The Splendour Falls (5 page)

I wasn’t convinced. ‘Sure about that, are you?’

‘Pretty sure. Besides, you get used to it, after a while.’ He paused, drawing deeply on the cigarette, still gazing out over the swiftly flowing water. ‘You see those trees over there? That’s not the other side of the river, it’s an island. You can’t tell, really, unless you see it from the cliffs, or walk across the bridge, there.’ His voice was soft and even, storytelling. ‘They burned the Jews of Chinon on that island in the fourteenth century. Accused them of poisoning the town’s wells. It didn’t just happen here, of course, it happened everywhere. Women, children, no one cared.
They just burned them.’ He glanced at me and half smiled in the darkness. ‘The Nazis weren’t the first, you know. It’s been around for ever, prejudice.’

‘That’s hardly an excuse for it.’

‘No,’ he agreed, exhaling a stream of smoke that caught the shifting light from the street behind us. ‘But sometimes taking the historical perspective helps you understand a little better why people do the things they do. That’s what life’s all about, I think – understanding each other. Now Simon,’ he told me, his mouth curving, ‘sees things differently. If someone spits at Simon, he spits right back. An eye for an eye. But that doesn’t accomplish anything.’ He turned his head to look at me. ‘People hate too much, you know?’

His face, in that instant, seemed suddenly older than my own. Centuries older. And then he laughed and looked away, and the moment passed.

‘God,’ he said, ‘I sound like my father.’ He pitched the stub of his cigarette away, and it died with a hiss in the dark water. ‘Come on, I’ll take you for a real walk, across the bridge. You get a great view of the château from over there.’

He rose, the boy again, and led the way. The bridge was an impressive one, a gentle arc of pavement raised on heavy piles sunk deep into the river Vienne, and the river seemed to be doing its level best to wear away the unwanted obstacle. From the arched openings beneath us the roar of the rushing water rose fiercely to our ears.

I saw what Paul had meant about the island. It was a small island, to be sure, little more than a wedge of trees and scattered houses stuck oddly in the middle of the broad
river, like the lone oaks one sometimes sees stranded in the ploughed stretches of a farmer’s field. It looked quite peaceful, really, pastoral, as if its murderous past had never been. And yet, and yet …

‘There,’ Paul announced proudly, ‘now turn around and look at
that
.’

It was spectacular, as he had promised. The soaring walls of Chinon Castle rose in floodlights from the cliffs, its long majestic outline standing sentry over the huddle of ancient houses below. In the river at our feet, the blinding image was reflected clearly, with scarcely a tremor to disturb its still perfection.

‘Beautiful, isn’t it?’ Paul asked me.

I nodded dumbly, gazing up at the pale outline of the tower that marked the furthest jutting corner of the castle walls. The Moulin Tower. Isabelle’s tower. Again I saw the shadow moving softly past the window, but before the shadow formed a shape, a wind arose and rippled down the river, and the bits of bright reflection broke and scattered on a rolling surge of darkness.

The telephone was ringing as I stepped from the shower early next morning. Still dripping, I grabbed a towel and made a lunge for the receiver.

‘Hello?’

The line crackled unhelpfully for a few seconds, and then a deep familiar voice came booming down the line. ‘Emily? Is that you?’

‘Daddy?’

It would have been difficult, at that moment, to judge which one of us was more surprised to hear the other.

‘What the devil are you doing in France?’ demanded my father. ‘You ought to be in Essex.’

‘I’m on holiday,’ I told him.

‘What?’

‘Holiday,’ I said, raising my voice above the static of
the transatlantic line. ‘In Chinon.’ I frowned. ‘How did you get my number?’

‘Didn’t know it was your number, did I? They must not have heard me clearly at the front desk, I suppose … put me through to the wrong room.’

My frown deepened. ‘What are you talking about?’

‘I was trying to reach Harry.’

‘Harry?’ My voice was swallowed by a sudden burst of static that didn’t quite disguise my father’s sharp oath.

