a new
venture, some kind of development plan in Montauban,
which couldn't possibly fail. Lansquenet had already
moved on.
THE PARCEL WAS POSTMARKED KIRBY MONCKTON. JAY OPENED IT
alone, with care, unwrapping the stiff sheets of brown
paper, untying the string. It was large and heavy. As he
removed the packaging an envelope fell out. He recognized Joe's writing. There was a single sheet of faded letter paper
inside.
Pog Hill Lane, 15th September.
Dear Jay,
Sorry about the rush. I never was any cop at goodbyes.
I meant to stay on a bit longer, but you know
what things are like. Bloody doctors won't tell you
anything till the last minute. They think that because
you're old you've got no idea. I'm sending you my
collection - I reckon you'll know what to do with it.
You should have learned something by the time you
330
get this. Make sure you get the soil right. Fondest
regards, Joseph Cox.
Jay read the letter again. He touched the words on the page,
written in black ink in that careful, shapeless hand. He
even lifted the paper to his face to see if anything of him
remained — a whiff of smoke, maybe, or the faint scent of
ripe blackberries. But there was nothing. If there had been
magic, it was elsewhere. Then he looked in the package.
Everything was there. The contents of the seed chest,
hundreds of tiny envelopes and twists of newspaper, dried
bulbs, grains, corms, seed fluff no more substantial than a
puff of dead dust - every one marked and numbered.
Everything alight with the scent of those other places.
Tuberosa rubra maritima, tuberosa diabolica, tuberosa
panax odarata, thousands of potatoes, squash, peppers,
carrots, over three hundred species of onion alone - Joe's
entire collection. And, of course, the Specials. Tuberosa
rosifea in all its glory, the true jackapple, the rediscovered
original.
He looked at them for a long time. Later he would look at
them all, placing each packet in the correct drawer of the
old spice chest. Later there would be time for sorting, for
labelling and numbering and cataloguing, until at last every
one was in place again. But first there was one more thing
he had to do. Someone to see. And something to find.
Something in the cellar.
THERE WAS ONLY ONE POSSIBLE CHOICE. HE WIPED OFF THE
familiar dust from the glass with a cloth, hoping time
had not soured the contents. A bottle for a special occasion,
he thought, the last of his own Specials - 1962, that good
year; the first, he hoped, of many good years. He wrapped
the bottle in tissue paper and put it in his jacket pocket. A
peace offering.
She was sitting in the kitchen, shelling peas, when he
arrived. She was wearing a white shirt over her jeans, and
the sunlight was red on her autumn hair. Outside he could
hear Rosa calling to Clopette,
'I brought you this,' he told her. 'I've been saving it for a
special occasion. I thought maybe you and I could drink it
together.'
She stared at him for a long time, her face unreadable.
Her eyes were cool, verdigris, appraising. Finally she took
the outstretched bottle and looked at the label.
'Fleurie 1962,' she said, and smiled. 'My favourite.'
THIS IS WHERE MY STORY ENDS. HERE, IN THE KITCHEN OF THE
little farmhouse in Lansquenet. Here he pours me, releasing
the scents of summers forgotten and places long past. He
drinks to Joe and Pog Hill Lane; the toast is both a salute
and a goodbye. Say what you will, there's nothing to beat
the flavour of good grape. Blackcurrant aftertaste or not, I
have my own magic, uncorked at last after thirty-seven
years of waiting. I hope they appreciate that, both of them,
mouths locked together and hands clasped..Now it is for
them to do the talking. My part is at an end. I would like to
think that theirs ends as happily. But that knowledge is
beyond me now. I am subject to a different kind of chemistry.
Evaporating blithely into the bright air, my own
mystery approaches, and I see no phantoms, predict no
futures, even the blissful present barely glimpsed - through
a glass, darkly.
332
Postscript
From the Lansquenetgratuit:
Obituaries
Mireille Annabelle Faizande, suddenly after a short illness.
Leaves a nephew, Pierre-Emile, daughter-in-law, Marise,
and granddaughter, Rosa.
