The Mistletoe Bride and Other Haunting Tales (14 page)

No one acknowledged him. Not one turned their head nor followed him with their eyes. I wondered if I was the only man who could see him or, rather, that only I was prepared to admit his presence. Indeed, all the time he remained in earshot, the gentle thrum of conversation became subdued. Only when he had disappeared, clambering among the rocks and pools at the northern edge of the bay, did the atmosphere become convivial once more. I wanted to ask who he was, why he was shunned, but not wanting to disturb the new-found friendship between us all, I remained silent.

Taking my leave a little later, I picked up my belongings and returned to the little house. No one was there, but I was pleased to find two earthenware jugs of drinking water standing ready on a rudimentary sideboard, each with a square of muslin draped across the top. I took the tin cup from my rucksack and consumed a pint and a half of fresh clear water.

I stood still for a moment and was visited by an intense feeling of satisfaction. I felt quite at ease in this community. The landscape reminded me of the pleasant summer days of childhood. The limitations of our shared language suited both my temperament and my mood.

My clothes were dry in part, from standing in front of the fire, so I draped them on the chair back and climbed into the hammock. In my hands were my notebook and my favourite all-weather pencil – a very hard lead that lasted a long time without sharpening. It was my firm intention to write up the experiences I’d had in the village and make good my promise to my dear grandfather. Later, I looked back at the page and discovered I had only written seven words before falling asleep. Those words were in themselves unimportant, though they serve as a reminder that, at that stage, I was unaware of the name of the village in which I found myself.

It has never been my habit to sleep in the daytime. On this occasion, however, night had fallen by the time I woke.

The family were still absent, though they had clearly returned during the afternoon. A lamp was now burning and my clothes had been spread more carefully on the sparse furniture.

I dressed and went out into the dusk. There was no one to be seen. All the low houses were dark. The only window that showed a light was the distant cabin that stood apart from the other dwellings, home to the gaunt man.

In the absence of any other company, I walked up the hill and knocked on his door. There was a brief sound of shuffling, then the door opened. He stared, then stood aside without a word and closed the door quietly behind me.

It is hard to do justice to what I saw. The place was a hovel, certainly, though it did not feel unwelcoming. There was just one room. The floor was beaten earth. The timber walls were all lined with wool, whole fleeces stitched together with what looked like lengths of gut. From the ceiling hung a myriad fragments of what I first took to be carved wood, dangling on slender threads.

He gestured to me to sit down. There was only one seat, a bench formed by the broad trunk of some tree. He stood opposite me, his head on one side. He seemed reluctant to speak, though I felt he was glad of my company.

Then at last he cleared his throat.

‘I was a sailor,’ he said.

He made this statement three times, at first in a curious dialect, then in a Breton that I could understand. Finally he repeated himself in what seemed to me to be a southern European language – perhaps Catalan or even Levantine. I had lived for a short time in Alexandria and it seemed reminiscent of the argot of the sailors I encountered there.

‘You have travelled widely?’ I asked.

I realised that I had fallen into French. To my surprise, he continued in the same tongue.

‘I have travelled widely, from this bay to the island and back again.’

‘I prefer to feel the hard earth beneath my boots.’

He was silent for a while. I waited.

‘I was eighteen years old when the call came. Since that time I have been shunned.’

I was uncertain what he meant by this, though I had guessed as much. I wondered if he had committed some dreadful crime in his youth. It wouldn’t be uncommon in these parts for his fellows to make him suffer for it long after the memory of his transgression had ceased to mean anything to the living. These close-knit communities can be harsh and unforgiving judges.

I waited for him to say more, but he showed no sign of speaking further. I began to wonder how old he might be. His severely lined face and sunken cheeks gave an impression of a man in his sixties at least, but those who live by the sea age quickly, then live on an unconscionable time.

He took up a tidy knife and began paring at a pale object, carving an intricate design into its length. In the poor light of the single lamp, I couldn’t make out the shapes that his knife revealed, but I recognised the pale object as bone, probably the shin of a sheep – perhaps the very same animal that had fallen from the cliff path the previous evening.

