CHAPTER48
I stood in the sunflower house, watching the dust dancing in rays of light that shone through the new windows. In just a short time, the damage done that night was vanishing into the house’s history. My neighbours, perhaps shamed by the way they had hidden from the mob, had helped in small ways, and the money that the Blanchards and others had been directed to pay me as compensation had done the rest. Maggie was sitting in my kitchen, her son at her breast, and Matty and Elle were to join us with their small package later that day for a meal in the Spring sun in my garden.

How easy that was to say, now, after all had been brought into the light, the demons exorcised. I thought back a few months, to that Christmas morning…

We had slept soundly, in our new bags under our mountain of feathers, and as I emerged for the use of the WC I was surprised to find one of my old shoes in the vestibule of the tent, with a small package in it. I left it be, just then, for my needs were insistent, and walked through a cold morning of coughs and slowly moving figures. There were still snores from some tents, but the doors to the dance building were open, and one of the Welsh people, I think the one engaged to the priest, was heating water. The WC was very cold, so I hurried back to the tent to warm myself, stopping only to gather two cups of what Merry, for that was her name, said were ‘coffee’.

Rollo was awake, or woken, as I slipped back into my bed with my little package, and I watched his face as I opened it. There was a card, and it read “New life for my sweet sister”. The contents were simple, and so, so right: a packet of the seeds of sunflowers. The meaning needed no explanation, so he received a kiss, and a thank you, and a hurried apology for not having thought.

“My sweet, to see you last night, that was my Christmas gift! Now, Stephanie tells me that today will be an English Christmas meal, with visitors of unfortunate children. There will be some music played for them, and then, she tells me, there will be more…energetic and adult music for the evening. We shall eat our meal, and take the car to the hill to the North, that we might see a little of the landscape. Then return for the evening. Does that sound like a plan that would work for us?”

It did indeed, but he had one duty, and so I handed him his little telephone and said that as a new father he had something important to wish somebody even more important.

That morning saw us consume a ‘full English breakfast’, which was amusing, because that Merry insisted on explaining to me how it would actually be seen as a Welsh breakfast, except there was no…I did not know the words, and she told me an odd tale of algae from the beach, made into bread somehow, and I do not know if she was making jests or if this is something that part of England really does.

I then spent some time looking at the church, because my brother had been enlisted to carry tables and chairs for the meal. There were so many young people about, a dog, laughter everywhere, and I realised that something had adjusted itself deep in my soul. As Serge, I had always been frightened. For the last two or three years, I had oscillated as a pendulum, between fear, nervousness, some small moments of joy, but always, with a crowd, a hint of dread, a feeling in the nape that I was expecting the blow. This place, this crowd of people, this was unlike that. There were very big men, often with scars to frighten children, but they smiled. There were two priests, who spoke of love and the humanity. There were people who were obviously with Sappho, and they were accompanied by a child and nobody seemed to find it wrong, or unusual, or even worthy of comment. The young people found each other, but were not dismissed by the older ones.

At the end of the morning, I was kidnapped. Stephanie, Annie and Sarah, with another woman called Jan, they collected me and took me to a house, which was appreciated: the WC had heating! It was Annie’s home, and as we sat in the kitchen, she smiled and opened a cupboard to reveal a packet of real coffee.

“Some of us like a decent cup, aye? You won’t have liked what Merry makes; she thinks too much caffeine is sinful”

Sarah laughed. “Not the same with tea, though! What do you think, Jan?”

That woman, the sister-in-law to Stephanie, put fingers to my chin and turned my head to left and right, muttering small words to herself.

“I’ll need to check her colouring…”

I have never been a woman of paint and powder, certainly not as the things Françoise had wrought with Maggie that first evening, but Jan clearly had skills, as well as what seemed a portmanteau-sized box of the necessary equipment. The morning was spent applying, removing, drinking the coffee, laughing, applying again, and finally Jan pronounced herself satisfied with her work. Only then did I see the result in a mirror in Annie’s bathroom.

They had moved my hair, and she had painted something near my eyes, and, well, once more…oh. My smile was their answer, and with a last sip of the coffee we made our way back to the church for the meal. I felt a little of the nerves, for this was new to me, and though I liked how I looked I suspected that others may feel that I was ridiculous in the paint. We entered the hall, and my giant man of the dance let forth a very loud whistle, and my resolution failed right then as I ran for the WC. Stupid, stupid fraud…

Sarah was behind me, and seized my hands before I could grasp the paper to wipe my face clean.

“No, Sophie, that does not happen here. Safe, aye? Friends, all friends. That was just Steve being another friend. Look, we know what you went through, and…I had some things of the same kind. People know, they understand. Safe, aye?”

Jan was behind her. She made the big sigh, but with a smile. “How much damage? Ah, ten seconds will see it right. Come on, girl”

I walked back out, a little later, my head down to hide her work, but Sarah was not accepting of it, throwing me an apron.

“Come on, woman! Time for us to serve the food!”

There were all sorts of injured and unfortunate children in the hall, with attendants, and the food had been prepared by a number of muddle-aged women who handed us plates and platters which we distributed amongst the diners before taking our own. There was laughter, and gluttony, and paper crowns, and one child needed cleaning, but through it all I was entranced, for Annie and Steph played gentle music on flute and violin that created an ambience where I finally found my heart able to accept what my head had heard and understood: I was safe.

