Sloughing The Skin

By Dr. Sonja Strode

Whilst breathing new life into the renovation of an old stone cottage the central character of the story penetrates the minds and lives of people in a small, rural community in Brittany, and in so doing morphs into a new sense of self. She and her husband, accompanied by an enigmatic artisan, work with stone, wood, water, and clay reshaping a new h

• Language: English
• Publisher: TuesdayBooks.co.uk
• Release date: Dec 19, 2014
• ISBN: 9782954075532

Book preview

Background to the novel

Inspired by people, places, history, and events the author has researched or experienced in France and elsewhere, the novel is, however, a piece of fiction. The characters found in the novel are a mélange of people the author has either met or read about during her research, combined with a goodly measure of imagination. In no way are the characters intended to be an accurate representation of living people who may resemble them in some ways. Where references are made to criminal activity the author emphasises the purely fictional nature of this in her novel.

Abstract

Whilst breathing new life into the renovation of an old stone cottage the central character of the story penetrates the minds and lives of people in a small, rural community in Brittany, and in so doing morphs into a new sense of self. She and her husband, accompanied by an enigmatic artisan, work with stone, wood, water, and clay reshaping a new home, a new life.

Among their new friends are an American couple who have international business interests in antiques and Fine Art. On the other hand, their neighbours Michelle, Bernard, and Claude are farmers, like their ancestors who worked the land for centuries. For Michelle ‘C’est le destin’ is her constant refrain, her philosophy. For others in the story their focus is often more on the shaping force of human intervention.

Often filled with humour, drama, as well as the mysterious, poetic ‘pull’ of the Breton land and culture, the novel unearths some of the ‘dark’ sides of human nature.

The voice of Death whispers all around. Sometimes the deaths are natural. At other times an age old story of crime and violence seeps into the pages.

The novel is full of surprises; evident in its unfolding is also a sensitivity to the skills, the sorrows, the hopes, the dreams of people.

The Present

The road back from the picturesque small town of Malestroit to our home further north, and nearer to the sea on the Armorican peninsular, was now familiar to us: the winding country roads, especially from Mauron onwards, not far from the spectacular sylvan enchantments beguiling many a tourist in the nearby Forest of Brocéliande. On that particular day the expansive, panoramic view would have enticed any lover of nature, history, legend or myth into its bosom draped as it was in the finest azure silk, gleaming under a fresh autumnal sun. Embroidered into its unearthly fabric were, nevertheless, signs of a changing palette.

‘It’s amazing how Elodie manages to capture this season so well, Phil. Almost every blood-stained drip or ochred stroke of her sable brush seems guided by Nature itself as she stoops over her silk-bound frame. I’ve never ever seen anyone paint autumn leaves like she does.’

Phil remained silent, his head nodding in agreement now and then as he concentrated on the bends or a newly installed mini-roundabout ahead.

In my own head I could hear Elodie’s ageing, slightly quivering voice: ‘Ah! Merde! Ça fuse!’ A brief shattering of that idyllic moment as, momentarily, she merged into yet another colour of her multifaceted self – indeed, of all our selves.

Ah, yes, that creative urge, that search for artistic perfection which oozes through our veins, even in our most twilight years – for many of us at least.Only a few months ago, I was thinking, Phil and I were stooping over a rusty bicycle panier in that Breton museum, not far from Malestroit, wondering how those Breton mothers had managed to feed their children during the war. Mmmm, the other side of ‘caring’, I guess.

‘Just a small, wicker panier full for a whole week!’, so I had informed Michelle, our nearest neighbour in a wooded enclave in northern Brittany. Of course, she knew about hard times. Soon she was filling me in on details history books might have easily omitted were it not for new approaches nowadays to the telling of those sad years of war and strife, better known as World War Two. Her memory sketches seldom crossed over into other lands, however. Not even the remotest understanding or knowledge in her mind of other lands stained by blood and abject tyranny. Instead, she concentrated on her world, the world she knew: the world she had grown up in, here in France. Occasionally, I had attempted to stretch those borders, that microcosm in her mind – real and imaginary. And so I talked of Britain, or further afield; even of Germany, and ‘Soviet Russia’ as my Gran often called the area known for many strife-ridden and cold war years as the Soviet Union – all scenes of devastation and distorted perceptions of that elusive goal called perfection, or absolute power.

How different from here some of that grim Siberian terrain, often strewn seemingly by some hidden hand that had simply forgotten about more merveilleux aspects of Nature’s other self! Where withering human hands, invisibly enchained by oppressive occupational powers, would claw at grain, fill bellies with nettle soup or, on good days, munch gratefully on a few grammes of bread.

‘Who would have thought butter would have been scarce for families around here then, Phil? I mean, in such a rural area like this. During the last war, I mean. They had to give most to the German soldiers, that’s what Michelle told me. Some of the families used to tell a few fibs about the number of cows they had, though, apparently, so they could get enough milk for themselves, and butter.’

‘Yes. It’s quite amazing what went on around here…then…isn’t it?’

Or in other bloodlands, I mused silently, remembering Gran’s galling stories round the fireside when I was young. Mam wasn’t around then, of course, or else she would have urged into touch that more taciturn side of Gran – rather than the one I learned to see, the one I heard, filled with thoughts as rich as any philosopher king.

And so our journey home was filled with snippets of mundane chat interspersed with brief anecdotes about Breton history; or else peppered with silent interludes filled with that still largely mysterious aspect of humanity: our innermost thoughts, our minds…

Sometime later, as we approached the drive of our house, I urged Phil to take care – not that he needed prompting. In the distance I suddenly spied our neighbour’s bellicose dog, a somewhat unexpected sight, so I asked Phil: ‘I wonder why he’s prowling about outdoors? It’s nearly lunch-time. He’s usually munching away happily by now.’ Phil seemed oblivious as he parked neatly in front of our house.

Lunch was quite a hasty business. We had declined eating before leaving our friends in Morbihan with whom we had been staying for a few days as, on the one hand, some other friends were due to stay with them – arriving that very afternoon – plus we had a few important appointments of our own for which we had to prepare.

‘I wonder why the neighbours’ shutters are all closed like that? Did you notice, Phil?’

‘No, I can’t say I did.’

