Tree Magic

by Harriet Springbett

  “How about them getting together?” she suggested.

  Judging by his surprise, Nico obviously hadn’t considered this an option.

  “Enzo and Marielle?” he said.

  “Yes, Enzo and Amrita.”

  “Marielle, not Amrita,” he said.

  “I’m sure it’s their destiny. Look how well they get on.”

  “It might get in the way of the story.”

  “It is the story, Nico. Look: Enzo could burst into her caravan one day. He sees her lying naked on the bed and realises he’s in love with her.”

  Nico looked doubtful.

  “It’s not much of a setting, though I suppose it would be good to get in a nude panel. I can’t see how it would move the plot along, either.”

  “It’s obvious. He kisses her and understands she’s the last missing part of his story.”

  “Wouldn’t he just say sorry and leave her caravan?”

  “No! Imagine it. Amrita is lying on the bed like this.”

  Rainbow jumped onto the bed and lay in what she hoped was a provocative position.

  “Now you’re Enzo. Go out of the room, wait a few seconds and then burst in on Amrita.”

  “Marielle, not Amrita,” said Nico.

  He stood up and left Rainbow’s bedroom.

  Rainbow whipped off her T-shirt and bra, and then pulled the sheet over her jeans so she appeared naked. Then she leaned slightly forward on her arm so her small breasts looked fuller.

  The door opened and Nico came in. He stopped in surprise and stared.

  It looked as if everything was going to go wrong. She swallowed.

  “Now Enzo comes forward and kisses Marielle,” she said.

  Nico took a step towards her.

  “Gosh, Renne. Look how your skin swallows the light,” he breathed.

  Rainbow resisted looking down at her shoulder, where his gaze was fixed. He took another step towards her, his head tilted to one side. She raised herself onto an elbow and slid the other arm around his neck. He didn’t resist. She drew his face to hers and kissed him.

  “You’re beautiful,” he said, afterwards. “How could I have missed seeing that?”

  Chapter 37

  Mary

  Life can get no better than it is in Paris. As soon as Mary sees Katia, it’s as if they’ve been parted for two hours rather than two years. She immediately slots back into the Murvilles’ family life, and she and Katia delight in repeating their rollerblade visits. This time, Katia introduces her to some friends and they spend whole nights at parties. She feels surer of herself here in France, and completely free of any obligation to conform. Any mismatches with people’s expectations are easily explained away by her British nationality.

  She works at the tourist office alongside Madame Murville and learns all about the landmarks on the themed, guided circuits the tourist office provides. The more she learns, the more fascinated she becomes with the history of Paris. While she’s learning, she helps out in the back office. She takes photocopies, arranges leaflets on the stands before the tourists arrive and helps organise the participants in the costumed visits. After two weeks her French has improved enormously and she starts to accompany Katherine, the American guide, on her guided visits. She can’t believe she is being paid to have so much fun. Katherine lets her give the historical speeches about the Trocodéro, then the Eiffel Tower and the Champ de Mars, until she is doing a whole visit alone. This has to be the perfect job, the perfect city, the perfect life.

  The only part she dislikes is the interaction with the visitors. Many of the English-speaking tourists want to show off how much they know, and it’s rare to find a group who are truly interested in historical details. She loathes the way some Brits speak so loudly and elbow their way to the front. The French are more considerate about letting smaller people or children take their places.

  She has discovered that Cognac is in the south-west of France, nearly three hours from Paris by the fast TGV train. Katia begs her to go there with her, and assures her they won’t be doing any farm work. But she’s reluctant to leave the city of her dreams, especially for a place that is a ‘symphony of greenery’, as Katia describes it lovingly. How will she cope, being so close to nature for a month? The thought brings back daggers of memory from before.

  Yet something about Cognac attracts her, and Paris without Katia wouldn’t be the same. So, after a few weeks of work, she agrees to visit the farm. She can always catch a train back if it’s too much to bear.

