The Alchemy Press Book of Urban Mythic 2 Read online

  The house was emptier without Bernez’s stories, without the smell of his cigarettes (which she found herself missing, against her better judgement) so she did her best to fill it with the sound of the loom. She was working on the cloth that had been left on the loom: going back to finish something that she’d started when she was barely big enough to move the beater. Jonny was excited about it, and the gallery had started talking about ‘concepts of memory’ and ‘linear selves’ and other things which had made Jonny even more excited. And Sarah? Sarah just … got on with it.

  Emptier or not, the building was beginning to take on a more hospitable shape around her. There were reliable electrics now, the wires neatly pinned along the ceiling beams and channelled into the stone walls. The big granite fireplace in the main room and in the bedroom meant she didn’t miss having central heating – not after a couple of months’ practice of building a fire, anyway – and the worn flagstones of the ground floor were now covered in thick, warm rugs. She’d spent a whole weekend plaiting rope to hang through the metal loops set into the curved walls of the staircase. Something about the steps made her nervous, and having something to hold on to as she went up and down them made her feel a little more comfortable. Someone had obviously felt the same and had dropped something down them at one point, as there were a series of small, dark splashed stains on the stone, and a larger one at the bottom of the staircase. ‘What a waste of a bottle,’ Bernez had said, rubbing his beard, when she’d pointed it out and asked whether they’d be able to remove it. ‘But see it like this: it was a sacrifice for the house, no? Part of its history now. What good would it do to try and take it back?’

  So she’d learned to live with the stains, just as she’d learned to love the slopes in the steps where generations of feet before hers had worn them down. Just as she was trying to learn to love the little stained glass window halfway up the stairs which someone had seen fit to draught-proof with molten candle wax. That was a harder thing to love, admittedly, but she was trying.

  *

  ‘You sound happier,’ Jonny said to her over the phone one night. She was huddled into the bench towards the top of the hill, looking down at the lights of the houses below, and trying to hang on to her mobile signal. ‘No. Maybe not happier. You’re not allowed to be happy.’

  ‘Because happiness is a bad thing?’

  ‘Nobody happy and well-adjusted ever made good art, darling. You know that.’

  ‘So what you’re saying is that you need me to suffer.’

  ‘Absolutely. You’re no good to me unless you’re miserable.’

  ‘Jonny. Just leave it, would you?’

  ‘What’s wrong?’ His tone immediately changed. All the banter was gone. ‘Sarah? What is it?’

  ‘Nothing. I just … I don’t know. Maybe it was a mistake coming back here. Maybe it’s not right for me.’

  ‘Look. All I can tell you is what I know. And what I know is that you sound better. You’re going to try and tell me you’re as strung out as you were before you moved out there?’

  ‘No…’

  ‘And you’re working again. How long had you been blocked?’

  ‘I thought I didn’t get blocked,’ she laughed.

  He made a dismissive sound down the phone. ‘Your work, love. I’m serious. The photos you’ve sent over – they’re beautiful. When do I get to see the actual piece?’

  ‘When it’s finished, Jon. Same as always.’

  They talked a little longer, with Jonny passing on gossip like he always did, and Sarah listening. Deep down, she already knew he was right. She was happier there. In a funny way, she felt like she belonged there more than she had anywhere else. She liked being able to look down on the town, to look at the lights spread out below her like a tapestry. And even as she thought it, she found herself planning a new piece. Grey for the houses and the cobbled streets, gold for the streetlights and deep, deep green for the moss that clung to the granite walls. Dark blue and black for the sky and the rainclouds, and white for the fog that curled through the streets. She could see the stripe of scarlet she would use for the car park, the slash of yellow for the cluster of light around the hypermarket on the far side of town. She could picture it as clearly as if it were on her loom in front of her. Of course Jonny was right.

  She was already picking her way down the steep road back to the square, slippery in the cold night air, when she heard the familiar buzz of a 2CV engine again, coming from somewhere further up the hill behind her. Smiling to herself, she stepped to the side of the road and it wasn’t long before the little van rattled past, then screeched to a halt. There was a grinding sound as the engine was forced into reverse and the van backed up alongside her. A familiar face smiled out of the window. ‘Hello again,’ he said.

