Children of Light Read online

  ‘It’s my pool,’ says Sanclair. ‘I have a pool in my house as well.’

  I know he means the Ferrou and I sit up. I have been lying by the side of the water. Somehow I don’t want Sanclair to tell Julian about the Ferrou.

  ‘I thought you lived in a shed. How come you have a pool?’

  ‘It’s not as big as this one. It’s got trees and a rock.’

  I sit at the table. Julian eyes me up and down. Shula has given me a swimming costume, a blue one with flowers on.

  ‘Look at my picture,’ says Sanclair and hands it to Julian. He looks at it one way and then turns it round. He’s obviously not used to looking at children’s drawings. ‘Very abstract,’ he says.

  ‘It’s my pool,’ says Sanclair, but Julian is staring at me.

  ‘Is there more wine?’ I ask.

  ‘In the cellar. I’ll get it. White. Dry. It should be chilled by now.’

  I smile at him. He moves quickly, he’s eager for my company.

  Sanclair gives me the picture instead. ‘Look, it’s my pool!’ and I look. It’s the Ferrou. He’s drawn the water and the rock with the split. He’s drawn it all in purple, no wonder Julian couldn’t see it.

  Sanclair looks at the château pool critically. ‘Our pool is better, isn’t it, Maman?’ he says in a whisper. I love him so much I think my heart will burst.

  Here’s another memory. Shula has taken us to see Badouin working. He works in an upstairs room. We must be quiet and not disturb him, but Badouin smiles effortlessly as if he is used to entertaining people when he’s painting.

  ‘He paints from memory,’ explains Shula. ‘As a child his family lived near Moustiers and he paints the scenes he remembers when he used to go walking in the hills. He wants to present the ideal Provence, the ageless landscape that will remain even when the people have gone. That is why the buildings he depicts are ruined. He is showing us the timelessness of nature.’

  We watch as Badouin mixes paint on his palette. Whatever colour he puts on becomes a shade of brown. He is painting an outcrop of rock, bent pine trees on the summit and below, a thin river. In the distance is a ruined church. It makes me think of early Renaissance paintings but without the angels and wistful Madonnas. Badouin is painting in natural light. The canvas is about three feet wide and four feet high. It is the only picture he will complete this summer.

  ‘Every year he comes to this region. Many of his buyers live on the coast. Later we will be organising an exhibition in Cannes. I’m sure you will be invited to the preview. Badouin is very generous.’ Shula smiles in reverence.

  Miriam nods in agreement. ‘He is just so talented … in the States they call him the modern Poussin …’

  ‘But of course Poussin’s landscapes are imaginary. Badouin’s exist,’ says Shula.

  ‘When I see them I’m right there. I mean, I was going to Lieux the other day’ (she pronounces it ‘Lee-oo’) ‘and I saw this tree and I mean it was just Badouin.’ Sanclair sneezes suddenly and Miriam says, ‘Shh,’ gently.

  ‘Painting is too long. I would take a photograph,’ says Sanclair.

  ‘His lordship is a modernist at heart,’ says Julian. ‘Despite his rural upbringing.’

  ‘Shh!’ says Miriam, this time more insistently.

  Badouin mixing colours. Precise and controlled. Tiny drops of paint blending into each other. A fine-tipped brush. He has all the time in the world.

  That night at dinner he turned to Miriam and said, ‘Do tell us about your guru. I would like to know more about this Indian you worship.’

  At the mention of India Gregor put down his fork and looked at Miriam with that same look of concentration I remember he used to turn on me when I was a schoolgirl by the canal. At the mention of India I felt a ripple of unease and looked at Sanclair, who was standing on a chair, helping himself to more salad.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Tuesday 17th May. After breakfast

  I don’t know what the time is but I slept late and it’s still raining. I shall write this, then wash some clothes. I can put them round the stove to dry. I want an uneventful day. I shall look at the map and plan another walk. I shall write out a shopping list. Last night I was woken up by loud breathing round the back of the hut. I thought it must be some drunken git from the village come down to have a peek, so I yelled, ‘Get lost and go back to your mother!’ I felt safe, there are two great big bolts on this door. But he didn’t go away. Then I started to get scared. I got the torch and yelled again. I tried peering through the shutters, but I couldn’t see anything only hear this ghastly, raspy breathing. I shouted ‘Go away! I’ve got an axe!’ which was true, and ‘I’ve got a gun!’ which wasn’t.