Roland apologised through me, but he wished to see at least some of the country, and with a map drawn by Annie we drove through a small town with a clock and a statue of a ballerina, and up a steep hill where we found a parking, and then a little foot bridge. The woods were bare with the winter, just a few small patches of old snow. As we rose, I realised we could see the towers of London to one side, and then there was an old fortress facing South over the town with the ballerina.

“Rollo, it says here that this was to defend against the French!”

He gathered me to him, gave me the kisses. “My sweet, clearly it has not succeeded, no?”

The view was pleasant, the aeroplanes visible as they landed at and left the airport we had passed, and there were walkers and dogs and cyclists, and as we returned to the car even a place to buy coffee, which I declined. As the shadows of Winter grew longer, we descended once more the hill and returned to the hall, where the food had been replenished with piles of cakes and meat in crust, pieces of cooked chicken and sandwiches made in English bread. I pointed the last out to Rollo, and smiled.

“My first recipe from Maman, remember?”

We ate, and Roland had beer, and the musical group played, and there were so many of them. It was traditional music, much of it Irish or similar, and they were very, very good. Annie and Steph in particular amazed me with their playing, which got wilder and wilder as the evening continued, with Steph’s unbound hair flying around her as Annie contrived to make some very effective but odd notes from her flute. Many people were dancing, mostly women, and I watched the big man, that Tony, and he was smiling so gently I wondered if my heart would break, because his eyes went nowhere but to his wife.

Suddenly there were two women before me, one red, one pink.

“Coo-ee froggy! You are dancing!”

“I do not–“ was all I could utter before the insane one, the one with the red hair like a traffic signal, grasped my hand.

“Not asking, telling!”

And so I danced, but it was not as I had with the Norseman, and it was also insane, and delightful, and the music…it was traditional, and it was rock, and I turned at one point to find Rollo dancing near me.

“Jethro Tull! They do Jethro Tull!”

There were sounds I could not believe coming from the stage, and as I looked, Annie, who was in heels of some height, did something outrageous with her flute, and slowly raised one leg until her foot was by her knee, and then just as slowly started to fall sideways, at which point her husband Eric simply stepped forward and calmly took her weight as she brought her foot back down to the floor, all the while playing at his guitar.

Insane, all of them.

The morning felt as if it were a funeral. The two nights with these people, the energy and love, it was beyond price. We put all of our things into their bags, the bags into the car, and of course we made the promises, and for once these were not the usual empty assurances one gives to a new friend met on a holiday, that one will keep in touch, exchange messages. These assurances were from the soul.

A long drive. A ferry crossing through which I slept almost the entirety of the voyage. Home to Maggie, and a small child, and my parents, who looked at me intently until I simply smiled and embraced them. And St Sylvestre, the new year arriving, and an older one taking with it a host of demons as it was left behind.

Those were my memories that Spring day as I began to prepare for the meal, the packet of seeds from Rollo in a corner where I could regard them while awaiting the proper time to set them in the soil for the Summer’s growing. There was a ring of the door bell. Matty, Elle and my god daughter.

And a tall blond. Tanned and slimmer than he had been, but still big, still strong, still…my eyes filled, and I ran upstairs, Elle handing her daughter to Matty as she followed.

“Sophie, no! You must give him a chance, he needs to explain!”

“Elle, how can I face him?”

“Listen, and decide, no? You know he ran away from you–no, that is how he describes it. He did the silly thing, he did the thing from the films, and he spent years in places he does not wish to remember”

She knelt before me, taking my hands as I sat on my bed, my tears beyond counting.

“Sophie, this is the key, the thing you must hear. As soon as he was enlisted, as soon as he was in the training, he thought to himself, Benny, you were a fool, and because he remains a fool he did not speak to us, not to my Matty, and the years, they go by, and then his term is up…and he is still a fool, for now he fears to come back, and…”

I looked at my friend. “And he enlists again?”

She made a yes with her head. “Will you at least speak with him?”

I could not answer. I had no answer I could safely give, not for a few moments, and then, then I remembered. A great blond god, waltzing with me. A giant with a beard, so clearly in love with his wife despite how her life had started. A flute player, of similar origin, whose husband knew just when to step forward, without words. There could only be one answer.

“Elle, I will await him here. Please say to him…please say, there was no Serge, never a Serge, this is who I am, who I have always been, and I will have my life”

I rose from the bed and stood by the window, looking out at the new green leaves that were emerging with joy from the stark branches of the Winter. There was a cough behind me, and I turned, and it was my Benny.

“Sophie, I…I was foolish, twice I was foolish, and…”

“Elle explained it to me, Benny. I would know, though, I must know. Why are you here? That is not meant as dismissal, but I must have an answer. There has been too much pain”

He stepped forward. Was that a suspicion of a tear? “Sophie, I made a wrongness between us. I would put that right. I…”

I thought of the English, their passion, and there was only one thing I could think of doing, and so I stepped forward, went to my Benny, and I kissed him on the mouth. He started away, but I had my hand behind his head, and then he stepped as close to me as he could get, and he kissed me in turn, and…oh, this time my breasts were full, and real, and Benny, he was also full, and real.

The meal was delayed.