  When she and Katia squeeze onto the TGV at Montparnasse station on the eve of national Independence Day, she’s already mourning the safety of stone and tarmac. They whizz through the plains south of Paris. Katia rhapsodises about their destination. She always spends her holidays with her cousins Frédéric and Corinne in a drowsy village near Cognac. Mary listens to stories of sunny days spent swimming in the river, going to outdoor music concerts, sleeping on the beach, picnicking in the woods, playing pétanque – the French game of boules – and cycling around the vineyards.

  “You may be a bit daunted by my aunt,” says Katia. “She comes across as surly and uncultured, but she’s an angel underneath.”

  “Don’t worry. It takes a lot to intimidate me,” says Mary.

  The flat fields turn into hills and valleys, trees and hedges. Her stomach tightens, though it’s not Katia’s aunt who worries her. She starts to count the stations they rush through. There aren’t enough of them to occupy her brain, and she’s reduced to concentrating on the polka dots on Katia’s T-shirt.

  When they reach the hilltop town of Angoulême, they bang their suitcases down the steep step onto the platform. It’s hotter and quieter than it was in Paris. Mary sweats.

  Katia’s uncle meets them at the station entrance in his car. He’s a smiling, jovial man, as hearty as a folk-story farmer – which figures, because he spends his life tasting the cognac he makes. He kisses them and asks after Katia’s family. Katia’s chattering eases the drive through small villages of stone houses and vineyards.

  The countryside is nothing like west Dorset. Here, it’s tame and ordered. The vines stand to attention in lines, perfectly controlled by humans. Everything, other than the green vines, is dry and dusty. Mary relaxes. There’s no risk of being attacked by damp tendrils of grabbing greenery. Yet her unease persists. In fact, it increases as they approach their journey’s end. She must be more worried about the aunt than she thought.

  The farm lies on the outskirts of a village a mile from Cognac. The huge, double wooden doors at the stone entrance arch are closed and look far too heavy to open. Mary unsticks herself from the car seat and gets out. A high wall surrounds the buildings, and Katia’s uncle tells her proudly that it was a protection against the English during the Hundred Years’ War.

  He leans his shoulder against one of the heavy doors. She imagines him whispering a secret French word. The door shudders a little way open, revealing a courtyard filled with tractors, trailers and a well. A rambling buddleia bush, aflutter with butterflies, fills the air with honey scent. Two hunting dogs bark and bound forwards. Someone shouts at them. There’s a clatter of garden tools falling to the floor and then some swearing at the confusion. Katia’s aunt appears.

  “Oh, it’s you,” she says. “Well, get yourselves indoors out of this heat.”

  Katia hands her aunt the odourless roses they bought at the station and kisses her four times. Then it’s Mary’s turn.

  “Ça – va – Ma – rie?” Katia’s aunt asks between the kisses.

  “Oui, merci. Et vous?”

  “Ouf, ça pourrait aller mieux.” Things could be better, Mary translates to herself.

  Katia has already explained that few country people of her aunt’s generation speak English. Some don’t even speak French among themselves. They use the colloquial patois language, or insert patois words into each sentence. Katia is sure they do this on purpose to confuse Parisians like her.

  In the 1970s kitchen, Katia’
s aunt plonks the roses into a vase and orders Mary to call her ‘Tata’ – which means ‘aunt’ – and her husband ‘Tonton’. In this blunt way, Mary is accepted disinterestedly into the heart of a new family. She winks at Katia to reassure her that Tata doesn’t frighten her at all.

  Tata pushes them out of the back door and instructs them to greet the cousins. They walk into a kitchen garden and through to an orchard. A stepladder stands under an apple tree and four legs are just visible. Two of them are female, and must belong to fifteen-year-old Corinne.

  Mary’s attention lingers on the other pair of legs. They are tanned, muscular and masculine in their sleek hairiness. Mary has an urge to run her hands up the legs. She wants to brush the silky black hairs in the wrong direction. On the feet of these legs, unlaced, is a pair of cream canvas deck shoes. They are dust-free, despite the grime of drought. This has to be eighteen-year-old Frédéric.