  I don’t know how long it all took but it felt like hours, and there I was in my pyjamas trying to squint through a hole in the wood. It’s funny what you think about in the middle of the night. This was the ghost of Old Man Henri. This was the evil spirit of La Ferrou slimed up from the bottom of the pool. This was my angry dead baby, this was Felix, my mother, my dad. They were all out there. Everything bad in my life, everything I’ve felt guilty about glued together into one hairy monster outside my door.

  I’ve never felt so alone in my entire life. What did it matter how much I hollered or cried? Nobody down here could hear me. I felt so stupid. I’ve put myself here far away from everybody. Who would know if something happened to me? In the end I went to bed and didn’t I want somebody then, somebody just to say, there, there, it’s all right. But I couldn’t sleep. I was sure I could still hear noises. I thought about how many times in my life I had not been brave. I’d run away and lied, so I didn’t have to deal with things, and wasn’t I doing that again here, hiding away? For once I wanted to be brave and bold, and I got out of bed.

  I was shaking like an earthquake. I had the torch in one hand and the axe in the other. I somehow managed to open the front door and I went outside. It was still raining.

  It was a pig. A wild boarlet with its nose in a bag of rubbish I’d left round the back. Too greedy to stop chomping onion skins and cabbage leaves to mind my banging and shouting. When I shone the light on it, it froze. Stupid ugly fat thing. Can wild boars look guilty? I’m sure this one did, and frightened. We stared at each other, wet monster and victim. It wasn’t a big wild boar, only half grown. I think a full-size one would have been terrifying, but I started to laugh and little piggy squeaked and squealed and the last I saw was its fat bottom as it scrambled up the terraces running back to mama. Aren’t I brave? I shall put a notice over my door: Mireille, pig-scarer. Aren’t I stupid? There I was in my pyjamas in the rain, flipped out of my wits for hours by a snuffling porker. I was laughing and crying. I had to make myself a cup of hot chocolate before I calmed down. The dawn was just breaking. It was nice sitting there by the stove feeling like a dragon-slayer.

  I went back to bed and slept like the just. And now I don’t know what time it is and it’s still raining.

  What came up last night was how guilty I feel about Julian. I sorted things out with my mother, but I never apologised to Gregor because he didn’t know. I think to this day he still doesn’t know and it’s too late to tell him now, it’s all ancient history. Gregor, I didn’t do it to get at you. It wasn’t lack of love, but I knew you would go to India. I wanted something for myself that wasn’t you.

  Miriam was a devotee of the Baba. I had heard about gurus. I thought they were wealthy characters who drove around in Rolls-Royces and had young girls fawning over them. The Baba wasn’t like that. He preached poverty, simplicity and the natural order of life. In fact he didn’t even preach. He made no effort to publicise himself. He lived in the hills above Bombay. A Californian man called Frank Stein discovered him whilst searching for the truth back in the sixties. He was impressed by the Baba’s modesty, intelligence and humour. Frank stayed with the Baba for seven years and then went back to California to tell the world about him. A small following started up in America. There was a group in France near St. Paul d
e Vence, one in Italy and two or three in Spain. He wasn’t that well known in England. To be a devotee seemed to me quite simple. The disciples wore Indian clothes, had a picture of the Baba round their necks and meditated twice a day. They ate freshly prepared food, didn’t watch television and were opposed to violence. It was so simple as to seem almost pointless. Miriam explained this over three days at the château. When she talked about the Baba her eyes went misty and she lowered her voice to a whisper. It was as if she were in love and she had never met him. Frank Stein had written down the Baba’s sayings and published them. She had read them all.

  ‘The Baba hopes all his followers will come to him and receive the blessing,’ said Miriam at dinner. ‘When they are ready they will come to him. I’m not ready yet, but I hope I will be.’

  ‘So how do you know when you are ready?’ asked Julian, who had been following all this with amusement. ‘Does your hair start to curl, does your skin change colour?’ He peeled an apple with an ivory-handled knife.

  ‘The blessing will change your life. You have to be ready,’ said Miriam with no hint of irony.

  ‘How so?’ said Gregor, who was getting more interested in the subject.

  ‘Because he tells you what you need to do with your life. He shows you the path.’

  ‘He tells you what to do?’ The idea sounded preposterous to me.

  ‘He shows you the way,’ said Miriam.

