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“He’s drinking coffee in L’Escale. It’s around here somewhere, isn’t it?”
Not a dog, then. A person. And this man must be a tourist having taken the wrong turn out of the shop and lost his bearings. A mistake anyone could make in a new place, especially in a small village like Loix, where one row of pretty whitewashed cottages festooned with hollyhocks mimicked another. I’d made a similar error when I’d first arrived.
Using the opportunity to practice my rusty French, I issued some simple instructions—he had to retrace his steps then turn left followed by an immediate right. Confusion swept across his weather-lined face. With added hand gestures, I repeated myself, and despite some nodding and giving the impression he was trying to understand, the puzzled frown stayed in place. Orange tap-danced naughtily above his head of thinning white hair. Perhaps he was hard of hearing, or my accent even more atrocious than I’d thought.
“Why don’t I show you?” I suggested, realising it might be quicker. And I’d be doing a good turn. It wasn’t as if I had anywhere to be in a hurry, far from it. Aside from restaurant staff, he was the first person I’d conversed with for days. I fell into step beside him.
“Beatrice used to live in that house,” he informed me conversationally, as if Beatrice was a mutual acquaintance. He walked at a slow pace, substituting speed for carefulness. Pointing to a largeish cottage, he added, “She grew up there.” Although all whitewashed and boasting the island’s obligatory green shutters, most cottages maintained a degree of individuality. Some had windows framed in a delicate pale stone, others boasted elaborate door knockers, while many were shabby chic, with ancient bikes propped up outside, as if added as an afterthought. This one had been freshly primped; its white plaster gleamed as if it had been painted only yesterday, and every window housed a box of geraniums. “Sold it to Parisians. Beatrice used to run the island printing press, you know.”
I gave a polite nod as he prattled on, not caring whether I knew Beatrice or not. “When La Hune was a newspaper worth reading. Now it’s only adverts.”
Having had a copy of the free local rag pushed through my letterbox, I was inclined to agree. “There seem to be a lot of Parisians with second homes on the island,” I remarked. “I see their car registration plates everywhere.”
And overheard their confident chatter, fast-paced like the people themselves, shortening sentences as if they didn’t have the patience to enunciate every syllable. Seemed I’d hit on a favourable topic for conversation, as my elderly companion was off, giving me a potted and informed history of how the island’s population had ballooned since the toll bridge had been built, linking it to the mainland. Nevertheless, his anxiety lessened; the orange above his head piped down. My pocket history lesson segued into a detailed account of how wonderful the wisteria had been growing up the front of Beatrice’s childhood home, until the Parisians had yanked it down to make way for a garage. I had a sneaking sympathy for the Parisians; parking was at a premium on the island.
“And where does Beatrice live now?”
I had the distinct impression the old man was enjoying himself, his geographical uncertainty of earlier forgotten. “Oh, she’s not too far away,” he answered with an arm wave in no particular direction. “I’ll be visiting her later. I’ll remind her about the wisteria, every year she used to take cuttings from it.”
The jaunty red and white striped awning of L’Escale, the only bar in the village, came into view as we reached the corner. Peeling away from the tourists milling around the postcard stand outside the tabac next door, a vaguely familiar young man marched with long strides towards us. A smile broke out on the old man’s face as he caught sight of him, and, like a sudden gust of wind across a flame, all traces of orange were extinguished. “Ah, here’s my Florian. He must have got himself lost. Head in the clouds as usual. That boy is such a dreamer.”
He spoke with fondness and I watched as the handsome young man’s anxious gaze skated over me before settling on the old man. His shoulders sagged with relief.
“Papi! There you are. You had me worried for a second! Everything okay?”
Papi. A colloquial term for grandfather. They shared the same sea-green eyes, the older man’s a fraction paler, as if bleached by years of sunshine and somehow even more vivid. “Of course,” he answered, in a why-wouldn’t-it-be tone. “Although the melons weren’t ripe, so I didn’t buy any.”
