outline of a quill. No longer frightened, Hermione found herself reaching up to brush it away. It was an act of such intimacy, she found herself blushing.
And in that moment, no more than a pinprick of time, she was touched by a presence that was white and clear, as if something pure had crept inside her head and was pushing out all other sensations. Such lightness, such stillness. An absence of physical being, a calm and peaceful silence that seemed to go on for ever.
For a moment, she was looking into living eyes. Thérèse looking at her. Hermione smiled.
Then, it was over. Just the grey of the church and the tick, tick of the electricity meter and herself, alone again, but at peace. Hermione had no idea what had happened, only that something had. And even though she didn’t believe in living saints or spirits, she knew that her world had shifted.
Hermione pushed the hair out of her eyes, picked up her handbag, then opened the door and walked out into the Midi sun. Lost in the shadows or an act of deliberation, she did not notice her wedding ring lying on the cold floor at the feet of the saint.
Years later, friends would still talk about how Hermione came back from that French holiday a different woman. About how strange it was that, after years of putting up with Leon’s bullying and belittling, she’d had the courage to send him packing. Walked out of a church in a place called Montolieu, called a taxi to the airport in Toulouse, bought a new ticket and flown home on her own. It was as if she’d got a new lease of life, they said. As if she’d got a bit of her old spirit back, they said.
You could see it in her eyes.
Author’s Note
Along with ‘Red Letter Day’, this is another of the earliest stories I wrote set in the Languedoc.
In the 1990s, when we were discovering Carcassonne, we spent many summer weekends driving from village to village, exploring the region. We fell in love with Montolieu – known as the ‘village of books’ – a pretty place north-west of Carcassonne. Like most French towns in the Aude, large and small, the church is at the heart of the community and unlike their Protestant counterparts, Catholic churches are usually colourful affairs – plaster saints, vivid paintings, richly decorated.
There are several Saint Teresas. Saint Teresa d’Ávila, a sixteenth-century Spanish saint, has a quill and book as her symbol and, among her various responsibilities, she is the patron saint of those in need of grace.
Reading this again after ten years – and after the publication of Labyrinth , Sepulchre and Citadel – I found it interesting to see how I was already trying out themes that were to become so important to me: the connection of history and emotion; the idea that architecture and landscape influences storytelling; the sense that reality can be momentarily suspended.
A version of this story was first published in Woman & Home magazine in 2005.
THE SHIP OF THE DEAD
Finistère, Brittany Coast
November 1930
The Ship of the Dead
Sur le Raz de Sein, au crépuscule, apparaît parfois un bateau qui navigue sans sillage toutes voiles dehors contre vents et marées.
Sometimes at dusk, between the mainland and the island of Sein, a boat appears that leaves no wake, its sails all unfurled, indifferent to wind or tide.
BRETON LEGEND
Although the night was dark – no moon and the sky obscured by cloud – I was able to follow the pale pathway worn by generations of feet in the cliff top. The crash of the waves on rocks and the suck of the tide on shingle far below kept me on course.
The land rose and I followed the track, the flint and chalk faint but unmistakable in the turf. I had walked further than I had intended and I was weary, but at last I reached the summit of the headland and looked out over what I knew to be the ocean. Nothing between me and the Americas.
I sat on a well situated boulder and contemplated my solitude, regretting I was walking alone. I was not –
And in that moment, no more than a pinprick of time, she was touched by a presence that was white and clear, as if something pure had crept inside her head and was pushing out all other sensations. Such lightness, such stillness. An absence of physical being, a calm and peaceful silence that seemed to go on for ever.
For a moment, she was looking into living eyes. Thérèse looking at her. Hermione smiled.
Then, it was over. Just the grey of the church and the tick, tick of the electricity meter and herself, alone again, but at peace. Hermione had no idea what had happened, only that something had. And even though she didn’t believe in living saints or spirits, she knew that her world had shifted.
Hermione pushed the hair out of her eyes, picked up her handbag, then opened the door and walked out into the Midi sun. Lost in the shadows or an act of deliberation, she did not notice her wedding ring lying on the cold floor at the feet of the saint.
Years later, friends would still talk about how Hermione came back from that French holiday a different woman. About how strange it was that, after years of putting up with Leon’s bullying and belittling, she’d had the courage to send him packing. Walked out of a church in a place called Montolieu, called a taxi to the airport in Toulouse, bought a new ticket and flown home on her own. It was as if she’d got a new lease of life, they said. As if she’d got a bit of her old spirit back, they said.
You could see it in her eyes.
Author’s Note
Along with ‘Red Letter Day’, this is another of the earliest stories I wrote set in the Languedoc.
In the 1990s, when we were discovering Carcassonne, we spent many summer weekends driving from village to village, exploring the region. We fell in love with Montolieu – known as the ‘village of books’ – a pretty place north-west of Carcassonne. Like most French towns in the Aude, large and small, the church is at the heart of the community and unlike their Protestant counterparts, Catholic churches are usually colourful affairs – plaster saints, vivid paintings, richly decorated.
There are several Saint Teresas. Saint Teresa d’Ávila, a sixteenth-century Spanish saint, has a quill and book as her symbol and, among her various responsibilities, she is the patron saint of those in need of grace.
Reading this again after ten years – and after the publication of Labyrinth , Sepulchre and Citadel – I found it interesting to see how I was already trying out themes that were to become so important to me: the connection of history and emotion; the idea that architecture and landscape influences storytelling; the sense that reality can be momentarily suspended.
A version of this story was first published in Woman & Home magazine in 2005.
THE SHIP OF THE DEAD
Finistère, Brittany Coast
November 1930
The Ship of the Dead
Sur le Raz de Sein, au crépuscule, apparaît parfois un bateau qui navigue sans sillage toutes voiles dehors contre vents et marées.
Sometimes at dusk, between the mainland and the island of Sein, a boat appears that leaves no wake, its sails all unfurled, indifferent to wind or tide.
BRETON LEGEND
Although the night was dark – no moon and the sky obscured by cloud – I was able to follow the pale pathway worn by generations of feet in the cliff top. The crash of the waves on rocks and the suck of the tide on shingle far below kept me on course.
The land rose and I followed the track, the flint and chalk faint but unmistakable in the turf. I had walked further than I had intended and I was weary, but at last I reached the summit of the headland and looked out over what I knew to be the ocean. Nothing between me and the Americas.
I sat on a well situated boulder and contemplated my solitude, regretting I was walking alone. I was not –
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