  ‘How?’ I said, still incredulous.

  ‘You spend three months in his company in stillness and meditation. The Baba’s gift is to see the special light in all of us. Then at the blessing he reveals your life’s path.’

  ‘That sounds beautiful,’ said Shula.

  ‘What does he say?’ asked Julian, eating his apple. Badouin was smiling.

  ‘You might need to be a shoe-maker, or a gardener, or work with animals, it just depends.’

  ‘To have your life’s path revealed to you, must be, yes, extraordinary,’ said Gregor.

  ‘What if he’s wrong?’ I said, but nobody answered.

  I’m at the hut with Gregor. It’s late at night and he’s reading to me from the Baba’s book, Children of Light. He’s reading this … ‘you all have within you enough light to dispel the darkness in the world. Why do you then object when I help you find the path that leads to your light?’

  I feel angry. Surely I know my own path. I’ve run away from home, left my mother, lived with Gregor and had a baby. After all these changes surely I know what I am doing with my life.

  The Baba’s words still irritate me, even now when I don’t seem to have a life anymore but repeated little events, sleeping, waking, writing, walking, shopping. I don’t feel I have any light inside me at all.

  I have to write about Julian.

  Miriam, Shula and Badouin went to Cannes to set up the exhibition and Gregor went with them. I knew he would visit the settlement at St Paul de Vence and I knew I couldn’t stop him. In a way I was glad to see them go. I was sick of the Baba. Shula was now meditating with Miriam every day and Gregor was reading nothing else. He tried to get Jeanette and Auxille interested, but they had their good Lord Jesus and his Virgin Mother and that was good enough for them. Even Julian was becoming involved. He had no path and the idea of being given one was appealing. He didn’t go to Cannes. He said he would fry on the coast. It was August. I stayed at the hut, fed up and despondent. Staying by the Ferrou, listening to Sanclair chattering to himself as he splashed among the rocks. August is a grumpy month down here. Sticky and flyblown. The grass dry as pubic hair. The sun as tiresome as an old joke.

  I went to the village, but the café was chock-full with tourists on their way to the Gorge du Verdon. Jeanette and Auxille were so busy they could only wave and shout, ‘Are you going to sing?’ ‘Not today,’ I said, and Sanclair already wanted another ice cream.

  Julian came strolling up under the plane trees. He crossed the square to greet me. I didn’t avoid him because in the dappled sunlight he looked a picture of cool. Cream linen, straw hat, he was everything I wasn’t.

  ‘Not gone with the beach party?’ he said and tipped his hat.

  ‘I didn’t fancy it.’

  ‘So you’re marooned as well?’ He took a watch out of his waistcoat pocket and looked at it.

  ‘Time for a post-prandial drink?’ He surveyed the seething café. ‘Not here. Too many grockles. At the château?’

  We walked to the château up the old road, tree-lined and full of pot-holes. I didn’t talk to Julian because Sanclair jabbered the whole way as if he hadn’t spoken to anybody for a month and Gregor had only been away a week. At the château we sat in the drawing room. Sanclair was still in full flood. ‘Shall I sing, shall I tell you a story, shall I show you my new dance?’ Julian poured me a drink and I gulped it down quickly, so he poured me another. On the terrace the farmer’s wife from the domaine was watering the flowers. Oleanders in tubs, hibiscus, geraniums.

  ‘Madame Blanc …’ said Julian, ‘that gives me an idea. Come with me, your lordship. I think I know how to entertain you.’

  I watched them through the window. Madame Blanc patted Sanclair’s hair. They were pointing to the farm. Sanclair was jumping up and down. Julian gave Madame Blanc some money. She refused, then stuffed it in her apron pocket and led Sanclair away.

  I rushed out on to the terrace. ‘Where’s she taking him?’

  ‘Calm down, agitated mother. Your son is going to the domaine to see the new puppies. I think he might even stay the night there … they’re good sorts the domaine Blancs. Now, would you like to swim?’ Julian’s mouth pursed itself into a smile. I could have run down the road and fetched Sanclair back, but I didn’t.

  I’m naked and swimming in the pool. Julian is watching me. My dirty, sweaty clothes are in a pile, but I’m fresh and wet, diving under the water, diving down to the stone bottom of the pool, green with algae, and the water singing in my ears is saying, enjoy your body, enjoy how it moves, how it feels. When I come up for air the water from the lion’s mouth is spurting on to my face.

