Marignane (‘Asylum’)

An Excerpt from the Middle of ‘Asylum’ a Novel in Draft. Excerpts from the Opening and Closing of ‘Asylum’ are also posted on Medium. All Excerpts can be read on a standalone basis or in sequence.

Marignane

1 of 7

Marseille — September 1996

The early morning sun cast long shadows on the tarmac as I walked from the plane the short distance to the terminal building. I walked slowly, savouring the feeling of freedom. I turned and stopped in the shade of the building and looked at the Air France flight I had taken from Geneva that morning. The plane was already empty, the other passengers having disembarked before me. I had time on my hands. I watched the other airport traffic for a while; a Continental plane, taxiing to a gate close by; an El Al flight pulling back from its gate for departure. A woman in uniform motioned vigorously from a distance, waving me into the terminal. I waved back to her and walked inside.

Marignane airport serving Marseille had changed very little since my last visit; a lick of paint here; new signage there, but otherwise the same Marignane. I walked down the corridor to passport control, offering my British passport. “Monsieur Patrick?” I answered in French that my name was Patrick Doyle. He smiled and returned my passport, saying, “You’ve changed Monsieur; a little more grey hair?” I smiled back. He obviously enjoyed his job.

Proceeding through customs into the body of the airport, I headed for one of the cafes, ordered a cappuccino and sat in a chair facing the window overlooking the runways. A clock hung on the wall to my right. I looked at the passport photo to see what had struck the French passport controller as amusing. A rather gormless photograph of me taken in a booth eight years ago, stared back at me. I hadn’t looked at the photo in a while. It struck me that I looked like a startled rabbit, caught in headlights. My hair was grey at the temples now. But it was still the same Doyle nose, rather patrician I thought and as for my face, though it had filled out a little, hadn’t changed that much and would still pass muster. I admitted to myself that I had possibly gained a stone in weight to the twelve and a half I had carried then. At an inch above six feet tall, I supposed I was still in or around my target weight.

I pocketed the passport and looked at the clock — 10.30 am. Only one hour and forty-five minutes to go. The flight was at 12.15 pm; plenty of time. I settled down into my chair, sipped my cappuccino and started musing on my first visit to Marignane in early November 1995. It was now September 1996, nearly eleven months ago.

Marseille — November 1995

The plane dropped from beneath the clouds, swinging dangerously in the wind, the mistral threatening to make the landing anything but smooth. Seat belted, I watched the runway and the buildings heave into view and get ever closer. The plane landed on one wheel, skewing marginally to the right and then steadied, the engines flaring. The plane taxied to a halt near the terminal building. The passengers began to open the overhead lockers. I waited for the plane to empty and grabbed my black squashy bag and laptop from under the seat in front of me — the weapons of the inured business traveller. As for the bag, anything fitted into it and it fitted into anything. It contained my clothes, my papers, my everything.

I skipped down the gangway at speed, passing most of those who had disembarked first. I pulled out my mobile phone and started making calls. I whipped past passport control and customs, ignoring the signs for luggage collection and walked through arrivals into the cool air of a November morning. I trotted to the taxi rank and jumped into the first in the queue. “Hotel Sofitel in the Old Port please,” I rattled to the driver in French.

The taxi sped off and I turned to my bag and took out three wallets of papers. I bypassed the files marked “GAFM: General” and “Correspondence,” the latter neatly filed by my secretary, and settled on the last entitled “Acquisition.” I flicked through the topmost pages, refreshing my memory of recent events and my schedule. I then skimmed my correspondence file with its backlog which I had picked up from my office over the weekend; mostly boring stuff of no interest to me. I looked up from it and saw that the taxi was now scudding along the coast road. I saw in the distance, just offshore the ‘Château d’If’.

I returned to my work as the taxi sped through the suburbs of Marseille, until it slowed up as it approached the Old Port. The bay was in the form of a horseshoe and dominated by the church ‘Notre Dame de la Garde.’ The marina was packed full of boats and yachts of all shapes and sizes, tied up at wooden pontoons and swinging at their berths in sympathy with the wind. The taxi mounted a rise and pulled into a gate leading to the hotel entrance. Having checked in, I took the lift to the second floor, dropped my bag and laptop on the bed and headed for the phone.

I first rang Jayne on her mobile, knowing she would be between classes. It was the same old ritual; Hi I’ve arrived safely; yes it was a good flight; you having an OK day? Good; take care. And that was it; the comforting sound of loved ones; the mutually content.

The second call was to Tony Harper, the Finance Director of GAFM France. He was in Paris, where their French head office was based. “Hi Tony,” I said. “I am going to meet the people from Mercier’s Marseille accounting centre at 2 pm. The meeting is offsite.”

“OK Patrick,” Tony replied in his English counties way. “Thank you for your report on Mercier’s HQ in Paris. You must have worked on it over the weekend. The time of your email was 1.30 this morning.”

“It’s my job, Tony.” I said

The conversation was clipped and business like. When it ended, I collected my papers and laptop and left for my meeting.

The following Friday, I was back in my hotel room, having worked virtually round the clock for the previous four days. Sleep was a luxury in this profession, especially when you were seconded to GAFM and they were planning to spend £100 million on a French business the size of Mercier.

It was 8 pm. Red-eyed, I tapped away on my laptop, writing my next report for GAFM’s Board of Directors in London as well as for the management team of their French subsidiary. I was munching on the ubiquitous club sandwich. At 8.30 the phone rang. It was Tony again.

“Find out anything interesting this week, Patrick?”

“Yep,” I said, swallowing the last piece of sandwich. I choked on a crumb and started again. They are asking £100 million for this business, right?” I paused, “You would, in my view, be paying between £15 and £20 million too much.” I could hear a muted reaction at the end of the phone.

“How come?”

“Well either their Bankers who drafted the sales documents are very stupid, cunning or lying bastards,” I said. “They have omitted a packet of costs from their future cash flows and their sales projections are way over cooked based on their current order book.” I rattled on giving him more of the details, my adrenaline pumping as it had done for weeks now.

He stopped me mid-sentence, “OK, put it in your report. I am sorry but I need it tomorrow so that I can read it over the weekend. I am presenting to the Board on Tuesday. I’ll get a flight from Paris to London on Monday.

I groaned inwardly. “No problem.” I lied. “I’ll do some PowerPoint slides for you too and have them with my report in an email by first thing tomorrow morning. I should be finished by then.”

After a few further exchanges, the phone call over, I spread the papers over my hotel desk and continued typing.

Outside I could hear the mistral, howling even louder, the rigging of the yachts moored in the Old Port straining at their berths and emitting a wailing sound, like banshees trapped and seeking flight.

Marignane

2 of 7

Marseille — September 1996

My eyes drifted back into focus. It was 10.40 am, only ten minutes since I had last looked at the clock. I checked it with my watch, got up and ordered another cappuccino. The cafe was not full. It was a Sunday morning.

