by Unknown
As he dithered, a new voicemail alert popped up. Helpless to resist, he pressed ‘listen’.
Dani’s voice, husky and a little distorted by the poor reception, came through on his voicemail. ‘Lucien? Just checking that you’re all right. First chance, too many people around. Missing you. Maybe I was too hasty. Let’s meet up when I’m back in Paris. Give me a call. No, wait, I’d better call you. Got to go.’ And the message came to an abrupt end.
Lucien realised that Madame was still watching him.
‘It’s your life,’ she said, her eyes cold and clear, ‘but from the look on your face, I’d say you’re better off without that one.’
Lucien, still shaken, didn’t know what to reply. Logic told him that Madame was right yet the sound of Dani’s voice had stirred up a host of painful feelings that he had come here to forget.
Next time I go out to paint, I’m leaving the phone behind.
They had reached the pension. As they crossed the lobby, Josette appeared, balancing plates of crudités, on her way from the kitchen to the dining room.
‘Oh, Madame, thank goodness you’re back. We’ve got two extra bookings for dinner.’
‘I’ll be right there.’ But at the kitchen door, Madame paused and said, ‘Join me for coffee after dinner, Lucien. I’d like your professional opinion on a little picture of mine.’
He nodded, his thoughts still with Dani.
The appetizing smell of fish, fried with almonds in brown butter, wafted out from the kitchen but Lucien had lost his appetite.
*
Madame’s little sitting room lay through an archway beyond the reception desk.
‘Take a look at that picture in the gilded frame,’ she said. ‘I’ll bring the coffee through.’
Lucien was beginning to wish that he had not agreed to come; was she reading more into his accepting the invitation than he intended? Ill-at-ease, he moved to examine the picture by the golden aureole of light emanating from the table lamp beneath.
The graphite portrait had the air of a swiftly dashed-off sketch, done at speed to catch a fleeting expression on the face of the sitter.
‘Well?’ she said, reappearing with two espressos. She had removed the white chef’s jacket she had been wearing earlier, revealing an olive summer dress beneath, fifties-style, with a pattern of grasses embroidered in ochre around the hem. ‘What do you think?’
Lucien looked from the sketch to Madame and back again. The woman in the sketch was wearing clothes from a much earlier time, the nineteenth century, he guessed, and her hair was pinned up, curled and arranged in a more ornate style. Yet the likeness was unmistakable. The artist had even caught something similar to the knowing, world-weary smile that appeared fleetingly on her lips from time to time.
‘Is she – um – an ancestor of yours?’ he asked, not knowing quite how else to pose the question.
‘I do resemble this woman a little, don’t I?’ She turned to him, with the same smile as the subject of the portrait. ‘But can you guess who made the sketch?’
‘It’s not an original, is it?’
‘It might be.’ Now she was teasing him.
He felt his eyes widen. ‘A Courbet sketch must be worth...’
She placed one finger lightly over his lips. ‘It’s priceless to me. I would never part with it.’
‘Well, if it’s a portrait of one of your ancestors, I can understand why you would want to keep it.’ Dizzied by the sensation of her fingertip brushing his lips, he struggled to keep his attention on the picture. ‘But why trust me? I might tell a dealer that you have an original Courbet. Or worse, I might decide to take it for myself.’
‘I’m a good judge of character,’ she said, turning away to hand him his coffee. ‘I know I can trust you to keep a secret.’
‘So why...’ began Lucien.
‘Do a portrait of me, as companion to this one. Charcoal, pastels, water colour, you choose. We’ll call it payment for your extra nights’ board and lodging, if you like.’
‘But I could never produce anything as good as this.’
‘Oh, I think you’re underestimating your talent, Lucien. Stay on a little longer. You can paint to your heart’s content here.’
He had half expected her to lace his coffee with liqueur and pat the little sofa to entice him to sit beside her. Just as Dani had done.
Josette appeared in a fluster, asking Madame to come and explain the bill to the last-minute dinner guests. Lucien drank his espresso in one gulp and went back to his room.
