We reach the walls of the fortress. A rickety wooden sentry box bears a sign—Billets—but it is closed up, season over, and we walk on. Cobbled stones, vast spaces and a garrison enclave greet us. Rows of two-story salt-weathered stone buildings, all with identical burgundy shutters, line the cobbled lanes and lead to open squares where nothing more lively than a lizard’s retreat is taking place. The site appears to be ours alone. Seagulls and terns wheel overhead. There is nothing of today’s world about this settlement, and to all intents and purposes it is deserted, yet there seems to be life here. I sense basic habitation. “What is the place used for now?”
Our footsteps echo all around us. The air is clean and scented, the light sharp. The wind murmurs, carrying sounds of the sea, bird cries. Michel does not know. We come across a painted sign that points us toward an oceanography museum. We make for that. Inside, behind a desk littered with pamphlets, a bespectacled woman sits on a chair knitting. “I am sorry, we are closed.”
“A quick peek?” I beg, but she shakes her gray head adamantly.
“Then can you please direct us to the dungeons?”
“They are not open, either. They are very rarely open to the public. Usually only to guests.”
“Guests?”
Stony-faced, she returns to her knitting needles and balls of wool, revealing nothing else. I recall that character who is always knitting—in which story, The Scarlet Pimpernel? We retreat out into the late-afternoon sun, where we suddenly become aware of music, the drum of distant rock music. I am grateful for its normality.
We decide to go in search of it. This leads us across an immense courtyard where the cobbled cracks at our sandaled feet are sprinkled with yellow-flowering rockery plants and fragrant arrays of mildly sweet herbs. In this arid environment, they are soft and pleasing; but I sense an unsettling presence here, a hazy, indiscernible danger which is closing in around me and I cannot shake off.
“The music must be coming from a radio or cassette player.”
The guitar strumming leads us to an alley, a dusty cul-de-sac, at the end of which is a crumbling stone wall and grassy banks. We turn, confused. The notes waft across the bleating afternoon heat, but from where? Retracing our steps and then branching off, still within the fortress environs, we wander down a widish avenue, parallel to the museum, and come upon an aging wooden door that looks to be as old as the foundations of the fort. I push against it. It is locked. On it, written in tired flaking white paint, we read Plongée.
“There must be a diving base here. But where is that music coming from?” It is still audible but remains tantalizingly, inexplicably remote. We plod from one empty space to the next, drawn by the ghostly melody, but without luck. The place is deserted, yet, I have a notion that we are being watched, spied upon in a very different way from the other island. The fort is empty but not tranquil; a troubled nagging power beckons me. Suddenly, clouds of small dark birds, starlings I think, rise up from nowhere and disperse like smoke into the penetrating blue sky. The unexpectedness of their movement has alarmed me, and I find myself trembling.
I mention my discomfort, and Michel squeezes his arm tight around me and smiles. He is growing used to my dramatic interpretations, or my sixth sense, whichever it is.
Somewhere to our left, I see a bronze cannon, a great brute of a weapon. It is trained out over the fortress walls upon the open sea. No doubt in its heyday it would have had the capacity to blow any unwelcome visitors clean out of the water, dissecting limbs from torso with its solid cannon balls the size of modern beach balls. I lean my body way out over the bastille wall and regard glinting wavelets glistening in the axis of the sun. Where the water breaks against the island, the waves are crashing relentlessly. It is as though we are in a storm. They smash against the mighty rocks rising up out of the sea upon which this place has been constructed.
“It looks as though there are some very dangerous currents down there.”
There are straggly-branched, wind-torn trees and scrub plants growing everywhere on the cliffsides, but the elevated terrain is bleak. Wriggling farther out on my stomach, feeling both the blood and the rosé rush to my head, I notice an opening cut into the rocky wall beneath me. “Look, that must be one of the dungeon windows.” Certainly, it is too narrow for any man or even a child to pass through. It offers no escape. I am feeling giddy and shimmy my body back to cobbled terra firma.
“How many years did you say the mystery man was imprisoned here?”
“Eleven.”