I opened my black bag and pulled out a couple of envelopes. I turned them over and looked at the address on each.

10.42 am according to the clock. Just over an hour and a half to go.

London — December 1995

The plane arrived at Heathrow on a dismal Christmas Eve morning. To avoid the endless Paris traffic jams caused by recent transport strikes across France, I had ordered a taxi for 4.30 in the morning. Instead of taking what I feared might be an hour and a half the taxi reached Charles de Gaulle in less than thirty minutes, leaving me very early for my 7 o’clock flight. Frustratingly, the cafés did not open for another hour.

When I reached the long stay car park at Heathrow, it was gone 8.30 am. I located my car in the rows of metal, squeezed by economics into a space more fashioned for sardines. My battery was flat. I had been away three weeks. As I sat in my car, waiting while the touring maintenance crew applied jump leads to the worn battery, I rang Jayne from my mobile. The phone rang several times before she picked up.

“Hi. You OK? You sound out of breath, “I said.

“You’re not at Heathrow already? I wasn’t expecting you until later.” There was music at the other end of the phone. Then I heard a sound as if she were covering the mouthpiece.

“Well don’t sound so enthusiastic. I’ve been away for quite a while.” She didn’t answer immediately and I kept on hearing noises in the background. It was turning into a non-conversation. “Still listening to Radio 3?”

“Yes I’ve turned it off. Listen. I’ve got to go out for a couple of hours. If I’m not there, let yourself in. I’ll see you later.” She sounded, hurried, breathless.

“See you soon … Oh Jayne?” Too late. She had already put down the receiver.

An hour later, I arrived in Richmond. I carried my hand luggage up the stairs to the entrance to our apartment; bedroom and kitchen on the second floor; lounge on the third; master bedroom in the attic. The first floor was rented to a man we had rarely seen. We had never met him to talk to, since we had moved in. The flat seemed silent. I dropped my luggage into the spare bedroom. No sound of running feet. Nothing. I called out, “Jayne?”

Slowly I heard footfalls negotiating the winding staircase from the attic bedroom. Jayne stood in front of me, her air sombre, a faint impression of puffiness and redness around her eyes. No greeting smile; just four words; four meaningless words out of context, full of slippery potential and unknown futures.

“We need to talk.”

And talk we did until we could talk no more. By Boxing Day, we had started shouting. By 28 December, I had moved into the spare room.

New Year’s Eve arrived. By then we had put our masks back on. We met the Markheims for lunch. Richard Markheim was a colleague of Jayne’s at law school. His wife, Charlotte was an interior designer. The meeting had been arranged weeks ago. We tried to make it seem that nothing had happened. But it didn’t work. The atmosphere was palpably taut, strewn with stony silences. At one point, Jayne rose, obviously on the point of tears and excused herself as she headed for the toilets. Charlotte followed swiftly after. Richard looked down at the tablecloth and fiddled with his wine glass.

“Everything alright between you two?” he asked in an offhand manner.

“Of course. Everything is fine,” I lied. “Jayne just has a bit of tummy trouble at the moment.”

When we got home, I drank, one, two … God knows how may bottles of wine and popped some Valium. Neither provided any release. The wine only spurred my anger, my regret, and my feelings of helplessness, of loss.

It was 11 pm, an hour away from New Year’s Day, the television on in the background. “Well what do you expect, if you are never here? “She said. “All you ever do is work, travel, sleep occasionally and work some more. You haven’t had any time for us in years. A trial separation is the only way.”

“What the fuck is a trial separation, anyway? We are either a couple or we aren’t. Black and white. For fuck’s sake, make up your mind.” I paused. “Tell me for the last time. Are you seeing someone else or not? You did it before remember? Or more than once?” The alcohol induced anger had reached its zenith. Given my rage, she had by now matured into the injured party.

She repeated the same words she had consistently used since I had arrived on Christmas Eve. “I keep telling you, there isn’t anyone.”

“Look, I’m sorry,” I said. I advanced towards her as she stood by the window, my arms open, inviting connection, offering truce.

“Don’t lay a finger on me or I’ll call the police.” She retreated as I approached her, a mixture of loathing and fear in her face.

“Come here,” I said softly. “Let’s make it up. I’ve never ever hit you once in my life and I am not about to start now. Just give us another chance … please?”

“Don’t come another step closer,” she screamed. “It’s too late …”

I moved towards her and she picked up the phone and dialled.

“Police … I need urgent help.” She was put through, recited her name, our address and phone number, dropped the phone back on its cradle and glared at me.

I was stunned. “What in God’s name have you just done? Ring them back for Christ’s sake.” I turned and in a daze, walked out of the lounge and wandered up to the attic bedroom to clear my mind. As I mounted the stairs, I heard Jayne pick up the phone again and speak to someone else, then the sound of feet running down the stairs and out the front door.

I waited a few minutes too stunned to move. Then adrenaline kicked in and I ran downstairs, slipping in my socks, unbalanced by the emotions of the last few days and the slop of red wine in my stomach. I tore open the door and ran out into the darkness of a wet London night. I looked right and left and saw nothing, except the grey shapes of party revellers. I ran blindly towards the High Street, my socks soaked, slipping in the puddles. Nothing. I ran, searching for her, until exhaustion took over and I walked back to the flat, my head bent.

When I arrived, I found the police already there. They insisted on searching the flat. I talked to them as rationally as I could, trying to explain what had happened. Finally they left, satisfied that there were no bloodied bodies secreted anywhere. Another day; another domestic. “Just police procedure,” they said and “I hope you patch it up.”

As the clock struck midnight, cheers erupted from the television and the party in Trafalgar Square. I rushed to the bathroom and expelled the contents of my heaving stomach.

When the convulsions ended, I sat on the stairs and cried.

Marignane

3 of 7

Marseille — September 1996

I looked at my watch and checked the clock on the wall. It was barely more than 11 am. I shifted impatiently in my chair and considered the endlessly banal truism of why time sped up when you wanted it to slow and dragged when you wanted it to race.

I was tense but excited. I looked at the clock and willed its hands to turn to 12.15 pm.

London, Bristol and France — January to May 1996

During the early parts of 1996, when I was able to return to the UK, in the absence of French transport strikes, Jayne would from time to time allow me to sleep in the spare bedroom in our London flat. But under no circumstances was I allowed to share the main bedroom in the attic with her. She came and went as she pleased, never at any point telling me where she was going and when she would be back.

On one occasion, we watched the start of the Oxford, Cambridge boat race together on Putney Bridge. But she never stayed close to me and from time to time I would lose her from sight.

I invited her to Hastings for a weekend, the place we had honeymooned in September 1985 to try and remember the love we had for each other then. She agreed, but again she refused to share a bed with me. As we walked through the streets of Hastings, she kept at least ten paces behind me. At one point I tried to allow her to catch up. But she stayed distant and in my frustration I sat on a bench and cried.

