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Elodie found her voice on a Saturday afternoon, while Grand-mère was having a coffee with her friend at a stone café in the village with white roses rambling along the walls. Elodie had wandered outside, around the corner towards the village green, bored, and found a group of men playing a game of pétanque in the warm summer sun, their shirt sleeves rolled up as they threw the little ball into the dust.
Along the perimeter of this court were other men, farmers and shopkeepers, some with large bellies, most with moustaches and berets, all standing around and watching. Elodie got the scent of aniseed, as she watched them sip small thimblefuls of cloudy liquid. She stared at their tiny glasses curiously.
‘It’s pastis,’ said a boy of around ten or eleven. He had nut brown skin with light brown hair and eyes, and a smile that tilted a little to one side, like he was letting her in on a secret. On his shoulder sat a crow who cocked its head at her curiously. She stared at the crow, then back at the boy.
‘Tastes a bit like liquorice—’
‘Liquorice?’ she said, only to realise with slight shock that she had said it out loud.
He nodded. ‘From the aniseed. You want to try some?’
Her eyes widened and he grinned. ‘Just a sip. I’ll ask Papa, just wait.’
He went off to speak with an older man with dark hair and a very wide moustache, and soon he came back with a small glass full of the pale liquid and handed it to her. The crow travelled down his arm, as if to have a better look at her.
‘This is Huginn,’ he said, introducing the bird.
‘Huginn?’
‘I named him after Odin’s ravens.’
Elodie didn’t know who Odin was. But she knew this wasn’t a raven. ‘But it’s a crow.’
‘I know. I had two roost in my garden so I named them. Muninn was his mate but she’s left to roost somewhere else, she found another partner. Was a bit of a drama, actually, poor Huginn was quite upset.’
Elodie looked at the bird in sympathy.
‘Go on, take a sip,’ encouraged the strange boy.
She took a tiny sip, then coughed. ‘It’s strong, but sweet.’ Odd, she thought.
‘Do you like it?’
‘Do you only get to play that if you do?’ she asked, seeing all the men playing and sipping their thimblefuls of pastis.
The boy laughed. ‘Maybe. Can you play?’
She shook her head. ‘I do like this, though,’ she said.
‘Well, that settles it. Huginn and I will teach you how to play pétanque, if you like.’
‘That’s what it’s called – the game?’
He nodded. ‘Come on,’ he said, then picked up a spare pétanque ball from near his father.
She followed after him and the bird, who had settled back on his shoulder for a moment, before deciding to fly off and investigate some interesting food on the other side of the verge.
‘He’ll be back,’ said the boy, pointing out a small patch of grass that was away from the others. Then he went over the rules of the game, which was pretty much just trying to get the ball to go as far as it could and then marking that distance from the player who’d gone before.
Elodie could see why they could drink liquor and play now.
Later, when Marguerite came to find her – accompanied by the boy’s father, Monsieur Blanchet, who it turned out managed Grand-mère’s vineyard – they found the pair of them playing and laughing and for the first time she heard Elodie’s voice as she accused the boy of cheating, but there was a smile on her face.
‘No, see, I’ll use my left arm – as it is the weaker one,’ he said.
‘How can I tell if that’s true?’ she asked and he lifted his shirt sleeve to show her his arm and hand which was slightly smaller and looked stiff. ‘I had polio when I was little,’ he explained. ‘It works fine but it’s not as strong as the other.’
Elodie, who didn’t know what polio was, touched it, softly, then nodded. ‘D’accord, that seems fair,’ then she stopped, ‘unless it will hurt?’