I reflect upon it. While an order of monks is freely incarcerated at work and prayer on the neighboring island less than half a mile away, another is forcibly imprisoned here, stripped even of his identity. Locked in a dank underground cell with only a slit of an opening for fresh sea air and a view of the world beyond this fortress. I am wracked with pity for this unknown human being who for three centuries has been an inspiration to writers and filmmakers. His existence must have been barbaric. How did he bear the loneliness, keep madness at bay? Might this prisoner have requested his confession to be heard by a monk from the order across the water, the opportunity to unburden his heart to one trained in compassion? Did he beg the fathers to remember him in their prayers, to help him carry the burden his life must have become to him as he paced his cell, manacled at the feet by ball and chain, masked in iron? And then I remind myself that there are parts of the world even today, where such barbarism exists. Where liberty is snatched for no good reason. Internment against faith, color, political conviction or, as it seems in the case of this pitiable being, birthright.
“It is also possible that the poor fellow was cursed with some hideous affliction. Locked away because he was judged too repulsive to behold, you know, like the Elephant Man.”
“Why don’t you write a story set here?”
I laugh at Michel’s suggestion. “I think many, far more talented than I, have already achieved it.”
“No, a modern story. Set it partially here, research locally and you can work from home. Write a role for yourself as well, and then you can work from home twice!”
There is the carrot that draws me. I consider our olive farm and the work and time it is about to demand. One of us will need to remain here on a regular basis once we begin the business of restoration.
“Set the story in Germany, England and France. Thirteen episodes, please.”
I smile at him, considering. “So, we have been story hunting?”
“Yes, if you are inspired. But even if you are not, I thought the islands would appeal to you.”
They have. But this island in particular has captivated me. And troubled me. And yes, inspired.
THE LAST FERRY DEPARTS from the island at six P.M. We are on it. During the short trip across the bay, the faintly descending light grows opalescent beneath a Wedgwood-blue sky. The clouds are the white patterns on the teacups. The lovely Italian tones of the properties along the coast toward the Cap d’Antibes… My musings are interrupted by what I take to be a small girl’s scream, followed instantly by an excited male calling from somewhere behind us, “Regardez, là-bas!”
“Où?”
“Dans la mer!”
I fear a child has gone overboard, though I have no memory of any children boarding the vessel. We swing around to find the crew and the handful of passengers leaning over the leeward side of the boat, pointing and squealing.
What is it? We cross swiftly, my stomach clenching with fear at the prospect of a helpless drowning child, and there in the water, not twenty yards from the ferry, is a sleek gray creature leaping in the calm, limpid sea. And then another. “Dauphins! Oui, ce sont les dauphins. Regardez comme ils jouent!” A pod of dolphins are leaping and flipping, rising, as they do, four, even five, feet above the water’s surface. Stubby-nosed athletes with shiny midnight fins, somersaulting, they change course and stream on ahead of the prow, as though leading us to shore. Then one of them breaks away from his party, circles, tacks and speeds in close alongside u
s, riding the wave created by our ship cutting through the sea. He spins over playfully, revealing a plump whitish belly, and back over again. I can almost read his mischievous grin. What a sight! What sheer joy!
As I watch these mythical creatures, I recount to Michel the story of an extraordinary American, Charlie Smithline, whom I met years ago in the Caribbean. He trained me for my PADI open-water-diving certificates. On several occasions, we dove together with bottle-nosed dolphins—which I believe is relatively unusual, for they will not often allow humans close—but they knew and trusted Charlie, a regular visitor. I learned from him that dolphins emit and perceive sound at frequencies higher than those at which we humans are able to hear. In fact, the human ear is not equipped to hear in the water.
Our dolphin companion speeds off and turns back, bobbing his head above sea level. He is looking our way, then, almost without any preparation, he soars into the air and arcs back into the water.
“Look at him!”
“You know, they can leap out of the water at a speed of thirty or forty miles an hour!” the captain tells us.