Property Sales
To Mme. Marise d'Api, four hectares of cultivated and non-
cultivated agricultural land between Rue des Marauds,
Boulevard St-Espoir and the Tannes, including a farmhouse
and outbuildings, from Pierre-Emile Foudouin, Rue Gene-
vievre, Toulouse."
From the Courrier d'Agen:
A local landowner has become the first known person since
the seventeenth century to produce the tuberosa rosifea
potato. This ancient species, thought to have been brought
out of South America in 1643, is a large, sweet-scented pink
tuber which thrives in our marshy, lime-rich soil. M. Jay
Mackintosh, a former writer who emigrated from England
eighteen months ago, plans to cultivate these and other rare
species of vegetable on his farm in LansquenetsousTannes.
333
'I intend to reintroduce many of these old varieties for
general consumption,' he told our reporter recently. 'It's
only through luck that some of these species have not been
lost for ever.' When questioned on the origins of these
precious seeds, M. Mackintosh remains evasive. 'I'm just a
collector,' he explains modestly. 'I have collected a large
number of different seeds on my travels around the world.'
But, you may ask, what is so important about a few old
seeds? Does it really matter what kind of potato we use for
our pommes frites?
'Oh yes,' he says firmly. 'It does matter. Too many
thousands of plant and animal species have already been
lost for ever to modern farming methods and guidelines
from Brussels. It's very important to keep the traditional
varieties going. Plants have all kinds of properties which
even now are not fully understood. Who knows, maybe in a
few years' time scientists will be able to save lives using one
of these rediscovered species.'
M. Mackintosh's unconventional methods have already
spread beyond his own small farm. Local farmers have
recently joined him in setting aside part of their land to the
production of these old varieties. M. Andre Narcisse, M.
Philippe Briancon and Mme. Marise d'Api have also
decided to test the new seeds. And with tuberose rosifea
retailing at a hundred francs or more a kilo, the future looks
rosy once again for the farmers of LansquenetsousTannes.
As for M. Mackintosh, 36, of Chateau Cox, Lansquenet,
overnight success has left him surprisingly modest. When
asked to what he attributes this spectacular success he
replies, 'Just luck.' He gives our reporter his mischievous
smile. 'And, of course, a little magic.'
THE END
CHOCOLAT
Joanne Harris
•SENSUOUS AND THOUGHT-PROVOKING . . .
SUBTLE AND BRILLIANT'
Daily Telegraph
Try me . . . Test me . . . Taste me . . .
When an exotic stranger, Vianne Rocher, arrives in the French
village of Lansquenet and opens a chocolate boutique directly
opposite the church, Father Reynaud identifies her as a serious
danger to his flock - especially as it is the beginning of Lent,
the traditional season of self-denial. War is declared as the
priest denounces the newcomer's wares as the ultimate sin.
Suddenly Vianne's shop-cum-cafe means that there is
somewhere for secrets to be whispered, grievances to be aired,
dreams to be tested. But Vianne's plans for an Easter Chocolate
Festival divide the whole community in a conflict that escalates
into a 'Church not Chocolate' battle. As mouths water in
anticipation, can the solemnity of the Church compare with the
pagan passion of a chocolate eclair?
For the first time here is a novel in which chocolate enjoys
its true importance. Rich, clever and mischievous, Chocolat is
a literary feast for all the senses.
'MOODY AND ATMOSPHERIC ... A RICHLY TEXTURED
TALE'
Independent
'MOUTHWATERING ... A FEELGOOD BOOK OF THE
FIRST ORDER. AS YOU ARE LURED BY THE PLOT AND
THE WONDERFUL DESCRIPTIONS, YOUR SENSES ARE
LEFT REELING. READ IT'
Observer
•IS THIS THE BEST BOOK EVER WRITTEN? TRULY
EXCELLENT . . . HARRIS' ACHIEVEMENT IS NOT ONLY IN
HER STORY, IN HER INSIGHT AND HUMOUR AND THE
WONDERFUL PICTURE OF SMALL-TOWN LIFE IN RURAL
FRANCE, BUT ALSO IN HER WRITING'
Literary Review
0 552 99848 6
BLACK SWAN