Page 38 of Vianne

I can do this. I’ve done it before . Except that isn’t really true.

I have never travelled alone. I have never been pregnant before.

And yet, there is something inevitable about being on the road again; the familiar weight of the canvas bag, the sounds of the city behind me now; already merging with the past.

The ghost of my mother walks with me through streets that are gilded with danger.

Already the sky has assumed the silvery shades of evening; the scent of the sea rises like smoke, and the voices from cafés and restaurants seem incredibly remote, the luminous scenes through their windows like visions glimpsed through cathedral glass.

All around the city, children are doing their homework; families are eating dinner; people are curling up together on sofas; having baths; making love; watching television.

This is what other people think of as a normal life .

A partner. A job. Children. A home. Clothes in a wardrobe.

A favourite mug. A bowl with your name painted on the rim; a name that never changes.

You had to do this. Remember?

Yes. And yet it hurts to be leaving. But now I hear my name on the wind, the name of that village on the Ba?se.

And it smells somehow of the carnival, and frying pancakes, and sausages roasted by the riverside on embers made from applewood.

And there’s Anouk, my little Anouk, her hair like candyfloss in the wind—

I need to get out of this city. Louis will have noted my absence by now.

I try not to imagine his reactions; shock, anger, surprise, betrayal.

Grief, perhaps. But I had no choice. And he will forget me, I hope, as soon as he finds his routine again.

As soon as the taste of my chocolate loses its hold on his memory.

But for now, I must put some distance between myself and Rue du Panier.

Louis may try to find me; may even report my disappearance to the police.

That would be a problem. As Louis says, I have nothing.

No permanent home, no bank account, no family, no wedding ring .

I am an alien in this land where aliens are viewed with mistrust; where a pregnant woman alone is seen as a danger to hearth and home; where I risk losing my child to the State if I cannot show my credentials.

Moving around, my mother and I managed to stay invisible.

But staying with Louis for so long – making friends – was a mistake.

Making enemies was worse, although I still do not understand why it is that Emile hates and distrusts me so much.

I’ve been doing a little asking around since you arrived here.

That sounds ominous, and makes me glad to be leaving.

I realize now that my time in Marseille has been like a holiday romance; insubstantial as candy floss.

Vianne will be different, I promise myself.

I will find myself in Vianne. An overnight bus to Toulouse, I think; and then another, local bus, or even a riverboat up the Garonne, where its tributaries, the Tannes and the Ba?se, branch off like the tines of a fork.

I have enough money for my fare, and maybe a week of cheap hotels.

It’s enough. I’m used to this. And doesn’t it feel somehow right , among the sadness and regret, to hear the voice of the wind again, and to go wherever it calls us?

But some places are hard to leave. Marseille, with its many roads, is one.

It seems unfriendly at first, with its crowds and the crushing heat of the Butte, and the garbage in the alleyways and the stray dogs on the waterfront, but somehow I have put down roots, so that now it feels as if I am tearing a part of myself away.

Maman, can we stay here?

I’m sorry. It’s time.

There is an overnight coach to Toulouse scheduled to leave at midnight.

Coaches are much cheaper than trains, and much more anonymous.

This is why I find myself here now, at ten o’clock in the evening, in a place crowded with travellers.

Even at this late hour, the place is filled with people.

Some will spend the night here. I can see their bedrolls, their packs.

And the sleep merchants are out in force; they lie in wait for the passengers.

Their instinct is unerring; they target the lost, the desperate.

‘Room for the night, miss? Very cheap.’

I shake my head. ‘No, thank you.’

The man who spoke to me is young; his face is thin and clever.

He smells of Gauloises and something sharp: his eyes are alert and predatory.

I see myself reflected there; so young, he thinks, such easy prey.

I flick him the sign behind my back. Tsk-tsk, begone!

He flinches. I think he feels it like an insect bite; a warning of worse things to come.

He leaves me to my reflections, and no one else disturbs me.