  Tata shouts to Corinne and Frédéric to come down and say hello. Mary thinks she hears Tata say the words ‘roast beef’, but she can’t see how that corresponds to the situation. She must have mistranslated something.

  The branches swish and a deep voice curls around the sexiest English ‘Hello’ she has ever heard. She curbs her desire to say ‘Pardon?’ just to hear it again, and watches as the taut calves gradually give way to chunky thighs in cotton shorts and a dream of a naked torso. She holds her breath and wills the face to match the body and voice.

  The face that turns towards her is olive-skinned, black-haired and brown-eyed. He is an exotic Greek god. Mary holds his gaze. The holiday in Cognac may be more interesting than she’d anticipated.

  Chapter 38

  Rainbow

  Rainbow had always felt a little disappointed that her gift had never elicited the least excitement. Michael had worried she’d be exploited. Mum had accepted it as natural. Bob had been spooked, and Domi had only been concerned about its meaning in the grand scheme of saving the world. Nico didn’t even know about it.

  Her success as an artist, on the other hand, elicited excitement from dozens of strangers. It was intoxicating to see her glory reflected in other peoples’ eyes. She’d never felt this with her other gift, as she now called it.

  She stood beside Nico and the judges while their photographs were taken. Opposite was the young journalist who’d refused to take her tree-growing gift seriously. He didn’t remember her from their disastrous meeting last summer, when she’d persuaded him to meet her in a wood and had demonstrated her gift to him.

  He’d been less polite then. He’d demanded measurements and statistics. Photographs weren’t enough, he’d said. The public will think there’s trickery. Rainbow had wanted to use the newspapers to get her message across to the world. Take care of trees, she’d wanted to say. Respect them. Stop deforestation. This journalist from the local newspaper was the only one who’d agreed to meet her. In the woods, she’d discovered that he was more interested in her body than her story.

  Now, like the other journalists at the press conference, he was looking for an original angle to report their win in the student category of the comics competition. Rainbow smiled while Nico enthused about their graphic novel. They were a good team. Nico possessed the technical knowledge, and her mysterious Amrita had seduced the judges. The colours were ‘astonishing’. The protagonist was ‘convincing’. The judges claimed that the Lalande–Linnet team would ‘go far’ if they continued to study art.

  That evening, exhausted after the excitement of the day, they lay on Rainbow’s bed and discussed art school while they waited for dinner. Nico knew the details of all the art courses off by heart. She enjoyed sharing his vision of their future together. She hadn’t needed to research art schools: she would follow him. He stared up at the ceiling as if he could see their success webbed between the wooden beams.

  “Now we’ve got the prize, I bet we’ll get a place at the Emile Cohl School in Lyon next year,” he said.

  “Lyon? But that’s on the other side of France.”

  Nico rolled over and kissed her. “It’s the best school, Renne. And don’t argue. You’re coming with me.”

  He talked about his ambitions for them to work in America. He’d planned everything. They would get several comic albums published in France. She would translate them into English and catch the attention of the American market. They’d live in Los Angeles, move from comics into animation and have three children.

  After two months of living in Nico’s sparkling world, she was still inspired by him. She laid her head on his smooth chest, closed her eyes, breathed in his lemony essence and listened to the magic of his voice. She no longer needed trees. She had Nico. They were surfing the wave of France’s ninth art together. He was in front. She just had to hold on behind and enjoy the ride. Life was easy.

  The next morning Rainbow came down to breakfast to find Christophe drinking coffee at the table with the Sunday late-risers. Nico had already arrived and was sitting with them.

  Rainbow bent and kissed Christophe’s cheeks. He mumbled his congratulations. She continued around the table, kissing her greetings, and then sat on Nico’s lap. There was an uncomfortable silence. Then Domi asked Rainbow to tell them all about the prize-giving ceremony.

  “It was cool,” replied Nico. “It gives you a taste for fame.”

  Rainbow nodded in agreement and turned to Christophe.

