Page 72 of The Strawberry Thief
‘I’m sorry,’ he said. He sounded like a baby crow, fallen too early from the nest. You try to save them, help them to fly, but mostly they just die of fright.
‘What were you trying to do?’ she said. ‘You could have fallen and killed yourself.’
Reynaud still wouldn’t look at her. ‘I already told you,’ he whispered. ‘I already told you what I did.’
‘You told us a nonsense story,’ said Roux in a voice that sounded harsh, but which I knew was just concerned. ‘Something about my parents dying in a fire on the Tannes? Reynaud, my parents live in Marseille. They’re fine. They never even had a boat. And wasn’t that fire on the Tannes decades ago? That is, if it happened at all?’
‘It happened. I was there,’ said Reynaud. ‘I was the one who lit the fire. Two people died. Their names were Pierre Lupin and—’
Roux interrupted. ‘And when was that? It was years ago. You must have been a child, Reynaud. You can’t have meant to hurt anyone. Children do stupid things all the time. Why bring it up now? The world moves on. And what could possibly have made you think those people were my parents?’
‘Morgane Dubois told me,’ he said.
Roux looked more confused than ever.
‘She gave me a tattoo,’ said Reynaud. ‘She told me it would help me. But there’s nothing here.’ He showed them his arm. ‘Nothing to see but emptiness.’
Joséphine put her hand on his forehead. ‘You’re running a fever, Francis,’ she said. ‘You need to see a doctor, not a tattooist. Come on.’ She held out her hand to him. ‘Come with me. We’ll take you to Dr Cussonet. He’ll give you something to calm you down.’
‘I don’t need to calm down,’ said Reynaud. ‘No-one can give me what I need.’
‘I think I can,’ I said.
Roux and Joséphine looked surprised. ‘You’re not signing,’ said Joséphine.
‘I found my voice,’ I told them. ‘And I think I can help Monsieur le Curé find the thing he’s looking for.’
‘How?’ said Reynaud.
I opened my pink satchel again and took out Morgane’s tattooing kit. ‘She gave it to me. I’ve been practising.’
For a long time he looked at the kit. Put out his hand to touch the chrome. I could tell he didn’t think any of this was really happening. Roux and Joséphine stood by, looking like children lost in a wood. When I have time I’ll draw them as a fox and a big-eyed rabbit, looking down at a baby crow. Then I saw Reynaud’s colours shift towards something less sad and fraught. There was still a lot of grey in there, but I was starting to understand there might be something I could do.
‘You wanted to see the truth,’ I said. ‘And now, what do you have to lose?’
For a moment I thought he wouldn’t have the nerve.
Then he nodded. ‘Do it,’ he said.
2
Friday, March 31
And that was my first tattoo,Maman. It felt nothing like the practice sheets, but I kept the line. It was easy. The ink was grey, like the skyline of Paris on a cloudy day. I used the patch of skin that Morgane had already prepared for me. The skin was still tender, but it was right. I already knew what he needed. Roux and Joséphine sat by the well and watched me from a distance. I didn’t want them looking at me as I worked. I closed my eyes. I’ve always seen things better that way.
Scrying with ink is easier than scrying with mirrors, or chocolate. At least it’s easier for me. The ink was cloudy-grey, like smoke, like something burning under the skin. I pushed, and felt resistance. I pushed a little harder. Now I could almost smell the smoke. It smelt of dead leaves and petrol. Then I saw a string of big black birds flying over a river. It was the Tannes; I could see it now, grey as the rising smoke. The river was on fire, I knew, and I could fly above the hard mud flats and see the riverboats stranded there. Then I saw a dark shape standing on the riverbank.
I knew at once whothatwas. Monsieur le Curé, of course, his eyes as grey as river-stones. Monsieur le Curé, whose mark has been all over this story from the start, standing there in his black robe, surrounded by his birds of malchance.
Reynaud flinched. I opened my eyes and wiped the fine droplets of blood from his arm. ‘Are you okay?’
He nodded.
‘Morgane told you a story,’ I said. ‘Now let me tell you another.’
I know a story about a boy who was really a crow in disguise. This boy liked to watch the gypsies as they passed by in their caravans, and the river-boats that they liked to paint in bright and rainbow colours. He loved to hear their music as they played beside the riverbank, and watched, round-eyed as they sang and danced, and worked their secret magic. But the gypsies never noticed him, or asked him to sit by their campfires, and the boy grew increasingly angry, and swore that one day he would be avenged.
The boy grew up to be a priest: a black crow with a raucous voice. And he befriended boys who were lonely and awkward and angry and sad, and turned them into crows like himself, and sent them after the gypsies. The flock of crows did all they could to frustrate the travelling folk. They carried rumours and stories and lies. They told dark tales of corruption. And when War came, and the gypsies were rounded up and taken away, the priest and his flock of crows rejoiced in the knowledge that they were righteous.
