The Winter Ghosts (6 page)

There was nothing I could do but leave the car and go for help. I couldn’t even risk trying to get things from my suitcase for fear of sending the car right over the edge.

I looked round to get my bearings. Where was I? Closer to Tarascon than Vicdessos? Visibility was down to a few feet in both directions. The route I’d driven had all but vanished in the fog, and the road ahead was swallowed up by a curve in the mountain.

Then I remembered noticing a wooden signpost by the side of the road, lit up by the final flash of lightning. Since I had passed no houses, and had no hope that I would find any if I went higher into the mountains, it seemed a sensible idea to try to find it. Perhaps it indicated a footpath, and a path had to lead somewhere. Even if it did not, it would be more sheltered in the trees than on the bare mountainside.

I locked the driver’s door, more out of habit than necessity, then, pushing the keys deep into my pocket, I turned up the collar of my coat, wrapped my scarf as tightly as I could around my neck, and headed back down the road.

I walked and walked, like Good King Wenceslas in the snow. The world had turned to white. Everything was stripped of colour, an absence of light and shade, not a bare patch of land in sight. The fog hovered motionless now in the branches of the trees, but at least the wind was easing a little. After the noise of the storm, it was all very still. Quiet.

Eventually, I found the sign. I brushed away the snow from the horizontal board, but there was no information on it, just an arrow pointing downwards. It didn’t look promising, but it seemed the only option was to follow it.

To wherever it goes
. . .

Then I heard it again. The same light voice, shimmering, indistinct, carried through the chill air.

‘
I am the last, the last
. . .’

‘What the Devil . . . ?’

I spun round, searching for the source of the sound, but could see no one. I told myself that if snow and the mountains played tricks on the eyes, on one’s perspective, then why not on one’s sense of hearing, too? There was no one. And yet I knew I was being watched. The short hairs on the back of my neck stood on end.

It came again, over the whistling of the wind, the same indistinct whispering.

‘
The others have slipped away into darkness
.’

I stared up at the blurred horizon in the direction of the sound. And this time, on the far side of the valley above the tree-line, I swear I saw someone, something, moving. An outline, against the flat sky. My heart lurched.

‘Who are you?’ I cried, as if I could be heard from such a distance. ‘What do you want?’

But the figure, if it had even been there at all, had vanished. Confusion kept me rooted to the spot a moment longer. Was it an illusion brought on by shock? A delayed reaction to the accident? How else to account for it? In such solitude any man might find himself inventing evidence of other human existence in order not to be alone.

I lingered, for some reason unable to tear myself away, until the cold got the better of me. Then, with a final glance over my shoulder, I stepped onto the path and headed into the woods, leaving the voice behind me. Leaving her behind me.

Or so I thought.

The footpath was overgrown and steep, just wide enough for two people to walk side by side. But as I’d hoped, the canopy of evergreen leaves had protected it from the snow. I could just make out the frozen ruts left by the wheels of a narrow cart and the hooves of a horse, or perhaps an ox. My spirits lifted a little. At least someone had passed this way, not too long before.

Soon I found myself at a crossroads. The left-hand path looked the more travelled. The oak and box dripped with winter. Everything smelt sodden, the leaves on the path and the sharp needles of the fir trees. The right-hand path was similar, box and silver birch, but it was much steeper. Rather than running in a zigzag, it plunged straight down the mountainside.

I looked down at my boots. Fitwells were advertised as being equal to any weather conditions, though I hardly thought the manufacturers had mountaineering in mind. But they were holding up, though the cold seeped up through the soles, and my toes, even with two pairs of thick woollen socks, were frozen. My fingers, too. The bottoms of my trousers clung to my legs. The sooner I got out of the cold, the better.

So I took the right-hand path, assuming it to be more direct. It had an abandoned air to it, a feeling of neglect and stillness. There were no footprints, no wheel troughs, no sign the mulch on the ground had been disturbed. Even the air seemed colder.

The path was so precipitous that I was forced to brace my knees and steady myself on overhanging branches so as not to lose my footing.

The extravagant roots of ancient trees criss-crossed the path. Stones, uneven earth and fallen, fossilised branches, slippery with frost, jutted out from the dense thicket on either side. The atmosphere grew more claustrophobic. I felt trapped, as though the forest was closing in upon me. There was something grotesque about the landscape. Everything was both familiar and yet somehow distorted.

I could feel my nerves starting to get the better of me. Even the animals seemed to have abandoned this strange and silent place. No birds sang, no rabbits or foxes moved in the scrub. I lengthened my stride, walking faster, faster, down the hillside. Several times I dislodged a stone and heard it tumble into the dimness below. Increasingly, I imagined peculiar shapes, outlines, behind every tree, eyes in the dark forest watching me pass. An unwelcome and persistent voice in my ear started to ask if it was more than just the storm that kept the people away.

In the deepest thickets of the forest, the light had all but disappeared. Mist was slinking through the trees, slipping in and out of the trunks and hollows like an animal hunting its prey. There was an absolute and impenetrable stillness.