‘Well, their car is still there in the garage. I saw it. Maybe he’s having a lie-in or something. He does sometimes, so she says. I hope she’s not ill again, though.’

While unpacking our small case a few minutes later, I heard our neighbour’s dog barking. It definitely wasn’t our dog as their barks are quite distinct. A quick peep through the bedroom window revealed a rough-haired hound prancing up and down the drive, stopping periodically, whereupon he would snap voraciously, his moony eyes firmly fixed, for some strange reason, on our house.

‘They don’t seem to be taking any notice of him, do they?’ I suggested to Phil who had just entered our bedroom to help me unpack.

‘Who?’

‘Our neighbours!’

‘Maybe they’ve got visitors….or they’re in the garden. You’re so nosy.’

‘No I’m not! It’s a bit strange, though. Anyway, I’m just trying to be a good neighbour. She’s not been very well for a while. I hope nothing has happened. Maybe they’ve gone off in an ambulance or something.’

‘Perhaps,’ Phil added nonchalantly. ‘I’ll put the kettle on. What would you like, darling? Tea or coffee?’

Not long after a hasty cup of much-needed coffee and a cheese sandwich made from some deliciously fresh crusty bread bought on the way back home, I was upstairs again changing my clothes when I thought I heard a knock on the front door. I hesitated for a moment before deciding to go downstairs, being rather unsure of what exactly I had heard.

More pronounced knocks emerged.

Wonder who that is?

From half way down the stairs I caught a glimpse of a petite elderly frame near the door. It was our neighbour, Michelle. Suddenly she seemed to fall against the doorway, as if fainting.

I yelled instantly for Phil’s help. ‘Phil! Come quickly! Michelle’s at the door. I think she’s ill.’

Phil soon burst onto the scene – now one, I observed, which was also shared with Michelle’s daughter, closely followed by her son-in-law, accompanied by a couple of other members of their family. To my additional surprise they all seemed to be dressed in their best attire rather than the more casual clothes befitting a mundane, work day around these parts.

Good God! Whatever’s wrong with her! Such was my first thought. Suddenly filled with a sense of foreboding, I urged them all indoors. By this time Phil and Michelle’s daughter were supporting Michelle under each armpit, leading her to the settee in our rather chilly lounge.

Before I had time to do a quick evaluation of this incident – fainting, angina, no, not a stroke, or any other incident which could have prompted such an anxious scene, Michelle was announcing in no uncertain terms the reason for their unexpected visit.

‘Mon fils! Mon fils! Je ne le verrai plus… Mon fils! Il…il…il est décédé!’

‘Il est décédé!’ I repeated in utter disbelief. ‘C’est pas vrai! Dead? He’s dead?’ I glanced at Phil completely unable to absorb this astounding fact. Then I burst out sobbing. It was just too awful to believe. A heart attack was the first reason that sprang to mind now. Oh no! My mind, however, was a bizarre conglomerate of English and French phrases endeavouring to fathom out this unanticipated, shocking tragedy.

Phil, visibly upset too, attempted some calm questioning: ‘But how? He was helping us the other day, just before we went away? What happened?’ Phil’s voice seemed distant, hazy, as if I were in a dream or awakening from anaesthetic.

Those wavering, lamenting words emitted from that fragile, aged frame now perched precariously on the settee before me wandered like a recording loop through my eardrums. ‘I…i…n the… the garage…He…he…gassed himself. Just…just…like his uncle! The…the…car…!’ Michelle’s voice and whole body were trembling incessantly. Her face was wrapped in pain, searching mine for some helpful explanation, which, I, impotently, was unable to supply. All I could utter was: ‘Oh, my God! Why? Oh, no! Oh, why?’

‘Il était malade…qu’il était malade!…depuis longtemps… il était malheureux, Madame.’

A few days later my eyes, still blotched by tearful episodes, scanned the obituary page in the local newspaper where, according to what had been written, our dear friend had seemingly ‘chosen’ to take his own life: choisi à nous quitter…….

‘It’s never that simple, though, is it, Phil? Suicide, I mean. What shapes it…that action…what shapes the mind that makes that decision?’

Gran had said she had gassed herself, just like all her friends and family, back in Warsaw – well near there somewhere; except they hadn’t done it themselves – those others, so Gran told me. I didn’t really understand. All I knew was that Gran’s friend had now gone. …

She – Gran’s friend – had lived nearby in the pre-fabs when I was very young. A lovely cosy home even if it was meant to be temporary, Gran said, in a pretty spot near the woods. But she couldn’t sleep, not after all that in her life. …!

‘It must have been awful what those buggers did back from where she came from,’ so Gran used to say. I can’t remember her name…Gran’s friend. She had had lovely long, shiny black hair, I remember that.

That’s when I first heard that word: suicide. All I could think was how beautiful everything was where we lived. No, I didn’t understand…not then…why she wanted to…to…just go away like that…leave her friends, leave such lovely countryside, even though Gran told me her friend had no family, not now…I mean, then, after the war…

A couple of days before Toussaint, laden with a pot of bronzed chrysanthemums, their semi etiolated petals drooping like a wizened sorcerer’s fingers, Phil and I made our way through the local well-kept cemetery, breathlessly silent now save for a slight murmur coming from some people standing, immobile like "Country Life" statues, before an adjacent, scrupulously attended grave.

‘He was a good friend,’ was all I could mutter to Phil, whilst thinking: A shame about all that other business. I sighed inwardly. It was out of our hands, really.The damage had already been done.

In fact there was no need for words. I clutched Phil’s arm tightly. I knew we shared the same thoughts, the same feelings. Offering him a tissue, I wondered even so if he, too, was questioning how we had come to this point in our lives….what had shaped our lives so far to bring us to this…?

The Past

Chapter One

Winter

February has traditionally been understood as a time when a stag loses its wood, its antlers. Renewed growth of this wood becomes apparent during the ensuing couple of light-filled months. Stags, then, symbolise metamorphosis, transformation, change, a sloughing of skin. Thoughts of change filled my head that February…

*

It was a dark, dank, misty day enveloping Phil and me at about ten in the morning as we wound our way through some narrow, twisting lanes in Brittany. Shivering with a slight fever, dressed in my long, brown woollen coat with the car heater turned up full – much to Phil’s disgust – I wondered what we might find at the house soon to be viewed by us.