In the end, when back in the UK, I would stay in a B&B in Richmond, to be close enough to her to visit, but to allow us to have our own space. Whether I was in France or the UK, in the evening and at weekends, I would walk the streets, brooding, feeling lost and powerless. There were times when I simply did not eat, but drowned my sorrows instead in alcohol. Gradually, I realised every morning I got up that I had to pull my trouser belt a notch tighter, to the point where, I had to make new holes in it. I finally decided I had better weigh myself and was aghast to see the reading. Normally, my weight floated between thirteen and thirteen and a half stone. The scales told their own story. I weighed only eleven.

When we had been in the flat before Christmas and all hell broke loose, we had bought the film Philadelphia on DVD and I also bought the soundtrack. I now listened endlessly to it on my headphones or in my car, always drawn to the first track. Sometimes I would smile at the irony of its similarity to my condition, but most of the time, I would weep out of sight. The music and its lyrics still move me, to the point that they bring tears to my eyes. There was always one key verse which haunted me.

A’int no angel gonna greet me
It’s just you and I my friend
My clothes don’t fit me no more
I walked a thousand miles
Just to slip the skin

I remember when I was working in Marseille, it fell upon Valentine’s Day. I looked at the flowers and heart shaped balloons in shop windows as I wandered the streets in the evening. That Jayne and I had first sealed our union on that day at Cambridge in 1983 tore my heart apart. I wrote her a long letter around that time. I never got a response.

During my secondment, I flitted by plane between Paris, Brussels, Rennes, St Etienne, Lyon and Marseille either working on the deal or helping firefight issues with my client’s finances. I found my life in France very lonely. Whilst I had the company of others during the working day, I mostly spent my evenings on my own. No-one ever invited me out for a meal. If I wasn’t working in my hotel bedroom in the evening I would often eat either in the hotel restaurant or wander the streets trying to find another restaurant I had not visited before. The isolation only served to increase my feelings of desertion by Jayne and brood. I started to be assailed by a deep-rooted, dark and crushing depression.

One evening in early 1996, I found myself working in an office allocated to me by Mercier in their Marseille accounting centre, my real purpose and identity hidden from the staff other than those in charge. I was working as hard as I could and as long as I could to divert my attention away from my personal life. Suddenly at 8 pm, the lights went out. I felt my way through the darkness to where I thought the door to be, all the while bumping into furniture. On opening the door, all was darkness apart from the dim red of emergency lighting. I moved gingerly to the door to the landing where the lifts were located and found it locked shut. I couldn’t locate the light switch. I had no idea what to do next. I had been forgotten.

Eventually, I felt my way back to my office and using my cigarette lighter to see the buttons on the phone clearly, dialled twelve for directory enquiries. I told them my predicament and they found the telephone details of the concierge of the building. Equipped with his number, I rang only to connect with his wife who said he was out for the evening with friends, was unable to contact him, but offered to ring his colleague, who was also a key holder. He lived in Aix-en-Provence, some miles distant. She gave me his number, just in case.

Some minutes later, the phone rang. The call was as expected from Aix. He said he would be there within the hour. It was only a twenty-five minute car journey.

At 9.30 pm, the door to the lifts opened and the lights came on. I was never so glad to see anyone in my life, given the prospect of being locked in until the following morning. He paid me the courtesy of driving me back to my hotel.

Once there, I asked if I could eat in the restaurant. They said it was full. So I went to bed and wept.

At the end of March 1996, my secondment officially ended, though I was regularly asked back by Tony Harper to help with the merger of GAFM with Mercier, which had finally been acquired at a price of £80 million.

As I was now back working in Bristol again, there was no call for me to be in London. But I refused to terminate the lease on our old home. I didn’t want to talk to my old neighbours or watch them gossip on street corners about Jayne’s absence. So after spending several weeks, staying in B&B, I finally found myself a furnished house to rent in Bristol. It was at least a home, a haven, a refuge after months of living an itinerant life. I felt safe there.

In May, Jayne and I had agreed to attend a marriage guidance session in London. I was amazed that she had even agreed to it. When I was sitting in the train at Bristol Temple Meads waiting for the journey to London to begin, I received a call on my mobile from work. It was Malcolm. He explained that an on and off acquisition we had been advising on had finally crystallised and that I was needed back in the office now.

I could not help but feel how supremely ironic his request was. My job had contributed to the breakdown of our relationship and was now interfering with its possible recovery. Malcolm was both a friend and one my bosses. He was one of only a few people who knew about my marriage problems — he needed to know because he saw that I was not myself. I explained to him where I was going. There was silence at the end of the phone. Then he said, as soon as I got back, I should go to the office; we were going to work all night.

When I got to my appointment in London, Jayne didn’t show. Instead I had a thirty minute conversation with the counsellor, who simply implied, as far as I could see, that our separation was all my fault.

When I got back to the Bristol office, I worked all night and the following two.

Bristol — June 1996

I walked into the lobby of the Marriott hotel in Bristol. In front of me I found what I was looking for. The message board announced amongst others ‘Taylor Evans Majors — Charity Evening — McConnell Suite.’

I had arrived back from Marseille the previous evening, tanned, hair cut as a concession to self-nurturing, still underweight but at least now with a more respectable twelve stone. When I got into the office that morning I had been reminded that we were holding our annual event to raise money for charity that evening with the usual guest speaker, who on this occasion happened to be one of the rowers who endlessly won medals at the Olympics. I can’t remember now who he was and frankly then I didn’t care.

Clients and non-clients were invited to buy seats or tables and there was normally a lottery and an auction at the end. Although apparently for a noble cause, the event covertly had a different purpose. It offered my employer the opportunity to mingle in an effort to acquire new clients and those invited to find new customers. Business is business and not everything is what it appears to be, however charitable it may seem. You don’t shell out money for no reason. My job as usual was to host one of the tables and keep everyone happy.

I made my way to the McConnell Suite to find the anteroom already crowded with the great and the good, gassing away as they got pissed with a free bar. I ordered a quadruple whiskey and drank, not sipped, it in a corner. I had no desire to talk to anyone if I could help it, my only intention being to get as drunk as I could, as soon as possible. I wasn’t in any mood to ‘work the room’ as I was supposed to be doing.

The event was 7 for 7.30 and it was getting close to the time to enter the suite and for the proceedings to commence. I heard myself hailed in the distance by a familiar voice.

“Patrick, “he shouted above the hubbub, as he advanced towards me and shook my hand. “Long time no see. How are you doing”

I smiled at him. “Surviving. You?” I was genuinely pleased to see him. Mark Stuart worked for a local firm of lawyers. He had been my best friend at university and probably still remained the closest I had ever had. He happened to have ended up working in Bristol too. “So how are your wife and the kids?”

