Emile hobbled into the house and returned with a jug of chouchen, a form of mead, and some glasses, along with a baguette, ham and cheese. Pascale was often oblivious to hunger and thirst, and Emile had to remind her to eat and drink—and then stop again.
Having devoured the baguette, Pascale fell asleep on the lounger on the terrace with one of the cats warming her stomach. Emile covered his wife with a blanket and set a straw hat on her head to make sure that the sun wouldn’t burn her face.
He didn’t offer Marianne a glass of water or anything to eat. He didn’t address a single word to her, even when Marianne took her leave with a quick “Kenavo!”
Océane and Lysette’s birthday party looked at first as if it was going to be a disaster. A dozen five-year-old girls had swept through Ar Mor like a storm, stuffed themselves with cocktail sausages and continually demanded that Paul play with them. How was an old grandad like him meant to play with little sprites like these? That was until Marianne had somehow lured the screeching little princesses out onto the quayside to play blindman’s buff and run egg-and-spoon and sack races. Paul burst out laughing when he recalled Jean-Rémy’s kitchen fairy appearing with a bundle of flour sacks in one hand and a bouquet of spoons in the other. The girls had been enchanted, and Paul had been left alone to eat his plate of scallops with cider apples.
Now back at their mother’s house, and with their birthday coming to an end, all that remained was to persuade the twins to go to bed.
“Kement-man oa d’ann amzer,” Paul began. “Back in the days when hens still had teeth, there was a brave little boy called Morvan. He lived very close to here and his fondest wish was to become a knight. When he was ten years old—”
“I don’t want to hear that story about Morvan. It’s so stupid,” said Lysette.
Océane nodded. “Nor do I.”
“Do you always want the same as your sister?” asked Paul.
Océane sounded as if she had a whole bag of marbles in her mouth as she said, “Of course I do, Nono!”
The three of them had made themselves comfortable on the old swing chair with the torn blue awning. Lysette was kneeling to his left, scrutinizing intently the hairs protruding from Paul’s ears, while Océane was curled up to his right, resting her little head with its loose light-brown plaits against his upper arm, with her bent index finger, rather than her thumb, in her mouth.
“You don’t want to hear the tale of Morvan Leiz-Breiz, who led our beloved Brittany to independence?”
“No, Nono,” said Lysette and Océane in unison.
“All right then. How about the mischievous tricks of Bilz, the merry robber from Plouanet?”
“Stupid!” chanted Océane.
“Yeah!” said Lysette.
“Princess Goldilocks, Prince Cado and the Magic Ring?”
“Bor-ing.”
“I can’t believe you don’t want to hear all our wonderful Breton stories again.”
“We’ve had enough of them, Nono,” said Lysette, tugging at Paul’s ear hairs. The ex-legionnaire kept completely still as the five-year-old prodded his head.
“What do you want then?” he asked.
“The tale of Ys,” Océane decided.
“The one about Dahut, princess of the sea.”
“And the golden key.”
“And how the underwater city was lost.”
Dahut—the twins had fallen in love with her. Paul had told them the story of the sunken city of Kêr Is in Douarnenez Bay many times before, but had always tried to leave out the salacious details about the fairy Dahut—especially her habit of receiving a new lover every night.
He started all over again. “It was back in the days when the Romans began to build roads through Armorica. One of these Roman roads still leads from Carhaix to Douarnenez Bay. But there it disappears into the sea. It used to lead to the world’s greatest, most beautiful city, called Ys, known to some as Atlantis.”
“But maybe the Romans just wanted to collect fish directly from the beach?” whispered Océane quietly.
“And what if they didn’t?” Paul whispered back even more quietly. Océane nodded breathlessly.
“The wise and powerful King Gradlon had built Kêr Is, the city in the deep, for his beloved daughter Dahut. Princess Dahut was the daughter of a fairy whom the king had once loved deeply. She ruled over water and fire. Dahut was not baptized, as she would have lost her fairy powers.”
“Like us! We haven’t been baptized either!” cried Lysette.
Oh dear, oh dear, thought Paul.
“The city was protected from the sea and the tides by a system of dykes and iron gates. King Gradlon alone had the golden key to the sluice gates and he wore it continually around his neck so that no one might open the gates by night and let in the tides. The city’s cathedrals and golden houses, glittering silver towers and diamond-encrusted rooftops were visible from far inland. Every inhabitant lived like a king, and the children never had to go to school.”
Paul gave a very free rendition of the rest of the story of Ys, but there was one part he simply could not leave out. One night Dahut stole the golden key from the chain around her father’s neck to let her lover into the city, and it was this dullard who was responsible for the flood, having opened the doors at an unfortunate moment.
“King Gradlon leaped through the waves on his horse and was heaving Dahut onto the saddle behind him when the sea claimed its tribute by pulling her back beneath the surface.”
“Aargh, that’s so mean,” said Lysette.
“Yeah!” added Océane.
“Are you going to make us a krampouezh now, Nono? With Nutella?”
“Name it and you may have it, my little sprites.” These two were the only women to whom he would give anything. Anything, even pancakes until they were fit to burst.
“I hate it when you tell the children stories like that. You know you’re not allowed to speak Breton to them!” said a voice from inside the house.
Paul closed his eyes.
Nolwenn signaled to the twins to go up and get ready for bed. She tossed Paul his car keys. “Make me happy: drive into a ditch!”
Lysette began to weep at the possibility that Nono might die, and Océane wept along in sisterly solidarity.
“Now look what you’ve gone and done!” Nolwenn hissed.
Paul’s stepdaughter didn’t like him. No, actually, she loathed him: a relatively major nuance. He didn’t like her either, but loathing would have been too strong a word for his feelings. After all, she had given birth to the twins, who were the single best thing about her. Her mother, Rozenn, was a fabulous woman—a classy woman, a she-wolf. However, Paul had two unforgivable flaws in Nolwenn’s eyes: his past as a foreign legionnaire, and the fact that he wasn’t her biological father. There was nothing he could do about either of those matters, and therefore their relationship never changed.