Typical view of female sexuality, Miriam thinks. Serpent indeed. She looks up to see a group of cyclists, just beyond the cluster of outside tables, in full professional gear – Lycra leggings, cycling gloves, streamlined helmets, and wraparound mirrored sunglasses which give them the silvered look of houseflies.
When, during a disagreement, Raymond called Melusine a ‘serpent’ in front of the court, she assumed the form of a dragon and flew off, never to be seen again.
‘Excusez-moi,’ says a man’s voice, and Miriam looks up from her reading. He says he heard her in the bar, asking about a girl – une Anglaise – and from his rapid French, she gleans he knows of one.
‘Jeune?’ Miriam asks, squinting up at him, a hand over her brow.
‘Oui, eh bien, dans la vingtaine je suppose,’ he says. In her twenties. His directions come in a rush that she tries very hard to follow: ‘Tout droit, à gauche, en bas, par la rivière.’
She is discombobulated. She hadn’t quite expected this journey to yield fruit. A flight away from the chaos in England; a pilgrimage into her family’s past, yes. But might Edith actually be here?
Miriam hastens in the direction in which he has pointed, walking in the shadow of the shops, past the fruit and vegetable shop, and the green-gloss pharmacie, around the corner to the Place de l’Eglise, past the mairie, stuck with a limp French flag, and opposite it, Vouvant’s twelfth-century church, broad steps leading up to twin arches.
She can’t unravel any of the man’s directions from here, and as she turns, examining each possible route, she notices an elderly woman carrying laden bags, who is walking slowly with a rolling gait. The woman is breathless with the exertion as Miriam approaches her.
‘Rivière?’ Miriam asks, pointing down one of the alleys off the Place de l’Eglise.
The woman nods. ‘Oui, en bas,’ she says.
Edith
A day of sharp sun, so beautiful I’m taken with the idea of opening up the tall windows in the bedroom. I spread them wide, setting a cushion on the Juliet balcony, thinking of Lucy Honeychurch opening her shutters at the Pension Bertolini.
The sun cooks my face but the breeze is still fresh, so I’m wrapped in my thickest cardigan. My coatigan. I fetch my copy of Jane Eyre but I don’t read. I look out instead, calm for the first time in more than five weeks, perhaps because I haven’t done my Internet searches today. Head back against the window frame, eyes closed, my eyelids glowing red with the brightness, I hear the patter-pat of shoes in the alley below.
Slowly I straighten, squinting, to see the top of a head beyond the wall. Grey hair. Something familiar about it, then a face upturned and her eyes meet mine, and I am stabbed by familiarity and the shock of love. Beloved face. I drop Jane Eyre and it falls from the balcony like a shot bird.
I launch haphazardly into the dark interior of the flat, pummelling down the stairs to open the door to her. What is she doing here? How much will she hate me for what I have done? How much does she know, and how, oh how on earth will I tell her? The secrets I have harboured; the secrets that will destroy her. The secrets I have been running from for five long weeks.
I unbolt the door and there is her ashen, accusatory face and she has aged ten years since I last saw her. My fault.
‘How could you?’ she growls.
‘Mum, I … I can explain. I can, Mum,’ I say. ‘You don’t understand …’ But my words are stuck. ‘I never wanted to hurt you …’
‘How could you?’
‘There are so many things you don’t know,’ I cry. I cannot gather myself, cannot prevent myself crumpling into a child’s anguish.
‘I thought you were dead,’ she says. Her eyes red-rimmed, now brimming, her forehead furrowed with disbelief and anger. There is nothing worse than seeing your mother cry and being the cause.
‘Come in,’ I say, and I pull her towards me, take her in my arms, and she emits a cry of pain, her body heaving into mine. Her shouts, animalistic, are embarrassingly loud, bouncing off the alley walls. ‘Come in,’ I say. ‘I’ll make you some tea. I can explain, I can explain why …’
She snivels, reaches into her bag for a tissue, and wipes the wetness from her eyes and nose.
I lead her up the dark stairs to my apartment, wondering where I can begin. Explaining my disappearance means telling her things about our family that she shouldn’t have to know. I don’t know where I can start without hurting her, but I have hurt her already. I bring her into the lounge, take her handbag gently from her and lay it on the sofa, then guide her to a seated position.
‘I don’t know how to tell you,’ I say. I pace. I cannot look at her. She is looking up at me like an expectant child. ‘I know things, I saw things—’