He saw me paying close attention to his work and waved a hand towards the ceiling. I stood up and peered at the nearest carvings. I saw they were all bone. There is a peculiar quality to the material that makes it different from any wood that I have ever encountered or seen worked.

He handed me the lamp. I inspected the hanging ornaments more closely and gasped. Tiny faces, no larger than my littlest fingernail, perhaps smaller still, carved with extraordinary precision. The minuscule faces were disconcertingly lifelike. My eye was drawn from one to another, dozens of them, all different, all finely worked.

How many were there? I am certain at least a hundred bones dangled from the struts supporting the roof. Each seemed to accommodate at least six or seven likenesses. Each likeness projected a distinct personality. And as I passed the lamp from hand to hand, they seemed to come to life. The play of the light across them transformed their expressions, from despair to fury, from resignation to horror.

I felt faint and feared I might fall. I put out a hand to steady myself, but the only fixed object in the room I could use to maintain my balance was the gaunt man himself and he shrank from my touch.

On that instant, the door burst open and the room was suddenly crowded with men. Strong arms grabbed me and lifted me from my feet, carrying me out into the night without explanation. I protested, but they paid no heed and did not stop until we arrived at the cauldron on the beach.

A few embers were still glowing and they deposited me alongside the fire. I was still light-headed, but the cool sand and the fresh air revived me and I found my tongue.

‘What is the meaning of this? I am not used to being manhandled.’

No one paid the slightest attention. I tried to get to my feet but my head swam and the vision of all the horrible little faces seemed to surround me like a white swarm of slow-moving horseflies.

I sat back and rubbed my hands over my eyes, feeling sick to my boots.

‘How did you know I was there?’

Still, no one spoke to me or offered explanation. Frustrated, I resolved at least to take out my notebook and make a complete record of this strange settlement.

By now, all but one of the men who had seized me from the cabin had drifted away. He looked a solid citizen, with broad shoulders and a handsome square face. I recognised him from the adventure with the fishing boat that ran aground. He knelt beside me and looked into my eyes.

‘Will you tell me?’ I said, attempting the Breton language.

The man replied in rudimentary, strongly accented French. ‘Do not speak to him. Not speak.’

I felt a spurt of anger on the gaunt man’s behalf, even though I did not know his story.

‘You have made him an outcast, yes I see that. But why? What crime has he committed to be punished in this way?’

He was frowning, whether because he didn’t understand the words or because he didn’t understand why I should be asking the question, I cannot be sure.

‘Do not speak,’ he insisted.

His intransigence made me more belligerent still.

‘I’m not from this village. I shall speak to whomsoever I please.’

He shook his head. ‘No,’ he shouted. ‘No.’

‘Why should I not speak to him? It’s cruel, I tell you.’

‘That man he is . . .’ He spread his hands wide to indicate he had no words.

I shrugged, though I admit my interest was piqued. ‘Say it in your language. Perhaps I will understand.’

He took a deep breath. ‘He is Ankou.’

My blood went cold and though I had heard quite clearly, I made him repeat it.

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘Ankou,’ he said again. ‘You understand?’

I had learnt of the Ankou at my grandfather’s knee. It was a ludicrous folk tale with no foundation in fact; even so, there was something in the man’s demeanour that gave me pause for thought.

‘Yes,’ I told him. ‘I understand.’

‘He transports the dead.’

My grandfather told me that a legend is a story about someone who may have existed far back in some distant past, whilst a myth is a story that is, by general agreement, a fiction, with no connection to real people, however far back one might search.

He had told me many such stories. Living at the tip of the great Brittany peninsular, summer visits had introduced me to all kinds of fantastic creatures – imps, giants, naiads and sages – each associated with a detail of the coastline or the sea. And the Ankou: a fisherman called by name in the deep of the night by God or the Devil to transport dead souls to the portal of the beyond on the shore of the distant island.