‘Blast these telephone lines,’ he said. ‘We can put a man on the moon, but we can’t
talk
to him, there’s the tragedy. Can you hear me now? I was saying,’ he went on, speaking more distinctly, ‘that I was trying to reach Harry. Trying to return his call, rather.’

‘Harry telephoned you?’ I repeated, stupidly.

‘Apparently. He left a message on the machine.’

‘When was this?’

‘I’ve no idea, love. Yesterday, I suppose, or perhaps the day before. I’ve been in Buenos Aires for a few days, on business.’

‘What, golfing with Carlos again, you mean?’

‘Carlos
is
business, my girl, so don’t you go sounding all superior,’ my father set me straight. ‘Anyhow, I’ve not rung to talk to you, now have I? So fetch me Harry, will you? Put him on the phone.’

‘He isn’t here.’

‘He’s not out in the ruins at this hour, surely? It can’t be breakfast time there, yet.’

‘Half six,’ I told him. ‘And he really isn’t here. He was supposed to meet me yesterday, but he hasn’t turned up yet.’

‘Hasn’t turned up?’ My father feigned surprise. ‘Our Harry? Now, there’s an item for the evening news.’ His voice was dry. ‘We are talking about my nephew, aren’t we? The same boy who kept you waiting seven hours at the airport because he wanted to see where a footpath went?’

I smiled. ‘Yes.’

‘The same boy,’ my father went on, ‘who was supposed to meet you at the festival in Edinburgh, that one year?’

‘The very same.’ I’d gone to Edinburgh, as it happened. Harry had made it as far as Epping, where he’d met up with an old girlfriend … but that was, in itself, another story.

‘Well,’ said my father, ‘when he does turn up, tell him I’m waiting with bated breath to find out why he rang.’

‘I will.’

‘Mind you, he didn’t sound too urgent in his message. He’s probably forgotten all about it, now. Gone off on the trail of King John’s coat buttons, or some such other nonsense.’

I smiled. ‘That reminds me … wherever did you find that coin for him? That King John coin?’

My father coughed, pretending not to hear me, and asked a question of his own: ‘What
are
you doing there on holiday? You haven’t gone on holiday in years.’

‘It was Harry’s idea. He thought it would do me good to get away.’

‘Well,’ said my father, faintly pleased, ‘he might be right at that. The village life’s no good for you, you know – not healthy, stuck down there away from everything.’

I could have reminded him that he had turned out healthy enough, having grown up in that same village, and
that I’d only gone there in the first place because he’d asked me to mind the house for him, but I wasn’t given time to answer back.

‘Must go now, my dear. Enjoy your trip.’

‘Daddy …’ I said, but the line had already crackled and gone dead. With a sigh, I set the receiver back in place. Honestly, I thought, they were all the same, the men of my family. Cut from the same cloth.

I shrugged my arms into my dressing gown and yanked my window open to let out the steam from my shower. Leaning out across the sill, I drew a deep breath of the morning air, drinking in the peaceful scenery.

I couldn’t see the castle from my room – that view was blocked by another building squared against the hotel wall, its windows tightly shuttered still against the morning sun. But if I leaned a little further out and looked off to my left, across the tops of the trees that filled the square, I could just see the river, shining silver, beyond the head of the Rabelais statue.

Somewhere close by a bell was counting out the hours. Seven times the bell rang out, then silence. I was straining further across the sill, trying to get a better view, when the silence was abruptly shattered by a reverberating crash from the room next door. The window just beside mine on the left had opened inwards, and after a long moment’s pause I heard a burst of helpless laughter followed by a cheerful curse that floated out into the clear morning air.

I must have made some sound myself, because Paul’s dark head came round the painted window frame, his expression apologetic.

‘Sorry,’ he said, in a hushed voice. ‘Simon’s knocked the curtain off again. Did we wake you up?’

I shook my head. ‘I was awake already.’

Simon’s head joined Paul’s at the window. ‘Some crash, eh? I swear Thierry hangs the thing low on purpose, just to make life difficult for me. Don’t you have any problem opening yours?’

‘No.’ I glanced upwards at my own curtain rod, which hung a good inch clear of the top of the frame.

