Blackberry Wine

33

Lansquenet, March 1999

JOE WAS WAITING WHEN HE REACHED THE HOUSE, LOOKING critically out of the window at the abandoned vegetable plot.

‘You want to do something with that, lad,’ he told Jay as he opened the door. ‘Else it’ll be no good this summer. You want to get it dug over and weeded while you’ve still got time. And them apple trees, anall. You want to check em for mistletoe. Bloody kill em if you let it.’

During the past week Jay had almost become used to the old man’s sudden appearances. He had even begun, in a strange way, to look forward to them, telling himself they were harmless, finding ingenious post-Jungian reasons to explain their persistence. The old Jay – the Jay of ’75 – would have relished this. But that Jay believed in everything. He wanted to believe. Astral projection, space aliens, spells, rituals, magic. Strange phenomena were that Jay’s daily business. That Jay believed – trusted. This Jay knew better.

And still he continued to see the old man, regardless of belief. A part of it was loneliness, he told himself. Another was the book – that stranger growing from the manuscript of Stout Cortez. The process of writing is a little like madness, a kind of possession not altogether benign. Back in the days of Jackapple Joe he talked to himself all the time, striding back and forth in his little Soho bedsit, with a glass in one hand, talking, arguing fiercely with himself, with Joe, with Gilly, with Zeth and Glenda, almost expecting to see them there as he looked up from the typewriter, his eyes grainy with exhaustion, his head pounding, the radio playing full blast. For a whole summer he was a little insane. But this book would be different. Easier, in a way. The characters were all around him. They marched effortlessly across the pages: Clairmont the builder, Joséphine the café owner, Michel from Marseilles, with the red hair and the easy smile. Caro in a Hermès headscarf. Marise. Joe. Marise. There was no real plot. Instead there were a multitude of anecdotes, loosely knitted together – some remembered from Joe and relocated to Lansquenet, some recalled by Joséphine over the counter of the Café des Marauds, some put together from scraps. He liked to think he had caught something of the air, of the light of the place. Perhaps some of Joséphine’s bright, untrained narrative style. Her gossip was never tainted by malice. Her anecdotes were always warm, often amusing. He began to look forward to his visits, enough to feel a dim sense of disappointment on the days Joséphine was too busy to talk. He found himself going to the café every day, even when he had no other excuse to be in the village. He made mental notes.

When he had been in the village for a little under three weeks, he went into Agen and sent the first 150 pages of the untitled manuscript to Nick Horneli, his agent in London. Nick handled Jonathan Winesap, as well as the royalties for Jackapple Joe. Jay had always liked him, a wryly humorous man who was in the habit of sending little cuttings from newspapers and magazines in the hope of generating new inspiration. He sent no contact address, but a poste-restante address in Agen, and waited for a reply.

To his disappointment, he found that Joséphine would not speak to him about Marise. In the same way, there were people she rarely mentioned: the Clairmonts, Mireille Faizande, the Merles. Herself. Whenever he tried to encourage her to talk about these people, she would find work to do in the kitchen. He felt more and more strongly that there were things – secret things – she was reluctant to discuss.

‘What about my neighbour? Does she ever come to the café?’

Joséphine picked up a cloth and began to polish the gleaming surface of the bar.

‘I don’t see her. I don’t know her very well.’

‘I’ve heard she doesn’t get on with people from the village.’

A shrug. ‘Bof.’

‘Caro Clairmont seems to know a lot about her.’

Again the shrug.

‘Caro makes it her business to know everything.’

‘I’m curious.’

Flatly: ‘I’m sorry. I have to go.’

‘I’m sure you must have heard something-’

She faced him for a second, her cheeks flushing. Her arms were folded tightly against her body, the thumbs digging into her ribs in a defensive gesture.

‘Monsieur Jay. Some people like to pry into other people’s business. God knows, there was enough gossip about me once. Some people think they can judge.’ He was taken aback by her sudden fierceness. Suddenly she was someone else, her face tight and narrow. It occurred to him that she might be afraid.

LATER THAT NIGHT, BACK AT THE HOUSE, HE WENT OVER THEIR conversation. Joe was sitting in his usual spot on the bed, hands laced behind his neck. The radio was playing light music. The typewriter keys felt cold and dead under his fingertips. The bright thread of his narrative had finally run out.

‘It’s no good.’ He sighed and poured coffee into his half-empty cup. ‘I’m not getting anywhere.’

Joe watched him lazily, his cap over his eyes.

‘I can’t write this book. I’m blocked. It doesn’t make sense. It isn’t going anywhere.’

The story, so clear in his mind a few nights before, had receded into almost nothing. His head was swimming with wakefulness.

‘You should get to know her,’ advised Joe. ‘Forget listening to other people’s talk and make up your own mind. That or kick it into touch altogether.’

Jay made an impatient gesture.

‘How can I do that? She obviously doesn’t want to have anything to do with me. Or anyone else, for that matter.’

Joe shrugged.

‘Please yourself. You never did learn how to put yourself out much, did yer?’

‘That isn’t true! I tried-’

‘You could live next door to each other for ten years and neither of you’d make the first move.’

‘This is different.’

‘I reckon.’

Joe got up and wandered to the radio. He fiddled with the dial for a moment before finding a clear signal. Somehow Joe had the knack of locating the oldies station wherever he happened to be. Rod Stewart was singing ‘Tonight’s the Night’.

‘You could try, though.’

‘Maybe I don’t want to try.’

‘Happen you don’t.’

Joe’s voice was growing fainter, his outline fading, so that Jay could see the newly whitewashed wall behind him. At the same time the radio crackled harshly, the signal breaking up. A burr of white noise replaced the music.

‘Joe?’

The old man’s voice was almost too faint to hear.

‘I’ll sithee, then.’

It’s what he always used to say as a sign of disapproval, or when signalling the end of a discussion.

‘Joe?’

But Joe had already gone.