Sepulchre (14 page)
There was a final shrill, sharp blast from the whistle, then a bellow from the engine as it spat out its first jet of steam. Sparks flew. Then the grind of metal against metal, another belch from the black funnel and, slowly, the wheels started to turn. Enfin.
Léonie had enjoyed their three-day journey through France. As soon as the Express had cleared the dismal Parisian banlieue, Anatole had recovered his good spirits and kept her amused with stories, playing hands of cards, discussing how they would spend their time in the mountains.
At a little after six o'clock on Friday evening, they had disembarked in Marseille. The following day, they continued along the coast to Carcassonne and passed an uncomfortable night in a hotel with no hot water and surly staff. Léonie had woken with a headache this morning and, owing to the difficulty of finding a fiacre on a Sunday morning, they had nearly missed their connection.
However, as soon as the train cleared the outskirts of the town, Leonie's mood improved. Now, her guidebook lay discarded on the seat, beside a volume of short stories. The living, breathing landscape of the Midi began to work its charm.
The track followed the line of the curving river south, through the silver valley of the Aude towards the Pyrenees. At first, the rails ran alongside the road. The land was flat and unoccupied. But soon she saw rows of vines to left and right, and the occasional field of sunflowers still in bloom, bright and yellow, their heads bowed to the east.
She glimpsed a small village - no more than a handful of houses -perched on a picturesque distant hill. Then another, the red-tiled houses clustered around the dominating spire of the church. Near at hand, on the outskirts of the railside towns, were pink hibiscus, bougaînvillea, poignant syringas, lavender bushes and wild poppies. The green prickly helmets of chestnuts hung on the laden branches of the trees. In the distance, gold and polished copper silhouettes, the only hint that autumn was waiting in the wings.
All along the line, peasants were working in the fields, their starched blue smocks stiff and shining as if varnished, decorated with embroidered patterns on collars and cuffs. The women wore wide flat straw hats to keep off the blistering sun. The men bore expressions of resignation upon their leathery faces, turned away from the relentless wind, working so late a harvest.
The train halted for a quarter of an hour at a substantial town called Limoux. After that, the countryside became steeper, rockier, less forgiving as the plains gave way to the garrigue of the Hautes Corbières. The train rattled precariously on, perched on thin tracks above the river, until, rounding a curve, the blue-white Pyrenees suddenly appeared in the distance, shimmering in a heat haze.
Léonie caught her breath. The mountains seemed to rise up out of the very land, like a mighty wall, connecting earth to heaven. Magnificent, unchanging. In the face of such natural splendour, the manmade constructions of Paris seemed as nothing. The controversies about Monsieur Eiffel's celebrated metal tower, Baron Haussmann's grand boulevards, even Monsieur Garnier's opera house, each paled into insignificance. This was a landscape built on an altogether different scale - earth, air, fire and water. The four elements were laid out in plain view, like keys on a piano.
The train rattled and wheezed, slowing considerably, lunging forwards in jagged bursts. Léonie pushed down the glass and felt the air of the Midi upon her cheeks. Wooded hills, green and brown and crimson, rose abruptly in the shadow of grey granite cliffs. Lulled by the swaying motion of the train and the singing of the wheels upon the metal tracks, she found her eyelids flickering shut.
Her eyes flew open, and for an instant she forgot where she was. Then she glanced down at the guidebook on her lap, and across to Anatole, and remembered. Not Paris, but in a rattling railway carriage in the Midi.
Léonie peered drowsily out of the grimy window. It was hard to make out the lettering on the painted wooden board on the platform. Then she heard the station master, in a heavy southern accent, announce:
Even this late in the season, and despite it being Sunday, there was a line of porters leaning on high-backed wooden trolleys. Most had their caps set back on their heads and waistcoats open, shirtsleeves rolled up to the elbow.
A man was standing on the platform looking up into the carriage. 'No, really, we can manage . . .' she began to say, but he cast his eyes over the compartment, taking in Anatole's sleeping figure and the luggage still upon the rack, and without invitation stepped up into the carriage.
Léonie took an instant dislike to him. His starched high collar, double-breasted waistcoat and top hat marked him a gentleman, and yet there was something not quite comme il faut about him. His gaze was too bold, too impertinent.
But without waiting for permission, he was already lifting the first of their valises and boxes down from the wooden rack. Léonie noticed him glance at the initials inscribed in the leather as he placed Anatole's portmanteau on the dirty floor.
At last, to her relief, he showed signs of stirring. His eyelids flickered, and he stared lazily around him, as if surprised to find himself in a railway carriage at all. Then he caught sight of her, and smiled.
Anatole stood up. In an instant, the compartment seemed very much smaller. He glanced at himself in the looking glass below the luggage rack, tipped the collars of his shirt, adjusted his waistcoat and shot his cuffs.
Then he bent down and swept up his hat, gloves and cane in one easy motion.
'Shall we?' he said casually, offering Léonie his hand. Only then did he seem to notice that their belongings had been set down from the carriage. He looked at their companion. 'My thanks, M'sieur. We are most grateful.' 'Not at all. The pleasure was mine, M'sieur Vernier. Anatole Vernier. And this is my sister, Leonie.' 'Raymond Denarnaud, at your service.' He tipped his hat. 'Are you putting up in Couiza? If so, I would be delighted to . . .' The whistle blew once more.