Would it hurt to stay on a little longer? I could even take a trip up-river to Ornans to see the Courbet museum.
As he was cleaning his teeth before bed, Lucien found himself wondering again about the portrait. Is it just a coincidence that Madame and the woman in the Courbet sketch look so alike?
He rinsed his mouth out with cold water and spat peppermint-flavoured white foam into the sink.
Any other explanation would be...
*
Lucien sat, sketchbook at the ready, beneath the alders, watching and waiting.
Two women walking their dogs came along the bank. Children followed, chasing each other, mock-fighting with sticks. Ducks bickered in the reeds until one chased the others off in a furious flurry of quacks and water splashes.
Time passed, marked by the striking of the church clock, but still there was no sign of the kingfisher. He began to wonder whether he had mistaken the place he had seen it before with Madame.
Or perhaps it only appears when she’s there.
He dismissed that thought and decided to paint a view of the opposite bank. But clouds were gathering overhead and the troubled light filtering through kept changing, mirroring his mood.
When he left the pension Madame was busy making baguettes for a party of cyclists and had insisted that he take one too. When he laid down his brush for lunch, he discovered that the crusty bread was filled with tuna, black olives, and hard-boiled egg.
A simple snack tasted so good out here in the fresh air; even if there were little spots of rain on the breeze.
On a whim, he took out his pencils and began to sketch Madame from memory. He could not stop wondering about the portrait she had shown him the night before. The resemblance was extraordinary.
It has to be a fake. A brilliantly executed fake. A homage to Courbet, a study in the style of the artist, echoing the early pencil portrait of his sister. Because the only other alternative is...
‘No,’ he muttered. ‘That’s just not possible.’
He held his sketch at arm’s length to assess it. Better done from life than memory.
The urge to do a little research into Courbet’s life nagged; a quick search online might throw up some clues. Instinctively, he put his hand in his pocket to pull out his phone, only to realise that he had left it back at the pension.
*
Tonight is the night to put him to the test. He’s still torn between his old life and the respite I can offer him here. With my support, he can paint in the way he wants and take the time he needs to develop his talent. We can sell his work, maybe even open a little studio.
I go toward the kitchen to continue with dinner preparations: Bresse chicken stewed in vin jaune, tarte aux cerises. Josette is helping me again tonight so I feel less pressure.
And then I stop in the lobby. I can hear the sound of a mobile phone ringing somewhere in the pension. The sound goes on and on. I hurry upstairs, seeking out the source, and realise that it must be Lucien’s phone. Why isn’t he answering? Is he taking a shower? Or sleeping? No one could sleep through that annoyingly insistent ringtone. I knock on his door, but there’s no reply. I try the door; it’s locked. The phone starts ringing again. Fearing complaints from the other guests, I take out my master key and unlock the door.
The phone lies on the bed, still ringing, the screen glowing blue in the darkness. As I approach, it goes silent but I can still see the name of the caller before it fades: Dani.
Dani, the name Lucien
murmurs so intimately in his sleep.
Why has Lucien gone out without his phone? And why is he not back yet?
I turn to leave the room and the phone starts ringing over again. Such a hateful, intrusive sound. Before I know what I’m doing, I pick it up and answer it with a single brusque word.
‘Yes?’
‘Lucien? Is that you?’ asks a distant voice, the signal already breaking up. ‘I’ve been trying to contact you. I want to see you. Did you get my voicemail?’
‘Lucien is not available,’ I say. ‘Please don’t call him again.’
‘Who is this? Am I speaking to Madame Dupuy?’
I smile sourly; Dani has mistaken me for Lucien’s mother. I hang up. And then I turn off the phone. Lucien is mine now.
*
The phone was on the bedside table. And he had left it on the bed. Someone must have moved it. He checked the log.
So Dani had phoned. And someone must have answered, because it hadn’t been marked as a missed call.
‘You’re better off without that one,’ she’d told him bluntly yesterday.
How dare she interfere? A strange, conflicted feeling overwhelmed him. What has she done?
