The Beekeeper's Promise (Page 2)

Pru got the giggles in the tent that night when I said, ‘Do you think we’re allowed to kill the mozzies or is that bad karma?’ I got my spray out all the same; anything for a good night’s sleep. Although the chances of getting much sleep at all were pretty much slim to none, what with the damp chill of the night-time air soaking into the tent and my bites itching and the loo doors banging next to us all night long. I wasn’t feeling very serene by the time morning came around and a cock began crowing at a nearby farm, just when I was finally managing to get a bit of sleep at long last.

I walk past a cottage at the side of the road and a dog appears out of nowhere, hurtling towards me with a volley of vicious barking. I nearly jump out of my skin once more, nerves set a-jangling as the panic systems in my brain are triggered all over again. It’s a good job there’s a fence between him and me. A dangerous place, this, what with the snakes and the rabid dogs.

Now my sandal has rubbed a blister on my heel so I stop walking and reach down to loosen the strap, my fingers still shaking in the aftermath of the almost-too-close encounter with the dog. The skin’s raw. It’s going to be fun walking back to the centre. I’ve no idea where I am or how far I’ve come. There’s a tall wrought-iron cross on the crest of the hill a little way ahead, so I limp up to it and sit down on the grass (first checking carefully for snakes, of course). A milestone beside the cross reads ‘Sainte-Foy-la-Grande 6 Kilomètres’. There’s a blue-topped post beside it with a yellow cockleshell design on – I recognise it as the sign for that pilgrim route Pru was banging on about the other day, when she was reading from her guidebook over breakfast.

I think back to this morning’s talk in the meditation hall, which was about karma; what goes around comes around. It was all I could do not to give Pru a death stare at that one, though of course that would have been bad karma so I kept to the moral high ground. She and her Dutchman were sitting there on their cushions a couple of rows in front of me. She’d called me over to sit next to them, but I’d shaken my head and stayed put. No thanks. I don’t need your charity and I certainly don’t want to be a third wheel on your bicycle. I sat on the little purple cushion with my legs crossed, even though my stiff knee was complaining loudly and I immediately got pins and needles in my foot. It’s been nearly two years since the accident, so you’d have thought that with all the physio and the yoga stretches things would have healed by now. I’d closed my eyes so I wouldn’t see Pru turning around every five minutes to smile at me. She was probably trying to be conciliatory, but in the frame of mind I was in it just came across as smug.

How on earth do people sit still for so long? It was impossible to get comfortable and I started fidgeting all over the place. My mind started fidgeting too, thoughts crowding in. So much for emptying it. And thinking is the last thing I want to do.

I’m starting to believe I’m not cut out for meditation. We were supposed to be doing it on the walk this afternoon as well. Being mindful. Rather than having a mind that’s full, which is what mine is. The fields around the centre were full of people doing the walking meditation, drifting like zombies, focused on every step – ‘staying in the moment’, as we’d been instructed to do. I was doing okay for the first few minutes, but then the sight of Pru and Mr Netherlands floating along in tandem set me off again and I stalked off up a narrow path into the trees. I’d suddenly felt that I couldn’t bear to be in that slow-moving crowd for another second.

As I’d stomped away from the walking meditation, it was a relief to be in the woods – cooler, and safer-feeling too; less exposed. It’s been a while since I’ve had a full-blown panic attack (the medication has helped), but I’d definitely started to feel my throat and chest tightening, and my head pounding. So now it was a relief to be alone at last. I’m not used to being around other people the whole time.

I wonder how many miles I’ve walked. The milestone doesn’t give me any clues as I’ve completely lost my bearings. I’m now drenched in sweat and there’s a major blister on my heel. I inspect my foot again and find that the skin’s ballooning up into an opaque bubble over the raw patch. To take my mind off the pain I scratch viciously at a mosquito bite on my ankle, just below where my yoga leggings end, until it starts to bleed. Then I lean back against the rough face of the milestone and stretch my legs out in front of me, looking around at the view.

