CHAPTER 42
We moved on the next day, and had three days of progressing from castle to castle. Vic too his snaps, Nansi dispensed nuggets of history, and we ate all sorts of interesting meals. It should have been boring and repetitive, but it was far from that, and not just because of the company I was in.

Some of the historical stuff was amusing, much of it surprising, and every now and again, Nansi came out with something that deeply shocked me. There is a world of difference between hearing of Carcassonne’s flying pig and being told of how ‘Crusaders’, full of Christian charity, had herded 200 people out of Montségur castle and burned them all alive.

That stopped me in my tracks, for right then we were on the edge of the Pyrenees, and while Alys had her attention fixed firmly on various types of wildlife, I had been looking upwards and dreaming of what the tops would be like.

So many of the Cathar castles were perched on sharp ridges, difficult to reach, and once again I was reminded of the English castles of home, built to frighten and subjugate. These ones seemed more like refuges, and I was coming to understand why.

Vic had been listening, and as I shuddered, he had laid an arm over my shoulders.

“One more spectacular one, then I fancy a day at the beach. That do?”

The ‘spectacular’ one, at Peyrepertuse, was exactly that, and the ‘day by the sea’ turned out to be a campsite outside Argelès Plage, one of many huge establishments clustered around the town. Vic shrugged as I looked at the size of the place.

“Would normally avoid this sort of thing, but it’s out of season, and it’s only a short stay. Beaches are excellent along here, and it’s like Portland and Abbotsbury”

Alys was the one to ask, and she seemed delighted at his answer.

“Chesil Beach, love. You can tell which end you are at by the size of the pebbles. Here, if you go down to the other side of the marina, where the hills start, the sand is quite coarse. This beach is just about continuous, all the way round to the Camargue, and the sand there is like talcum powder. Graded grains, like the old advert”

I looked at my lover, and she shrugged in confusion that matched my own. Her Dad winced.

“Getting old, Edwards. Old flour advert, girls. Don’t mind me. Anyway, get the tent up, get cossies on, but put your walking kit on over them. Got a treat for you”

He was a little pushy at that point, and as we emerged from laying out our beds, he was waving at the car.

“Time to roll!”

We were soon on the road north, and after quite a short ride he parked up just off a roundabout after a little bridge, and set off walking past some old huts that seemed to have been woven from sticks. As he settled his rucksack, Vic called out to Alys, “Don’t forget your telescope and stuff!”

“They’re back at the tent, Dad!”

Nansi laughed.

“Nope! I put them in the back of the car”

We set out on a sandy path through what looked like heath crossed with saltmarsh, and Alys was immediately hooked.

“Fan-tailed warbler! And I can hear geese somewhere… think they’re geese…”

I could see bits of open water ahead, and when we came up out of a little hollow, we saw a huge lake or lagoon. Alys gasped, before turning to hug her father. The ‘geese’ turned out to be very long-legged and long-necked, and were pink. The place was full of flamingos.

A short moment later, and she was setting up her tittle spotter scope and pleading with her father to take some decent photos for her. Nansi grinned at me, and indicated a patch of soft-looking sand.

“Shall we have a cuppa and leave them to it?”

“Sounds fair to me!”

I lay on my back for a while, the sky an immense blue bowl above me, as Nansi messed about with a small gas stove. Once she had our mugs ready, I sat up, looking across the pancake-flat land to where the mountains suddenly reared up.

“That one there, Enfys, the big one, that’s Canigou. Sort of a holy mountain to the Catalans. Odd area, this one”

“What way is it odd?”

“Borders, love. Artificial ones. This used to be the centre of Catalonia, which covered a huge area. Up the road in Perpignan there is the Palace of the Kings of Majorca, and you already know about Languedoc and the French. That last lot divided this place between themselves and Spain, so what’s now a national border runs through the middle of what was a country”

She paused to blow across her tea, as Vic and Alys muttered as quietly as they could manage about egrets and squacco herons.

“Did come in handy in the thirties, though. The Catalans were some of the last fighting against the fascists in Spain, and this area, well, different campsites. Refugees. One big collection of terrified, homeless people. Thank god that’s all over”

She stared over towards her family.

“Funny things, borders. Same up in the North and East of France; everyone arguing over what they say is theirs. Just like our own history. Sod all that; I have better things to think about. Is she happy, Enfys? When we’re not looking, me and her Dad, that is?”

“I really think she is. That Canaries trip broke down a lot of little barriers, silliness we had at school. Even…”

Take a sip, find the words.