  ‘You know your headlights aren’t working, don't you?’ Sarah asked. Both the lamps on the front of the van were dark.

  ‘I know where I’m going,’ he said with a shrug. ‘Cold night, no?’

  ‘You didn’t tell me you knew my name. You know mine, but I don’t know yours.’

  ‘I told you. All my life has been spent here. I know everyone. Even when they only come for the summers.’

  ‘I knew it! We met when I was here with my father?’

  ‘And you forget me. My heart!’ He tapped a finger on his chest in a way that was so like Bernez, Sarah’s own heart lurched. But the driver didn’t seem to notice. ‘Maybe I was not so memorable. Yann. Yann Cariou.’ He held a hand out of the window to her, and she shook it, feeling oddly formal.

  ‘Sarah Madec.’

  ‘You forget: I remember.’

  ‘It’s nice to meet you, Yann Cariou.’ She shivered. The temperature was dropping, and already she could see wisps of fog beginning to build in the streets. ‘And now we’re not total strangers, I don’t suppose you’d give me a lift into town, would you?’

  ‘Ah.’ His smile faded. ‘I’m sorry. Work, you know? Rules…’ Through the window, she could see him shrug. ‘Besides, the van … it’s messy. Very messy.’

  She thought of the state of her car and smiled. ‘Mess doesn’t bother me – but I wouldn’t want to get you in trouble. Forget I asked.’

  ‘Are you in a hurry? Perhaps you have something you have to do?’ There was a different question in his voice. She could hear it.

  ‘No. I was just going back home. Up here’s the only place I seem to be able to get a signal.’ She waved her phone at him. ‘My office,’ she said with a laugh, pointing back to the bench.

  ‘It’s not so bad,’ he smiled, looking past her into the gloom. ‘Perhaps I could make it up to you? I could buy you a drink?’

  ‘Where, exactly, could you buy me a drink at this time of night?’ She looked pointedly at her watch. Or where her watch would be if, in fact, she wore a watch. Which she didn't. And hadn’t since she was fifteen. But he wouldn’t know that, so.

  ‘You break my heart and more than that, you turn me down?’

  ‘I’m not turning you dow – wait a minute. You’re trying to make me feel bad, aren’t you?’

  He grinned at her from inside the van, but didn’t answer.

  ‘You’re trying to make me feel bad, when you’re the one leaving a lone woman stranded on the side of a mountain?’

  He raised an eyebrow, and very deliberately looked up and down the street to make his point.

  ‘Well, fine. It’s still a mountain. Even if there’s a town on it. And it’s still cold. So there.’

  ‘A drink would warm you up’.’

  ‘Which is all well and good, but the bar’s closed and you know it.’

  ‘Another time, then. Goodnight, Sarah Madec.’

  ‘Goodnight, Yann Cariou,’ she said, shaking her head.

  The engine revved again, and with a rattle he was gone.

  *

  She dug through the crates she hadn’t yet emptied. There weren’t many. There hadn’t been that many to unpack in the first place. She travelled light, but there we
re still one or two things from the past she couldn’t quite bring herself to part with and one of those was a wooden box full of photos. She spread them out across the rug in front of her bedroom fire and in the flickering light of the flames she sifted through them, a drink in her hand. There was the picture of her, six or seven years old, sitting on her father’s knee at the loom: her fingers resting on the beater and her feet dangling high above the treadles. There was a picture of her in a blue cotton sundress, standing on tip-toe and peering into the wishing well; one of her watering the window boxes – older now, perhaps ten. A jump forward of another year or two saw her half in the shadows of the Fête de la Saint-Jean bonfire; another found her taking part in the grand troménie, her black dress clammy and itchy in the July sun. There she was, a little older in each one, looking out at herself sitting on the floor of this house again. Another photo – this time not of her. A woman in a long white dress and sandals, leaning against the side of the loom while her father worked. ‘Tante Barbe…’ Sarah re-membered her. Her aunt – her father’s older sister. It was her house, this house. They had come every year; every summer after her mother had left. Her father had packed them up and driven them here as soon as school finished, and they had stayed until the beginning of September. How they had all managed to fit into the narrow house, she didn’t know. She’d never given it any thought at the time – all four of them crammed around the scrubbed wooden table in the kitchen, almost on top of each other and laughing as they passed bowls around.