The area in which it was situated seemed, as far as we could determine given the greyness of the day, just what we had dreamed of: hills, trees, countryside redolent of Avalon itself. Certainly there was a reminder of Wales where I had grown up – before like many a student – packing my trunk and heading off to city life.

My childhood home had been not far from Caerleon, a Roman town full of history and legend. Weaving their way close by are the equally enchanting, some say bewitching waters of the Wye, the Monnow, the Usk – all having filled at some point during my formative years the curiosity of my mind, or lazy Sunday afternoons bathed in their icy, yet strangely, life-giving liquid, Nature’s gift.

Ah yes! Arthur’s Seat! Caerleon had loomed large above that door, I recalled. That door! That entrance to a Breton house, many miles from here; one in which Phil and I had once stayed! It was the artisan son of the owners of that house who had informed us about the old stone cottage, now the object of our investigation.

Over the years Phil and I had made numerous trips and visits throughout France, but especially to Brittany with its enticing, rugged, rippling walnut coastline and equally enchanting inner secrets. Every stitch of its patchwork mantle captured the sweet breath of legend, fable, and folklore.

How similar parts of Brittany and Wales seem, in feeling and terrain! I noted silently, as the car rolled on. Memories of invigorating childhood walks along meandering Welsh country lanes, playing games, gathering wild flowers near the silvery brook in the woods; or simply talking to or about the majestic trees – especially to my sisters – now rose clearly before me. Now and then in those distant yet happy days I had felt their gnarled, nutty barks beneath my young fingers; breathed in the memory of a criss-crossed mesh of fusty fungi growing at their feet like dappled-grey foetuses prematurely deposited; or found myself solitarily nestling in crooked staircases weathered in their ageing, wrinkled, winding trunks. Oh the smell, the touch of oak!

When not in the open air there was always the oak coffee table to polish, to tease one’s imagination as fingers traced age-old patterns and shapes. That was one of the saving graces of our humble front-room on a wet, Welsh Sunday afternoon – that and the mahogany piano, or my radio. Failing that, of course, there was always a book to be read or pondered about.

‘Are you alright in there?’ My mother’s voice! No dragon’s breath, hers. Yet always there somewhere, that lilting, reassuring lullaby wafting through some space or other; or under the door floating, briefly, softly, like some invisible spirit, into my own bit of private space, a space to dream.

On that dank February day in new millennium France we skirted woodland, and sailed past thin-ribbon lanes dedicated to Le Vau Jeune here, or Le VauVert there. Dotted all around were imposing, grandiose châteaux, which that eponymous famous architect doubtless had had a hand in – all en route to what could become our new home. Yet I could not forget Brocéliande further down in Brittany: that magical forest-home which had sparked so much wonder, imagination, reading in me…so much sloughing of skin, or what the French call la mue, during my own life’s journey to date. So it was with a feeling of awe, intrigue, and trepidation that I gulped in on passing first a house sign, and later, a street sign spelling out Armel – the Breton for Arthur some say! Strange! I thought.

Stranger still! I mused, when, finally, we stepped out of our car to gaze in wonderment at the dilapidated stone cottage, complete with traditional navy blue painted windows and miniscule ramshackle doors, greeting our eyes. My eyes were watery, filled with the weariness born from the meandering journeys of recent days; filled too, with that aching ambition to transform, to induce by means of sheer endeavour, any building which came our way in the search for a new home. My eyes quickly panned the surrounding land: eager eyes, hungry to encourage some metamorphosis in this veritable, chaotic jungle, this stagnant wasteland spreading before us.

I wiped my eyes. In a flash I briefly envisaged a rich, fertile future: an emerald expanse embroidered with newly planted trees, perfumed rose arbours, a multitude of flower-filled pots and shrubs glistening in the mid-day sun – all of which even Le Nôtre might, indeed, be proud. No Versailles, perhaps; no Vaux-Le-Comte; nor even a château Saint-Germain where other, more richly-endowed ‘madames’ might have strolled under the reign, or ardour even, of that fabulous French Sun-King in days gone by.

‘Madame’ – or rather the soft ripple of a drum-like voice greeting me with ‘Bonjour, Madame’ – had filtered almost imperceptibly into my momentary daydream, mingling hypnotically with such aspirations – ones I knew Phil shared, too.

‘Vous voulez entrer?’ enquired, rather timidly, a soft French, female voice.

‘Oui. Bientôt,’ I replied somewhat dreamily, edging in a rather rapid reciprocated ‘bonjour, madame’.

My feet sank further into the boggy ground beneath. Then my eyes turned from the brushland and bare willow trees rising eerily. And sadly, I noted, sighing. On my eyes travelled, on further to the left of the house and beyond as far as the eye could see. Utter neglect! surfaced as the dominant, realistic response in my mind. How on earth could such a place ever become a home?

I must have been standing there for a few minutes, mesmerised by this most unexpected image. Yet I did not feel that bleak vista was completely devoid of change, of renewal. Yes! Of renaissance!

Recognising my mind’s ambling over uncertain feelings and responses, Phil prodded me into another sense of reality. ‘Vision!’ he muttered over and over again. ‘You must have vision!’

And so I soon replied more enthusiastically to the approaching, as yet unknown, elderly Breton woman dressed neatly in her spotless blue, floral over-pinny – like those pinafores my grandmother used to wear back in Wales in the Fifties and Sixties. ‘Of course, Madame,’ I squeaked in my best French accent.

Just before we started to move off in the direction of the tiny door now blocked by tall, unkempt grass, which appeared not to have felt the weight of cats’ feet let alone those of humans in years, I felt drawn again to the bleak, rambling vegetation at the side of the house. Some of the overgrown weeds, brambles, bracken, and a scattering of petrified nettles seemed to be folding into each other, like some of the glaciated hills I had often pondered about as a child sitting on the fern-filled mountain side, whilst gazing at the rusty river rolling below. If not absorbed in that, I would be glancing now and then at the surrounding spectacular Welsh scenery. Yes, there it was, rising majestically, protectively around me, like miraculous mounds on heavily pregnant women, waiting, waiting to unfold even more of their beauty, the life swelling within.