“They’re fine. “ Then he said with a look of genuine concern in his face, “What’s happening with you and Jayne? Still at wits-end corner?”

I shrugged. I had shared my story with him, curiously for me, not by phone call, email or in person but by a handwritten letter penned in Paris. Perhaps it had been a bit like writing a letter to myself, to sort out my own emotions, expecting no response; a rhetorical letter.

“You write to me and that’s it? What on earth’s that all about? How do you expect me to react? I tried to get hold of you on your mobile and it either rang out or I went straight into your voicemail. Didn’t you get the messages I left you?”

I recalled that the letter implied that my marriage was not over yet, but there was little scope for manoeuvre; dead in the water; not waving but drowning. I had preferred not to ring him back. Writing a letter was one thing. Talking about it was another thing entirely.

“Let me freshen that drink for you,” he said. “If it’s terminal, you need to get your head out of your ass and start living again.”

Anger rose within me. “What the hell gives you the right to assume it’s over or not?”

I saw his rather startled expression and my ire melted. “Look, Mark, I apologise. I just get touchy about it. We’ve been married for ten years. I just can’t accept it’s over.” I felt sorry for Mark and for the way I had reacted. I liked him a lot and we had always been there for each other when things had got bad. “Come on. Let’s get that drink.”

At 7.30, we parted, promising to catch up at the end of the evening.

The maître d’ rang a gong and as the room silenced, he called out, “Ladies and gentlemen, dinner is served. Please make your way through to the main suite.”

I examined the table plan and spotted the table I was hosting. Mine was number seven; twenty tables in the room and about ten guests on each. When I got there, I found the usual cards on the table, designating which seat was whose. I waited as the crowds poured in. I introduced myself to each in turn as they turned up at the table. There were two lawyers from a local firm; the Managing Director of a construction company; the Finance Director of a regional utility company; the Sales Director of a bathroom fittings company; two managers from local clearing banks; another member of staff from my own firm and me; all men. Apart from my colleague, I recognised some of them from previous annual bashes, but knew little or nothing more about them.

There was still a gap between me and Mr Bathroom Fittings. As the final stragglers were finding their seats, the tenth member of our table party arrived. I took a metaphorical step back.

She was wearing a fitted, brushed silk trouser suit in black, belted to emphasise her slim waist. Her blond hair was cropped short, almost boyish, although her figure belied the fact. She looked about my age; mid-thirties.

I looked at her table card. ‘Antonia Phillips — Sanderson’s.’

She smiled at the members of my group and apologised for being late. I welcomed her and introduced myself, allowing the other members of the table to do likewise. She reciprocated with “Antonia.” There were only a few women in the room. Spouses, girlfriends, partners were not invited.

The senior partner of my firm walked to the stage and with the help of the maître d’ asked everyone to be seated. After a few opening remarks and a recitation of the evening’s running order, he invited us all to enjoy ourselves. The hubbub started again. I turned to the Managing Director of the construction company to my left and started small talk, offering him his choice of the champagne and wines on the table. To the right I noticed that Antonia was engaging Mr Bathroom Fittings in conversation. As waiters trooped out with military precision and served the first course, I noticed that she had an incredibly engaging laugh and a winsome smile, which she was liberally lavishing on him.

Irrationally, I was starting to feel enmity towards her conversationalist. I wanted to talk to her. In an odd sort of way, she reminded me of someone I knew. I felt I had already met her before and went through the rigmarole of trying to fit a face to a location or a series of events; places I had worked; clients I had met before. But it was a fruitless task. This was a first meeting. In a distracted fashion, I listened as she talked to her other neighbour, whilst I tried to focus on what mine was saying.

Out of recurring habit acquired when I was a bachelor, I caught myself looking at the fourth finger of her left hand. She had discreet rings on other fingers, but that one was unadorned. An instinctive voice started calling in my head and I felt ashamed of myself like a teenager buying a naughty magazine in a newsagent. Why on earth was I checking the marital status of this woman? I had no right. My marriage might be on the rocks, but I should not, WOULD not permit myself to take an interest in other women. I had never been unfaithful and I wouldn’t let myself do it now, whatever the circumstances. I looked at my left hand and felt a conflict of emotions. I had abandoned wearing my own wedding ring, though time had left a white indentation on my finger as if to taunt me.

I consciously wrenched my attention to another of the guests at the table and started a conversation as the remains of the first course were cleared by the waiters and waitresses. During a lull in the conversation, I felt a tap on my right shoulder, I turned and was mesmerised by the smile she had so far reserved for the man on her right.

“Hi, I’m Antonia and I gather you are Patrick.”

I wondered if she was as nervous as I had started to feel and I offered the warmest reply I could muster. But my worries dissipated as we talked. I didn’t need to make small talk. The conversation flowed. We had so many interests in common that we forgot the obligatory question and answer session until later; what do you do and where do you come from? Her opening remark had been to comment on my tan and went from there to our mutual love of France and onwards. When we inevitably got there in the end, she said she owned an estate agency. I told her more about my job. Eventually, for some reason, the conversation turned to the number of hours we both worked.

She looked at me seriously. “I used to be like you Patrick. Business meant everything. When I worked for Greens estate agents, I was responsible for the whole of their Southern English chain, west and east. Home life always took second place. I spent all of my time, working all hours that God gave, haring round the country, looking at branches which were failing and trying to turn them round. But in the end it cost me my marriage. My husband walked out on me four years ago. There wasn’t another woman, at least not then. He just told me he had married for love and companionship but we had grown apart so that neither of those remained. So we got divorced”

I started to feel uneasy about the direction the conversation was taking. Unless I was going to lie, and I was not good at that, I might be obliged to reveal my current circumstances to a complete stranger.

“I learnt from that, I had lost me; the art of living. So one day, I packed it all in and resigned. Of course they were astonished, but then so was I.” She laughed in that increasingly engaging way and I smiled back. “I had enough resources to survive on for a while, but I felt for certain what I should do. I bought an ailing agency, called Sanderson’s, three years ago at the bottom of the market, with three branches, one in Bristol, Bath and Gloucester. I paid bottom dollar and did what I used to do and turned them around. But in doing so, I had bought myself a life. I called the shots and I decided what hours I was going to work and not an employer. I didn’t make that much from it to start with, but now business is booming. The only reason I get invited here is because I am the token woman and Greens were and my business is a client of yours.”

I felt moved by her openness and honesty and then did what maybe all of us do with complete strangers and told her my story; the truth; me and my marriage. I no longer felt nervous. I trusted this person I imagined I had known all my life. Perhaps the wine helped. I don’t know anymore. But this woman totally engaged me. We moved off the topic as the courses kept changing. We talked about a hoard of common interests. She had been to Oxford to my Cambridge; Oxford the city of dreaming spires and Cambridge the city of perspiring dreams according to folklore; literature; philosophy; beliefs; and dreams for the future.

