It was a pleasant day in August and the coast looked almost benign.
The sun had penetrated the morning mist at midday and now in the late afternoon the ragged headlands and narrow estuaries were lit in firm bold colours. The greeny purple of the sparse vegetation showed clearly against the grey and terracotta of the jagged rock formations. The sea itself was a pale grey-blue and unusually calm. There had been no gales for some days and only a slight swell washed around the walls of rock and on to the narrow pebble beaches.
Julie lifted her head and let the soft salt wind caress her face. For a few moments she stood quite still, listening to the gentle murmur of the surf far below, watching the waves ripple across the wideness of the sea. The cries of seabirds echoed faintly on the wind; occasionally one would fly high into the air and she followed it as it glided motionless on the breeze.
Julie closed her eyes, thinking: It’s so beautiful and I love it all.
She opened her eyes and looked again. She loved it partly because it
was
beautiful and partly because she was happy here. She loved the peace and the loneliness of it; on a day like this you could walk for hours and never see a living soul. At first the remoteness had seemed strange and unsettling after the close warmth of the city. But slowly she began to appreciate the austerity and rugged beauty of the landscape. Now it seemed so familiar that she might have lived here all her life.
Standing on the headland it was difficult to believe that Plymouth and England lay just a hundred miles across the Channel. It seemed like a thousand. The small house in Radley Terrace belonged to another life, another
person
. That’s what she had been then – another person.
Suddenly she remembered she should have counted to twenty by now. Peter must have been hiding for ages. She yelled, ‘Twenty! I’m coming!’
She knew exactly where he would be. There were few places to hide on the windswept headland. The heather and gorse grew low and sparse, clinging to the stony soil around the rocky outcrops, and there were no trees. The only object capable of concealing a small boy was a large boulder which stood round and grey against the skyline. There was also a slight dip in the ground where someone could lie still and remain unseen, but Peter preferred a really solid hiding place, so it had to be the boulder.
But it was important to make a proper show of searching. She said in a loud voice, ‘My, my! Where
can
he be?’ then called, ‘Peter, Peter, where are you?’ At this point he often gave the game away by calling, ‘Whoo-hoo!’, a funny cry that always made her laugh. But he had got much cannier recently and had finally realised that keeping quiet was the smart thing to do.
Julie approached the boulder and waited. Sometimes Peter couldn’t bear the suspense any longer and jumped out with a loud ‘Boo!’, but he was being patient today.
For a moment she thought she was mistaken and he wasn’t there after all, but then she heard a small giggle. She crept silently up to the boulder and, running quickly round it, pounced on the small person crouching behind. With a shriek he tried to run away but her arms went round the little body and the two of them rolled on to the ground, yelling and giggling.
They wrestled and tickled each other until Julie cried, ‘Enough, enough!’ She rolled on to her back, panting hard. Peter plonked himself on her stomach and grinned triumphantly.
‘I give up. You win, you horrible child!’
Peter bounced with delight, then chanted, ‘Again, again. Please let’s play it again!’
‘In a minute. Give your poor old mum a chance to recover.’
He nodded gravely as he always did and, getting up, wandered off to examine some tiny blue flowers peeping up through the heather. He was always fascinated by tiny things.
He called, ‘Mummy.’
‘Yes, darling.’
‘Shall I pick you some flowers?’
She smiled. ‘That would be lovely.’
She watched him as he carefully bent down to search for the stems of the flowers. When he was younger he had yanked them off at the head but she had explained to him why it was better to pick them at the bottom and he had listened with his little head on one side, and then nodded. Now he set about doing the job properly, a frown of concentration on his forehead.