“I am even seeing that what Ifor did to her brought some good. Shook some people’s thinking up, even some of the teachers. Helped them see her for who she is, not who they thought she was”

Nansi’s reply was soft.

“You really think it was a good thing, what he did?”

I found my nails digging into my palms as my fists clenched.

“No bloody way! If he hadn’t… I’d have gutted the bastard, ah?”

A level gaze from her, followed by a little shake of her head.

“We know, love. We know that now, anyway. Please understand that our priority, in everything, is our daughter, so when we say thanks, we really mean it. Always there for her, you’ve been. It’s been a worry for us, how long you could stay the pace, aye”

I sat up straighter, but before I could complain, I saw her smile.

“Those questions were answered ages back, love. It’s a strange feeling now, emerging from so many years of fear. Look at her now, ah? Not seen Vic as relaxed for ages”

“Not even on that tour we did in the North?”

“Not at all. That was so… We wanted to let you emerge, you singular that is, and while we did that, we were also letting you plural come out. We made that Yank term, a judgement call, ah? I hope… Enfys, have you ever felt we were pushing things, you and Alys? Shrewsbury, all that?”

I looked at her, gauging her meaning, then smiled.

“Never. I just counted my blessings. Not just time with her, but all the other people I met, like Annie”

Nansi snorted.

“Oh god aye! Woman with a heart the size of Wales, isn’t she? Anyway, getting to the point. What are your aims at Uni? Travelling in daily, with your Mam, or?”

Ah.

“Um, we have ideas. A… a place of our own. Alys wants to be… Alys wants to be Alys. But also be with me. Just two more…”

I ran out of words just then, and Nansi reached across to take my free hand.

“Just another lesbian partnership, ah? Scared?”

“Bloody terrified, I am, but, well, two of us, ah? Two of us, together, we’ll cope”

Nansi was nodding, smiling as she did so.

“Indeed. Our next worry is her year away. She is only talking about going to Australia!”

That was my first real confirmation that Alys and I were now sharing things in which her parents weren’t automatically included. Welcome to the adult world, Hiatt. Change the subject.

“I will always be there for her, Nansi, always. But this is a holiday. Plan for today?”

She nodded, sighing, then pointed to a watercourse.

“Walk along that and under the road. There are some rocks and stuff, and I am sure there will be birds. Then up the beach for swimming, back to the site via a hypermarket, camp cooking and bed. We have one more important site to capture, a few days more at the beach, then it is the drive north”

The water course gave Alys Kentish plovers, gull-billed terns and others I have forgotten, and the clear water we swam in gave her a chance to lecture us on slipper limpets, but in the end, we were snorkelling over rippled sand as all sorts of fish darted away from us. There wasn’t the variety we had seen off Tenerife, certainly not the big fish, nor the turtles, but it was still a delight.

Two days later, we were at Béziers, with a remarkable collection of bridges that included a canal crossing a river, and Vic sighed.

“This is a bad one, ladies. What happened here was awful. I’m going to… Look. It’s not that far to the beaches, down to Valras and that. I could drop you off there and finish this, but if you stay I am going to feel honour-bound to explain”

Alys took my hand.

“You mean that this is going to hurt you, don’t you?”

How mouth worked.

“Yes”

“Not leaving you on your own, then. What happened here?”

He slumped.

“If I say ‘bad things’---no. Not fair. Crusaders besieged it, defenders made a mistake, city fell. Junior officer realised there would be a massacre, and asked the bishop, cardinal, whatever for advice. How to avoid killing those deemed acceptable to the Pope. Famous reply, it was”

I couldn’t find the words, so I simply raised my eyebrows, and his reply was awful.

“Kill them all. God will know his own. That’s what is reported, and there are documents… The bishop, whatever, Amalric, he claimed they killed twenty thousand people. Except, he called them ‘heretics’, so that was okay. Enough. Now, I shall be spending some time doing the picture thing, but there is a restaurant just over there, and the canal viaduct thing over the Ob is interesting, so I shall see you all again in a little while”

That was the moment I decided that however Alys and I ended up, however we lived together, our bookshelves would hold copies of her father’s work. It was another moment when I realised why my parents loved both Vic and Nansi.

We spent two more days on that immense beach, camping at Marseillan, before heading north by way of the amazing Millay viaduct, bridge, whatever, Alys squealing with delight as she watched the vultures air-surfing around us.

A week later, we were at Bangor.