After dessert, we stopped our conversation as the formal proceedings of the evening started. The guest speaker, the now forgotten Olympic rower, was introduced and began his speech, packed full of woebegone jokes, followed by the lottery draw and finally the auction. Whilst all this was happening, I could not help my eyes drifting towards the swell of her cleavage and smelling her perfume. I tried my best to stop myself and didn’t linger long, happy in the end to see she hadn’t noticed. I watched her smile as the evening unfurled. But yet again, my gaze turned to her full lips and her blue eyes. I pulled myself back from the brink and gave myself another moral lecture.

As the evening’s entertainment continued, she turned round in her seat and met my gaze.

“Great evening isn’t it?” she grinned.

“Perfect,” I laughed back.

When the evening was drawing to a close and people were making either for the exit or the free bar, I got us drinks. We both had a single malt; her tipple; mine too. We took our drinks into a corner of the lobby and found a vacant sofa. I asked her if she minded if I smoked. Those were the days when you could.

She said, “Why don’t you start that sentence again and offer me a cigarette? I smoke too.”

I offered her my pack. She took a cigarette and I lit it for her. She drew closer to me, touched my hand and held it a moment longer than was necessary. With the electricity of her touch, my mind started racing. I tried to think of logical things; about how silly this was. It reminded me of ‘North by North West’, the scene where Eva Marie Saint (Eve Kendall) accepts a cigarette from Cary Grant (Roger Thornhill). Life mimics art; art demeans life; simple gestures that happen every day are thereby polluted.

But this was still real.

I caught sight of Mark, behind Antonia, looking at me across the lobby and smiling. He held his thumb up in the air. I ignored the sly implication of his gesture and did not motion back. As an act of repentance, he came over to say goodbye and left.

She asked me where I was staying that night. I told her I had booked a room in the hotel to avoid drinking and driving or having to take a late taxi back to my house. She told me she had booked herself a room in the hotel for the same reasons. I already knew she lived on the other side of town. I ordered us some more drinks from the bar. When I got back, she went to the bathroom to freshen up. I noticed she had left her key on the table, room number face up; 109. It seemed to me then that it was a come-on and I started to panic, the voice of reason, my emotions and loins in direct conflict. I made for the exit and found the clarity of a cool moonlit night. Then, however rude it may have seemed to her, I headed for the hotel taxi rank and went home.

The next day, my secretary told me I had had a call from a Ms Antonia Phillips asking me to ring her back.

I couldn’t help but smile.

Marignane

4 of 7

Marseille — September 1996

11.30 am now. Time was beginning to shift at a slightly faster pace. I settled down in my chair and gazed sightlessly at the planes queuing for take-off.

London — July 1996

I stepped out of the taxi into the bright summer sunshine. The buzz of London traffic hummed around me. I paid the driver and strolled through the gates of the Royal Academy of Arts.

I was ten minutes or so late as I entered the building and hung a right towards the tearoom. I ordered a coffee and waited. We had said midday and it was now fast approaching a quarter past. I sat and surveyed the faces as the door to the tearoom opened. Each time I had the impression that it was Jayne and that somehow she had changed, somehow mutated into someone I scarcely knew, albeit it had only been about three months since I had seen her on a fleeting visit. My mind started to play tricks on me. An older lady entered and I thought Jayne had aged; a woman with a full-figure, heavy thighs and a drab face entered and I thought she had put on weight. For months now, I had had dreams, often awaking bolt-upright at the same beleaguered hour each morning, with the image of a soft and smiling face, swivelling away from me and then turning back, eyes full of hatred, baring teeth and with a savage, demonic grin.

I was about to ring her mobile, when she arrived, bustling through the door, looking slimmer than when I had last seen her. Her blond hair was shorter too. She looked sexy in a pair of black leather trousers and a figure hugging top. Her gaze hovered anxiously over the crowded room and halted on meeting mine. She dropped her eyes and eased her way past energetic conversations to one of the empty chairs at my table. She smiled at me shyly and we said our hellos. There was an embarrassing silence.

“Can I get you something to drink or a bite to eat?” I suggested, breaking the ice. “Earl Grey?”

“No I’ll have a coffee.”

“You used to hate coffee,” I said.

“I’ve changed.” She looked me directly in the eye, holding my gaze, her words full of other meanings. I looked away, forced a smile and moved towards the counter where I ordered. I used the time to calm myself and reflect on the words we had exchanged.

Did she want to pick a fight or did she want to pick up where we had left off? Had she finally given in to the phone calls I had made at intervals over several months and seen it my way? ‘Don’t throw away twelve years,’ I’d said. ‘We were good together; we can be again,’ I’d pleaded. ‘I won’t work so hard. I’ll find another job. I’ll make more time for us.’ And then the inevitable, ‘I love you from me;’ a seemingly begrudging but indeterminate, ‘I know’ from her; the conversations never reaching a conclusion, teetering on the brink of falling one way or the other; a final break or a reconciliation. Our phone calls had always ended in a similar tone, mostly chilled but sometimes less so, as if she really were trying to make up her mind, but at best only agreeing to disagree.

I brought her coffee back and she sipped at it. I lit a cigarette. She frowned, pointing at the no-smoking sign on one of the walls. I stopped mid-drag and hurriedly stubbed it out in my saucer. I asked her about her job, the flat, the museums and exhibitions she had been to or was planning to visit. She asked me about work, the acquisition I had been doing, the end of my secondment in France. Not a word about where I was living or how I was feeling. I wondered if she really cared. I hoped she still did. I gave her the benefit of the doubt. She was in avoidance. The initial frost between us had melted a little. Gradually, there was more of the old warmth in our conversation.

“How are Richard and Charlotte Markheim?” I asked trying to loosen the conversation into the more banal.

“What do you mean?” she said.

“Comme ça.” I rocked back in mock French surprise, hands in the air, mouth pouting, shoulders slightly hunched. “They are friends. You work with Richard and I haven’t seen them in a while.”

“They’re fine. Next question.” She looked away.

After we had been together an hour, she rose to go. She had a class later that afternoon. We had got precisely nowhere. I wondered why she had bothered to turn up. But we had at least achieved something — being in the same room without rowing. Perhaps we had moved beyond truce.

We parted outside the RA, making promises, which I felt unlikely to be fulfilled, that we stay in touch. As she was turning to go, “Kiss?” I said. She smiled and offered me her cheek.

“Can’t we be together again?” I said.

As she was moving to leave, she looked at me for a long moment furtively and said, “I don’t know; maybe. Don’t push me. I’ve got to go or I will miss my afternoon class.”

I let her go, watching her exit the RA and walking swiftly down a side street.