The younger man held out an arm for the shopping, simultaneously tucking in his grandfather’s untidy shirt tail. I felt as if I’d seen him before; a thread of quicksilver dashed before my eyes, gone in the time it took for me to absorb the happy reunion. But it was my cue to depart, and I gave the older man a light pat on the shoulder as the younger threw me a quick nod. “I’ll… um… nice meeting you, monsieur. Enjoy the rest of your day.”
It was much later when I rooted out the sketch pad. The old man and his grandson—and their obvious closeness—had intensified my melancholy, if that were conceivable, and for the next few hours, I only summoned sufficient energy to wrap myself in a blanket and swing in the hammock. I spent as much time outside as possible. Inside, draped in a malevolent formless grey, depression tended to traipse after me from room to room, invading even this temporary home and striving to make the intimate space its own. Whereas in the secluded garden, with its row of vines twisting along the stone back wall and the muted chatter of the tourists up and down the narrow venelle, it seemed a lesser foe.
I used to have a knack for sketching from memory, but I ripped up my first three efforts and tossed them into the bin. If the weather had been cool enough to warrant lighting a fire in the huge stone fireplace, I’d have burned them, one by one, until my ridiculous efforts at capturing the old man’s rheumy eyes were reduced to nothing but specks of ash. The fourth sketch looked human at least, and I slipped it inside the novel I was attempting to read. Despite wading two-thirds through, I couldn’t recall the name of a single character.
I ate at home that evening, a simple supper of bread topped with brie so ripe it spilled over the plate, and nectarines, washed down with a glass of local vin ordinaire. I ate for the sole purpose of gaining weight—the doctors had warned my appetite might take months to recover and they had been proved correct. With my daily calorie target accomplished and fearful of enduring more hours tossing and turning in bed than necessary, I slipped my shoes back on and left for an evening constitutional around the port.
The salt harvester was packing up, collecting his rakes, and shutting the door on his tumbledown wooden shack. It could have been a scene from anytime in the last hundred years, as if the industrial revolution had never happened. If salt harvesting was as straightforward as it appeared, then I envied the man the simplicity of his existence, and paused to admire his day’s work.
Rows of neat salt pyramids, all built to about hip height, lined both long sides of his rectangular salt flat, each in perfect symmetry with their opposite number. A much larger mound of salt dominated the rear of the flat; it had grown steadily over the last few weeks. Tomorrow morning, these dried out pyramids would be shovelled up and added to it.
With the show over for the evening, I continued on my way. One of these days, I’d visit the tiny salt museum on the outskirts of town and find out more. That should while away an afternoon.
Hurried footsteps sounded on the path behind me.
“Monsieur, monsieur!”
The young salt harvester skidded to a halt in front of me, out of breath and with his unruly black curls escaping from the edges of his tattered straw Panama. His eyes drew my immediate attention, and I took back my idea that his grandfather’s were more impressive; locked onto mine, this man’s were breathtaking—clear and fathomless, young yet old, like rare sea glass scooped from the deepest ocean bed. He wore his cheekbones with a hint of arrogance, aware of how damned handsome he was; only matched by the upward tilt of his full lips as he gave me the most genuine smile I’d received in a bloody long time.
“You are the monsieur who rescued mon papi, non?” he said, in rapid French. He pushed the Panama to the back of his head and more silky curls made a bid for freedom.
It was hardly rescuing, but for the life of me at that moment I couldn’t put the sentence together. Perhaps because I was too busy storing his features away in my mind for later when I had a pad and charcoals. Or maybe I was too dazzled by the silvery glow cascading around his shoulders, as if he and the glittering crystal lake behind him were one and the same. It had been far too many years since a good-looking man had turned my head. Since anyone had turned my head, in fact. I answered with an inadequate modest wave of my hand and a “Oui, mais…” before trailing off.
“You’re not French?”
I indicated no.
“On holiday here, yes?” He grinned, the grin of a mischievous schoolboy, although he must have been in his mid-twenties. His silver glowed brighter. “You have travelled all the way to beautiful Loix to learn how Florian produces the finest salt in the whole of France, yes?”
I’d come to France to escape my demons, but they’d hounded me here anyhow. Not an explanation I was ready or cared to offer to a stranger.
