Monday 16th May. After lunch
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– O Magali! se tu te fas |
‘O Magali, if thou wilt play |
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– Oh! mai, se tu te fas pescaire, |
‘Oh, and if thou thy nets |
Yesterday I walked in the hills. I sang that song as I walked. Above the village a small road leads to a farm called Clos Maroui. It’s a messy place with broken-down trucks and a half-built extension, but they have a vineyard and twelve terraces of olive trees, old, wide-trunked and twisted. It’s the highest farm. It was lunchtime. There was nobody to hear me, of course, they were all eating. Behind the farm the road loops into the hills, called the Bois Communal de St Clair, but there aren’t any trees, just a few stunted oaks, gorse and broom, all in flower. I was walking through yellow. Once above the pine trees you can appreciate how spectacular this countryside is. The valley of the Rioux way below me was just a dark shadow, and the village looked like something balanced on a pebble. I tried to work out where my hut was, but up there distances are distorted. The mountains looked nearer and the roads were merely brown streaks zig-zagging down. The track I walked on was stony. I was glad I had my boots. Black and yellow butterflies. Bright blue ones. An occasional small bird flipping across. It was breezy up there. The sun was burning, though, and I stopped for a while and sat in the shade of a rock. There were no human sounds at all. It was a lonely place.
I could see the road to Grasse quite clearly, running along the flat grassy plateau beyond the village. There’s another farm down there. The domaine, where they press the wine and the olives. This is the wealthiest farm and it belongs to the château. I couldn’t see the château. It was hidden behind a line of poplar trees. I could see the pool, though, a shining square in the grey stone of the terraces.
On the way back I tried to walk up to the château, but there’s now a huge gate on the road, an enormous wrought-iron thing. It was locked with an electronic security alarm. The whole place was like a fortress. I was disappointed. I was tired by then. Coming down from the hills took at least two hours and I was still a mile away from the village. I was never friendly with the Villeneuves, but I wanted to see the château. It used to have ornamental gardens, I remember them planted with roses. The front had sixteen windows. It’s built out of grey stone with orange blotches of lichen. The terrace runs right round the house. The pool was at the back. A stone pool with water flowing into it from a stone lion’s mouth.
The Villeneuves still own the château, but I know that they hardly ever stay there. It was the same when I was with Gregor, it was rented out, but it always seemed empty, half decayed.
Today the wind has blown up again, not the mistral, it’s not fierce enough, but one that sends thin streaks of cloud into the sky. I know how it will be now. The thinner clouds will follow, tumbling into the valley and then it will rain. But this won’t happen until late afternoon. Now, it’s midday and I’m in the hammock again. The military are exploding shells in the hills and it sounds like thunder. There’s still a cuckoo, but it seems far away.
We spent that winter learning songs, as many as we could find. Auxille knew dozens. Gregor was excited about it, we would be new troubadours. He was a man who needed a vision, he was a man who had to be doing something, and I participated. As soon as the tables and chairs went outside Le Sanglier, we were there. Jeanette and Auxille thought it was wonderful. There was no other café they knew of with such an attraction. We dressed in bright clothes we found in the market and Sanclair too, with his little drum. Perhaps the locals thought we were daft, but they still came to listen, and we were serious. We went to the library and found old books of songs. If there was no tune we made one up. When people listened to us it was with a strange wistfulness as if they were remembering something they only half knew, some snatch of a line their grandmother used to sing.
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– O Magali! se tu te fas |
‘O Magali, and if cold clay |
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– O Magali! me fas de bèn! … |
‘Thou healest me, O Magali! |
It was then that Macon’s father gave me the piano accordion. He was a shrivelled drunk, unlike his strapping son. He came up to the café after we had been singing and put the thing on the table. ‘For you,’ he said, with no ceremony or explanation. It was beautiful. It was inlaid with ivory and had fine metalwork on the sides. I tried it out and it sounded clear, it had been well looked after. I thought he meant for me just to try it out, so I gave it back to him. He shook his head and smiled. He had a drunkard’s smile, over-emphasised and insistent. He didn’t take it back. There was an awkward moment. Macon, who had been watching, called out from the café doorway, ‘Do you not accept my father’s generosity?’ ‘Of course,’ I said. I was amazed. I turned to the old man. He smiled again. ‘Thank you very much,’ I said.
I’m practising on the accordion outside the hut. I’ve nearly got the hang of it. Sanclair is playing with stones and shells. I don’t think he’s listening but when I stop he says, ‘Encore, encore.’ I try another tune and he hums as well. These days we are wrapped in music. Gregor is on a job with Macon. After it’s finished we will go to the coast. There’s plenty of money to be earned there.
We sing in cafés in St Tropez, St Raphael, St Maxime. We sing wherever we can. Two strange bohemians and their little white-haired child. He bangs a drum and sings as well, obviously happy and radiant, cute and charming. When people give us money he bows and says, ‘Merci, mesdames.’ He’s a complete star. He loves the singing. He loves the travelling. He loves the beaches and the sea. He loves the people. At night we camp in the back of the van. Sanclair wants to see the stars. He wants to hear the waves at night. He wants to know what the fishermen are doing. He wants to know if there are sea monsters. Gregor answers his questions as if he’s an adult and not a small boy who doesn’t want to go to sleep.
