The Mistletoe Bride(17)
‘I am so very sorry,’ she said. ‘But we will work something out in the end, I’m sure of it.’
‘Yes.’
‘Yes,’ she echoed. ‘Well, until Monday.’
Régis’s horse was in the stable yard at the back of the tiny school. They hitched the trap, said goodbye to the caretaker and set out along the rough path back to the farm.
They didn’t say much. Régis was clearly tongue-tied, not sure what to say, and besides his cold was worse. It suited Gaston. In truth, he was numb. The news hadn’t really sunk in. Or perhaps it had, but he couldn’t really believe it. He hadn’t cried. He didn’t know if he was sad or just frightened about what was going to happen to him. As the cart bumped along, Gaston thought about all the times he’d sat on the smooth stone at the end of the path to his house, waiting for his parents to come home. Sometimes he sat out in the rain, craning for a glimpse of them on the narrow road, not knowing if they would come at all and dreading the smell of the bar on their breath and clothes, but hoping all the same.
Régis stopped the trap, pulling gently back on the reins. A sheep had strayed onto the path.
‘Could you get that animal out of the way? I’m not feeling very well.’
Gaston bit his lip. ‘Do you remember when I was the smallest boy in class?’
Régis rubbed his nose on his sleeve. ‘What?’
‘Even the girls were taller than me. They called me Little Gaston. Remember?’
Régis coughed. ‘I didn’t know you then. Look, I really don’t feel so good. The sooner you get that sheep out of the way, the sooner we’ll be home.’
With a spurt of irritation at the self-pity in his friend’s voice – he was the one who deserved sympathy, not Régis and another of his spluttering colds – Gaston jumped down from the cart. He chased the sheep out of the way, then looked up at his friend.
‘Come on then,’ said Régis, ‘let’s get back.’
Gaston shook his head. The breeze made the frayed bottoms of his trousers flap about his ankles.
‘You go. I don’t want to talk to anybody.’
‘I’ll get into trouble.’
‘I’ll only be in the way. They’ll be pleased I’m not with you.’
‘I can’t leave you. Mme Martin said.’
Gaston shrugged. ‘Tell them I made you. You couldn’t stop me.’
The two boys stared at each other, then Régis nodded.
‘All right,’ he said. After a pause, he added: ‘I’m sorry. I mean, I know they weren’t . . . well, they were still your parents.’
‘Yes.’
‘Don’t be long.’
‘I won’t. You go.’
Régis clicked his tongue and slapped the reins across the horse’s flank, then the axles rumbled as the trap pulled away into the November afternoon.
Gaston waited until his friend was out of sight, then struck out across the fields and along the coast to where the gulley ran down to the beach. When he drew close, he saw bundles of hazel twigs set ready for the Festival of St Colomban that night. He didn’t care about that. He just wanted somewhere to sit on his own for an hour or two. He carefully picked his way down towards a place in the rocks where a shallow cave had eaten into the cliff face. He went as deep into the calm gloom as he could and sat very still, his knees drawn up to his chest and his arms around his knees. Outside, the drizzle began to fall and the sky was stormy. Gaston’s eyes clouded over and he wondered how different life would be now he was completely alone.
When Gaston awoke, at first he had no idea where he was. He was lying on his side, using his right arm for a pillow. It was dark now, but he realised he wasn’t particularly cold.
He yawned, stretched, then realised he was hungry. He hoped there would be a good dinner at Régis’s house. Then, he remembered. First, about his parents and the accident. Then, coming hard on its heels, that tonight it was the Feast of St Colomban so there would more than likely be no supper.
Gaston felt with his hands across the floor of the cave. He found the niche in the wall – a natural rupture in the rock – where he had secreted a few special things: the skull of a pheasant picked clean by birds and insects, a bone so big that it must have come from the carcass of some great whale. He knew them by touch and they comforted him. There was also a beautifully built nest containing three speckled eggs from the cliff. It was Régis who’d persuaded Gaston to climb down the cliff face and steal them, even though the curate had visited their classroom to explain that the roosts were protected by law and should not be disturbed.