Water! That realisation sprang urgently into my mind as I was locked in that neglected Breton landscape before me; that maelstrom of pasts unknown but clearly chaotic where willow roots embedded themselves here; or rustic brambles clambered there. Spaces now enchained by Nature’s alter ego, waiting, waiting to spring forth as soon as the magical key could be turned. Silly, I thought, there you go again, you and your dreams!

My eyes sauntered off for a moment, alighting on Phil’s head, endeavouring to tease out his thoughts. Probably the same as mine! Like that echo near here…

I looked down at the soggy, mossy mess we were standing on, before glancing back to the area that had prompted this hunch. ‘There’s water down there’, I said quickly to Phil.

‘Where?’

‘Down there! Can’t you see? Where the tops of those bushes dip; to the left of that huge, straggling willow!’

Phil wasn’t so convinced. He admitted the land was wet, but then there had been a lot of rain. Besides, some of this area would naturally be a bit wet at this time of year. But he did not anticipate any great or significant amount of water. I was surprised at his response, given his knowledge on the subject. Normally earth, soil, rock, all oozed from his veins like that lesson on volcanoes he had once given me during our early years together. Now, on the other hand, his feelings, his thoughts were barren, arid, devoid of any note of intuition let alone any of his usual Ruskin-type erudition.

Not quite convinced or reassured, I turned to our prospective neighbour, still standing attentively nearby as if waiting for her theatrical cue. ‘Is there water over there?’ My right arm rose machinalement, as the French describe that semi-conscious act of gesticulation when neither brain nor body seems in gear. Like some huge staff it singled out a dip in the land, in the bush line in the distance. ‘Down there! Vous la voyez?’

‘Yes’, she replied, starting to talk at length about a source.

I registered ‘a lot of water’.

The French woman’s own slender arm and hand were bobbing about ecstatically now.

For the most part I understood what she was saying. However, a combination of not having listened to much French for some time, plus her local accent, along with her periodic directionless gesticulating, did not help matters. Confusion dripped into the cracks in my linguistic and topographical knowledge.

Sometimes she pointed towards the piece of land we were standing on. Then she pirouetted to the nearby barn facing our house-to-be. Finally, she waltzed off as if her flimsy frame had been carried by some imperceptible breeze in the direction of the huge stretch of land at the back and side of the house. The result was a rather clouded understanding in my brain of where the ‘water’, the source might be.

Phil, of course, was continually imploring me to offer some interpretation of fragments of French that had escaped him.

I listened intently to this elderly Breton woman. Her bright, sharp, jet eyes seemed to belie the years written in the rest of her small, bent body, especially those years etched in her swollen, boxing-glove hands and arms now scored like a red mullet with a pink scaly-ness and roughness, as she, somewhat bafflingly for me, used the word source; or, at other times, the term fontaine. Both words would be uttered with an intonation and affirmation that denoted something special for her. At the time I was not really fully conversant with the difference between these words. A puzzle had surfaced in my brain, however. A puzzle I hoped to solve. A puzzle concerning the source, the water! A puzzle that was to become a bit of an obsession for me – a learning curve, too, one full of excitement, intrigue, and discovery.

Michelle, the Breton woman, called out to someone in her house.

My first thought was that it could be her husband.

A much younger man than I had anticipated emerged: her son, Claude. He stood there motionless in the doorway of their house – one adjoining a small, late nineteenth century cottage, itself adjoining another. In former times a couple of other small dwellings were also located in this tiny hamlet, typical of so many in this region. Now only their ruins remain. Theirs – that is Michelle’s family home – is a maison de maître – an impressive large, well-maintained house, being two storeys with an attic on top – all of which she is immensely proud. In later years my meanderings around local country lanes unearthed several similar granite stone buildings prompting me to think they may have been constructed by the same builder – certainly designed by the same architect.

The cottages, meanwhile, had a grenier on the first floor. In former times only the ground floor was used by the inhabitants as living accommodation. Often corn, root vegetables, hay et cetera had been kept in the loft or grenier. Undoubtedly, in years gone by, larger families, often consisting of ten or more people, used the loft for sleeping quarters, too. Nowadays many are converted into bedrooms with the addition of Veluxes – small, modern windows in the roof space. Ostensibly, this is to allow more light into those spaces; but nowadays more than likely such spaces are usually minus the root crops, the staple diet or source of income of many a tenant farmer and his household over centuries past!

The floor of such cottages was usually made of beaten earth with no membrane to keep out damp. Animals were often kept there with the family often living and sleeping in the kitchen, the focal point being the large, open, stone fireplace. Sometimes, nestling to the rear of this, was a bread oven orifice leading to the often seen, rounded shape of an out-dwelling, bulging on the external wall like a friar’s stomach or my dear grandmother’s back. Such was the case with our cottage, as I later discovered, although the exterior wall of the bread oven had long gone.

Michelle beckoned me into her home.

Claude had already gone back indoors. He was sitting at the kitchen table. His whole body seemed held in the vice-like grip of some eighteenth century time-warp. A rank whiff of exhaled roll-ups snapped my tongue. His eyes were fixed firmly now on the dark spoon swirling a black, tar-like liquid in his chipped coffee bowl. Malodorous moods and murky pastimes jostled in the cold, damp air. An aura of unease surrounded him as it did me.

My attention swerved, avoiding concentration on the machinations of my imagination. Firmly fixed now in the physical realities before me, I cast my own eyes around the room. The house I was standing in had no bread oven. No sign either of strings of onions, garlic or fragrant herbs or lavender, often seen in magazines or holiday brochures. Apart from the seemingly interminable wooden table dominating the room, like many a Breton country home I had visited, there was also a large, deep chestnut armoire in the kitchen. It looked like a gigantic wardrobe decorated with gleaming ornate brass escutcheons on the front. The sort Phil likes to get his polishing paws on, I thought, before commenting on it to Michelle. ‘That’s really lovely!’

‘My words shattered the silence encircling us like Viviane’s spell on Merlin’, as I told Phil later.

I felt myself shiver a little. Will he ever stop stirring that stuff?

‘Household linen tended to be kept in these highly prized pieces of well-polished, wooden furniture during the last century, didn’t they?’ I fired into the eeriness, hoping my words would land on some animate, human object, as I pointed again to the wardrobe-like cupboard.

Michelle, clearly relieved by my comments, in turn reminded me, a twinkle in her eye as she glanced first at me, then at Claude: ‘Lucky brides and grooms received one as a wedding present, you know.’