  “That journalist was there. You remember, the one from the local rag?”

  Nico looked surprised. “You should have told me you knew him, Renne. We could have played on it.”

  Christophe eyed him sourly. “I doubt that reminding him of his attempted rape would have done much for your publicity.”

  Rainbow concentrated on spreading jam on her croissant so she wouldn’t have to look at either of them. Christophe finished his coffee and put down his bowl.

  “By the way, Rainbow, I saw your double the other day,” he said.

  She looked up. “My double?”

  “A girl who looks like you. In Cognac.”

  Rainbow felt suddenly sick. She pushed her jam croissant away. “How weird. Did she really look like me?”

  “I didn’t see her close up. You know what I’m like with faces. But I really thought it was you for a second. Luckily, I didn’t shout your name.”

  “Poor girl, looking like Renne.” Nico squeezed her thigh to show he was joking.

  Christophe pushed back his chair, announced he was leaving and marched out of the room. Nico looked round the faces at the table.

  “What’s up with him?”

  Mum and Céline exchange glances. Rainbow sighed. The sooner she could move away from this place, the better. How was she going to wait a whole year until art school?

  Nico cleared his throat. “Coming back to Renne and me, we’ve decided to apply for the comics art school in Lyon after our bac exams. Now we’ve got our prize, we’re pretty sure of getting a place.”

  Domi’s bowl slipped out of his hand. “Lyon?”

  “I don’t know if we can afford to send you to Lyon, love,” said Mum.

  “The judges think Renne needs to work on her technique,” said Nico. “Emile Cohl is the best school. My uncle lives in Lyon. We can stay with him.”

  A pool of coffee dripped unheeded into Domi’s lap. He turned to Rainbow.

  “What about your trees?”

  “What about them? The experts say I should study art,” said Rainbow.

  Nico frowned. “Trees?”

  “It’s nothing. He just thinks it will be difficult for me to live in a town and not see many trees.”

  “We’re talking about a career here, Dominique,” said Nico. “Renne must follow her calling. Don’t worry, I’ll look after her.”

  He slid an arm around Rainbow’s waist. Rainbow averted her eyes from Domi’s ageing face. He wouldn’t say anything in front of Nico, but she knew he was shocked and disappointed. He saw her drawing as a hobby. Céline was the only one to show any enthusiasm.

>   “I think it’ll do you good to get away.”

  Rainbow smiled at her, grateful for her support. Then she realised why. Céline was Christophe’s mother. Of course she wanted Rainbow out of the way.

  Chapter 39

  Rainbow

  Rainbow and Sylvia walked up the steep slope towards the disused quarry with their climbing equipment on their backs.

  “You’re going to have an easy final year,” said Sylvia. “You won’t need to bother working for your bac exams now you’ve got a place in Lyon.”

  Sylvia had dragged her away from Nico and was determined to take her climbing, despite the searing temperature. Rainbow hadn’t talked to her properly for weeks. She had plenty of free time now because the garden nursery was closed until September. She stopped to catch her breath.

  “It’s not like some beaux-arts schools. Our places are conditional on us getting our bacs.”

  “Are you sure it’s what you want?”

  “Of course. Nico’s taking me to see it next week.”

  They reached the rock face and dropped their rucksacks. Sylvia tugged the route guide out. It fell open at their current location, La Font qui Pisse. She stroked the rock and tipped her head back to study the routes to the top of the ten-metre rock face. Then she turned back to Rainbow.

  “You don’t sound very excited about it.”

  “Of course I am. But it’s not the same when Nico’s not with me.”

  “Exactly. I’m surprised he let you out today, actually. And that he hasn’t ordered you to live with him so he can control you even better.”

  “He’s not like that. We did discuss moving in together, but it’s too far from lycée.”

  Sylvia shook her head despairingly.

  “Let’s forget Nico. Are we going to climb Suicide Intellectuel or not?”

  “If you lead. I haven’t climbed for ages.”

  “Too much work, not enough sport. Haven’t you even climbed any trees?”