I waited a moment and then without thinking moved off in the direction she had taken. As I turned into the side-street, I thought I had lost her from view. Then I picked her out in the crowds. She was walking fast. At the point when she was almost out of view, I thought I saw her step into a shop doorway. A man appeared from the shadows and put his arm round her. I could have sworn it was Richard Markheim. They hugged and started walking further down the street away from me.

I sighed. At least she had the support of good friends in London. She needed them.

As they walked further down the street, I thought I saw the man’s hand slide down from around her waist, only to ride on the swell of her buttocks.

Marignane

5 of 7

Marseille — September 1996

Nearly midday. I pored over the envelopes in front of me. I picked the one which was already opened. It was written in Jayne’s spidery handwriting. I had already read it many times, but I started to read it again.

Paris — August 1996

It was late afternoon. Paris was largely free of its normal inhabitants and packed with sun-baked tourists, casting shadows on the boulevards as they strolled from shop to shop, café to café, museum to museum.

I moved purposefully away from ‘L’Arc de Triomphe’ and headed down ‘Avenue Kléber.’ The road was strewn either side with old elegant buildings; their date I could not fathom; ageless monuments to the rich and powerful; fascias neatly sculpted. The late afternoon sun glinted on windows, catching my eyes so that I had to look away.

I walked to ‘La Place du Trocadéro’ and from there towards the Seine and ‘Le Pont d’Iéna.’ I stopped at a street corner just short of the river and ‘Avenue de New York’ which bordered it and took a fix on the map I had with me. I moved down the street indicated. Half way along I turned through a porte-cochère into a cobbled courtyard. I double-checked the address and rang the bell at a large oak door. I heard it ring faraway and then a voice growing louder, footsteps approaching. When it opened, Tony Harper stood in front of me, still the same, fifty something, six foot of tubby grey haired, ex-public schoolboy.

“Hello Patrick. Come along in. You’re bang on time and very welcome,” he said, shaking my hand vigorously. He ushered me in and patted me on the back. “Up the stairs and straight on. Cynthia has opened the bar. Order your poison. I’ll be there in a minute,” he shouted after me. I climbed the stairs onto the grandiose landing and out of the many options it offered, I headed straight on into the first floor salon. For a second, I blinked in awe. The room was breath-taking in its dimensions; the opulence of French grandeur with a hint here and there of English modernity; Napoleon III meets Conran. A slim gracefully attired woman of medium height in her mid-fifties greeted me. “You must be Patrick. I’m Cynthia. Pleased to meet you.” Like her husband, her accent was unmistakably English counties.

“What can I offer you to drink?”

I asked for a single malt.

“Any in particular?”

“I don’t mind,” I said

The range of drinks in the cabinet was unlikely to disappoint even the most esoteric of tastes. She selected a Glenmorangie and asked if that was OK.

“That’s fine,” I said.

Tony returned from one of the rooms on the ground floor and asked his wife for a Jack Daniels on the rocks. Once we were all equipped with drinks, Tony suggested we take them out onto the balcony.

The view was breathtaking; panoramic unrestricted views of the Seine; the Paris skyline before us; and just to the left, the Eiffel Tower, rising inexorably from the ‘Champs de Mars,’ pointing its finger threateningly at the sky.

“So how are you doing?” Tony asked. Typically of the man, he didn’t give me time to answer. The question was rhetorical and assumed my good health. Instead, he lifted his glass and grinned broadly. “I propose a toast to Patrick, who landed us a deal at a £20 million discount to the asking price.”

I smiled reticently back at him. We sipped our drinks and moved to the parasol shaded balcony table, enjoying the mellow evening and waning summer sunshine. After small talk, we left the apartment and headed towards the Harpers’ favourite Italian restaurant.

“Bonsoir, Madame et Messieurs,” the waiter’s French was coated with a heavy Italian accent. Tony parried in flawless French. “Trois couverts s’il te plait, Paolo.” We were shown to a sheltered table on the terrace, the weather still warm enough to permit. Tony’ mobile rang, as we were offered aperitifs. Cynthia bristled.

“Tony, please switch that phone off. I am sure they can do without you while we have a meal together.”

I waited for the follow-up.

We never spend any time together. You are married to your job more than you are to me.

But it didn’t come; false echoes; unhealed wounds. Tony pushed the disconnect button on his mobile immediately and switched it off smiling deliberately with a look like a naughty boy.

I watched the look of warmth that passed between Tony and Cynthia; a knowledge based on years together, endless compromise and careful nurture. Their affection for each other was palpable. I turned my head away at this moment of intimacy, feeling a stab of pain at the contrast between my life and theirs. Whether noticing my embarrassment or not, Cynthia moved the conversation onto other things.

After three courses, replete, we ordered digestives and espressos. If I had been asking myself why exactly Tony had invited me to the corporate French apartment and into the bosom of his family, beyond the workaday and the resultant bonding of colleagues, I got my answer very soon. He lit a cigar and looked me straight in the eye.

“Cynthia won’t mind if we talk business for a second, will you sweetheart? Actually it is less about business and more about you and your future, because I believe you have a great future ahead of you. What if I said I wanted you to come work for us? £150,000 a year base salary, a maximum annual 50% bonus, long term share options, any car of your choice, all the usual perks … and …” he was building to a climax, “exclusive use of the apartment in Paris.”

The message had its desired effect. My jaw dropped.

Before I could emit a single word, he started again. “Of course you might be wondering what you might be doing for that class of treatment.” He paused trying to gauge my reaction. All I could muster was a nod.

“I want you to have my job, Finance Director of our French operations with a view to further acquisitions not only in France but throughout Europe. We are expanding, my boy.”

“But what is happening to you and Cynthia then?” I asked.

“I am about to become Managing Director of Pan European markets. Burt Lockhart is retiring and … well … I guess I got the ticket. It’s going to be announced next week.”

I congratulated them warmly. “Well done, you really deserve it, Tony.”

“So what do you say?”

I hesitated, speechless. He obviously felt he had me on the hook, smelling victory. “Listen you don’t want to waste your life. You want to cut yourself a piece of the real action and stop borrowing another man’s watch to tell him the time. He continued with what he thought was his masterstroke. “Besides, what is your wife called again?”

“Jayne.”

“She is an ex-art history graduate isn’t she?”

“Yes, but she now teaches law in London.”

“Hell! You two have got it made. You have a place in London and now in Paris. You don’t have to spend all your time in Paris. You can work from home in London whenever you want. And art” … he left the word hanging … “there’s more art in Paris than you can shake a stick at.”

I nodded again gormlessly.

“By the way, I am sorry she couldn’t make it with you. I was sure the apartment would swing it for her as well as you. Is she getting any better?”

My heart skipped a beat, recognising the repetition of my lie. “Yes a summer cold … that’s all … nothing too awful.”

