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Le Chant du Mistral, Provence, 1976
She paused half way along the landing, pressed her hand to the wall to steady herself, and took a couple of long, slow breaths. The air had been heavy all day, the stones of the house and pathways dazzling in the unrelenting sunshine, a haze hovering just above ground level. Even now, with darkness long fallen, the old farmhouse was sticky and oppressive: too hot; airless. The nausea faded and she eased silently forward again, opened a door and slipped through.
The shutters were still closed and it was too dark to see. Switching on the small table lamp by the side of her bed, she blinked at the sudden light. The sickness built again and her skin prickled with sweat. It was hard to know which emotion was making her feel so bad: anger, guilt, grief and fear were all twisting and churning the acid in her stomach. This had once been a house of light and now it was a place of shadow; it was tainted and so was she. But she had done what she needed to do; let that be an end to it. There was nothing left for her here. Nothing.
She crossed to the washbasin, drank a little cold water then splashed some over her face and patted it dry with a towel, wincing as she caught the cut under her left eye. In the mirror the damage was obvious: her cheek was swollen and puffy, her eye socket stained dusky purple and blue.
A few minutes later she let herself out of the front door. The sky had now clouded over though, if anything, the atmosphere was more humid than ever. The tiny beam of her torch barely cut a trace before her but she would have known the way blindfold and she turned left to skirt round the east wing of the house.
A flash of lightning split the sky, followed by a slow rumble of thunder which echoed back off the pine trees behind then rolled down and along the valley. Someone called her name and she looked round in alarm as the tall figure of a man appeared at the edge of the terrace, illuminated suddenly by another flash of lightning. Fear had her rooted to the spot and she felt rather than saw him moving towards her as more thunder crashed overhead. Why was he not in bed and asleep like everyone else, safely shut away? The first sluicing drops of rain began to pelt the earth and hammered on the stones around her. Feeling her hair flatten and the cold water quickly soak through it and stream down her face, she began to run, away towards the woods, and kept running, not daring to stop to see if she was being followed.