  Four.

  She riffled through the pile of pictures, because suddenly she knew what she was looking for.

  There was the picture of her at the loom, and there, peeping around the turn of the stairs, was a small face spattered with freckles.

  There was the picture of her looking into the wishing well, and there he was again: this time, sitting on the doorstep of the house, his hand shielding his eyes from the sun as he watched her.

  There she was, watering the window boxes – and there was the familiar face looking down from the window above.

  At the feu St Jean, he was beside her in the shadows, and at the troménie he was a few steps behind her.

  Yann Cariou with his battered van.

  Cousin Yann.

  The same face followed her through the photos of her childhood, always watching over her. She remembered him now. She wasn’t sure how she could have forgotten him, although she’d forgotten so much of it. He was older than she was by exactly a year. They even celebrated their birthdays on the same day. All the summers running in and out of the house with the town square as a playground; ducking through the wire fence and encouraging each other to balance along the girders of the half-built hypermarket. The time they dared each other to steal a bottle of local cider from the tourist shop and very nearly got caught, running and laughing and not daring to look back until they reached the graveyard; where they hid behind a crypt and drank the lot as the sun went down. That was when she’d fallen in love with the stories.

  Just like Bernez, Yann told stories but his were darker even than Bernez’s. His favourite, which he told her as they sat on a grave, passing her a flower from a funeral bouquet to put in her hair, was the Ankou: a skeletal figure who stalked the roads of old Brittany, collecting the souls of the dead. His cart was pulled by two horses, one fat and one thin, and he carried a scythe whose blade faced forward to reap the ghosts he was owed. ‘And his head? It turns. It always turns, round and round; so no death in the parish is hidden from him.’

  ‘Like ‘The Exorcist’?’ she’d asked.

  ‘Better,’ Yann laughed, dropping back to sit alongside her on the grave. She passed him the bottle and he took a long swig, wiping his mouth. ‘They say if you see him, you’ll die within the year.’

  ‘Sounds like a stupid myth to me.’

  ‘Maybe. You don’t live here.’

  ‘Do you know anyone who’s seen him?

  ‘Not that lived’.’ He wiggled his eyebrows at her and grinned before clearing his throat and dropping his voice to a deep growl. ‘Diouz a reoh, e kavoh.’

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

  ‘According to your work, your reward.’

  ‘Again: what’s that supposed to mean?’

  ‘It means if you go looking for the Ankou, you might just find him.’

  Sarah felt a sudden chill, and then realised it was just Yann, blowing on the back of her neck. ‘I don’t think that’s what it’s supposed to mean,’ she said, swatting him away.

  ‘Who cares? Come on.’ He drained the bottle and wedged it beside the nearest tombstone, jumping up and holding his hand out to her.

  How could she have forgotten?

  *

  She almost didn’t hear the knock at the door over the clatter of the loom. She had nearly finished the biggest of the pieces for the show, the final piece that had been missing: the single cloth left on the loom for twenty years. Time had faded the oldest threads and dust had found its way into the weave, giving it a greyish tint like something seen through fog. A black bar separated the old section from the new, which blazed with the brightest colours Sarah could lay her hands on. Jonny, when she’d sent the last photos through to him, made a loud squeak down the phone. This usually meant he was happy.

  The knock came again, louder this time, and she sat back from the loom. The night had crept up on her, and although she’d lit the fire and switched on a handful of lamps around the room which kept it warm and cosy, she’d forgotten to close the shutters. Outside, she could see the streetlight swinging in the wind as raindrops splattered against the glass. Litter whirled across the cobbles of the square – which was never kept as neatly swept in November as it was in the summer when there were tourists to see it. And there was someone standing on her doorstep, wrapped in a long coat and wide-brimmed hat against the lashing rain.