'Excellent. We are staying at the Domaine de la Cade. Do you know it?' Léonie stared at Anatole in astonishment. Having pressed upon her the need for discretion, here he was, only three days out of Paris, publishing their business to a complete stranger without a second thought.
'Domaine de la Cade,' Denarnaud replied carefully. 'Yes, I know of it.' The engine let out an explosion of steam and clatter. Léonie stepped nervously back and Denarnaud climbed aboard.
Anatole stood back from the edge. 'Seemed a nice enough fellow.' Léonie eyes flashed with temper. 'You insisted we should keep our plans private,' she objected, 'and yet-' Anatole cut in. 'Just being friendly' The station clock on the tower began to strike the hour. 'It seems that we are still, after all, in France,' said Anatole, then glanced at her. 'Is something the matter? Is it something I have done? Or not done?' Léonie sighed. 'I am cross and I am hot. It was dull having no one to talk to. And you left me quite at the mercies of that disagreeable man.'
The full force of the sun hit them the instant they were out of the shadow of the station building. Brown clouds of grit and dust blew into their faces, agitated by the swirling wind that seemed to come from all directions at once. Léonie fumbled with the clasp of her new parasol.
As he made arrangements with the porter for their luggage, she took in their surroundings. She had never travelled this far south before. Indeed, her visits beyond the outskirts of Paris had been only as far as Chartres or childhood picnics on the banks of the Marne. This was a different France. Léonie recognised some road signs and advertising posters for aperitifs, for wax polish and cough linctus, but it was not a world she knew.
The concourse gave directly on to a small and busy street lined with spreading lime trees. Dark women with broad weather-beaten faces, waggoners and railway workers, unkempt children with bare legs and dirty feet. A man in the short jacket of a workman, no waistcoat, with a loaf of bread tucked beneath his arm. Another, dressed in the black suit and with the clipped short hair of a schoolteacher. A dogcart rumbled past, stacked high with charcoal logs and kindling. She had the sensation she had stepped into a scene from Offenbach's Tales of Hoffmann, where the old ways held sway and time all but stood still.
Apparently there's a passable restaurant on the Avenue de Limoux,' said Anatole, reappearing at her side with a copy of a local newspaper, La Dépêche de Toulouse, tucked under his arm. 'There's also a telegraph office, a telephone, as well as a poste restante. In Rennes-les-Bains, too, it seems, so we're not completely cut off from civilisation.' He pulled a box of wax Vestas from his pocket, took a cigarette from his case and tapped it on the lid to tighten the tobacco. 'But I fear there's no such luxury as a carriage.' He struck a match. 'Or, at least, not this late in the year and on a Sunday.' The Grand Café Guilhem was on the far side of the bridge. A handful of marble-topped tables with wrought-iron legs and wooden straight backed chairs with wicker seats were set outside in the shade of a large awning that ran the length of the restaurant. Geraniums in terracotta holders and terrace trees in large wooden planters with metal hoops, the size of casks of beer, gave additional privacy to the diners. 'Hardly the Café Paillard,' said Leonie, 'but it will do.' Anatole smiled fondly. 'I doubt if there will be private rooms, but the public terrace looks acceptable. Yes?'
They were shown to a pleasantly situated table. Anatole ordered for them both and fell into easy conversation with the patron. Léonie allowed her attention to wander. Lines of plantane with their variegated bark, Napoleon's marching trees, gave shade to the street. She was surprised to see that not only the Avenue de Limoux but also the other streets around had been surfaced rather than left as nature intended. She presumed this was because of the popularity of the nearby thermal spas and the high volume of voitures publiques and private carriages that went to and fro in the height of the season.
Anatole shook out his napkin and laid it across his lap. The waiter arrived promptly with a tray of drinks - a jug of water, a large glass of cold beer for Anatole and a pichet of the local vin de table. It was followed shortly afterwards by the food. A luncheon of bread, hard-boiled eggs, a galatine of cured meats, salt pork, a couple of centimes' worth of local cheese and a slice of chicken pie carved and embedded in aspic, plain but satisfying.
'Not at all bad,' said Anatole. 'In fact, surprisingly good.' Léonie excused herself between courses. When she returned some ten minutes later, it was to find Anatole had fallen into conversation with their fellow diners on an adjacent table. An older gentleman, dressed in the formal attire of a banker or lawyer, with a high black top hat, and a dark suit, starched collar and necktie despite the heat. And opposite him, a younger man with straw-coloured hair and bushy moustache.
Both men half rose to their feet and lifted their hats. 'Gabignaud was telling me of his work in Rennes-les-Bains,' Anatole explained, as Léonie sat back down at the table. 'You were saying you have been apprenticed to Dr Courrent for three years?'
Gabignaud nodded. 'Indeed. Three years. Our baths in Rennes-les-Bains are not only the oldest in the region, but we also are lucky enough to have several different types of water, so can treat a wider range of symptoms and pathologies than any other equivalent thermal establishment. The group of thermal waters includes the source du Bain Fort, at fifty-two degrees, the-'