He ran down the stairs, ready to confront her, only to see Josette crossing the lobby.
‘Where’s Madame?’
‘She went out. She usually goes to Ouhans on a Thursday.’
‘Ouhans?’
‘The source of the Loue,’ Josette looked at him as if he must be an idiot for not knowing. ‘With the big waterfall.’
‘Excuse me,’ Lucien began, ‘but how long has Madame been in Chamblay?’
Josette gave him another odd look. ‘As long as I can remember.’
‘But there’s no Monsieur.’
‘Monsieur Larine died. She inherited the pension from her great-aunt.’ Josette went into the kitchen, calling back over her shoulder, ‘Or so my mother says.’
*
The afternoon was still oppressively warm even though the sun was dipping westward. There was no one in the little walled cemetery except for a few sparrows; the heat had made some of the fresh floral tributes on family graves wilt. It took Lucien a while to find the gravestone, for the polished dark granite inscribed in loving memory of Alain Larine stood in a quiet corner. The late Monsieur Larine had been born in 1935 and died in 2004. A May-September romance?
Or is there some truth in the local legends after all?
*
As Lucien hurried back along the river bank, he became aware of tiny spinks of sound overhead, so high and indistinct they were almost inaudible. Glancing up, he saw bats darting under the willows, skimming low over the water to catch insects.
The old engraving of La Vouivre depicted her with hooked bat’s wings. A terrifying image of a vengeful she-dragon, hearkening back to the medieval carved beasts in churches or the wild-eyed, fire-breathing monsters painted in the illuminated volumes produced by monks.
He heard a light, rhythmic splashing sound as he approached the bend in the river, the regular stroke of someone swimming.
‘Is this the place where La Vouivre comes to bathe?’ he had asked her yesterday and she had replied enigmatically, ‘So they say.’
I don’t believe in monsters. It has to be one of the campers.
He came around the bend.
A woman was bathing in the Loue. By the fast-fading light he could still just see from the pale form moving gracefully through the water, that she was skinny-dipping.
He averted his eyes.
It was then, as he turned away, that he noticed pile of clothes, discreetly placed behind a tree stump, a towel lying on the top, embroidered with the pension’s initials: LV. And he recognised the embroidered pattern of the olive cotton dress Madame had been wearing earlier, the tan leather sandals.
‘She has a brilliant jewel, a joyau, in her forehead. She removes it and hides it carefully before stepping into the water. And the instant the jewel is out, she assumes her human form; a beautiful young woman.’
A sudden compulsion made him sift through the clothes, searching. There it was, tucked inside the dress, the jewelled pendant. And as soon as his fingertips touched the stone they began to tingle, sending shocks up his arm to his brain...
The sky ripples. A rift appears in the clouds. Something streaks through the rift, a sliver of lightning, long and sinuous, dully shimmering as it snakes down toward the grey twilit water. It circles overhead and then alights on the bank, in the shadow of the alders. In the gathering gloom, a single star of light, a glimmer of brightness, shines out from the centre of its forehead, illuminating its slender, elegant dragon’s head and the two silver eyes beneath. It lifts one taloned hand and prises out the star-bright jewel from its forehead. The dragon coils shiver, melting away to reveal the naked figure of a woman, tall, half-clothed in long, ambered hair, streaked with silver.
‘Could you pass me my towel, Lucien?’ She emerged from the water, naked, the water dripping from her slender, pale-skinned body.
Trying not to look, he slithered down the bank to wrap the towel about her shoulders.
‘Why so shy?’ She gazed up at him, a glint of silver flickering in her eyes. ‘You must have drawn nude models in life classes more than a few times at college.’
‘Is this where you make me drown? Where you punish me for spying on you?’
‘Why should I?’ She raised one hand to stroke his face. Her touch, cool with river water, sent another shiver of lightning through his brain. ‘You passed the test. You put the joyau back. You’re a good boy.’ She went toward her clothes and let the towel drop again as she bent to pick up the dress. She’s just a woman ... I must have been hallucinating. She turned to him, the bodice gaping open at the back. ‘Can you zip me up, please?’