She smiled as she watched him. He was a small boy now, almost three and a half years old, but there was still a lot of the baby in him. Most of the rounded chubbiness had gone and every one of the babyish creases, but he still had a lovely velvety skin, and when his little arms went round her neck and he hugged her tight she loved to feel its softness against her. He still needed plenty of hugs, thank goodness. She couldn’t bear to think of him growing up and not wanting them any more. The two of them spent at least two hours a day just talking and reading. Julie looked forward to those hours: to the little body that wriggled into bed in the mornings and snuggled close; to the small fellow who needed a hug when he’d grazed his knee; and to the sleepy bedtime boy who wanted just one more story before falling asleep in her arms.
Her only regret – and it was a big one – was that she had to spend so many hours away from him, working. But that couldn’t be helped: they couldn’t survive without money.
Sometimes she wanted him to stay just the way he was now, not to grow up and drift away from her. At the same time she was fascinated by his development, the way he picked up new words and slotted them into one of his two vocabularies, French or English, and the way he thought things out for himself. The other night, when he’d been up late, he’d announced that, since the moon was nowhere to be seen, it must have forgotten to put its light on. She had been careful not to laugh – the logic was, after all, irrefutable – and she had nodded seriously instead.
Peter was striding towards her, lifting his feet high in the air to get across the carpet of springy heather. In his preoccupation he forgot to hold the bunch of flowers upright and a few of the tiny blooms were torn away by the ragged branches. When he arrived breathless beside her he looked at the flowers in surprise, puzzled that some should have so mysteriously disappeared. But apparently the loss was not too serious: he thrust his arm out and proudly announced, ‘Here’s a present, just for you!’
Julie thanked him and got to her feet. ‘They’re quite lovely,’ she said. ‘I’ll put them in water when we get back.’ She placed the flowers in a pocket of her cardigan and glanced at her watch.
It was getting on for four-thirty, time they went back for tea. They walked up to the path which led inland towards the village.
‘Mummy, hide and seek again? You promised.’
Little demon. He never forgot.
They played two more games, first Julie hiding, then Peter, and then it really was time to head for home.
They climbed the narrow path which led upwards round the side of a rocky bluff and along the top of a steep cliff. Although the cliff was fenced at this point and the drop a safe distance away, Julie gripped Peter’s hand more tightly. They came to a corner where the path led away from the cliff and paused.
Peter said, ‘Look, a fishing boat!’
Julie turned and followed his gaze. A small boat was drifting gently a short distance from the shore, its tan sails hardly filling in the windless lee of the headland. Several rocks were plainly visible just above the surface on the seaward side of the vessel. Julie shook her head. The Bretons were known for their knowledge of this coast, but all the same …
She looked beyond the boat, towards the horizon. At night she could see the flash of a light from her bedroom window. Now, squinting her eyes against the sun, she could make out the form of the lighthouse itself. It was a tall grey and red structure standing stark and solitary in the middle of the sea. It marked a plateau of rocks lying just beneath the surface some miles offshore. She shivered slightly; the tower seemed lonely and somehow sad.
She turned away. ‘Come on, darling.’
They climbed up to the top of the ridge and walked slowly towards the village, just visible through a dip in the land. Although the path was fairly level now, Peter was puffing and panting as he strived to match her step. Presently he began to hang back and Julie wasn’t surprised when he said, ‘Mummy, please carry me.’
She lifted him over her head and on to her shoulders.
She said, ‘I don’t promise to take you all the way. You’re too heavy, young man!’
It was true: in five minutes or so her shoulders would ache and then she would have to put him down. A man could have done it easily. But there wasn’t a man.
She hardly ever thought about Peter’s father. It was as if he belonged to another world that had existed a long, long time ago. Her memory of him was completely neutral; she neither hated him nor cared about him. It was almost as if she had never really known him. The only thing she felt, possibly, was gratitude: he had after all given her Peter. But at the same time she never thought of Peter as belonging to him. Peter was hers and hers alone.
She’d adored her son from the start, and it surprised her. In the months before the birth she didn’t have much time to think about how she’d feel; she was too busy sorting things out – difficulties mainly. It was only in the last few weeks that she realised she was about to give birth to a
person
, somebody who would rely on her for everything. It frightened her, but she was determined to do the right thing, to do her
best
.