The journey to Toulouse takes six and a half hours, with a forty-minute stop in Montpellier. After that, I will be free to choose the rest of my trajectory. Shall I go up the Garonne? Or hitch a ride on the road to Bordeaux? Or catch a train? Or fly like a bird, and spread my wings on the thermals?

One step at a time, Vianne . No need to think too far ahead.

I have some time to kill before the coach is scheduled to leave.

I buy a croque at the station café; a bottle of water for the trip.

At this time on an ordinary night, Louis and I would normally be in the back room of the bistrot, drinking a cup of hot chocolate or chamomile tea before going to bed.

My bed would be made; the red-and-orange blanket I bought from a stall on the waterfront spread over the coverlet.

The rising tide would fill the room with its cool and salty scent.

My mother’s box of Tarot cards, open by the bedside.

The cards are in my pack, of course, although the blanket has been left behind.

I wish I’d thought to bring it now; the night is unexpectedly cold.

I have no winter clothes. No shoes but my well-worn plimsolls.

I am wearing a denim jacket over a sweater and cargo pants; enough for the chill of an autumn night, but too light for the winter.

And I can already feel its call; the storms; the rains; the leaden skies.

A summer’s day finds it difficult to re-imagine winter; but here and now, it’s all too easy to sense its approach.

I must find a place for us soon, a place for my Anouk to grow.

By Christmas she will be the size of an avocado.

I wonder what Christmas in Vianne is like.

Are there lights along the Ba?se? A fir tree in the town square?

Roasted chestnuts on market days, served in a twist of paper, and the scent of smoke from the brazier rising in the clear, cold air?

My mother and I never celebrated Christmas.

That was for people who stayed in one place; people with houses and gardens and cars.

People with no fear of accumulating possessions.

I remember the Christmas trees; the lights; the garlands on the doors.

Christmas looks different from the outside, the squares of light from their windows like glimpses into another world.

Other children had log fires, presents, board games.

Family. Other children slept in their beds and dreamed of candied plums and b?che de Noel .

We had other things, she said. We had the real magic.

We had the voice of the wind, the shine of glamours reflected in the window-glass of a stranger’s house.

We had Tarot cards, and runes, and herbal concoctions, and witch’s bottles, and hagstones, and spells, and stories from every part of the world, from every belief in history.

And when we stood watching their little lives like scenes inside a snow-globe, we knew that we were different; that we were special and set apart.

A memory of myself, very young, outside a church during Midnight Mass, hearing the murmur of voices, seeing the glow of candles and lamps, catching the scent of incense and pine: Can we go inside, Maman? See the Baby Jesus?

I don’t remember where it was now. Verona, maybe, or Madrid. Or Rome. Or Palermo, or Milan. But I remember the snow-globe light, and the scent of the incense, the pull of the crowd, and the sadness in her voice as she said: You know we don’t do that, chérie.

But why?

Because we’re different.

The incense smells like autumn leaves, like spiced buns from the bakery. And the organ – jewel-box distant, but clear as falling icicles – sounds like music from Lyonesse, or Mahabalipuram, or Atlantis.

Why are we different, Maman? Little ’Viane is tired and cold, too young to be still up at midnight. I don’t want to be different , she says. I want to go inside, and see.

We talked about this, ’Viane. We can’t. The Man in Black is watching.

It’s a threat I’ve heard before. The Man in Black; the shadow; the ghoul. But tonight I feel rebellious, and the sounds and the scents of the Midnight Mass are too enticing to resist. And I miss Molfetta, left behind on the station bench. Maman doesn’t want me to have toys, or friends, or anyone .

‘’Viane!’

And so I drop her hand and make a run for the open doorway.

I am already vaguely aware of the concept of sanctuary .

To me, it sounds like a distant land, like Faerie or Shambhala.

And it smells of autumn sunshine and caramel apples and Christmas Eve, and it looks like a palace of candles and smoke and coloured statues and jewelled glass.