cheek.
“Pantoufle is going to help us.”
We lit a candle for every room, gold and red and white and orange. I prefer to make my own incense, but in a crisis the bought sticks are good enough for our purposes, lavender and cedar and lemongrass. We each held a candle, Anouk blowing her toy trumpet and I rattling a metal spoon in an old saucepan, and for ten minutes we stamped around every room, shouting and singing at the top of our voices – Out! Out! Out! until the walls shook and the outraged ghosts fled, leaving in their wake a faint scent of scorching and a good deal of fallen plaster. Look behind the cracked and blackened paintwork, behind the sadness of things abandoned, and begin to see faint outlines, like the after-image of a sparkler held in the hand – here a wall adazzle with golden paint, there an armchair, a little shabby, but coloured a triumphant orange, the old awning suddenly glowing as half-hidden colours slide out from beneath the layers of grime. Out! Out! Out! Anouk and Pantoufle stamped and sang and the faint images seemed to grow brighter – a red stool beside the vinyl counter, a string of bells against the front door. Of course, I know it’s only a game. Clamours to comfort a frightened child. There’ll have to be work done, hard work, before any of this becomes real. And yet for the moment it is enough to know that the house welcomes us, as we welcome it. Rock salt and bread by the doorstep to placate any resident gods. Sandalwood on our pillow, to sweeten our dreams.
Later Anouk told me Pantoufle wasn’t frightened any more, so that was all right. We slept together in our clothes on the floury mattress in the bedroom with all the candles burning, and when we awoke it was morning.
2
February 12, Ash Wednesday
Actually the bells woke us. I hadn’t realized quite how close we were to the church until I heard them, a single low resonant drone falling into a bright carillon dommm fla-di-dadi dommmm – on the downbeat. I looked at my watch. It was six o’clock. Grey-gold light filtered through the broken shutters onto the bed.
I stood up and looked out onto the square, wet cobbles shining. The square white church tower stood out sharply in the morning sunlight, rising from a hollow of dark shopfronts; a bakery, a florist, a shop selling graveyard paraphernalia; plaques, stone angels, enamelled everlasting roses… Above their discreetly shuttered facades the white tower is a beacon, the roman numerals of the clock gleaming redly at six-twenty to baffle the devil, the Virgin in her dizzy eyrie watching the square with a faintly sickened expression. At the tip of the short spire a weathervane turns – west to west-northwest – a robed man with a scythe. From the balcony with the dead geranium I could see the first arrivals to Mass. I recognized the woman in the tartan coat from the carnival; I waved to her, but she hurried on without an answering gesture, pulling her coat protectively around her. Behind her the felt-hatted man with his sad brown dog in tow gave me a hesitant smile. I called down brightly to him, but seemingly village etiquette did not allow for such informalities, for he did not respond, hurrying in his turn into the church, taking his dog with him.
After that no-one even looked up at my window, though I counted over sixty heads – scarves, berets, hats drawn down against an invisible wind – but I felt their studied, curious indifference. They had matters of importance to consider, said their hunched shoulders and lowered heads. Their feet dragged sullenly at the cobbles like the feet of children going to school. This one has given up smoking today, I knew; that one his weekly visit to the cafe, another will forgo her favourite foods. It’s none of my business, of course. But I felt at that moment that if ever a place were in need of a little magic… Old habits never die. And when you’ve once- been in. the business of granting wishes the impulse never quite leaves you. And besides, the wind, the carnival wind was still blowing, bringing with it the dim scent of grease and candyfloss and gunpowder, the hot sharp scents of the changing seasons, making the palms itch and the heart beat faster. For a time, then, we stay. For a time. Till the wind changes.
We bought the paint in the general store, and with it brushes, rollers, soap and buckets. We began upstairs and worked downwards, stripping curtains and throwing broken fittings onto the growing pile in the tiny back garden, soaping floors arid making tidal waves down the narrow sooty stairway so that both of us were soaked several times through. Anouk’s scrubbing-brush became a submarine, and mine a tanker which sent noisy soap torpedoes scudding down the stairs and into the hall. In the middle of this I heard the doorbell jangle and looked up, soap in one hand, brush in the other, at the tall figure of the priest.
I’d wondered how long it would take him to arrive.
He considered us for a time, smiling. A guarded smile, proprietary, benevolent; the lord of the manor welcomes inopportune guests. I could feel him very conscious of my wet and dirty overalls, my hair caught up in a red scarf, my bare feet in their dripping sandals.
“Good morning.” There was a rivulet of scummy water heading for his highly polished black shoe. I saw his eyes flick towards it and back towards me. “Francis Reynaud,” he said, discreetly sidestepping. “Cure of the parish.”
I laughed at that; I couldn’t help it.
“Oh, that’s it,” I said maliciously. “I thought you were with the carnival.”
Polite laughter; heh, heh, heh.
I held out a yellow plastic glove.
“Vianne Rocker. And the bombardier back there is my daughter Anouk.”
Sounds of soap explosions, and of Anouk fighting Pantoufle on the stairs. I could hear the priest waiting for details of Monsieur Rocker. So much easier to have everything on a piece of paper, everything official, avoid this uncomfortable, messy conversation.
“I suppose you are very busy this morning.”
I suddenly felt sorry for him, trying so hard, straining to make contact. Again the forced smile.
“Yes, we really need to get this place in order as soon as possible. It’s going to take time! But we wouldn’t have been at church this morning anyway, Monsieur le Curé. We don’t attend, you know.”
It was kindly meant, to show him where we stood, to reassure him; but he looked startled, almost insulted.
“I see.”
It was too direct. He would have liked us to dance a little, to circle each other like wary cats.
“But it’s very kind, of you to welcome us,” I continued brightly. “You might even be able to help us make a few friends here.”
He is a little like a cat himself, I notice; cold, light eyes which never hold the gaze, a restless watchfulness, studied, aloof.
“I’ll do anything I can.” He is indifferent now he knows we are not to be members of his flock. And yet his conscience pushes him to offer more than he is willing to give. “Have you anything in mind?”
“Well, we could do with some help here,” I suggested. “Not you, of course”– quickly, as he began to reply. “But perhaps you know someone who could do with the extra money? A plasterer, someone who might be able to help with the decorating?”
This was surely safe territory.
“I can’t think of anyone.” He is guarded, more so than anyone I have ever met. “But I’ll ask around.”
Perhaps he will. He knows his duty to the new arrival. But I know he will not find anyone. His is not, a nature which grants favours graciously. His eyes flicked warily to the pile of bread and salt by the door.
“For luck.” I smiled, but his face was stony. He skirted the little offering as if it offended him.
“Maman?” Anouk’s head appeared in the doorway, hair standing out in crazy spikes. “Pantoufle wants to play outside. Can we?”
I nodded.
“Stay in the garden.” I wiped a smudge of dirt from the bridge of her nose. “You look a complete urchin.” I saw her glance at the priest and caught her comical look just in time. “This is Monsieur Reynaud,