Claude’s eyes alighted fleetingly on his mother’s. Then they darted to mine before, finally resting again on the thick, dark pool before him. He was lost in it. No word, no sound, save the metallic chink of spoon against china bowl. An eerie, deathly tintinnabulation. Like chains. A prison house.

My mind flashed to more grounded thoughts. Phil is hoping to pick an armoire up at a brocante; or from an antiques shop if we decide to buy a property in France. Judiciously I kept these thoughts to myself.

Some French properties, including restaurants, can be found housing these armoires. They have sometimes been included for the fortunate few in the sale of a house. Fettling fine furniture had been Phil’s pride and joy for years. Such a ‘find’ would keep him busy and allow me to get on with some of my own pursuits, I would joke periodically. Once the place has been fully renovated!

Suffice it to say Phil was hopeful.

Before entering the cottage we hoped to buy, and just before entering Michelle’s house nearby, however, my mind had flitted over Breton history book pictures of lits clos. These were beds, i.e. small, bunk type beds, built into a small cupboard in the wall. Usually they were separated from the remaining space of the kitchen – where they were located – by means of a curtain.

Claude’s eyes fixed piercingly on me again. The thought of him in a lit clos sent shivers down my spine. It was that silent, lifeless stare, I guess. Something deep inside me stirred. Had I seen something like that before? Yes, somewhere… I shivered again.

My questioning continued nonetheless. ‘Is there one in the house we’re buying?’ I asked, trying to break a rather unsettling impasse. Sometimes, I was thinking, two such beds were found either side of an armoire. Would we find such things?

‘Mais oui,’ came a firm, enthusiastic reply to my subsequent stream of questions and consciousness.

Then Michelle offered me some more information. ‘There is an old armoire in one of the bedrooms in your house, I think, Madame. It will belong to you, you know,’ she added turning her nodding head towards Claude before continuing. ‘If you buy those cottages everything inside and outside on your land will be your property.’ Her face lit up.

‘Oh really?’

‘Yes. It’s French law.’

Suddenly Claude stood up. His rickety wooden chair, which had surely seen more than one fall in its evident long life, was rattling on the dusty, dark brown ceramic tiles below. Almost without a sound he moved to the far end of the table. Then he stepped on to the lovingly polished oak staircase. On reaching the turn, about five steps up, he stopped.

My eyes lanced through the holes in his navy socks. His heels seemed devoid of blood. Lifeless, tiny maggots seemed embedded there. Slowly, he urged his unwieldy body round. He fixed his eyes on me for a moment. Finally, silently, he continued his journey upstairs, muttering something under his breath.

Shivering again suddenly, I decided it was time to leave. I offered a garbled apology to Michelle, whose face closed like curtains in a play, leaving just a chink of a smile on her purple marbled mouth. Avoiding any temptation to apologise I muttered quickly my intention to call in again soon. Anyway, who knows? She might be very happy, I mentally deduced, aware how assumptions about others could be so erroneous.

*

‘What if we find a malle, a trunk with a body in it? Do we get to keep that, too?’ I teasingly asked Phil, whilst relating the latter aspect of French property law to him and our daughter later.

‘What’s she like, Dad?’ she laughed during a discussion with her concerning some of the information we had accumulated during our quest for a property.

In response we all sang in unison: ‘what if’? This phrase appeared as my clarion call time and time again over the next few years. A novice ‘butty’ (a welsh-ism for ‘friend’ or ‘mate’) in DIY house-building and renovation, I tried nevertheless to get to grips with the skills, talents, vocabulary, concepts and often extremely humorous machinations of two able and accomplished ‘artisans’. These, of course, were Phil and the ‘artisan’ – subsequently nicknamed Puck by me. Periodically, Puck worked with us later on our house.

*

The buildings of our would-be property stood in an abandoned, huge, sprawling wilderness. Only the battered remains of an old, large, white, rusting van, jam-packed with a wide assortment of junk, plus a nearby old car, were signalling any recent inhabitants. The place, we soon discovered, had not been lived in for many years, except for the occasional litter of feral cats.

The land surrounding our house – which at this stage could not be described as a garden – was in dire need of a bit of TLC.   In fact, more than a bit, it seemed to my unskilled DIY eye!   Of course, we all know how important ‘doing things by eye’ is in the mysterious world of male artisans, builders, and house renovators! So, using his own ‘DIY eye’, supported by Puck’s, Phil reassured me that one roof frame bearing a corrugated roof could be fixed, as could the other slate roof, the windows, the doors, the chimney stacks, the pointing on the front walls…

It all started to seem a bit too much of a big job for us as far as my little ‘eye’ and ears could fathom. However, Phil insisted it could be done. ‘Vision!’ Yes, that’s what we had to have.

Having already seen throughout our years together what Phil could do regarding decorating, restoring furniture, et cetera, I didn’t really doubt that he was capable. It was the time and money it might take that was concerning me at this juncture. What is more we had not even stepped inside or been round the back of the house – or ‘cottage’ if you prefer!

The only thing worthwhile at the side of the house, it seemed to me, was the wild rose bush growing where the back of the bread oven would have been found in the olden days. The wall against which the hardy rose was growing looked as if it was more holes than stone. The transformation of that highly indented wall was quite difficult to visualise, I must admit.

Despite wavering between thoughts of ‘what-if-the-other-roof-blows-down’; ‘what-if-it-all-costs-far-too-much-for-us’; or ‘what-if-the-source-floods-the-house’; or other interminable ‘what-ifs’, nevertheless there seemed to be something pulling me towards more favourable feelings regarding this wretched mass of stone, water, overgrown land, and whatever else the property held within its confines. Moreover, as Puck the builder often said over the coming years, ‘there are no problems, only solutions’. The trouble is both he and Phil would frequently interpret my questioning – from a novice’s standpoint – and ‘what-ifs’ as being synonymous with ‘worrying’, when all I really wanted to do was understand what was going on! So, with these two strong personalities and talented guys around me for hours on end, I would often find myself delving into my so-called female brain wondering about the difference and similarities between ‘them’ (males) and ‘us’ (females), only to end up asking myself that perennial question: ‘What if?’ Like, what if I had been involved in House DIY at a much earlier age? Where might I be now? Designing or engineering bridges like that Harel bloke did, or even Eiffel himself! Of course everyone laughed at that suggestion.