It’s July and it’s hot. The nights are hot too. I sit by the open doors and play my accordion. The sea laps on to the beach. This is an unspoiled piece of coastline, but further down are the blank blocks of holiday flats my father helped to build.
It wasn’t like when we travelled before. Then I felt sick and tired and uncertain, but that summer I felt I was doing what I wanted to do with the people I loved the most. I was on a mission too. When I sang, I felt love and people loved us. I don’t remember ever being turned away, I don’t remember people treating us harshly. We were singing out our hearts. It didn’t seem to tire me.
Sanclair, I’m so sad you don’t remember this, how brave and confident you were. Three years old, golden child. You never cried, you never complained. When the singing was over you were a little boy again, playing in the dust with the other children, talking a mixed-up high-pitched French and English, but children communicate anyway, whatever their language.
I remember an English couple sitting outside a bar in St Raphael. Elegant and well dressed, not young, in their early fifties. The woman wrinkled her nose, and I could hear her say to her husband, ‘What a disgrace to drag a child around doing that.’
Sanclair went up to her with his drum. He said, ‘Aimezvous les chanters, madame?’ He smiled, put his hand on her arm and said ‘Très belle, madame!’ with such wonder, and didn’t she melt.
‘Oh how kind!’ She fumbled in her purse and gave him fifty francs. He bowed like a little prince. And wasn’t she charmed.
Sanclair, Gregor’s son. Learning to be kind. Learning how to look people straight in the eye. Learning to be interested. Gregor never shouted at him, was never impatient, and I sang songs and cuddled him when he wanted to be a baby. I don’t think it was a bad upbringing.
For most of the winter Gregor went back to the coast, working in bars, working on the boats. I had no fear he wouldn’t come back. Before he left he taught me how to drive, and I learned on the road that leads to the farm. Gregor was a patient teacher, he made me go over each manoeuvre again and again until he was sure I knew what I was doing. I think he wanted me to be more independent, he wanted to know that when he was away I would be able to cope. Gregor’s little schoolgirl, still naive and protected, wrapped up in her child, her music and her little home. I think he wanted me to grow up.
That winter was peaceful. Sanclair, now a little boy, didn’t need my full attention. He played outside every day. Even in the rain. There were places he sheltered and he didn’t come back until meal times, sometimes blue-lipped and shivering. He’d stay by the stove until he was warm and we’d play songs or I’d read him a story, but I could tell he was waiting to go outside again. He was an outdoor boy and he stayed like that. I read more. I could drive as far as Draguignan and go to the library. I read Mistral again, but this time his Mireille wasn’t the romantic heroine I remembered her to be. She was downtrodden and pathetic, dying miserably on the beach. I couldn’t identify with her anymore. I preferred to read Pagnol and Daudet, at least they made me laugh.
I want to see a picture of how I was then, but there are no photographs. I remember myself like this. My hair is long, right down my back and curling. I wear an odd mixture of clothes. A peasant skirt, thick tights and walking boots. Embroidered shirts and jumpers. I wear a sheepskin coat when it’s really cold. I tie my hair up sometimes with scarves. I can chop wood and make fires. I talk French nearly all the time. When Gregor comes back the stillness and quiet is shattered into a thousand pieces, it’s hard to concentrate on anything except him and what he’s doing. When he’s away, if I feel lonely I go to Le Sanglier and talk to Jeanette. Sometimes I play music and sing. Not for money particularly, but because I like to. Jeanette says my mother must be proud of me. She doesn’t ask me so much about my mother now. I told her I phone her every time I go to Draguignan. I’ve been saying this for three years. Jeanette believes it. Gregor believes it and sometimes I think that I believe it. I’ve made up a version of my mother for myself. She’s cold and distant. She doesn’t want to see me. She’s not interested in Sanclair. No, she’s not proud of me.
It was May, about the same time of year it is now. For some weeks Gregor had been home. There were new tenants at the château and he had been working up there with Macon. It was a Sunday and I was going to meet him at Le Sanglier. I walked up the track to the village. I had my accordion on my back and I walked with Sanclair. There were wild flowers the whole way and we picked a bunch to give to Jeanette. A blue sky and light breeze, like it is today, changeable weather, but for the moment radiant. At the café Jeanette took the flowers as if they were dipped in silver, kissed Sanclair until he squealed and promised him sweets and biscuits and chocolate milk. Auxille was full of the woes of the village. She had fallen out again with Odette over the price of a slice of pâté, but I didn’t want to hear about it. I said, ‘Shall I sing?’ There weren’t many customers but I sang anyway. I didn’t play the accordion, I was waiting for Gregor, but I sang at the top of my voice, a song I’d made up about Avelard and the princess. They became troubadours. The prince awoke to his own foolishness. Avelard left her, so she dressed as a man and called herself Mellano de la Queste. The castle became deserted and the wilderness took over. It seemed as if my singing rose up from the square and was soaring round the bell tower on the church like the swallows. I stopped, and Sanclair came with me to collect the money. He had chocolate milk down his front. We didn’t collect much. On the last table were two men, an older man and a younger one. They were not locals, because they both wore straw hats. The younger man wore a cream suit. They looked wealthy. I stood for a while by their table.