Settling in Brittany had been far from easy. Looking back, she wondered how she’d stuck it out. In fact, at one point just after she arrived, she’d nearly given up and gone home to England.
The village was in full view now, a group of grey stone cottages standing out against the pastel grey-greens of the fields. Julie regarded it fondly. She was glad she hadn’t given up and run away.
As soon as she’d decided on Brittany Julie had written to her uncle and aunt. She didn’t know their full address, only the name of the village: Tregasnou. She asked if she could stay with them while she found somewhere to live.
The reply came in two weeks. It was short, stiff and impersonal: they would be expecting her and they had a spare room where she could stay.
The journey lasted three days. She took a ferry from Dover to Calais and then a train to Morlaix. She had to change three times and then wait two hours for a bus from Morlaix to Tregasnou. By the time she walked up the long hill to the small grey house, a heavy suitcase in each hand, she was exhausted.
The farmhouse was typically Breton: it was built of grey stone with a high, pitched roof and low eaves which came almost to the ground-floor windows. There were two small dormer windows in the roof where the upper rooms must be. Various outbuildings extended from the back of the house and, as she approached, Julie heard the sounds of animals stamping and shuffling in a barn somewhere.
The house was silent and, though it was almost dark, there was no light showing in the window.
Julie knocked on the door. There was no reply. She knocked again, louder. After a minute there was the flicker of a light as an inner door was opened. Finally the front door swung open and a large, rather fierce woman stood in the doorway.
Julie smiled and said in French, ‘I’m Julie.’
Suddenly the woman smiled and nodded. She called something over her shoulder, then beckoned Julie in.
A small, squat man appeared from the back room and with a shy smile shook her hand. ‘You are welcome, welcome. Please come in.’
She was shown to a chair by the kitchen range and offered coffee. Her uncle and aunt sat opposite, watching her and smiling politely. Julie realised they were nervous. They were sitting upright in their seats, their hands clasped in their laps, looking strangely uncomfortable. For several moments no-one could think of anything to say.
‘It’s kind of you to have me to stay,’ Julie said at last.
Her uncle smiled. ‘Not at all, not at all.’
Her aunt took a decisive breath and said, ‘Well, let’s make sure you’re comfortable. First, have you had something to eat?’
‘I had a sandwich on the train.’
‘Perhaps you would like some soup?’
‘Oh, thank you.’ Julie smiled gratefully.
Her aunt got up and put a pan on the stove. She turned and started to speak again, quicker this time. Julie concentrated on what was being said, but to her chagrin, missed several key words. Before she could ask her aunt to repeat them her uncle was speaking and Julie realised with bitter disappointment that she could not understand all he was saying either. It was the accent, perhaps, or maybe her French was rustier than she thought.
At one point her relatives started to speak in Breton until, remembering Julie was there, they returned apologetically to French.
Julie suddenly felt depressed. She’d assumed that because her father came from this village she would have some bond with these people, some feeling of belonging. Instead she felt a complete stranger, a foreigner who knew and understood nothing.
And it was clear that her uncle and aunt found her equally strange. They’d probably never met an English person before – nor, for that matter, any kind of foreigner. She was beginning to realise just how remote the village was.
It was clear too that the farmer and his wife were not used to having guests. Julie had the feeling that she was upsetting the routine of the small household, and that they didn’t really know what to do with her. When finally she said she was tired and they showed her to a tiny upstairs room, she knew they were relieved.
The next day started well. Julie tried hard to make conversation and offered to help her aunt with the chores. But soon she was depressed again. Her aunt was obviously uneasy about something and refused to let Julie help her with even the simplest tasks, while her uncle treated her with rigid politeness and exaggerated respect. The effect was rather chilling.
That evening it came to a head. They had finished supper and Tante Marie started to clear away the dishes. Julie got quickly to her feet and carried the cheese and butter towards the larder.