Capcir Spring (15 page)

Damn Derek and all the brethren. They knew nothing of what life was really about. How could they ever begin to comprehend what real passion was. What did they know about the real experiences that real people lived and died for? With Kate he realised that he had touched for an instant, before it had all gone so badly wrong, something that really was authentic and touched levels of his consciousness that nothing else had reached. Then another worrying thought struck him.

Kate had more of a real life in her short time on earth, experienced more things, sensations, experiences and emotions than he ever had or probably ever would experience. Where was the sense in all this? Bugger Derek, he was getting nowhere, He was getting further away from any solution. He stood up and gathered his picnic things into his rucksack and walked slowly back to the village down through the beautiful highland meadows without being aware of his surroundings on what now was for him simply a long boring route march.

*****

As Mary unlocked the door of the flat she was immediately on her guard as she sensed that there was something wrong. The door was only single locked and not the double turn of the key that she had methodically done every time she left. A warning bell rang as she also thought of James coming home early that afternoon but that was over a thousand miles away and years ago. As she opened the door she was conscious of her heart pounding in her chest and as soon as the door was open she noticed immediately that someone had been in while she was out. She looked at the big space on the wall where her big map had hung. It was the one onto which she had transcribed all her levels and measurements. A big empty space on the wall. It was the one that she had drawn up in many colours and she hoped that it would save time later if all her survey material could be presented in finished form now. It was also the best way that she knew of making sure that she had all the information that she needed. So many hours with felt tip pens and coloured pencils all wasted. But why? She looked over to the desk her camera was still resting where she had left it. But the laptop computer was missing. Her heart missed a beat. All my work she cried out loud. All those hours of typing information onto the computer and saved on the hard disk. She dashed across the room and ripped open her underwear drawer. She scrabbled quickly through the clothes and sighed as her fingers touched at the back a small plastic container. She fiddled clumsily with the clip and slid the lid open. Five, six, seven, eight. The floppy disks on which she had backed up all her data were all still there. She sat down and a wave of relief flooded over and engulfed her. But her hands were shaking as she checked the shelves and found that her sketch and survey note books were all where they should be. The data disks can be loaded into another computer as soon as I get home she thought. And it will take some hours but the big chart can mostly be redrawn. There were a few things on the big plan which she had plotted on her first day when she started her orientation exercise that were not on any other drawing. That seemed such a long time ago. As she thought about the lost information she reckoned that at worst they could all be re-measured with one return visit to the valley.

She began next to methodically search the flat, money, papers, passport, documents for car, letters, books, clothes, personal effects, watch, clock all still here. Why? Why were just those two items missing? Why those two things that contained the whole of what she had found out why were they and nothing else of value taken? If it had just been a thief they would surely have taken the camera bag with the spare lenses and the flash. It had all been expensive to buy. And they would not have bothered with the map.

A thought suddenly struck her. Perhaps the theft had something to do with that travelling weirdo Andre Laporte. He could have come back here after their conversation today and broken in and stolen these items. Perhaps he is a frustrated academic who wants to get back into the mainstream and he was sure that my research is getting in the way of one of his projects. He could have come back here straight after he left me. Why oh why did I talk so freely to him?

The window was open of course so it would have been easy for any athletic person to climb into from one of the adjacent balconies. Once inside the double locked door could be easily opened form the inside to get out with the plan and computer. Perhaps some of the other bearded, smelly, long haired new age travellers had been in the flat too searching through her drawers. She shuddered at the thought of such a violation of her private space.

Mary rested her head in her hands and cried. She cried because of the feeling of dirtiness that she felt was all over the flat and the intrusion into her personal space. But as she sat and sniffed she was no longer in the flat. She was back eight or nine years in her bedroom at the first house she and James had shared together.

The bedroom was a mixture of shocking pinks. Really dark pinks that said far more about the last bachelor occupant of the house than Mary had wanted to know. Diocesan funds had never seemed to stretch to redecorate it. James was there of course. It was the first real row that they had. It must have been after two years of marriage. Mary had come in from visiting a friend and was surprised that James was not downstairs to greet her but instead was banging around upstairs. She had rushed up and she remembered the cheery "Hello" she had shouted on the stairs and then she came to a sudden halt in the bedroom doorway. James was searching through her drawers in their bedroom. He was not replacing them tidily or even neatly but screwing things up and tipping some of the contents on the floor. Much of neatly folded contents of all the drawers had been deposited in a heap on the bed. The drawers that were still full had had their contents so muddled that they would not now close.

"James, what are you doing. What are you looking for!" she exclaimed.