‘Well, did you ever see such a fine-looking peasant?’ This was the younger man. He spoke English and at first I almost didn’t understand because I hadn’t spoken English for months.
‘Looks deceive, Julian,’ said the older man. ‘Look again, tell me what you see.’ And they both looked at me.
‘She’s young and fit. Bright eyes, cheeky mouth. Give her a wash, she’d do for me.’
He smiled. He thought I didn’t understand him. He had pale skin, dark hair and the bluest eyes I’d ever seen. He crossed his legs. He had black ankle boots and silky socks. He was rake thin. He had elegant hands. He dipped one finger in his wine glass and then sucked it. I think I blushed.
The older man laughed. ‘Julian, you do not see things properly. You see what you want to see. This girl is English.’
The younger man stared. ‘Surely not. She jabbers away like a local.’
‘Look, she has blue eyes. Look, she has, how do you say … spots.’
‘Freckles, Badouin. She has freckles.’
‘She is too tall for a girl from the village.’ He turned to me. He had a white beard. He was dressed in a pale blue tunic and loose trousers. He had a large gold ring on one hand. ‘You’re English, aren’t you? You’re the girl who lives in a cabanon.’
‘Yes,’ I said. Sanclair pulled at my shirt. He didn’t understand what they were saying.
‘And this little cherub is her son.’
‘Well, I never,’ said the younger man. ‘She seems too young. So …’ he was baffled. ‘So why is she …’ He looked me straight in the eyes. ‘So, why are you singing in cafés?’
‘It’s what I do,’ I said.
The older man laughed. ‘Young lady, please join us.’
He was Badouin. He was a painter and he had rented the château for the summer. He was well known although I had never heard of him, and the younger man was Julian Greville-Newton. His father was a patron of Badouin’s. They bought me a glass of wine and a sorbet for Sanclair.
‘So you live in a hut?’ said Julian.
‘She lives with that German.’ Badouin took off his hat. He was completely bald.
‘What, the crazy one who works with the drunken oaf? What, that great lumbering hairy German?’
Badouin laughed. ‘My friend is a blunt man, my dear. You must excuse him. Julian, you embarrass our guest. She is a charming young girl, nicely bred and then she runs away with a German, has his baby and now they are so happy, he tells me, and she loves to sing.’
‘It’s a strange world,’ said Julian. He scrutinised me further and moved his head closer to mine. He smelled of perfume. ‘You’re not shy, but you’re reserved. I can see that now. What goes on in that quiet head of yours?’
I could only think that he was clean. His clothes were spotless, and so was he. His nails had half moons on them. His shirt had gold cuff links. His skin was almost translucent.
Sanclair finished his sorbet and said, ‘Shall we sing some more for you because I like to eat this.’
Badouin smiled. ‘Don’t they make a picture, Julian? The young Madonna and her little sun king.’
‘Paint them.’
‘No, I shall stay with rocks and trees, but I shall remember. You should learn to draw, Julian, then you would see things. See his brown eyes like his father, and his mouth, like his mother, what do you say, a cheeky mouth. This little man is not afraid of his world, and she is not afraid either, are you? Tell me what you see, my dear.’
Nobody talked to me like this except Gregor and I was embarrassed, but they were waiting and Sanclair looked up at me and licked his spoon again, he wanted more sorbet.
‘I see that you have a gold ring as thick as a strap, and he has gold cuff links. You both have straw hats, not cheap ones, but real ones of the creamiest straw. Your clothes have been ironed. I can see that you are both rich.’
They laughed and Sanclair laughed even more when they ordered more sorbet. Then I saw Gregor, walking towards the square with Macon, both of them dusty with plaster. Gregor had his shirt off and it was true he did look massive, a bronzed, muscled, hairy thing with hair down to his shoulders and a blond beard. He bounded over to us and Sanclair shouted, ‘Papa, hurry up and sing and these people will buy you ice cream.’
‘If they can buy me ice cream, they can buy me wine! Come on,’ he said to me, ‘play that box of yours.’
Gregor may have looked boorish, but round a table with a group of people he was king. There is no topic he can’t discuss and now it’s art. We have sung and sung and the table has filled up with wine bottles. My head is swimming. Sanclair has fallen asleep on my lap. Jeanette and Auxille have realised who the people in the straw hats really are and they are flitting about like bats. Macon has joined us and he too has an opinion about modern art. Piccasso and Matisse, they’re all right but they can’t draw, and that’s the problem. Badouin and Gregor are locked into a duel, classicism versus romanticism and at the moment romanticism looks like it’s going to win. Only Julian is quiet, touching his finger tips together and crossing and uncrossing his legs. He is watching Gregor.
Again he leans over to me and says in my ear, ‘Your German is quite a character, isn’t he? I can see why you like him, but tell me, is he a complete animal in bed?’
The sun has gone in like I thought it would. I shall go inside and light a fire now, because I know it’s going to rain.