Sea of Memories (Page 37)
‘Oops, I’ll get freckles,’ she thought, remembering her seventeen-year-old self’s preoccupation and smiling as she did so.
Reaching Saint Martin, she rattled across the cobbles in the Place de la République and then turned into one of the steep, hollyhock-clustered streets that ran down to the port between whitewashed houses. The shops and cafés were already abustle with holidaymakers. She got off and wheeled her bike, taking in the snug harbour filled with boats and looking out for Caroline and the children in case they were sitting at a table outside one of the cafés. It was easy to spot the gallery, which faced her from the other side of the stone bridge that separated the two bassins of the harbour, with Caroline’s name painted on the canvas awning that shaded its windows from the sun. And her breath caught for a moment when she saw Bijou, just as Caroline had said, moored in front of it.
She propped the bicycle against one of the iron stanchions holding the chain that encircled the harbour’s edge and stepped into the coolness of the gallery, a bell sounding faintly from an inner room as she crossed the threshold.
She stood stock still, gazing round at the paintings that lined the walls. They were all Christophe’s work: sea-scapes and beach-scapes, interspersed with portraits of fishermen, a woman leading a donkey, workers in the salt-pans. In one corner was a separate display of several fine ceramics, alongside works by a sculptor – a local man, she later read in the accompanying catalogue – which sat on individual plinths.
She turned back to look more closely at one of the paintings, of wind-blown grasses in the dunes, clouds scudding across a summer’s sky.
And then she became aware of another presence in the room: a quality in the silence of the holding of a breath; the sensation of a pair of eyes upon her.
She turned.
He stood in the archway that led to the inner room. Watching her.
Without a word, she stepped swiftly across the space between them and put her arms around him. He hesitated. Then she felt him embrace her back.
When she could speak, she stepped back to look at him properly, blinking the tears away. ‘There you are. The man who came back from the dead.’
His face was thinner, lined now, and his hair was dusted with silver. His eyes were dark as the ocean deeps, and as hard to read.
He smiled, but it was one of the saddest smiles she had ever seen. ‘Ella. You have grown even more beautiful over the years. How I have longed for this moment, and how I have dreaded it. Knowing that it would be impossible to see you, and impossible not to.’
‘Sometimes I think life itself is impossible,’ she replied. She raised a trembling hand to her chest, as if to try to calm her heart which was beating so fast.
Then she noticed the pictures beyond the archway, within the inner room of the gallery. They were all portraits and her breath caught as she recognised Marianne. She stepped towards the painting. ‘This is wonderful, Christophe,’ she said quietly. ‘You have captured her very essence.’
There was another silence between them then, filled with the sound of grief, as loud as the soft roar of a sea-shell held against the ear.
The bell pinged faintly and voices in the doorway of the gallery broke the spell.
‘Coucou, we’re back!’ Caroline called.
‘Mummy, you’re here! Did you ride the bike? We had breakfast in a café and then we had an ice cream straight away afterwards. It was made of salty caramel which sounds like it’s not going to be very nice, but it’s absolutely delicious!’
Ella stooped to hug her son. ‘Why Robbie, you’re not wearing your brace!’
‘I don’t think I need it when I’m on holiday. It’s easy because here on the island everything is flat. And Caroline says ice cream is very good for building up my strength. I think I might need to have one every single day.’
‘Oh, does she indeed?’ Ella laughed. ‘Well, she is a very wise woman, so that must be true.’
‘We got you a croissant, Mummy.’ Rhona handed her a crumpled paper bag. ‘And we bought some soap made with milk from a lady donkey. It makes your skin lovely and soft, Caroline says.’
‘It’s called an ass. Some people think that’s a rude word, only you’re allowed to say it because it’s not rude when you mean a donkey, is it Caroline? Ass, ass, asses’ milk.’ Robbie was clearly enjoying exploring all sorts of new-found liberties.
‘My goodness, what a lot of adventures you’ve had and it’s only the first morning of your holidays! I’m sorry I slept in and missed so much.’
‘That’s alright. We’ve saved some adventures for you too. Like going out in the sailing boat. It’s called Bijou and it’s a she.’