Over time, though, once the property had been signed, sealed, and delivered, I found myself using my own ‘eye’. Like Muffin our neighbour’s dog might have done, as he lay watching us from his decrepit vantage point just inside their barn, I have, perhaps, come to see the shaping of the house, the sloughing of its skin and our lives, in a very different way from how Puck or Phil might have seen it or narrated it.

*

‘Skin’! Such a seemingly harmless four letter word really, yet directly or indirectly it soon affirmed a singularly powerful position in my mind, my imagination, and, too, the reality of all our lives. As time went on we left the ‘skin’ of the house intact, preferring to gouge out the inner spaces – at first at least! Maybe that was the biggest difference between us – between those men beavering around me and my ‘self’, that is! While they were left to the physical, the concrete, I was contemplating the ‘inner’. Focusing on the ‘inner’- whether of stone buildings or of minds! The process involved in their shaping. Mmmm. Maybe! But who knows what exactly those men were thinking? For certain there were times when they, too, were locked in their thoughts, their aspirations, or their desires. Yet while they focused seemingly on nothing but the physical world of that cottage, it certainly seemed as if I was left with little else but my own meanderings and musing upon other people’s minds, motives, and, of course, murder…

My ‘eye’ soon preferred to focus on something quite ordinary, decidedly concrete: stone, that other natural gift bestowed on industrious, sweaty quarrymen the world over, eager to shape it, to forge their own imprint in the landscape they – human and stone – mutually shared. Not to mention the green wood, the solid oak, the flexible willow – all keen, perhaps, to lend a hand in that universal need: a shelter, a home, morphed often now into a more symbolic, meaning-full presence in all our lives.

But back to the concrete!

Adjoining the cottages was a maison de maître – a sign, a symbol of a hierarchical presence, even here. Yes, even here, far from the resplendent châteaux and châtelains who meld magnetically, sometimes magnanimously, into the surrounding countryside and lives of so-called ‘ordinary’ folk.

Separating this maison de maître from the cottages was a long, low wall jutting in a manner perpendicular to the front wall of that house and that of one of the cottages – a not uncommon feature of house building in that part of Brittany. The wall was high enough, nevertheless, to conceal anyone sitting on either side – something I registered one day when, as I said to Phil: ‘I could have sworn I saw the top of a head there.’ His retort was the ridiculous suggestion that I had been absorbing too much information about local medieval activities!

Leading from the main road to this tiny hameau or hamlet, where several families over the years had lived as part of a small, closely related yet geographically extended community for centuries, is a long lane: it snakes its way past douves or ditches. All are dotted with lemon primroses in spring; fields full of golden maize cloaked in rich green foliage in summer; dapple-grey birch tree barks emulating their eucalyptus Australian friends; hawthorn bushes top-heavy with ruddy-complexioned bull-finches; and violet pointillated grassy verges humming in bucolic harmony with wildlife whether butterfly, field-mouse, grasshopper, viper, or fox. Hares stop and stare briefly, brazenly, on that lane before bounding off to a nearby copse, joyously anticipating another day fate had bestowed on them. The lane passes our property on to where it skirts a small field near the large, cobbled yard fronting our neighbours’ home.

To the side of their property, running parallel with the aforementioned wall, rest what must have been formerly a stable or cowshed, now separated into several distinct sections. It is a scene, incidentally, of much coming and going on the part of our neighbours – cuckoo clock appearances observed by me during our cottage’s renovation years. A prod, too, for my curious, inquisitive mind, which, periodically, would hazard all sorts of guesses – possibly often quite erroneous – as to what actually went on in those seemingly secretive spaces.

In olden times a cacophony of fluttering wings and lowing livestock would have occupied those very spaces, not to mention the ubiquitous stench of natural deposits both indoors and out, where boundary between beast and human brethren was often conspicuously blurred. Nowadays silence reigned, save for the roar of a newly engaged chain-saw gnashing its teeth painfully, now and then, on some ill-placed rusty nail; the clank of a bucket; or the slam of a car door.

Like our property, our neighbours’ house also has a large barn facing it – albeit in better condition than ours. Many French families house their family car amongst other things there, as well as their dog. Following tradition and French inheritance law the whole would one day be shared out to the elderly couple’s survivors.

A very important character housed there in our neighbour’s barn, however, was Muffin. A large dog, with a mainly creamy white, sometimes dusty-white, long, coarse coat, Muffin spent days and nights in solitary confinement in the grange. Ensconced there he would pass time either languishing wearily on an old, ragged sofa, suitably chewed and flea-ridden; or barking at his sworn enemies – namely two highly reproductive farm cats – while awaiting his next trot along the lane with whomsoever was taking him out that day.

Muffin’s face was startlingly beautiful: huge, deep hazel eyes seemed to beg a hug; and a long, sleek, snowy snout that must have been cleaned and preened obsessively all day long. So smooth was the latter, that I often longed to stroke it; but the ‘what-ifs’ would come into play when we met on the lane, so I shied away from that. Maybe it was the sight of his back, the area just near his tail, which served to deter me. Edgar Alan Poe would have had a field day describing that, so sore and pus-filled did it appear sometimes.

A living, decaying mass of excoriated, festering flesh waiting to erupt. A wasted life. A body neglected. A painful death scored heavily near his hind legs. Yet such beauty sculpted in that face!A living death! Oh, how they, too, must have suffered, those in the bloodlands! And they were humans!

Somewhere inside my head I can hear Mam’s voice crying out; my grandmother, too. Something about…about…a living death…Yes, that’s how they had described all that awful…

How I would shudder at the sight of that suppurating sore as I etched those thoughts into my little notebook! Clearly the itching the poor creature experienced – certainly during our early years there – must have driven him mad!

Over time though, even Muffin experienced some sloughing of skin, some moments of renewal. Perhaps some of Phil’s chats to our new neighbours, especially to Muffin’s principal owner, Bernard, about some more modern methods of flea-spraying, enabled Muffin – for a short time at least – to emerge proudly for his trots along the lane, bearing a far healthier looking body and coat.

In return Phil’s French improved by leaps and bounds as the front of the house and cottages, along with the nearby lanes, became an unexpected educational arena. Already, though, I was wondering what might have scarred Claude’s mind, so strangely silent was he most of the time.

