Page 23 of The Mistletoe Bride and Other Haunting Tales

Author’s Note

This is one of four stories inspired by mythology or ancient legend. ‘Why the Yew Tree Lives So Long’ was commissioned in 2011 for a short story collection published in aid of the Woodland Trust. All proceeds raised went towards the charity which protects our woodlands.

Why Willows Weep was the brainchild of bestselling novelist Tracy Chevalier, who edited the collection which includes stories from Richard Mabey, Rachel Billington, Blake Morrison, Joanne Harris, Philippa Gregory, Tahmima Anam, Ali Smith and Philip Hensher. Each piece was inspired by a different tree – silver birch, oak, ash, beech – and with woodcut illustrations by Leanne Shapton.

I chose the yew trees of Kingley Vale, close to where I was born and grew up in Sussex. The oldest yew forest in Europe, there are many myths and legends associated with the nature reserve, not least that the oldest of the trees sprang up at the spot where the Saxon defenders of the Sussex Weald fell trying to hold back the Viking invasion of the ninth century.

SAINTE-THÉRÈSE

Montolieu, Languedoc, south-west France

Summer 2003

Sainte-Thérèse

Still, methinks,

There is an air comes from her: what fine chisel

Could ever yet cut breath?

Act V, Scene III, The Winter’s Tale

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

In the blinking of an eye can the world shift. A pinprick of time that changes everything that has gone before it or will come after. Between one catch of breath and the next, the rest of forever defined by that single, solitary moment. For some it is a falling in love or a death or a song.

For Hermione, it was a saint.

They stopped in Montolieu for no better reason than Leon decided he’d had enough of the car. Even with all the windows wound down, like bitten nails, the heat had won. Parched brown fields stretched out in all directions as the road climbed higher up into the hills. Stumped plane trees, bark peeling and stained like liver spots, under which old men would play boules later in the day. The names of villages on signs – Alzonne, Pézens, Moussoulens – slashed through with a red line as you left the village. The occasional cluster of houses, but no sign of food or life. Nothing. Just the shimmering heat floating above the ribbon of tarmac.

As usual, Leon seemed to think it was her fault the morning hadn’t gone well. For at least half an hour he had been picking away at her, criticising her map-reading skills, her organisational skills and . . . well her, in fact. It had taken her a while to accept he actually took pleasure in putting her down, making her seem stupid. Hermione knew that friends found his behaviour embarrassing and it made them feel awkward. She despised herself for putting up with it but, after ten years of marriage, their patterns were set. She no longer had the energy to argue back.

Habit, habit, thought Hermione, shifting in her seat. The leather sucked horribly under her legs. The irony was that her biggest fault, according to Leon, was that she was such a doormat. Always letting people take advantage of her. And now she had that familiar knotted feeling in her stomach, of tight nerves and disappointment at another day gone bad.

Hermione glanced at her watch, hearing the irritation in Leon’s pointed silence. Twenty past eleven. She sighed, set her eyes on the middle distance and hoped for something to turn up, to make things go better.

The last bells of midday were clanging as they pulled into the village. Odd that a sound designed to gather people together should be so lonely, so plaintive. Montolieu looked like so many other of the pretty mountain places they’d passed through in this part of the Languedoc. Wooden shutters, opened just a crack to let in a little of the August heat. Elegant narrow stone houses that gave directly onto the street. Tubs of red geraniums on window ledges and on scrubbed stone steps. A heavy sense of stillness, a lack of hurry.

A romantic place, Hermione thought, the sort of place to discover hand in hand. She glanced at Leon, registering the beads of sweat on his upper lip and the patchwork of tiny red cuts from shaving, and sighed. Romantic with someone else, she corrected herself. Romantic in a book. She glanced at the guidebook open on her lap and saw that Montolieu was famous for its many bookshops. She opened her mouth to say something to break the silence, then stopped. Leon’s expression made it obvious anything she said would be wrong.

She closed the book and looked out of the window.

A cock-eyed sign welcomed tourists to PARKING DE L’EGLISE. The capital letters made her want to shout the word aloud: L’EGLISE – THE CHURCH. Leon was frowning, concentrating so as not to bump the wheels of his precious Xantia on the high kerb. He pulled into the nearest space, killed the engine, then tapped his fingers three times on the steering wheel, like he always did: one, two, three. Was it pride at a task accomplished? An excess of nervous energy? Relief? Hermione had never been sure.

She was conscious of him jabbing at the switches to shut the roof and windows, aware of the soft whirring of mechanisms in motion, the clunk of each window arriving in place. All very subtle. All very top-of-the-range.

Until Leon got out of the car, still without saying a word, she hadn’t thought he’d keep the sulk going. The sound of his door slamming was like a slap in the hot air. She assumed he was heading for the restaurant in the square opposite, but forced herself not to turn round in her seat to give him the satisfaction of seeing her watching.

Usually she’d feel upset, then blame herself for not averting it. But today, something inside her snapped. It was simply too hot and unfair and she couldn’t summon the energy to move or follow or call out. She had done nothing wrong. She went along with what he wanted, did her best, but it was never good enough. Today, it didn’t seem worth even trying.

She opened her door to let the air in, and sat quietly. Little by little, she started to feel better.

After fifteen minutes or so, she’d had her fill of the view and being looked at. Eyes behind net curtains. And if she stared any longer at the bizarre metal flamingos holding up the porch of the house opposite, Hermione knew she’d start laughing and would not be able to stop. In fact, she felt quite light-headed.

Finally, she glanced over to the square and saw Leon was sitting at a table, his back to the car, to her, drinking his wine and examining the menu with large look-at-me gestures. Hermione was surprised he hadn’t gone ahead and ordered his meal too. He was waiting for her, she realised, having clearly decided to forgive and forget.

The normal pattern of things would be that Hermione would make the most of it. That she would hurry over and be grateful for the chance to put things right. But whether it was the sun or the stress of the holiday taking its toll, Hermione found herself rebelling. What, precisely, was she feeling grateful for? That he wasn’t going to continue to be a pain? That he wasn’t going to carry on behaving unreasonably?