  Enjoy your body. I’m sitting half dressed in the room of mirrors. It’s getting darker and Julian has lit the candles. I can see myself in the mirrors. I’m flirting. Flipping my hair back, lowering my eyes, waving my hands when I talk. I don’t usually behave like this. Pouting, wriggling, sticking my breasts out. We are both getting drunk. I’m flirting with Julian and flirting with myself.

  Julian hasn’t touched me, but he’s watching me like a cat in the grass watches a bird, like a snake watches a frog, like an eagle watches a rabbit. I wonder at what point I will freeze. I’m getting drunker.

  I’m standing by a bed and it’s not the one I usually sleep in. The moon shines through the windows on to the bed and onto me in the bed, spread out on the bed and surely something’s got to happen now. Julian is on the other side of the room. He’s still dressed and I’m not. I don’t know where my clothes are. I’m falling asleep.

  Then he swoops. It’s like a stab. He’s so thin there’s nothing to hold on to. He’s all energy and push and thrust and prick, it’s like I’m being nailed to the bed and this is weeks of lust coming out; but I’m not frozen, I’m hot like lava, like bubbling mud. He’s all bones and smooth skin like a slippery fish, a hot fish, hot tongue, hot prick and I love how my body feels. I love it.

  Julian standing by the window in the morning. Glaring at nothing under his dark eyebrows, leaning on the ripped silk pink curtains, gathered into bundles and swathes. A hot sweaty morning and his skin is as pink as a baby’s foot. He’s naked and hairless. Thin and wiry like an Elizabethan aristocrat. He has a moist pink just-fucked dick. I can’t stop wanting him.

  All week. We are decadent. In the room of mirrors we watch ourselves making love on the velvet chairs. We have done it in every single room in the house. In the wine cellar. In the old stable. Twice in the bath. On Badouin’s bed. In the kitchen. I’m drunk all the time on wine and sex.

  Sanclair has stayed at the do
maine. He wants to sleep there with the puppies. He comes and sees us in the day, running across the lawn with Madame Blanc puffing after him. She’s loving it. He’s brought a puppy to show us and it’s jumping and bouncing too. A little brown and white smooth-haired hunting dog, chubby and yapping. ‘He’s mine now,’ says Sanclair. ‘When he’s older we will hunt wild boar together.’

  Madame Blanc fans herself with her apron. ‘I have not been so busy since my sons were children and this one is like three. Questions, questions. He speaks French so well you would not think his papa is a German, and what an appetite!’ Her face resembles Auxille’s but she’s rounder and more rosy-cheeked. Her hair is usually tucked into a scarf, but now it’s all over her face. She sits on one of the chairs by the pool. Julian gives her a drink of mineral water.

  ‘Give Maman a rest and let Grandmère do some work,’ says Madame Blanc.

  Julian and I look as if we haven’t moved from the side of the pool since they last saw us.

  ‘Watch me, I can dive right down to the bottom! Watch me! Grandmère, can puppies swim?’

  ‘He calls me Grandmère,’ says Madame Blanc shyly. ‘I asked him who his grandmère was and he said he didn’t know. He didn’t even know what a grandmère was. When I told him, he said I could be his grandmère … No, no, puppy is too little and we musn’t let dogs swim in this fine gentleman’s pool, they might do pi-pis in the water.’

  ‘I do pi-pis in the water and nobody minds,’ says Sanclair. He splashes the puppy, which squeaks and yaps and shakes itself.

  ‘What a fine strong boy he is!’ laughs Madame Blanc. ‘And when does Papa come back?’

  ‘They all come back on Sunday,’ says Julian.

  We’re making love again upstairs on Julian’s bed, ferociously, maniacally. I would feel better about this if I loved Julian, but I don’t. I would feel better if I wanted to stay with him, but I don’t. I would feel better if I didn’t want Gregor to come back, but I do.

  We’re sitting in the room of mirrors, waiting for the others to return. Sanclair is already asleep upstairs with his puppy. Madame Blanc has cooked a chicken and it’s waiting in the oven. I have made a salad and Julian has chosen the wine. I have not drunk anything all day and I feel dry-mouthed and sick-headed. Julian wears his dark blue suit. He sits in the candle-light like a peacock. He strokes his lip. He says, ‘When your hairy German shags you tonight, will you think about me?’