‘I told you,’ said Simon to Paul, his chin defiant. ‘It’s only us. He does it on purpose.’

Paul shrugged and grinned. ‘Yeah, well, you’re on your own this time. You can tell him yourself.’

‘I don’t know the word for curtain,’ Simon hedged, a little hopefully, but Paul stood firm.

‘So go look it up in the dictionary. It’s the only way you’ll learn the language.’

After a final glance at his brother’s face, Simon withdrew from the window, and Paul turned back to face me, still grinning.

‘Beautiful day,’ he commented. ‘You must have brought the sunshine with you; we’ve had nothing but rain for three days.’

It was beautiful, I conceded. The shadows hung sharp and clear on the turreted houses and tightly clustered rooftops of the medieval town centre, and the pale stone walls gleamed brightly above the tufted green tops of the acacia trees. Two cars swung round the square below us, but the noise of traffic was muffled in the distance and the cheerful gurgle of the fountain carried over everything.

A second bell began to chime, quite near and rich and ringing, and I looked at Paul in some surprise.

‘I thought the bell just went,’ I said.

‘There are two bells. I’ve been trying to figure out exactly where the second one is – it’s either at the Church of St Maurice, just up the rue Voltaire, or it’s at the City Hall, which is that big building over there.’ He pointed out the large square building to our left, at the spot where the fountain square narrowed into the Place du Général de Gaulle. ‘I can’t quite make it out. But the first bell, the one you heard a few minutes ago, that’s up at the château.’ He used the proper French word for the castle. ‘Which reminds me,’ he went on. ‘Do you have any plans for this morning? Because Simon and I are going up to the château to putter around for an hour or so, and we thought if you didn’t have anything else to do …’

Well, I certainly wasn’t going to waste my first full day in Chinon hanging about the hotel in the hope that Harry would show up. He’d be here soon enough, I thought drily, and in the meantime there was no law that prevented me from touring on my own. ‘I’d love to come,’ I told Paul. ‘Thanks.’

‘Terrific. It’s really something to see, and you shouldn’t waste this sunshine. The weather here can be kind of unpredictable.’

We both heard the stern knock from the corridor.

‘That’ll be Thierry,’ Paul said, with a wink. ‘He’ll be irritated.’

‘Wouldn’t it be simpler to just leave the curtain off, instead of always hanging it back up again?’

‘Oh, sure.’ He shrugged. ‘But it’s sort of a game for them, I think, and Simon considers it a personal challenge. Simon,’ Paul told me in a positive tone, ‘loves a challenge.’

Which was, I learned as we set out after breakfast, quite a thorough summing up of Simon’s character.

He took charge of our impromptu tour party the moment we passed through the front doors of the hotel and stepped onto the pavement. ‘OK,’ he began firmly, ‘since this is Emily’s first real day in Chinon, I think we should take her down the rue Voltaire first, and then up to the château from there. It’s a lot easier than going straight up those steps, anyway.’

He meant the broad, inviting flight of cobbled steps that cut between the buildings to our right, in a direct line with the fountain. The steps themselves didn’t appear to be particularly steep, but it looked a long way up. I could just see the small cluster of yellow-white houses peering over the edge of the cliff that rimmed the town.

‘What is this stone, do you know?’ I asked my
self-appointed
guides. ‘All the buildings here seem to be made of it.’

Simon proudly supplied the answer. ‘It’s tufa-stone.
Tuffeau
in French. It’s the same stone they used to build Westminster Abbey, as a matter of fact.’

‘He’s been reading the guide books,’ Paul explained. ‘It’s just a porous limestone, really. That’s what the cliffs round here are made of.’

Tufa-stone. I filed the name away in my memory. On some of the buildings it almost looked like marble, hard and smooth and faintly reflective, cut in enormous blocks
that had been fitted so expertly one could hardly spot the seams. Coupled with the slate-blue pointed roofs, it gave the town a certain unity of colour and style that lovingly embraced the eye. Most of the shutters were open, now – painted metal shutters stained with rust, and older wooden ones, unpainted, that hung unevenly on their hinges, fastened back against the walls of their respective houses by ancient iron latches. I could understand why Simon found his curtain rod such a nuisance. French windows begged to be flung wide – it seemed a crime somehow to keep them closed.