The fading light is playing on Michel’s face. He looks animated and relaxed, his head thrown back in laughter. I laugh too. Around us, others are applauding and snapping photographs. Even the crew and our salty old ferry captain, who has a Gitanes glued to his partially parted lips, are transfixed. It is impossible not to be charged by the sight of these creatures. What a finale! What a curtain call nature has provided, to bring to a close the most perfect of days. The most perfect of summers.
CHAPTER FIVE
THE PURCHASE
Jet-lagged from Australia, where I have spent the past nine weeks, I land in London. The city is in the grip of shopping fever, and the temperature seems to have settled at around freezing. The bookies are taking bets, short odds, on whether or not it will be a white Christmas. After the blinding white heat of Sydney and a crippling film schedule, I am spinning and want nothing more than to get directly out of the city and on the road again, south to the villa, to spend our first Christmas at home.
For weeks now, staring out at the Pacific Ocean from my hotel terrace, watching one bleached surfer after the next “hang nine,” a script forever in front of me, pining for Michel who was back in Paris, or trussed up in corsets and Victorian frocks in an ambient temperature of 100ºF, I have been dreaming of barbecued turkey on our open fire. The only cloud on that mental idyll has been that we are still not the legal owners of our olive farm, and we are both growing very apprehensive.
The purchase has not been going smoothly, and while we bite our nails and wait, reflecting on the money we have already invested, the sterling currency against the franc is going through the floor.
As far as we can glean, because no one is exactly keeping us informed, the delays seem to lie within le bureau des impôts. Apparently, the French tax authorities are querying Monsieur and Madame B.’s right to dispose of the estate. Investigations are now in progress into both their and their offspring’s inheritance deeds. The Belgian owners, through the offices of the French notaire, have written to declare their foreign resident status, furnished letters from the daughter to support this fact and relinquished all claims on the estate. As far as we can ascertain, they have filled out and furnished every document the French patrimonial tax system has ever drawn up on the subject. Now, it seems, we are awaiting only this unfathomable body’s acceptance of the situation.
Save for the death of poor ailing Monsieur B., which would complicate matters horrendously, Michel and I have been assured that all hiccups have finally been ironed out, all stumbling blocks removed; even the division of land has been satisfactorily registered, without any heart attacks, on the commune survey plans, le cadastre. Nothing else can further hinder or delay the sale. All we need is the official thumbs-up on the Belgians’ declared status and an agreed date when the three parties—the notaire, Monsieur and Madame B. and ourselves—can gather to sign and settle the matter. Given that France and Belgium, unlike Britain, do not close down for two full weeks over Christmas, Michel has telephoned to propose December 28. The notaire’s assistant has faxed back to say that she will be in touch. It’s a cliff-hanger!
At some pitch-of-night hour, we take a ferry that lands us at Calais before dawn. We drive directly to Paris, where Michel needs to spend some hours at his production office, and then we speed like a rocket to reach the house before the following morning. This self-imposed itinerary, wacky as its seems, actually suits me because I’m still on Sydney time.
A few days earlier, Michel put through a call to an Arab we ran across briefly in the summer who owns a Provençal gardening business—actually, Amar seems to have his finger in a mind-boggling number of pies—requesting him to supply us with a Christmas tree. A blue pine is our preference but not essential. When we arrive well after midnight, we find the tree slumped against one of the villa’s exterior walls on the top terrace. Its height and size make it better suited to Rockefeller Plaza, and we are obliged to lop almost three feet off its crown before dragging it like a corpse through the French windows.
Laughing insanely, loony with exhaustion and the pleasure of being together again, dying of hunger because we haven’t eaten a thing since an early-evening stop in Beaune, we hack at our tree by moonlight. We have decorations from Bon Marché, the big department store in Paris, which I purchased while Michel rushed from one meeting to the next. I suggest staying up all night to decorate our monster. Michel recommends sleep.
“We have our new bed,” he reminds me.
I had forgotten. We stagger exhaustedly to our bedroom to find, staring up at us from the floor, our old lumpy mattress now laced in cobwebs as well as months of settling dust and gecko droppings. What the hell, we fall into it like shot soldiers.