Neat vineyards fan out in all directions, with creamy stone buildings nestling among them here and there. Red-tiled roofs glow in the evening light. There’s a bit of a breeze now, up here on the crest of the hill. Gratefully, I lift my chin to let it blow on to my sweating neck and burning cheeks. At least it’s all downhill from here on in. If I follow the road back down maybe I’ll recognise some landmarks, or find a sign for the centre.

I turn to look back the way I came and am horrified to see massive black storm clouds billowing up. I can almost see them growing as I watch, towering higher and then covering the sun, the light suddenly changing from mellow gold to a sickly, bruised purple. There’s an ominous silence too and I realise the background chorus of birds and crickets that has accompanied me on my walk up until now has suddenly fallen quiet. I put a hand on top of the milestone and grab the stem of the cross with the other to haul myself up, gingerly putting weight on to my sore foot. I’d better be heading back, and fast, before the storm hits.

Just then I hear the rumble of an engine and a white van pulls up alongside me. I turn, expecting to see a balding Frenchman in a string vest, but the driver is a woman about my age, with long dark hair pulled back into a neat ponytail. ‘Jump in,’ she shouts over the noise of the van’s engine and the wind, which has suddenly begun to whip up little whirlwinds of dust along the side of the road. I look up apprehensively at the clouds, now blackening the whole sky. Do they get tornadoes in this part of the world?

‘I was just going to . . .’ I tail off, gesturing back along the road in what I believe to be the general direction of the centre.

The first big drops of rain plop into the dust on the road ahead of me and then on to my face. They’re ice-cold, making me gasp. I duck my head, closing my eyes against the sudden, angry raindrops, and climb into the passenger seat.

‘Sara Cortini – pleased to meet you,’ she introduces herself in English (how do they always know you’re not French?). ‘I live just over there.’ She points towards the top of the next ridge just as the storm engulfs it. ‘Come and shelter for a while and then we’ll get you home. Where are you staying?’

‘At the yoga centre. My name’s Abi Howes.’

Sara nods and puts the van into gear, driving fast up a steep and dusty track to try to beat the oncoming storm. We jump out of the van and hurry through raindrops as hard as hailstones, the cloudburst soaking us in the few seconds it takes to reach the doorway of an elegant stone building.

‘What is this place?’ I ask, trying, as I run, to take in the cluster of buildings that surround us, perched high on the hilltop.

She bangs the door shut behind us and reaches for a kitchen towel, passing it to me to dry my face and shirt.

And then she says, ‘Welcome to Château Bellevue.’

Eliane: 1938

The river’s breath hung in a veil of mist above the weir as the sun began to rise. The first rays of late-summer light were as soft and golden as the fruit, ripe for picking, that hung from the branches of the pear and quince trees in the orchard as the first blackcap’s fluting song swept the night’s silence westwards, heralding the dawn.

The door of the mill house opened and a slender figure slipped out, her bare feet leaving soundless footprints on the dew-soaked grass. Scarcely breaking her stride, she skipped across the moss-capped stones that bridged the mill race where the water foamed and churned in frustration at being constrained into the narrow channel beneath the powerful mill wheel. Transferring the three broad wooden laths she carried to her right hand, Eliane hitched up her skirts with the left and stepped, surefooted, on to the weir.

Her father, Gustave, who had followed her outside to gather an armful of firewood, paused, watched his daughter as she crossed to the far side of the river, her progress dreamlike through the ankle-deep water, her feet obscured by the low-lying miasma of river mist. Sensing his presence, Eliane glanced back over her shoulder. Even from a distance, she could tell from his unusually sombre expression that he was worrying again about the threat of another war, not twenty years after that last terrible war from which his own father had never returned. She raised the wooden laths in salute and his features creased into his habitual ready smile.

The beehives beneath the acacia trees on the far riverbank were quiet and still when she reached them. Their inhabitants were still safely sheltering inside, waiting for the sun’s rays to warm the air enough to tempt them out. Silently, she pulled lengths of thin rope from her apron pocket, tying the wooden laths in place to block the hives’ entrance gaps before the bees could begin their busy to-ing and fro-ing. They would be moved up the hill today so that the bees could over-winter in a sheltered corner of the walled garden up at the château.