Page 47 of The Strawberry Thief
Reynaud, I do not claim to be a man of exceptional insight. Nor was I an especially clever or insightful boy. And yet I saw it all in a brief and piercing moment of clarity. I turned and looked at Tante Anna – the cross at her throat, the angry eyes, the hair pulled back in a hard grey bun …
I hate this story. I hate it.BAM!I wish I’d never taken it. It’s bad enough that Narcisse died, but he wasold, and Mimi wasyoung. Young people shouldn’t have to die. I slammed the folder shut –BAM!– and then, because I knew Maman would come into my room, I stuffed it into my satchel and ran downstairs in a rush –Baddabam!
‘Rosette?’ Maman always knows if I’m upset. ‘What happened? Where are you going?’ But I couldn’t tell her that, because of Mimi, and because of the wind already snapping at my heels. I couldn’t bring the wind to our door. I had to lead it away, I knew, running it ragged across the fields, running it like an angry dog till it changed into a puppy again.
I didn’t know where I was going at first. At any normal time I would have gone to Les Marauds to be with Roux, and we would have drunkcafé-au-laitoutside by the firepit, and neither of us would have said much at all, but somehow the wind would have calmed right down. But this wasn’t a normal time. I haven’t seen Roux since last Monday. His boat is still here, but it’s all shut up like an oyster shell, and he hasn’t been to the shop, not even for hot chocolate. I wonder if he’s angry at me. I wonder if I’m angry athim. I’m angry at lots of people these days: Roux, Pilou, Madame Montour, Maman – even Narcisse, for writing that story, for making me care about Mimi, maybe even for being dead, because none of it makes any sense and nobody knows why it happens.
And so I went to the churchyard and found Narcisse in his plastic jar, and took out his folder and threw it down, and said to him in my shadow-voice:‘Why did you pick the strawberries? You should have been looking out for Mimi. And now she’s dead, and you are too, and none of it makes any sense.’
The wind was blowing harder than ever, tearing the blossom from the trees. But no-one comes to the churchyard much, except at All Saints and Sundays. No-one was going to hear me today, except maybe the wind. I felt like crying, but I never cry.
And then someone behind me said: ‘Who’s Mimi?’
And there was Morgane, sitting under a big old tree, all in black, with only her hair shining in the shadows like something out of a fairytale. I was so surprised to see her that I almost forgot about being upset, and the wind gave a shiver, and then a sob, and started to die down again. Now I could see she was sitting on a very old gravestone, a grave where the weeds had been cleared away to show a sandstone garland.
She stood up and came over to me. She walks very straight, like a dancer on stilts. She picked up Narcisse’s green folder and smoothed the crumpled edges. Then she opened it at the first page.
And suddenly I realized that I’d done a bad thing. I’d stolen Narcisse’s story. Not by taking it back from Yannick, but by reading it myself. I guess I already knew that, but seeing Morgane with it in her hands suddenly made it all clear to me. That story wasn’t meant for me. I’d known it from the beginning. It was meant for Francis Reynaud, and he was supposed to read it. I wondered if Morgane would stop liking me now that she knew I was a thief. But Morgane didn’t look angry. She just tied up the folder again with its piece of scarlet string. Then she smiled and said: ‘Rosette, this ought to go back to Curé Reynaud. After all, it’s addressed to him.’
I knew she was right. But I didn’t want to go to Reynaud. He never understands what I’m saying, and besides, if I tell him what happened I might get Yannick into trouble. And I still really wanted to know what had happened to the aunt. Or did I? Now that Mimi was dead, I wasn’t sure I really cared about the end of the story.
‘It’s up to you, Rosette,’ said Morgane. ‘But if you want my help, I’m here.’
I thought about that for a little while. She waited for me to decide. She has such a quiet way of looking at you and smiling, and all my bad and angry thoughts started to drift away like smoke.
‘Trust me,’ said Morgane.
Okay.
I watched her leave the churchyard, walking very carefully, the folder tucked under her arm. And then I went to sit for a while under the big old yew tree, and I looked at the name on the gravestone where Morgane had been sitting, and read the inscription, chiselled deep into the yellow sandstone:
Naomi Dartigen: 1942–1949
Now she is like all the others