Then I heard the snap of a twig underfoot. I stopped dead in my tracks, straining to hear. Another sound, the crunch of leaves and stone. Something was moving through the undergrowth. My heart skipped a beat. I knew there were wild boar in the Pyrenees, but were there also bears or wolves?

I looked for something to defend myself, before pulling myself up short. As if I could take on any kind of beast and hope to come off the better. My only resort, should I have the misfortune to encounter a wild animal, would be to stay absolutely still and hope it didn’t pick up my scent. If it did, then there’d be nothing for it but to run.

Another sharp crack of a branch, closer this time. Galvanised into action, I cast around to see if at least there was a tree I might climb, but could see none with branches low enough to the ground. Then, to my intense relief, I heard voices. A moment later, two indistinct figures emerged from the mist on the path below. Men, two men, both carrying guns. One of them had a brace of woodcock dangling over his shoulder, their blind black eyes staring like beads of glass.

‘Thank God,’ I sighed.

Not a bear or a wolf. Half wondering if it might have been their voices I’d heard earlier, though it seemed unlikely from the look of them, I called out a greeting. The last thing I wanted was to be mistaken for the very animals I’d feared were tracking me, and end up with a bullet in me.

‘
Salut
!
Quel temps
!’

They might be poachers and worry I would report them to the authorities, so I held up my hands as they drew nearer, to show I was no threat.

‘
Messieurs, bonjour à vous.
’

They nodded but did not speak. Only a strip of skin was visible around their eyes, between the rim of the fur hats and their scarves pulled up over their mouths and noses, but I could see they were suspicious. I could hardly blame them. I must have looked a sight.

‘
Je suis perdu. Ma voiture est crevée. Là-haut.
’

I gestured vaguely behind me in the direction of the road and attempted to explain what had happened - the snowstorm, the crash. I finished by asking if there was somewhere nearby where I might find help. At first, neither man reacted. I waited. At last, the taller of the two turned and pointed down the path. It led to a village called Nulle, he said in a gruff voice thick with tobacco and smoke. The hunter held up both hands and flexed all ten fingers once, then again. I frowned, then realised he was trying to tell me it was a twenty-minute walk. At least, I assumed that’s what he meant.

‘
Vingt minutes
?’

He nodded, then put his finger to his lips. I smiled to show I understood. They were without permits, then.

‘
Oui, oui. Je comprends. Secret, oui
?’

He nodded again and we parted company. They continued up the path and I carried on down, feeling unaccountably rather cheered by the exchange. Before long, the slope levelled out and I found myself on a patch of flat ground that looked out over a valley to the mountains on the far side. The sky seemed brighter and there was no snow on the fields, just the faintest hint of frost on the furrowed earth. Then, beyond a row of bare trees, signs of life. A twist of smoke wreathing up into the air.

‘Thank God,’ I sighed again.

The village sat in a dip between the hills, surrounded on all sides by the mountains. Red-tiled roofs, grey stone chimneys and, in the centre, higher than all the other buildings, the spire of a church. I picked up the pace, keeping the steeple and bell as the fixed point in my sights. I was already imagining the comforting clatter spilling out from the cafés and bars, the rattling of crockery in the kitchens, the sound of human voices.

There was a bridge in the furthest corner of the meadow. I made for it and crossed quickly, surprised to see the stream was flowing. I would have thought the rills and brooks would be frozen from November to March at such altitudes. But the water was racing along, lapping against the bottom of the bridge and splashing up over the banks. I heard the thin tolling of the church bell, the mournful single note carried on the air.

One, two, three . . .

I was surprised that so little time had passed since I’d abandoned the car on the road. But I knew as well as the next man how our experiences mould themselves to fill the time allocated to them. It was easy to believe that shock and the foul weather had muddled my sense of time.

I listened until the bell died away, then stepped off the bridge and carried on across the meadow. Here, autumn appeared not to have entirely relinquished its hold on the land. Instead of the barren grey and white of the mountain passes, there were the reds and copper of fallen leaves. In the hedgerows I could see tiny splashes of colour, flowers of blue and pink and yellow, like confetti scattered in a churchyard after a wedding. I even picked out broom, and autumn poppies growing tall. Bright red, like splashes of blood against the white frosted tips of the green grass.

The meadow gave way to an earthen track, wide enough for a cart or a car to pass along. Its surface was slippery and once or twice I felt my boots all but slide from under me, though I stayed upright.

Finally, I came to a small wooden sign telling me I had arrived in Nulle. I hesitated, looking back over my shoulder at the soaring mountains with their cloak of trees, sheer against the winter sky. I was suddenly reluctant to leave them behind me. The thought of having to find lodgings, explain my predicament once more, the effort required to organise the rescue of my car, all of it seemed beyond me.

And there was something more. I have gone over this moment many times in the past five years and, still, I have no idea why instinctively I knew there was some kind of cloud, some sadness, hanging over the village. That something was not quite right, was misaligned, like a picture askew on a wall.

I shook my head. I was in no position to find fault. I was cold and tired. There would be time enough, once I found lodgings, to consider the events of the day. I pushed my hands deeper into my pockets and walked into the village.