"You are keeping secrets from me," he said looking up for an instant and then resuming his search of the jerseys he was ransacking.

"Don't be silly dear" she replied, "You know everything there is to know about me. We have no secrets. What do you expect to find by screwing up all my clothes like that." She had raised her voice to almost a scream.

"I am an important person and I can't afford to have a wife who doesn't spend all her time supporting me," he added slowly, quietly and deliberately in contrast to her shriek.

"Of course I support you in everything" she replied shocked by his words and now feeling close to tears, "I assure you that I support you fully my love and will help you in whatever way I can"

"What then is this?" He asked. He then pulled out her copy of "Medieval Historical Review". "Why are you subscribing behind my back. Throwing away money that we can't afford on such non essentials. I know you used to be interested in history but that is in the past now. We are really struggling to get by on my small stipend and you are throwing money away on this sort of nonsense."

Mary felt violated. He had found her one extravagance, her one pleasure, in what she thought was a secure hiding place at the back of the drawer. That was the only secret she had. Why couldn't she have just kept that? Why did he have to have her completely naked before her with no room to hide. Couldn't he just understand that she had an interest of her own too and she was a person in her own right? But though these thoughts sped through her mind she none of these things. It wasn't the place nor the time and he wasn't one who was able to hear.

It was a long time ago, they were both young then and the incident had been quickly forgotten. Making up after a row had even been fun with James in those days. But now the long forgotten incident returned to haunt her for the first time and it came back with an added poignancy. Perhaps now she was beginning to realise that she had never really known him all along, however much she had kidded herself that she had.

*****

A little while later Mary had regained complete control of herself. After James and as she was trying to rebuild her life there were many times when she had lost control and unaccountably and without warning had found herself in tears but with the passing of time she had found it easier to regain control. Each time it still hurt but with each passing remembrance the hurt seemed to get less or was it that she was learning to live with it more and more. As each incident was relived she put the whole of her life with James in to a category of a completed whole and shut the lid.

Where should she go? She must visit the Gendarmerie of course. But who could she trust for a little chat and comfort. Edouard and Andre were both in their own way too French for the way she was then feeling. She also was suspicious that neither had been fully open and honest with her. Andre was her number one suspect for the robbery. And tonight of all things she had agreed to have dinner with him and the new age travellers. Then there was John. Perhaps she could persuade John to come with her to that too. It would be less fearsome if she were not alone. A staid Englishman, even if she hardly knew him, was at least preferable at a time like this to all those explosive Gallic types. I wonder though, she though, what his secret is. She had a very strong suspicion that there is something important about his life that he had not told her. But then she wondered if anyone is what they seem? But she stopped that train of thought, wondering if she were showing signs of paranoia. She was slowly learning to trust even though she felt that she could never completely trust another person again.

The police station was the place to head for immediately even if they had been so useless when she had mentioned the holes, she now had the sort of crime to report that they would understand. She had regained enough cool composure to look out her insurance certificate to see what information she had to get from the police when she reported the crime so that she could eventually make a claim.

7

As Mary drove home from the Gendamerie she decided not to bother to call and see John. There was something she couldn't quite put her finger on that made her feel uneasy in his presence. But as she passed the end of John's road she braked and turned sharply in. It was an irrational, intuitive decision that she could not justify in any logical way. Bother the fact that she knew hardly anything about him here was someone with whom she knew she could talk in her own native tongue. And company on her trip to dinner with the new age travellers was an important incentive.

His chalet was the only one on the street that looked occupied; all the others were shuttered and barred waiting for the summer season to start.

John was in one of the low pine, supposedly comfortable chairs, meditating on the Psalm in the daily office. Apt but not helpful he thought as he read,

"Lord, do not punish me in your rage, or reprove in the heat of anger. Pity me lord I have no strength left, heal me my bones are in torment, my soul is in utter torment... I am worn out with groaning, every night I drench my pillow and soak my bed with tears: my eye is wasted in grief
".

Not for the first time did his thoughts move into the sort of semi-blasphemy that only the ordained have perfected. Silly sod this psalmist. Why can't he stop all that self pity and face up to reality. Life must go on. I hate psalms that wallow in the problems of life or in self-pity. They must drive the suicidal over the edge. And people say that reading the bible is good for you.

I'm not getting in that state. I don't want people to pity me as an old "has been" who cracked up after a few errors of judgement. I am only just over 40. Life is supposed to begin now.. humph. What have I got? What can I do? The one thing that I was good at I have made myself ineligible for. Who would ever let me do that again? If I wasn't so full of determination to show Derek that I am not cracking up perhaps I would have done so. There was a knock on the door.