  Obviously catching the movement in the window, the hat tipped back – and there was Yann, smiling at her. She opened the door.

  ‘You know who I am now, perhaps?’ he asked, hopefully.

  ‘Cousin Yann. I can’t believe I didn’t remember!’ She smiled. ‘You’d better come out of the rain.’

  ‘I brought you a gift.’ He reached into the deep pockets of his coat and pulled out a bottle. ‘You still like cider, I hope?’

  ‘It’s the same one!’ she laughed as he handed her the bottle. The liquid inside was heavy with sediment.

  ‘I took two. I kept this one. In case.’ He shrugged off his coat and laid it on the stone window seat, where it dripped onto the floor. He dropped the hat on top of it.

  ‘Nice hat,’ Sarah reached past him, about to pick it up, when somehow Yann managed to put himself between her and it, blocking her.

  ‘Very wet. You don’t want to. The rain.’ He nodded to the window, and for a second, his face was stern. But it was only a moment, and then his expression softened again. ‘You want me to close the shutters?’

  ‘I’ll get us some glasses.’ She set the bottle down on the table and edged around the loom towards the kitchen, picking a couple of glasses off the shelf. Seeing her, Yann scowled.

  ‘Glasses? For cider? You’ve been too long away!’ He dodged past the loom and elbowed her out of the way. ‘These!’ he said, triumphantly holding up what looked like two small bowls. ‘Always these for cider.’

  ‘Oh, come on…’

  ‘You think I’m old-fashioned? Fine. I’m old-fashioned.’

  ‘I use those for soup.’

  ‘You always were a little … odd.’

  ‘Odd? Me? I’m not the one driving that death-trap with no headlights.’ She folded herself onto the rug beside the fire. There wasn’t really anywhere else to sit: only the seat at the loom and the chair that Bernez had liked to sit in, and she couldn’t quite bring herself to sit in that somehow.

  ‘I told you: I don’t need them. I know where I’m going,’ said Yann with a shrug. He handed her a bowl of cider and stood in front of the chair. �
�You should sit.’

  ‘No, I’m fine here. I like being near the fire.’

  ‘I see.’ He narrowed his eyes at the chair, then shrugged and threw himself into it; almost spilling his drink in the process. ‘Ah, well. To family!’ He lifted his bowl and drank, stretching his legs out in front of him. Sarah could smell the damp wool of his jumper drying in the warmth of the fire, and the scent of apples in the cider. The bottom two inches of his jeans were wet, as though he’d been striding through long grass, and there was old mud caked around the sides of his boots.

  ‘You didn’t tell me what you do in that van.’

  ‘Delivery driver.’

  ‘What are you delivering? Pizza?’ She tried to stop herself from giggling. The drink was stronger than she’d been expecting: obviously all those years in a cellar hadn’t done it any harm.

  ‘Not pizza, no.’ He smiled at her. ‘You’ve almost finished your drink. Here.’ He scooped the bottle up from the floor and she held out the little bowl for him to top it up. As he leaned back in the chair, his gaze swept the room and paused on the stains at the bottom of the steps. ‘You dropped something?’

  ‘Not me. Whoever lived here between you and me, I suppose.’ It suddenly dawned on her. ‘Where do you live, anyway? Why isn’t this your house now?’

  ‘I couldn’t stay here. A long story. Too long for this late at night, you know?’ He shrugged and settled back into the cushions. ‘But I told you: my story, it’s small and boring. You. Tell me about you – about this.’ He pointed at the loom. ‘Tell me.’

  So she did. She told him about the galleries, and her agent. She told him about her life since she’d spent her summers there with him: about art school and the awful jobs that came after it just to get by. How she’d met Jonny and how he’d got her her first spot in a show. How he told her she was on the verge of something, something big … and then, just like that, how the block came down between her and her work and she couldn’t weave, couldn’t paint, couldn’t think. ‘It was like I couldn’t see,’ she said, staring into the fire. ‘Like I’ve always been able to see, and then to see beyond that, to see something more, like the colours and the patterns in the world. And someone had taken that away.’