The following morning, Michel sets off for the market while I walk to the phone box to telephone the furniture store in Cannes and am informed by a most disdainful vendeuse that their driver kept the rendezvous, cutting a path with his load all the way up the corkscrew hills, but was obliged to take the bed back to the depot because there was no one at the villa to receive it. Jean-Claude and Odile, who had promised to be here for the delivery, have disappeared, gone away, are not contactable even by phone.
I apologize profusely, attempting to explain the problem, but this saleswoman remains unrelenting and froide. It is no longer her responsibility, she says. They have honored their side of the agreement. Our delivery, which next time around will cost us four hundred francs, about forty pounds, will have to wait until well into the new year. The date I eventually manage to drag out of her is weeks beyond our planned closure of the house. We will have returned north again.
So, no new bed for Christmas. But we are not too disappointed. It is so rejuvenating to be back. I wander the rooms, reinhabiting them, breathing in the evocative scents of pine and citrus wafting on the warm air. I peer through the glass at vistas cradled in my memory during distant weeks. A fire piled high with pine, oak and olive wood crackles in the hearth. Freshly made soup is bubbling in the makeshift kitchen: a whole free-range chicken in a bouillon spiced with bouquets of Provençal herbs, leeks, onions, carrots and bay leaves picked from our tree in the garden. Randy Crawford croons from the tape deck, high plaintive notes drifting through the near-empty rooms.
Holding hands, trekking from here to there, up stone steps, down rocky tracks, we reencounter our terrain and remain upbeat in spite of the clumps and thickets of weeds, the brush and thorny climbers. All have shot up as tall as sunflowers in the spaces we had cleared. So much summer threshing gone for nothing.
I glance back along the terraces toward the villa. Beyond the open French windows, our towering Christmas tree is garlanded with winking silver lights. On a table, a radiant blue glass vase I bartered for in the old town of Nice, after a visit to the Matisse exhibition at Cimiez, is crammed with long-stemmed yellow gladioli Michel picked up for a song at the market this morning. It glints in the winte
r sunshine. Gently hued bulbs blink on and off at a sleepy pace alongside the pool.
This mise en scène, with its early art deco feel, puts me in mind of a shabby yet elegant liner setting sail for the high winds, the open seas; or the faded glamour of a past era, a Hollywood just beyond my grasp.
My reverie is arrested by a strangled cry coming from somewhere near the parking area. We run to investigate and discover a cat tucked away in a dark corner in one of the stables. As I approach her, she hisses a warning. Michel presses my hand and inches me back. This wary creature is thin as a wisp, a scraggy-coated, white-and-marmalade feral, protecting a very newborn litter of blind pink faces. She could turn vicious, so I step back, pondering her and her young. What should we do? Cats are good ratters, and there are plenty of rats and mice about, or so we presume, though we haven’t seen any—only the telltale black pellets left on terraces and steps. Should we try and tame one or two? As if in response, the cat hisses her malevolent disapproval. No, let’s leave those furry orange balls to their destiny, to the same wild existence as their mother. Besides, after dear, much-missed Henri, how can I accept responsibility for any animal?
And then I remember our kidney-shaped pond and its prehistoric carp, and I feel sure this feline intruder will have poached them. But when we hasten to look, we count not seven, as we had calculated in the summer, but eleven! We dig out two of the sheets of curled mosquito netting slung in the garage and secure them across our pond. The squatting cats can fend for themselves.
HAVING LIVED ALL MY adult life in a big city, I was never aware of the tradition of calender-giving. Does it exist in villages and small towns in England?
Michel has disappeared to the fish market in Cannes in search of oysters. They are one of the mainstays of the traditional Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve menus here and are deliciously cheap, approximately thirty francs for two dozen. I am at my desk pegging away, trying to get to grips with my ideas for the story I want to set on the islands, when I hear honking in the driveway and look out the window. There beneath is a fire engine. Naturally, this concerns me and I hurry downstairs to find myself greeted by five stunningly fit, handsome young men clad in tight-fitting navy blue uniforms.
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