‘That’s right, Robbie,’ said Caroline, with a smile. ‘And now, let me introduce you to her captain. This is Christophe, my brother.’
‘Hello.’ Robbie shook Christophe’s hand, man-to-man. ‘I’m Robbie Dalrymple and this is Rhona. She’s my sister.’
Christophe nodded, the light in his eyes belying his grave expression. ‘I’ve heard a lot about you both and I’m very pleased to meet you.’ As he crossed to shake Rhona by the hand, his pronounced limp became apparent. Robbie eyed him, appraisingly.
‘Have you had polio too?’
‘No, Robbie. I encountered a German shell one fine morning. And then I spent several years in a prison camp, which didn’t help matters much.’
‘Coo, that’s ripping! Can you tell me all about it?’
Just then the bell sounded again as a couple of tourists stepped over the threshold.
‘Maybe we should save that for later?’ Ella intervened gently. ‘I think we’d better leave Caroline and Christophe in peace for a little while as they have work to do. I need a coffee and my breakfast.’ She held up the paper bag. ‘And then we can go to the covered market to buy some things for lunch.’
‘Alright.’ Robbie lifted his hand in salute. ‘See you soon then, Caroline. Christophe, will you come and have lunch with us too? And, Mummy, we can show you the ice-cream shop.’
The island worked its magic on them all. As the weeks passed, Robbie grew stronger in the sunshine and sea air – and perhaps the daily caramel au beurre salé ice creams helped too. His discarded brace rusted in a corner of his bedroom whilst he cycled and swam and ran through the dunes to build fortresses of damp sand on the beach. His favourite game was to build Stalag Luft VIII-A, the prisoner-of-war camp that Christophe had told him so much about, and then to dig tunnels with an oyster shell to allow the hermit-crab prisoners incarcerated there to escape back into the sea.
Rhona’s cheeks grew rosy, with a scattering of freckles just like her mother’s. The wind teased waves into her sand-gold hair, ruffling it out of its usual severe Alice band so that it curled in soft tendrils about her face. She followed Caroline like a miniature shadow and loved helping out at the gallery, her confidence growing to the point where she could even speak a few words of French to the clients who stepped in out of the heat of the day to browse amongst the artworks.
Ella settled back into the rhythm of the Île de Ré, the busyness and constant clock-watching of life back in Edinburgh dissolving in the holiday atmosphere of the island. Slowly but surely, she began to feel more relaxed, less burdened, her tension and unhappiness melting away into the background. Once again, the narrow strip of water separating the island from the mainland became a gulf so wide that the realities of life slipped from view, Edinburgh lying far beyond the horizon. She knew it was just a brief interlude, as ephemeral as the sunlit dreams that illuminated her nights as she slept, but she let herself sink ever deeper into that summer, luxuriating in the beauty of the place, comforted by the wondrous memories of those other times, not allowing herself to think about the journey back to their real lives that awaited them in a few weeks’ time. In place of sadness, she chose joy, finding the beauty once again, even amidst the pain and the anguish.
Best of all were the days when they loaded a picnic basket into Bijou and headed out between the high stone walls of Saint Martin’s harbour into the ocean.
One day, as the summer was nearing its end, Christophe showed the children how to sail her, letting Robbie haul in the sheets and Rhona take the tiller, as they tacked westwards on a broad reach towards the far tip of the island. Ella’s eyes met Christophe’s above her children’s heads and she smiled her gratitude to him. When they moored up for lunch in the Fier d’Ars, the shallow lagoon that borders the salt-pans, he pulled out a sketch pad and tore off a sheet of paper for each child. ‘Right, we’re going to do some drawing now. What shall we sketch?’
‘Let’s draw Mummy!’ Robbie pointed to where Ella sat watching the three of them, resting her head against the doorway to the cabin.
Ella blushed. ‘I think you should find something else . . . the beach perhaps?’ The thought of forcing Christophe to look at her made her feel uncomfortable. There was still an awkwardness between them, a sense that they shouldn’t let one another get too close.
‘No, that’s much too difficult, Mummy. We’re going to draw you, so you have to sit very still.’