“Sometimes they are the worst, aren’t they?” Cynthia interjected. “I do hope she feels better soon.”

I caught Cynthia’s eye and I thought I saw a look of complicity, of conniving in her expression. Sometimes women just know. Maybe, I was merely reading in her expression my own thoughts; thoughts that just weren’t there.

We spent another half an hour together, Tony chain smoking cigars. I said how excited I was by the offer; how kind it was; what a great opportunity; much more than I was on at the moment and a big hike in responsibility. Of course I needed to think it over; it was a big decision; it would mean a lot of change; naturally I would need to speak to Jayne about it.

I looked again at Cynthia, but she was looking at Tony as I spoke; no visible reaction to my continued duplicity.

The sun had set by the time we parted at 11pm. We said our goodbyes,

“I’ll let you know in a couple of weeks. I need to think it over. I have a break coming up soon and that will help.”

“No problem. Where are you going anyway?”

“I thought a break in France or Switzerland. I work in France often enough. It would be nice to see it from the other side of the coin.” I said.

“Give me a call. Should I have to, I’ll even hop on a plane and come running, contract in hand. I’ll even give you a pen to sign it.”

I watched them as they sauntered back to their apartment; holding hands; darting to avoid the traffic; a couple of fifty something teenagers, still very much in love after all these years.

I took the Metro back to the Georges V hotel. I didn’t want the long walk or the intimacy implied by a taxi,

It was late.

Too late?

I sat quietly in motion, the confusion of my thoughts drowned out the jarring noise and foetid odours of the train as it swept through the tunnel.

Marignane

6 of 7

Marseille — September 1996

12.05 pm. I pulled another envelope from the sheaf. It was unsealed. It was addressed to Tony in my handwriting.

Annecy — August 1996

It was late August now. The sun glinted off ‘Lac Léman’ and created a rainbow of colour as it refracted in the droplets blown by the breeze from the torrents of the ‘Jet d’Eau;’ the snow-capped Alps on one side and the Jura on the other. Geneva sat nestling in the open spaces between.

The day after the meal with Tony and Cynthia, I had taken an early flight from Orly to Geneva, where I picked up a hire car. I first headed into the heart of the city and was now picking my way back towards the French border and Haute-Savoie. Before Jayne, before Cambridge, before business, before career and responsibility, before money, I had spent a year in Haute-Savoie, fresh-faced from school in Belfast. It had been a year of rebirth and the first real freedom I had ever tasted, in the hills above Annecy. The gap year had been a time to grow up. The contrast between that and the ninteen formative years in Belfast’s suburbs could not have been starker. At its most basic, I spoke a different language and once mastered was able to hide behind it. Then I worked with my hands and not my brain. Speaking French was a joyous replacement for the steady grind of intellectual activity at school. I seemed to have achieved balance for the first time in my life.

I passed through customs and pointed the car towards Annecy. Before long, I was driving above the glittering waters of its lake, cutting a swathe through the lush green hillside. Sometime later, I slowed the car and stopped outside the Hotel Ichthus. Stranded on a dip in the hillside, it had no view of Annecy or its lake. Accessible only by a minor country road, the nearest neighbour was over a mile away, a tiny village sporting a handful of shambolic houses and the inevitable café bar.

The weather started to worsen as I got out of the car. The sun had been replaced by a billow of clouds, the air nevertheless hot and clammy. I had a notion that thunder and lightning were imminent as it started to rain.

Why are you here?

I walked along the country lane, running the length of the hotel grounds, enclosed by clipped hedges and wire fencing. The original older building sat at right angles to the road, facing east. It still retained that look of faded splendour about it, so clearly lodged in my memory. I had not been back in seventeen years. I started walking more swiftly round the property looking for other familiar vestiges of the time I had spent there.

Memories started to flood back. I spied the narrow glazed double doors on this side of the old building, the external door to my room during my stay. I saw snow where there was now none: the day in January 1979, when I had arrived; a taxi with chains on its tyres, battling through the drifts and flurries; the darkness as the taxi dropped me at the hotel; the old building looking for all the world like the setting for a Hammer Horror; the feeling of fear, of teenage shyness; the stumbling grammar book French, which bore no resemblance to the careless, liquid speech patterns of the staff; the white duvet in my room; the conversations next door on the night of my arrival; and finally the bliss of sleep.

At the corner of the road, I turned to face the little church, which had been built at the south-western corner of the ten acre site, most of which was parkland, though patches were given over to the growing of fruit and vegetables. No-one was around. The worsening weather was keeping staff and guests indoors. I hesitated. I wanted to try the door to the church but didn’t as if to enter would break the spell I was under, the growing sense of electricity connecting me through the tunnel of years with my past. The sensation of wonderment was enhanced by my long absence, except in dreams when I came back, again and again.

Why are you here?

Preachers in the pulpit, Marc Massenet, his oratory, the timbre of his growling voice as he preached. ‘Eh bien, si j’ose vous le dire, ‘ his favourite line when he wanted to make a point. ‘Now, dare I tell you.’ He always did.

Then Boris Schiller, the hotel manager and evangelist, a Swiss German with all the aggression of his race and of a battle-scarred missionary, who spoke fluent French: the day he held a service of testimony, asking people to stand up and speak for a minute about little ways in which Christ had worked in their lives, giving the example of how God had given him the strength to preach one Sunday, when he had the flu and had saved the soul of a person, who had simply walked into the service out of interest; after several such testimonies the man who stood up and recounted the incident he had witnessed of a man being raised from the dead by the pastor in his local Pentecostal church in Rouen; the outraged look of Boris, who didn’t adhere to a Pentecostal view of scripture or modern miracles and his asking the man politely to be quiet and sit down; the early end to the service; and the row the man had with Boris at the door of the church afterwards, when they almost came to blows.

I didn’t go in. Instead, I turned the corner and walked along the western boundary. The lane was grass covered, not much used back then and apparently not now. I walked half a mile along the track until I came to an oak tree, whose leaning trunk and leaf-covered branches afforded at least some shelter from the rain. I stepped closer over the mossy grass to get out of the ever quickening downpour and the memories started to tumble again, even faster.

Marie. What was her surname? I struggled to remember and the images hove back into view. Marie Aubin. Yes, eighteen then, a brunette, working the summer at the hotel but hailing from Normandy; dainty hands unused to manual toil; porcelain white complexion; nails perfect; jeans not skirts; literature, not magazines or films; an intellectual gaucheness which contrasted with the curved lines of her perfect figure. We had started as friends, going on long walks, which often ended here, out of sight of the hotel. She corrected my French and I her English. We talked writers, Flaubert, Dickens, Balzac, Camus, Proust, debating literature and philosophy. We talked Protestantism, Catholicism, ecumenism, atheism and agnosticism. Then one day we kissed, unable to stop ourselves.