Flustered, half-aroused, he obeyed and as his fingers brushed the nape of her neck, she said quietly, ‘But now that you know my secret, Lucien, you can’t leave.’
Lucien was not sure that he had heard her aright. ‘Oh, that’s a good joke,’ he said, forcing a laugh. ‘You really had me fooled last night. But there’s no way that portrait is the real deal, an authentic Courbet. I mean, that would make you over two hundred years old and there’s no way that’s...’ The words tailed away as her stare intensified.
‘Oh, I’m much older than that,’ she said. ‘The river and I are one. I can never leave this valley. Much as I would like to.’
‘B – but that story you told me,’ Lucien stammered. ‘About the jewel. The joyau.’
She held up the pendant. ‘Here it is. My jewel of immortality. My treasure – and my curse. As long as I keep it close to me, I can retain my mortal form.’ She fastened it around her neck. ‘This is the twenty-first century, after all. But a river is a living entity and needs constant tending. And now I’ll have you to help me.’
‘Me?’ Lucien began to back away.
‘When you’re not painting, of course.’ She smiled up at him. ‘We’re going to be very happy together, here in Chamblay. You with your studio and gallery next to the pension.’
‘Wait. Wait, I haven’t...’
She wound her arms around his neck and pulled his face down to hers, kissing him.
Lightning scored through his mind, a dazzling, blinding sheen, obliterating everything but the sensation of her mouth pressed against his.
When the kiss ended, he realised that his arms were still around her.
‘Of course, you’ll have to cut all your ties with that other woman.’
‘Other woman?’ Lucien looked at her, bewildered. ‘What other woman?’
‘The one called ‘Dani’ on your phone log.’
He shook his head, bemused. ‘I don’t recall ever having met anyone called Dani.’ The name meant nothing to him. He could only see her face, radiant and smiling.
‘Then you won’t mind if I delete her from your contacts?’
Her upturned face looked bewitchingly beautiful in the first glimmer of moonlight. His
drawing hand itched to try to capture that elusive, enigmatic expression. ‘Can you sit for me tonight?’ he asked as, hand in hand, they began to walk back toward the pension. ‘After dinner?’
‘Of course,’ she said. ‘Tonight ... and the next night, and the next. Now you have no need to return to Paris.’
‘No need to return,’ he repeated contentedly, wondering why he could ever have planned on leaving her. And as he turned to kiss her again, the joyau in her pendant caught the moon’s rays, glittering with La Vouivre’s bright, eternal light, the radiance that had seared away his pain, and with the pain, all memories of his life beyond the tranquil banks of the Val d’Amour.
Trapped in the Web
By Pauline E Dungate
It was cold and damp, making Kings Heath more depressing than it usually was. Steve turned up the collar of his jacket in an ineffectual attempt to stop the drizzle his neck. He was more concerned with keeping his guitar dry than himself. He hugged the case close to his chest and stamped his feet, trying to induce warmth into them.
No-one wanted to be out on a night like this. After the initial shouts and farewells of the revellers leaving the pub where he’d been playing, the street quietened down. Soon he seemed to be the only living thing around, not counting the rat he was sure he’d seen scuttling in the shadows on the other side of the road. He glanced at his watch. The night bus was late.
Waiting at bus-stops was alien but for six months that is what he was destined to do. He was too proud to ask one of the other band members for a lift. He had been stupid accepting that extra drink, and he’d only been 5ml over the limit, but it had been enough to strip him of his licence for half a year.
It was just after midnight when Steve finally saw the lights of the number eleven bus oozing towards him along the High Street. He stuck out his hand and waited for it to slither to a stop. The rattle of the coins he dropped in the fare box echoed loudly but the driver barely glanced at him before extruding his ticket; even the bus was sticking its tongue out at him for his folly.
Steve had reached the top of the stairs when the bus lurched into movement. He staggered, clutching at the rail before throwing himself into the empty front seat of a deserted top deck. Rain rattled on the windows as the bus began its trundle towards Moseley.
