Children of Light by Lucy English

Author:Lucy English [English, Lucy]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780007483235
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Published: 2016-01-07T05:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Monday 16th. Early evening

The rain started about an hour ago and it’s coming down quite hard. I didn’t bring the hammock in. I suppose it will be all right. I was thinking I don’t have many memories of rain here although it rains hard in the spring and the autumn. I have memories of storms because they are so dramatic. I would like a storm because it used to feel that the hut shook in the thunder and I could almost hear the lightning snapping.

It rained the night we had dinner at the château. The roads were wet and the drive to the château was full of puddles. It was just dusk. The château was lit up downstairs and seemed to be glowing. I remember I felt nervous and inadequate. What had I got to say at dinner parties?

The windows of the château are reflected in the puddles in the courtyard like shining cat’s eyes. Sanclair is restless and fidgety, he wants to see the big house. When the car stops he is the first out and runs up to the grand front door, then he stops and stares upwards. He has never seen a house so big and here’s Julian to welcome us. He’s wearing a dark blue velvet suit. He hugs me to him and he already smells of wine. When he hugs me he seems to press his groin into mine, but before I can object he’s shaking Gregor’s hand and saying, ‘Well, this is the country cottage.’

We walk inside. There are candles everywhere. The rooms are empty but huge. There are pink silk curtains at the windows falling into tatters, gilded chairs and Badouin’s paintings leaning up against the walls. He paints with a draughtsman’s precision, rocks and trees, craggy corners of Provence. Each blade of grass seems to be separate. The effect is of an amazing intensity. A single olive tree has iconic status. A rock formation is a twisted mass of colour. Even in the candlelight I can see this. He paints a world without people, constantly in bright sun. A parched, lonely planet, blue, terracotta and brown.

Badouin is watching us. He wears the pale blue clothes he always wears. Julian offers him another drink but Badouin waves him away. Julian leans against a gilded armchair and watches us too. I try not to look at him but look instead at Sanclair, who is standing in the middle of the room looking up at the ceiling with his mouth open. On the ceiling is a painting of cherubs going up to heaven. In the soft candlelight it does indeed look real.

‘What happens when it rains?’ asks Sanclair. ‘Don’t you all get wet?’

‘It’s a trick,’ says Julian, ‘it’s not real,’ and picks him up. They are dissimilar. Thin pale Julian and rosy blond Sanclair. I’m anxious, but Julian isn’t interested in Sanclair. He is doing this for my benefit. He spins Sanclair around until he giggles, then puts him down and looks straight at me.

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