Blackberry Wine

‘I don’t think that’s true.’ The vivid, dappled child Jay had seen gave no impression of having ever been shut up in a back room.

Josephine shrugged. ‘No, I don’t think so either,’ she said. ‘But by that time the damage was done. Gangs of people gathering at the gate of the farm and across the river. Do-gooders, for the most part, harmless enough, but Marise wasn’t to know that, holed up in her house, with torches burning outside and people letting off firecrackers and throwing stones at the shutters.’ She shook her head. ‘By the time things settled down it was too late,’ she explained. ‘She was already convinced everyone was against her. And then when Rosa disappeared…’

Josephine poured a measure of cognac into her coffee. ‘I suppose she thought we were all in it. You can’t hide much in a village, and everybody knew that Mireille had Rosa staying with her. The child was three then, and we all thought they must have made it up between them somehow, and Rosa was there for a visit. Of course, Caro Clairmont knew otherwise, and so did a few others, Joline Drou, who was her best friend at the time, and Cussonnet the doctor. But the rest of us… well, no-one asked. People reckoned that after what had happened perhaps they ought to mind their own business. And no-one really knew Marise, of course.’

‘She doesn’t make it easy,’ observed Jay.

‘Rosa was missing for about three days. Mireille only tried taking her out of the house once. The first day. That didn’t last long. You could hear her screaming right down to Les Marauds. Whatever else was wrong with her, she had a good pair of lungs. Nothing would make her be quiet, not sweets, or presents, or fussing, or shouting. They all tried – Caro, Joline, Toinette – but still the child wouldn’t stop screaming. Finally Mireille got worried and called the doctor. They put their heads together and took her to a specialist in Agen. It just wasn’t normal for a child that age to scream all the time. They thought she was disturbed, that perhaps she’d been mistreated in some way.’ She frowned. ‘Then Marise came to pick up Rosa from the playgroup, and found that the doctor and Mireille had taken her to Agen instead. I’ve never seen anyone so angry. She followed them on her moped, but all she could find out was that Mireille had taken Rosa to some kind of hospital. For tests, she said. I don’t know what they were trying to prove.’

She shrugged again. ‘If she’d been anyone else she could have counted on help from the village,’ she said. ‘But Marise – never says a word unless she has to, never smiles – I suppose people just minded their own business. That’s all it was really; there was no malice in it. She wanted to be left alone, and that’s what people did. Not that anyone really knew where Mireille had taken Rosa – except maybe Caro Clairmont. Oh, we heard all kinds of stories. But that was afterwards. How Marise stamped into Cussonnet’s surgery with a shotgun and marched him out to the car. To hear people talking you’d think half of Lansquenet saw that. It’s always the same, heh! All I can say is, I wasn’t there. And though Rosa was back at home before the end of that week, we never saw her in the village again – not in the school, or even at the firework display on the fourteenth of July, or the chocolate festival at Easter.’ Josephine drained her coffee abruptly and wiped her hands on her apron. ‘So that was that,’ she concluded with an air of finality. ‘That was the last we saw of Marise and Rosa. I see them from time to time – perhaps once a month or so – on the road to Agen or walking to Narcisse’s nursery, or in the field across the river. But that’s all. She hasn’t forgiven the village for what happened after Tony’s death, or for taking sides, or for turning a blind eye when Rosa disappeared. You can’t tell her it was nothing to do with you; she won’t believe it.’

Jay nodded. It was understandable. ‘It must be a lonely life for them,’ he said. Thinking of Maggie and Gilly, of the way they always managed to make friends wherever they went, trading and fixing and doing odd jobs to make ends meet, always on the move, fielding insults and prejudice with the same cheery defiance. How different was this dour, suspicious woman from Joe’s friends of Nether Edge. And yet the child looked so very like Gilly. He checked for the rucksack on his way back to the farm, but, as he expected, it had already been removed. Only the dragon’s head remained, still lolling its long crepe tongue, now embellished with a garland of fluttering red ribbons, which sat jauntily on the thick green mane. Coming closer, Jay noticed that the stump of a clay pipe had been carefully positioned between the dragon’s teeth, from which a dandelion clock protruded. And as he passed, hiding a grin, he was almost sure he saw something move in the hedge next to him, a brief flash of orange under the new green, and heard the impudent bleating of a goat in the distance.

38

LATER, OVER HIS FAVOURITE GRAND CREME IN THE CAFE DES Marauds, he was listening with half an ear to Josephine as she told him the story of the village’s first chocolate festival and the resistance with which it had been met by the church. The coffee was good, sprinkled with shavings of dark chocolate and with a cinnamon biscuit by the side of the cup. Narcisse was sitting opposite with his usual seed catalogue and a cafe-cassis. In the afternoons the place was busier, but Jay noticed that the clientele still consisted mainly of old men, playing chess or cards and talking in their low rapid patois. In the evening it would be full of workers back from the fields and the farms. He wondered where the young people went at night.

‘Not many young people stay here,’ Josephine explained. ‘There isn’t the work, unless you want to go into farming. And most of the farms have been divided so often between all the family’s sons that there isn’t much of a livelihood left for anyone.’

‘Always the sons,’ said Jay. ‘Never the daughters.’

‘There aren’t many women who’d want to run a farm in Lansquenet,’ said Josephine, shrugging. ‘And some of the growers and distributors don’t like the idea of working for a woman.’

Jay gave a short laugh.

Josephine looked at him. ‘You don’t believe that?’

He shook his head. ‘It’s hard for me to understand,’ he explained. ‘In London-’

‘This isn’t London.’ Josephine seemed amused. ‘People hold close to their traditions here. The church. The family. The land. That’s why so many of the young people leave. They want what they read about in their magazines. They want the cities, cars, clubs, shops. But there are always some who stay. And some who come back.’

She poured another cafe-creme and smiled. ‘There was a time when I would have given anything to get out of Lansquenet,’ she said. ‘Once I even set off. Packed my bags and left home.’

‘What happened?’

‘I stopped on the way for a cup of hot chocolate.’ She laughed. ‘And then I realized I couldn’t leave. I’d never really wanted to in the first place.’ She paused to pick up some empty glasses from a nearby table. ‘When you’ve lived here long enough you’ll understand. After a time, people find it hard to leave a place like Lansquenet. It isn’t just a village. The houses aren’t just places to live. Everything belongs to everybody. Everyone belongs to everyone else. Even a single person can make a difference.’

He nodded. It was what had first attracted him to Pog Hill Lane. The comings and goings. The conversations over the wall. The exchange of recipes, of baskets of fruit and bottles of wine. The constant presence of other people. While Joe was still there Pog Hill Lane stayed alive. Everything died with his departure. Suddenly he envied Josephine her life, her friends, her view over Les Marauds. Her memories.

‘What about me?’ he wondered. ‘Will I make a difference?’

‘Of course.’

He hadn’t realized he had spoken aloud.

‘Everyone knows about you, Jay. Everyone asks me about you. It takes a little time for someone to be accepted here. People need to know if you’re going to stay. They don’t want to give themselves to someone who won’t stay. And some of them are afraid.’

‘Of what?’

‘Change. It may seem ridiculous to you, but most of us like the village the way it is. We don’t want to be like Montauban or Le Pinot. We don’t want tourists passing through, buying up the houses at high prices and leaving the place dead in the winter. Tourists are like a plague of wasps. They get everywhere. They eat everything. They’d clean us out in a year. There’d be nothing of us left but guest houses and games arcades. Lansquenet – the real Lansquenet – would disappear.’

She shook her head. ‘People are watching you, Jay. They see you so friendly with Caro and Georges Clairmont,