it myself I admired his descriptive narrative, his English was marvellous, remarkable and interesting, his father had taught him well. The next time we had English, the teacher handed all the exercise books back to all the pupils except Richard. In front of the whole class the teacher made the announcement that he had asked for a factual essay, not an imaginary one – holding Richard’s up to the class. This, he declared, was the work of a fertile imagination without an ounce of reality. I stood up to protest – saying I had postcards to prove that in no way did imagination play any part in his beautiful essay but was told in no uncertain terms to shut up and to sit down, if I didn’t obey the outcome would be a trip to the Discipline master with the inevitable thrashing. It goes without saying that Richard was distraught and very angry. I clearly remember that both I and several classmates tried to console him but the anger had never left him during the rest of his time at the school. I remember his mother was also very upset.
Richard’s indignation was fully justified, but his exceptional capacity to harbour resentment may also be noted.
Back in Collioure, Patrick and my mother had resumed their daily struggle. There were compensations to their existence, however. Much of the physical structure of the town stems from medieval times, and among the population there breathed memories of a picturesque past. While most of the inhabitants are Roman Catholics, there has long been a sizeable Protestant minority, who congregate at their Temple above the Château Royal. Relations between these two branches of the Christian religion have traditionally long been cordial. The only hint of disparagement I heard of occurred in the name of a local pastry, known as a jésuite. Gazing through the window of the pâtisserie in the Port d’Avall, Patrick explained to me that when you bite into one – it proves to be hollow!
At the time he and my mother arrived in the town, there survived numerous customs and practices redolent of beliefs older even than the conversion to Christianity. Popular theology could be a trifle speculative – as this exchange recorded by my mother on May Day 1954 attests:
When I arrived at Mimi Choux’s this morning she was in the middle of condemning someone for stating that angels are bald. ‘N’est-ce pas, Madame O’Brian, que dans toutes les reproductions les anges ont toujours les cheveux bouclés?’[fn12]
A generally equable syncretism between the Church and pagan practices and beliefs survived locally well into the middle of the twentieth century. It was quite common for brides to appear in an advanced state of pregnancy at their weddings. ‘About the number of marriages with the girl pregnant’, my mother was told, it is ‘quite natural, people rigole [laugh] and joke but are not méchants with the girl; there is no onus [blame] on the man at all.’
A curious custom which might have suggested anticlericalism or simple hooliganism was evidently neither, and bore a significance now possibly lost:
Also asked Rimbaud about the bands of youths banging on curé’s door. He says it is ‘sans méchanceté’ & has always been done (he was v. active in his time) & nobody really minds. They bang on the doors of their young women. If dégâts [damage] result, complaints are made to mayor & youths pay up, but it doesn’t go to the police.
A practice of having a sprig of hawthorn blessed by the curé taken to the fields to ensure a good harvest presumably reflected the archaic folk belief that its prickles repel witches, ever prowling abroad with the malign intent of blighting the crops of honest Christians.[3]
Not all magic was benign, however:
Mme Rimbaud’s tale: yesterday, she alone in the house, a woman selling lace. I don’t want any lace. And why don’t you want any lace? Because I don’t want any lace. Then the woman said if she would not buy any lace, she, who knew how to tell the cards, would put a ‘malédiction’ on her. That evening she had such a head she did not know whether it was the result of the malediction, or what.
Fortunately there existed magical cures, as well as curses. The Rimbauds ‘had an old woman in to cure [their daughter] Martine with a herb cataplasm’. An interesting ritual efficaciously removed headaches. On 10 July 1953, completion of a difficult piece of writing left Patrick with an acute migraine. Next day their landlord, M. Germa:
told us Georgette [his wife] was having the sun taken out of her head by her mother, with water in a bottle, & prayers. We demurred, & he said he believed it because Jaquie had had it done (bubbles rose in the bottle of water) & three days after his sick headache had gone.
On another occasion Mme Rimbaud similarly had the sun removed from her head by a cousin. When my mother enquired how this was done, she mentioned not only the bottle, but ‘a handkerchief folded in a certain way, “et certainement qu’elle en a dit des prières. Je ne sais pas, moi.”’ The disclaimer suggests that the ‘prières’ may not have been altogether Christian in character.
A particularly potent author of cures was the martyr St Blaise, who, as a consequence of his miraculous survival of strangulation or decapitation (accounts differ), specialized in healing sore throats.[4] When my mother was confined to bed with a severe cold, ‘Mimi Chou kindly gave me a packet of lump sugar & pastilles blessed on St Blaise’s day.’ On another occasion she regaled her with a detailed account of the healing process. Saint Blaise being outside Collioure for a stroll one day with Our Lord, the pair bumped into Satan, who coolly informed them: ‘I’m off to strangle someone.’ ‘Nong, Nong, Nong!’ exclaimed Jesus and Blaise together, in pronounced Catalan accents: ‘You’re not doing that!’ This pious narrative acted as preface to the charm that effected the cure: a formula strongly characteristic of pagan ritual, in which Christian figures were frequently substituted for their heathen predecessors.[5]
The calendar year was marked by a succession of colourful festivals. On 27 February 1952 Patrick was delighted by the Mardi Gras carnival, which he observed from their balcony winding joyously along the rue Arago, and then descended to follow it to the Place de la Mairie. There were fine floats, followed by men disguised as bears and monkeys:
I saw them pass down the boulevard and then arrive in the Place: immense crowd, charmed: Diego lost in delight. Music – a band to each float. Funny remarks on floats all written in French. Attention Ours méchants et singe vicieu [‘dangerous bears and vicious monkey’] … Remarkable dancing of 2 pairs of mariés [married couples]. Immobility of masks: singe (sacking? young Germa) probably making singe faces underneath; but quite invisible – vast addition to general effect. Mlle Margot convulsed by bears – pointing, laughing, red in the face with pleasure. M. le Curé not visible – no wonder – Ash Wednesday. Religious aspect quite lost to view … Many children dressed up – rouged, powdered – some in Catalan dress – attractive – some as F[airy]. Queens or some such – less attractive.
Each year on Ascension Day an assemblage of small children, beautifully dressed, gathered outside the church to attend their first Communion. The quatorze juillet was in contrast a comparatively modest bucolic occasion. ‘Procession has just passed up the rue,’ noted my mother, ‘small boys carrying torches or tricolors, with the garde-champêtre [local policeman], followed by local band.’ In the evening there was dancing in the Place, and a display of fireworks in and around the bay. The cheerful informality of the occasion delighted Patrick, who another year was gratified to record: ‘Fête Nationale: very scruffy procession except [Dr] Delcos in his tricolore sash.’
Patrick made notes on customs and other items of local interest, such as this recipe for ridding a child of worms: ‘Le bon vermifuge[:] frot the child’s bosom with garlic and hang a necklace of garlic round the child’s neck ça les étouffe.’ He further compiled a list of ‘Sobriquets’ of local families, some of which feature in his novel The Catalans. Thus one bore the surname ‘L’Empereur – because when he was a baby the Emperor dandled him’. Patrick told me this occurred when Napoleon III was passing through Collioure. At the other political extreme was the family Cravatrouge (Catalan En cravat rougt), one of whom had been ‘le premier radical’ of the town.