*

Our ‘new home’, therefore, would be part of this small microcosm – or for want of a better term ‘quadrangle’ set in a rural, northern part of historic Brittany. It lay quietly just a few kilometres from the nearest bourg or village whose impressively large church, with its spire à la William Golding, fills the busy square. Whatever the season you can see it looking peacefully down at the undulating hills and fertile valleys below; or hear its distinctive bells for miles around. No Baudelairian Cloche Fêlée there. Rather, an imperious yet melodic, mellifluous ring filling every dale below.

So enticing were those chimes I would often cease my activity and gaze up, up towards their provenance, high on the once tree-lined hill now dotted with its higgledy-piggledy medley of cottages, houses, cafés, and council buildings which form the bourg. In its centre stands proudly that church – that stalwart rock of ages, hitherto the very embodiment of strife and division both locally and much further afield. Etched, scarred even in its stone, sleep the wails, the wiles, the rage, the angst of change, of Revolution.

Not far from our end of the lane, however, are several other cottages and a working farm. All are part of what must be one of the most picturesque spaces in Brittany offering a sense of tranquillity, serenity, grace and warmth that can be felt in the mild winter air, the languorous smile of its local people, or the awe-inspiring ‘star chamber’ beneath which they all nestle come nightfall.

This is a magical space. A bucolic, idyllic space that would inspire Chopin, Liszt and George Sand to dance again to some melodious pastoral symphony in the châteaux grounds that nestle serenely, silently, somnolently in the surrounding hillsides. Safe indeed in cemented ‘skins’ not even a revolution could scar or scuttle. And yet I could not prevent myself from churning over and over again those mesmerising Shakespearian lines which probe so succinctly, so poetically, the contradictions of so many spaces in the wider tableau of all our lives: look the innocent flow’r but be the serpent under it. Surely a pastoral scene like this is no mere veneer effacing another reality? But what if…? What if? I was keen to explore…

A rummage through some of the books in the small, but developing, local library informed me of a wealth of unanticipated wonders about the place: not least that some former inhabitants believed their village name stemmed from the panting and puffing induced by walking up hill and down dale to get to the centre of their bourg, where, sighing breathlessly, they were highly relieved to have finally made it!

Seemingly, many of the current inhabitants, like me, have been ignorant of such facts! Some, too, do not register the historical importance, the significance either in the acquisition of a couple – or more – of fine horses; or the purchase of that more readily perceived sign of social mobility: namely a carriage, a calèche carefully harnessed and paraded up hill and down. A carriage sometimes willingly, benevolently provided in days gone by some magnanimous person to the relief of many an asthmatic, and more lowly, wizened tenant farmer.

Some of the locals have been quite amazed and yet amused during shared moments of some of my new found knowledge with them, however. Doubtless some of their ancestors would have come from southern Spain, given the abundance of Spanish surnames in and around the environs of this small bourg, possibly because of close trade links especially in the linen line; or the pressing need, in centuries past, for heavy-duty toile to aid their sea-faring appetites and curiosity.

Perhaps it would take all our individual biographies to account truly for our presence here in Brittany, leaving, of course, some space for those elements which we can never really explain or articulate without some recourse to a sense of otherworldliness, ‘things beyond our ken’, or mystical; or to those circuitous twists of fate that shape all our lives or slough our skins.

With such thoughts ever present in my mind – and, doubtless, yours, too – I can only go back in the parameters of this story to the more immediate past and events which helped trace my path to here…and, of course, there. Eventually, through reading this tale you, too, will arrive ‘there’. Doubtless some spaces en route will be filled with your own imagination, your own life, your own mind – all shaped and sloughed like the clay, the stone, the land surrounding us; all leading you to the human you are now and who you will be at the end of this narrative.

*

For many years Phil and I had been visiting France regularly either for work reasons or to spend holidays. Often we had camped in some excellent, well-equipped sites not only because we liked the outdoor life – a pleasant escape from the noise and air pollution found in so many urban spaces of Britain today – but also because it allowed us to spend more time in one of our favourite countries. Given the average cost of hotel accommodation, at a time when our ‘family purse’ was being emptied more and more by the expense of putting our children through school and university, camping seemed a sound choice. Sometimes, though, we opted for a gîte, or the equally ‘excellent value for money’ stays in some hotel accommodation.

One year, however, disaster struck for us. My body entered a state of severe debilitation, often wrapped in pain. I would have welcomed a horse and carriage then. Reading and writing – some of my main activities – seemed destined for life eternal on a back seat. Further visits to France, unfortunately, seemed remote or even unthinkable. One year, though, I seemed to be regaining more strength, so a gîte was booked with a friend, her husband and their young family.

That holiday home was on the outskirts of an ancient, medieval town. Dinan is a maze of cobbled streets, ancient buildings, bi-annual medieval fête, restaurants, shops and museums, satisfying my thirst for medieval history, Celtic and Arthurian legend. It was also close to the walled city and port of St. Malo. On the opposite side of the Rance estuary stretches the health-giving seaside resort of Dinard, beloved of English Victorian gentry and the enigmatic film director, Alfred Hitchcock.

Unbeknown to us the gîte was owned by an elderly Welsh couple. Such was my guess as soon as the sign above their front door became visible: Caerleon – quicker by shanks’ pony! I should have realised, too, that at least one of the inhabitants would have been a bit of a joker with a sign like that above the door!

So, too, was the couple’s son. An artisan and a multi-skilled, incredibly quick-witted, humorous, French-speaking person, he had lived and worked in France for many years. His introduction to us had occurred several years after our stay at his parents’ gîte following one of our phone calls to his folk. Having finally decided to uproot and buy a house in Brittany, we wondered if they had any useful information on property in and around the area. Kindly, they sent us some local advertisements which set us off on the French property trail. Their own house and garden had been a major inspiration, admittedly. Meeting these three meant life for Phil and me would never be quite the same again! In fact, and looking back: ‘I do not bloody believe it!’