Holding hands away from the prying eyes of Boris, staff and guests — such liaisons were frowned upon. But yet it was so innocent, so unspoilt and pure, spiritual, where sex was a forbidden country we could not enter; hungry cubs in play, in training for real life; the warm evening as dusk was falling when we sat by the tree and laughed as we talked, the supply of things to explore seemingly unending; the shy look as she turned away, hid behind the tree in nearby brush giggling, picking lavender, asking me to close my eyes; opening them; her blouse unbuttoned, standing there with an uncertain smile on her lips, her full breasts bare, a little scented offering, a giving of self, body, mind and soul; the flush of passion, standing beside her, looking not touching; taking off my shirt and drawing close to her; our passionate embrace; going no further than that, constrained by upbringing, the territory of the married; carving our initials on the tree, conscious of its age old significance and swearing eternal allegiance.

Of the initials there was no sign. I searched the tree for every conceivable place we might have carved them. I moved on uncertain of the memory and tried other trees and found nothing. There was desperation in my searching now as the rain came down more heavily, its droplets clouding my vision, as they soaked my hair and fell into my open mouth. I tasted them, raised my face to the sky and exalted in them.

Why are you here?

The relationship ended with our stay at the hotel, despite our protestations to the contrary. She had been the first to leave for home in Normandy. She was going to the Sorbonne in Paris to read French Literature, I to Cambridge to read Languages. There had been the obligatory letters at first of course. Then they dwindled, lost in the pace of life, the multitude of other distractions, of growing up.

The power of first love held me in its thrall, like so many before me and since. I was sure it would last a lifetime. In conjuring it up then and trying to recapture it, I knew it would not shatter its meaning, spoil its impact, or lose its magic. There is only ever one first love and it lasts for the rest of your days.

The rain was now torrential. In the distance, the first streak of lightening in the darkling sky presaged the first peal of thunder. I hurried along the boundary to the west and started running. I skirted the short perimeter to the north and looped back on the eastern side, climbing a wooded incline to gain some shelter from the rain. I sat in the wet grass, away from the boles of the trees but sheltered by their company. I could just see Annecy over the top of the hill, the lake and further still. Lightning flashes in the distance lit up the sky, sometimes in sequence, the ensuing peals of thunder, echoing off the Alps, which skirted the horizon.

More memories, picking up more quickly now as I turned my gaze on the hotel grounds now in full view before me: the newer building called La Ferme, ‘The Farmhouse’ facing the old, its name belying its purpose; a two storey building, with a large kitchen and dining area, extra bedrooms and a large conference centre; Franco and Roberto, the two Italian teenagers I had worked with, repainting it in the spring, when the snow had thawed; the evenings we had spent together in their room, larking around; giving me an Italian book, my reading it to them in an Italian accent with no knowledge of Italian; their rolling around on the floor laughing at the comic results; the ‘Avenue de Platanes,’ a sculpted aisle of plain trees which marched in straight parallels, starting from a gate in the northern boundary and ending at the side of the original hotel building; a place for strolling; a place where I lopped off the branches of the trees with another teenager from Belfast, who stayed over two months; our pact to speak French with the grossest Belfast accent and intonation we could muster so as to allay his embarrassment at speaking the language; the window of the room where Tante Louise had made her home, who had come for six months and had stayed there forty years; and the place behind the trees on the eastern perimeter, where I had tried my first cigarette and inhaled, the fuzz of nascent rebellion filling my soul like an itch.

I started to cry, my tears mingling with the rain, sorrow at times gone forever, faces I had never seen since and would never see again except to conjure them in dreams and then only an imprecise picture, relegated to the past again on waking.

I knew then this would be the last time I would ever come here and that added to the poignancy of the moment.

And so I sobbed,

Why are you here?

In remembrance of the past: clinging to certain histories fixed in time and place; a rare time of balance and true happiness; potential futures bathed in uncertainty; ‘un point de repère.’

I descended from my vantage point and walked slowly back to the hire car. The rain was gentler now, slowing, stopping. I heard the sound of hymns being sung in La Ferme, distant voices in harmony, a piano in accompaniment; the only sign that the hotel was still in use since I had arrived two hours before.

I got in the car and turned the key in the ignition. I did not want to meet anyone I knew, not that I was likely to. Boris had been in his sixties then, Marc in his late fifties and Tante Louise in her seventies. But you never knew. Amongst the transient staff, there were people who stayed. To meet them would be to transmute the past and give it new meaning. I adhered to the old. I drove back to Annecy as a fading summer sun peeped from behind the clouds. Unspoken truths and decisions were forming in my mind.

Sometimes you have to take a step back to take a step forward.

Maybe that is really why I had to come back to the Hotel Ichthus.

Maybe you have to find out who you have been to re-establish who you really are: to gain perspective; to de-clutter your past; settle into the present; and grasp at the future.

I stopped at a car park on the main road running round the lake and started making phone calls.

Marignane

7 of 7

Marseille — September 1996

At last 12.15 arrived. I shoved my letters back into my black bag and headed for arrivals.

I watched as passengers came through the double doors, having collected their luggage. Some were holiday makers returning home and meeting loved ones. There was a lot of whooping and hugging as they were reunited. Most were business travellers, their eyes searching drivers holding up cards with scribbled names.

I kept looking for the face in the crowd.

Then it appeared. I first saw the blond hair and then the smile as our eyes met. She dropped her bag and I dropped mine and we embraced and kissed.

“Hello stranger,” she said.”

“Hello you.”

She cocked her head at a funny angle, made a face and we kissed again. I picked up both our bags and steered her towards the Avis rental desk, where I had already made a booking. I filled in the paper work and keys in hand, we followed the desk clerk’s directions to the car compound. On the way, I stopped at the Information desk. I sealed the letter to Tony Harper and asked the young man behind the desk to put it in their outgoing mail. I had enclosed the contract, returned unmarked with a short letter saying thank you, but no thank you.

There was a sharp wind blowing as we exited the airport.

When we got to the car, I let her into passenger seat and put both our bags in the boot. I took the opened letter from my bag, tore it into pieces and dropped them on the ground. I had rung Jayne and her bitterness showed no signs of relenting. She wanted a divorce and I had agreed. Her letter contained a brief note giving the details of her lawyer, who would be in touch.

I got into the car and said, “One week of blissful holiday here we come. What’s first on the agenda? A crisp Kir Royale at the hotel?”

“No brainer.”

“By the way,” I said, “Antonia is a bit of a mouthful. What should I call you?”

“Well actually, my middle name is Eleanor and since I was little my parents for some reason nicknamed me Ella. It sort of stuck. My family and best friends use it. But for everyone else, it’s Antonia.”

“Ella it is then.”

We laughed as I started the car. I put it into reverse. As we moved out of the bay and accelerated away, torn pieces of paper flew like confetti on the windscreen.

© 2017 James Hanna-Magill