That evening, sitting alone on the hard sand, I thought of how my grandfather had shaped my sensibilities. It was thanks to him that I enjoyed gardening, mostly the growing of food but also, from time to time, flowers and shrubs. He taught me to cook with the produce of his own soil, to set traps for vermin such as rabbits and to carry out repairs about the home. In short, it was his influence that transformed me from a boy into a capable young man.

Because I had slept the entire afternoon I was not in the least tired. The moon was low, almost touching the horizon of the sea, and appeared enormous. Otherwise the sky was veiled with cloud and the air was relatively warm. The cooking utensils had been cleaned and were stacked on a clean board alongside the cooking fire. The heavy iron cauldron retained some of its warmth.

The fishermen would go out once more upon an early tide, so I had no expectation of finding any society in the village. All the same, I rose to my feet and strolled between the squat houses. Here and there I noticed a job to be done – for example guttering that was poorly attached, allowing the rain to run down the wall. I was plunged into a reverie in which I made myself indispensable to this small community of isolated peasants and became a fixture in their lives.

I came to a halt in the centre of the modest cluster of houses, alongside the rustic shrine. In the silvery light I saw that the saint – if saint it was – took the figure of a mariner. I supposed this was unsurprising: what would one expect in a fishing village? But there were some peculiarities that emerged on closer study.

The skill of the stonemason had depicted a thin man standing upright in the aft of a fishing boat, his eye fixed upon the horizon. I turned in order to follow his gaze and realised that it was focused upon the distant island beyond the reef of black rocks. That said, one might just as well have argued that his gaze was fixed upon the moon. The line to each was more or less the same.

At the base of the carving, the artist had rendered an image of the mariner’s boat. It was depicted on the angle and it seemed that an attempt had been made to give a sense of the movement of the craft over the waves.

I was unsure what time it was and was resolved to return to the woman and her children once more, when I heard a sound I recognised from the previous evening. The sliding of the wooden bolt that fastened the door of the cabin at the far end of the village.

I stood in silence and soon heard the steady tread of the gaunt man coming towards me. He was dressed as he had been at that first meeting. He carried nothing in his hands and paid no attention to me as he passed, although I must have been visible to him, standing in the open by the light of a strong moon.

Was it to prove I was a man of the city? That I paid no heed to old wives’ tales? Or that I wished to demonstrate I would not be dictated to about to whom I should or should not talk? I cannot say, only that all at once the idea returned to me of visiting the island. If my original companion was preparing to take a boat out onto the water, could I not persuade him to take me with him? Morning was nearly upon us and I could enjoy the sunrise on sparkling water between the reef and the landmass out on the open sea.

‘I say,’ I called.

He did not slacken his pace. I hurried after him. ‘I say, will you take me out with you?’

Still, he did not even turn his head.

‘I know enough about the water. I won’t be a burden to you.’

At that he turned his mournful gaze upon me. It was impossible to read his eyes, so deep-set were they above his prominent cheekbones.

I hurried on. ‘Since I have been here, I find I have formed an attachment to the place. I would be very grateful to visit the island out there in the ocean.’

We were already part-way down the beach and as we stood, one facing the other, I wondering if I had made myself understood. Then, with the smallest movement of his right hand, he indicated a boat that already sat bobbing in the water. I took his gesture for acquiescence.

‘Thank you. You are very kind.’

Together we crossed the sand to the fringe of surf. I hesitated, intending to take off my boots and roll up my trousers but he pressed on into the water, so I did the same.

I took hold of the prow to keep the boat steady as he climbed aboard and then swung my own leg over the gunwales. It was a fine solid craft, perhaps nine metres in length, with a single mast rigged and ready for the wind. He stood in the aft and took hold of the tiller and I realised that, by some action of the tide, we were already drifting away from the shore.

Then I felt the boat rock as if something or someone had come on board, though the gaunt man himself had not moved. His head was turned, looking out towards the reef. All at once, I suddenly had a sense of misgiving. Not because I gave credence to the superstitions of the village, but rather wondering if it was wise to be out upon the water in darkness.