The rue Voltaire led off the square as well, a narrow cobbled street that cut a line between the cliffs and the river. It was a lovely street, tastefully restored and rich in atmosphere, but I only caught the briefest glimpses of its tight-packed houses as Simon drove us past them at a breathless pace.

‘And here,’ he said, coming to a full and sudden stop where a narrow street angled across the rue Voltaire, ‘is the Great Crossroads. Well, it was a lot greater in the old days, I guess. This,’ he told me, pointing up the smaller sloping street, ‘was how people used to get to the château back then. And that well over there, against the wall, is where Joan of Arc got off her horse when she came to Chinon to see the Dauphin.’

‘Ah.’ I smiled. It wasn’t that I didn’t like Joan of Arc – I had in fact been fascinated by her in my younger days, but having lived in France I’d gorged myself on Joan of Arc relics and Joan of Arc books and Joan of Arc historic sites until, in the end, it had produced the same effect as had
the one too many Rusty Nails I’d drunk the night of my twenty-first birthday. All these years later, I couldn’t face a Rusty Nail without a shudder.

Still, so as not to ruin Simon’s tour I dutifully inspected the well and made the proper noises. Satisfied, he turned to lead the way up the tilting little street. ‘We go up here. Just watch your step, it’s pretty rough.’

And pretty steep, in spite of the fact that the road bent back upon itself several times in an attempt to soften the grade of the ascent. Halfway up I stumbled on the jutting cobblestones and paused to catch my breath.

‘Small wonder Joan of Arc got off her horse,’ I said, between gulps of air. ‘No self-respecting horse would want to make this climb.’

Paul laughed and moved steadily past me. ‘You get used to it.’

I wasn’t so sure. ‘Is this really easier than going up the steps?’

‘Yes,’ both boys averred, in unison.

Simon grinned, and pushed the hair back from his face. ‘Neil goes up and down those steps a few times a day,’ he informed me, ‘for exercise. He says musicians need to keep in shape.’

‘Bully for Neil,’ I muttered, and forced my wobbling legs to push onwards. Just when I thought they couldn’t possibly carry me any further, we cleared the final corner and found ourselves gazing out across the rooftops to the gently snaking river. It was a breathless view. The gardens of the closer houses had been terraced upwards to the level of the cliffs, a chequerboard of trees and flowers hemmed
by ivied walls turned crimson in the autumn air.

A final slope, five paces more, and out we stepped onto a modern road that ran along the level of the cliff. Facing us, a cracked and crumbling wall rose starkly up one level more, its sheer bulk draped with clinging clumps of ivy broken here and there by leaning doors that marked the entrance to some long-abandoned dwelling.

‘There’s the château,’ said Simon, pointing.

‘Give us a chance,’ I pleaded, slumping back against the wall. ‘Wait till my vision clears.’

Simon wasn’t listening – he was already several steps ahead, walking with a brisk and purposeful step, but Paul hung back to wait for me. ‘Not far now,’ he promised. ‘We’re almost there.’

I glanced after Simon, noticing not the soaring narrow tower that served as gateway to the château, but the alarming slope of the black asphalt road ahead. ‘More climbing?’ I asked, weakly.

Paul laughed again. ‘I thought you Brits were used to hills.’

‘Yes, well,’ I excused myself, ‘I’m from the flat part.’

Simon finally noticed we weren’t keeping up. Frowning, he turned and called, ‘Come on, you two.’

Paul shot me a rather paternal glance. ‘You ready?’

‘Have I a choice?’

The final approach wasn’t all that bad, as it turned out, mainly because my attention was focused on the strange tower ahead of us. The
Tour de I’Horloge
, Paul told me when I asked him – the Clock Tower. It was tall and curiously flat, like a cardboard cut-out of a tower, with a blue slate roof and wooden belfry. The bell that chimed the
hours, I thought, must hang within this tower.