During our stay in Brittany Phil and I had discussed with our friends the prospects of buying a house in France, but such a venture seemed a long way off. Certainly, at the time, it was more a question of getting a holiday home, not somewhere which would become our main home! Retirement was not something I envisaged on the cards at that stage in my life. Metamorphosis had begun, however. Gone were my research days. Gone were my writing days. Gone like a last breath! Soon we found ourselves faced with serious decisions to make about our future. New identities had to be forged. There was no going back. The prospect of our ‘family purse’ diminishing greatly reared its ugly head. There was also the spectre of losing our cherished home into the bargain since we just would not be able to afford it.

Grey days, then, had descended on us good and proper before our embarking on the house renovation. We had to find a way out. Selling up and buying a cheap property in France, which could be renovated over the next few years, seemed a sound proposition, solution, and challenge.

Looking back at how much we did – especially given the constraints with which we were operating – I can only reiterate: I do not bloody believe it! Yet as the great comedian Harry Worth used to say: ‘But there it is!’ I won’t tell you what one of my favourite comedians Eddie Izzard would say! F…f…f…f… But anyway…the fully renovated house is there! The books of photos are there! The laughs, the jokes, the blood, sweat, toil and tears! All there! The memories all firmly imprinted in our minds, our hearts, and, I dare say, in our bodies. Yes, all firmly cemented in with all the other life-given or bad-luck shit that we had carried with us before, no doubt. Oh, and that’s before all the other debris I managed to unearth while the men slogged away inside the house! But that’s for later…

What was that you said, Eddie? I should use a few four letter words now and then? Mmmm… That’s what Puck, the builder said! Well, you can’t blame me for being angry, can you? Especially when you think of all that did ensue…My God! Who would have thought it? Yes, maybe a few more ‘f’ words would be in order. ‘Shit’ will do for starters!

While we are thinking of slang or argot as the French call it, I suppose I could have used the term ‘gobbed’ for ‘cemented’! For the uninitiated ‘gobbing’ is the ‘art’ or ‘skill’ of daubing small quantities of a fairly dry ‘mortar’ substance into spaces between stones in the walls or into slightly larger holes. It is nothing to do with that ancient ignominious art commonly known as ‘spitting’; nor that revolutionary ‘moment’ in musical development and youth culture, aka ‘punk’. Rather, ‘gobbing’ is one of the most mind-numbing, time-consuming, monotonous jobs imaginable but very necessary in renovating a stone cottage. Yes, a bit of ‘gob’ helps it all stick together. Fortunately I didn’t seem to have the necessary skill or muscle to do much ‘gobbing’ with ‘cement’! Still, what I lacked in ‘muscle’ I made up with ‘mouth’. So my little Welsh erudite ‘gob’ came in useful, especially in helping cement French-English relations over the garden wall.

Warning, Eddie, ‘gobbing’ on building sites is not for those with long nails! You know what some of these builders are like, don’t you? A flash of blood-red nail varnish and some think…Well, yes, stereotypes abound! But they can soon be slashed, can’t they? Must use the correct word, or building terminology, too, whether in French or English! Oh the vernacular! Takes some learning, I can tell you! Enough to turn a little Welsh woman’s mind, too, Butty! Still, my motto is ‘if you don’t laugh you’ll cry’! So, with vision, humour, skill, and, not least, a little help from our friends, a great sloughing of skin has occurred.

La mue is what old Bretons call that process. For snakes or fully-fledged butterflies la mue can, doubtless, be a painful process: skins can be cracked, torn apart; cocoons crumbled for ever. Even so, ensuing metamorphosis can prove a welcome change. Whatever, such mue helped us all become well and truly ‘gobbed’ into the Breton landscape and opened up our hearts, our minds, our souls, our lives to new spaces.

Chapter Two

February

Michelle had scuttled off to her house to fetch the key to ours. Whilst waiting for her return I walked cautiously around outside the cottage for a few minutes. My legs were still quite feeble. Doubtless the journey and all the excitement was adding to the sense of fatigue I was experiencing. Something about the place where Phil and I now stood had provoked some curiosity and fear in me even though there was a latent feeling that this would be our home…eventually.

My stroll brought me alongside a tall, oak tree which faced the end corner of the house. Close by was a telephone pole. Some wires crackled like dry paper above it causing me to startle. I hope that won’t damage the poor tree, I remember thinking, eyeing the poor, bedraggled oak draped in a shroud of an earthy mix of dull olive and already dried or withering leaves, trimmed with lacy black. A rather dull black, I noted, not like that black stuff my auntie used to do her grate; it always spruced it up. So she said, and I agreed. One more step nearer to the tree and the gawping, muddy ditch would have welcomed me with open arms.

There was absolutely no sound. No birds, I sighed, forgetting the season for a moment. Well, not many yet.

‘Careful,’ shouted Puck. ‘There’s a ditch there. It’s probably full of water!’

‘Yes, I know,’ I replied somewhat distractedly, my mind elsewhere wondering if this great tree was part of ‘our’ land, our ‘property’. Then I spied a few more, just behind the house, visible now from where I was standing. A whole row of trees – oaks, sweet chestnut, buckthorn, but mostly oaks, edged their bare limbs way down, down …To where?

The overgrown territory was not something I wished to venture into…not until a path was cleared, at least. Besides, there could be snakes there! Not that they bothered me as much as they did one of my sisters. Her knowledge of them, of course, being just eight at the time of her first encounter with one, was singularly empirically based. But for our brother’s speedy assessment of a slight movement in the cemetery grass near a great uncle’s grave, she almost had her toe pierced by an adder’s fangs! Better be careful there.

My understanding of such subtilis creatures, however, was more rooted nowadays in their latent, frequently symbolic presence – or even sometimes, more overt – in legends, myths, and religions throughout the world. Nevertheless I had heard about vipers in Brittany and I didn’t want to meet any today! I had quite forgotten that they were more likely to emerge on a good sunny afternoon, not on such a grey day.

*

‘Vous voulez entrer?’ Michelle pleasantly enquired again, just as she had done when we had first seen, but not entered, the property. This time she was inviting us, not into her kitchen but into the sad, neglected dwelling close to her own.

Her son, Claude, was now standing beside her. He seemed very shy, his head down low after a brief bonjour from us all.

Michelle passed him the key.

He duly put it in the lock, his hands trembling. He jiggled the key awkwardly for a few moments.

Oh dear! It’s not going to open! Maybe he’s brought the wrong key.

Puck’s eyes nearby, I