Children of Light. Lucy English

with stiff white sheets. Huge creaking furniture and shutters with heavy iron clasps.

      We’re in Rochas. It’s a village on a hill where everything is on a hill. We’re staying in the only hotel. It’s a flat building with sixteen windows. I’ve counted them. The bar downstairs opens on to a square with a fountain. The fountain doesn’t gush but trickles water out of four spouts into a basin thickly green with weed. Do not drink this water, it says. Eau non potable. But I did yesterday and now I wonder if I will get ill. The chairs and tables are under a blue and white canopy and that is where my mother is sitting, reading Vogue and drinking Pernod. My father is not here. He is looking at land because now they want to buy some land and build a holiday home so we won’t have to stay in hotels. He’s been away nearly all week. There is one shop that sells postcards and ice creams. There’s another that sells bread and cakes, but it’s only open in the morning and the afternoon. Rochas is built on a rock. The houses are on one side and the rock is on the other. The streets go round and round like a maze. People hang washing out of their windows and lines go right across the street.

      They have windows full of geraniums and canaries in cages. Everything seems to be up in the air. On the ground hot dogs flick their tails in puddles of water from the washing.

      I want my father to come back. I have breakfast with my mother, hot chocolate and croissants, then we sit in the square. She reads her magazine. I play jacks and look at the fountain. She drinks Pernod, which smells like aniseed. The men in the bar look at her but she doesn’t look back. She smokes a menthol cigarette and drinks more Pernod. We have lunch, a toasted sandwich, and my mother doesn’t eat hers. She says the sun takes away her appetite. Then we have a siesta because the sun gives her a headache. I stay in my room and draw pictures. I can’t sleep. I open the shutters. There’s an iron rail across the window and I lean on it. The men in the bar look up at me now. I go back to bed. The bed’s all white. The sheets are the sea and my finger is a boat sailing up and down it. It’s getting hot because I left the shutters open. I will get told off.

      The clocks are striking four and my mother comes in. She’s wearing something different and she smells of perfume. ‘You didn’t close the shutters,’ she says and looks out of the window. The men start to whistle.

      ‘Get dressed,’ she says and slams the shutters closed. She brushes my hair to try and make it go flat. Her hair is tied back in a scarf. We have a drink in the bar, lemon tea in glass cups. The dogs are lying in the shade and panting. My mother looks at her watch. It will be days before Daddy comes home.

      We go for a walk. There is only one walk, to the church. We walk in the shadows and the houses are like cliffs. A window opens and somebody flaps a duster. We walk up the steps, up the back of the rock.

      The church is at the top. There’s a small square in front of it with trees and benches but it’s boiling hot. The church is black and its door is open like a mouth waiting to swallow us.

      Inside it’s freezing. I can’t see anything even though the lights are on. We walk up to the altar and my mother starts to laugh. ‘God, it’s tacky in here.’ I’m sure you’re not supposed to laugh in churches. The altar is covered in statues of angels blowing trumpets, painted gold, and a huge picture of a man stripped to the waist being whipped. The blood is running into puddles on the floor. I hate this picture. It makes me feel sick, but it makes my mother laugh even more. I’m sure we’re going to get into trouble.

      ‘Can I have a franc?’ I ask her. ‘For the crib?’ The crib is at the back near the door. It’s under glass. It’s a model. When you put the franc in, the figures move. The three wise men and their camels start to walk to the stable. The shepherds, too, and the little sheep nod their heads. The star moves up and down. Villagers with baskets of bread pop out of their houses. A train steams out of a tunnel and down a hill and in the stable the baby Jesus waves his arm. I love it. There’s always something I didn’t see last time. It’s a grandpa wobbling on his stick and at his feet is a brown and white puppy. The model whirrs and creaks like an old clock. It’s all over too fast.

      The noise brings my mother over. She puts in one franc after another. The model makes her laugh even more than the picture. ‘A first-century train. Oh my God!’ The model creaks and creaks, I’m sure it’s going to break. The camels are jerking their legs much too fast. I’m sure the baby Jesus’s arm is going to fall off. I want to cry, but I don’t want to cry in front of my mother. We stare at the model until it finally stops with a big clunk. Then there is no sound in the church but me breathing and the door pulling on its hinges.

      There was a piece of land for sale in St Clair owned by the woman in the café. Jeanette was then recently married, it was Auxille who ran Le Sanglier. We waited for them, at the tables under the plane trees, my mother, dressed in pale green, with a patterned headscarf. She was yawning and fiddling with her sunglasses. Auxille came bustling out of the café.

      ‘Oh, the English architect, and this is your wife! Oh, she is so beautiful, she is so chic, and this is your daughter!’ She rushed up to me and put her bony hands around my cheeks. ‘Jeanu, Jeanu, come and see a little English girl.’

      Jeanette was curvy and healthy like a fresh peach. Her dress stuck to her curves. She had bare legs, brown but unshaven, and armpits full of dark black hair. ‘Oh, the little one!’ she exclaimed. ‘What beautiful skin, and such blue eyes, and such beautiful hair,’ and she too petted and fondled me, purring over me as if I were a kitten. I wasn’t used to such attention.

      ‘What a specimen. What a tart,’ my mother said in English.

      ‘You are such a lucky man to have such a fine family,’ said Auxille. Jeanette was now sitting next to me and patting my hand. I looked into her face. I decided I liked her. I felt comfortable with her like I used to with Pammy.

      Jeanette had dark brown eyes, darker than anyone I knew. ‘Do you like puppies?’ she asked. I could just understand her French.

      ‘I don’t know,’ I said.

      ‘When we get back I shall show you six puppies, they were born yesterday.’ Her hand was rough but I didn’t mind.

      ‘And you will have more children,’ said Auxille. ‘Some fine sons, eh?’ She winked knowingly at my mother.

      ‘Heavens above,’ said my mother, smiling and nodding.

      We all went in the car, Jeanette and Auxille in the back giving conflicting directions and me squashed between them. We drove back down the hill. Jeanette and Auxille smelled of garlic, sweat and rose water. Their speech slipped into a language I didn’t understand. We drove up a bumpy track. ‘It’s here!’ ‘No, it’s not.’ ‘It’s further down, it’s by the farm.’ We stopped and we were nowhere. Terraces of olive trees and, behind, the woods going up the hill. ‘Now we walk,’ said Auxille, and we did, up a tiny path winding round the terraces. Herb bushes and brambles scratched my legs. My mother guarded her dress, but Jeanette and Auxille strode on.

      ‘My grandfather lived here for twenty years and only last month we buried him. He was a shepherd in the old days and used to take his sheep up to Alpine pastures in the summer …’

      We were in front of a tiny hut, like a gnome’s house, with a tiny chimney and a tiny window.

      ‘God, it’s a hovel!’ said my mother. ‘Did the old boy die here?’

      ‘Shh,’ said my father. ‘We could knock it down. It’s a good spot. The view is terrific.’

      ‘Voici les montagnes!’ said Auxille and we looked, towards the snowy peaks and the clouds resting on them. ‘This is where my grandfather used to live.’

      Inside there was hardly room for all of us. ‘It smells of rats,’ said my mother.

      ‘See, there is water,’ and Auxille turned on the tap.

      ‘There is a spring,’ said Jeanette. ‘You will never run out of water.’

      ‘Where is the spring,’ asked my father, ‘in the woods?’

      ‘No,