Blackbird Fly by Lise McClendon Page B

summer holiday?”
    Her father turned to her frowning: “You’re going
where?”
    “ To France,” Bernie shouted in his
ear.
    A holiday . Mystic Seaport popped into her
head. That was a holiday. Those days, whatever they were, were
over. Long over, if they only knew.
    Put a face on it, Merdle . Vacation sounded a
whole lot better than the drudgery, legal wrangling, and endless
spending ahead. Harry would have liked that. He goes his own way
and she gets stuck with his dirty work.
    Oh, yeah, let's see that smiling face.
    She raised her glass. “To vacations. What a
concept.”
     

 
    BOOK TWO
    France
     
     

Chapter 11
     
    After all these weeks, from a wet April morning to a
hot June day, not so long in time but emotionally an obstacle
course of peaks and valleys, she was here. Across the sea, over the
deep blue ocean. Exactly ten weeks and three days, nine Sundays, a
Memorial Day. Over the miles and the hours, after packing and
arranging and explaining, here she was, in France where Harry was
born. Where he lived. Where not a trace of him remained.
    They stared at the house. Monsieur Rancard — ‘Arnaud’
after four hours together in his perfumed Benz — rolled down the
window, letting in hot, dry air. The lawyer, although handsome in
that suave Mediterranean way, was business-like, even blunt. No
passes, no intimate taps on the knee. She had sweated through her
safari shirt and stuck to the seat. They talked nonstop and she was
exhausted. Yet, a flutter of anticipation rose in her as they
turned the last corner, pulled up to the curb.
    No cottage, the house rose two stories of
washed-yellow stone with a tile roof at various angles. Four
windows, one extra-wide, faced the street. Only a narrow cement
sidewalk with a granite curb separated the living quarters from the
cobblestones. The shutters were devoid of paint, a weathered gray,
an upstairs one hanging on one hinge. A high wall circled the
place, starting at both front corners. The only house on the block
with side yards, it was slightly grander than most yet looked
abandoned.
    The house sat adjacent to the crumbling city wall,
six feet high here, eight there. Across most of the street it was
lower, knee-high, as if a Nazi Panzer tank had crashed through.
Beyond the broken wall the slope fell away into rows of staked
vines. Across the swale stone-and-tile houses nestled close to the
earth, thick forests darkened the hilltops, more grapes undulated
with the curves of the hillsides, marching relentlessly toward
wine.
    They got out of the car and stretched. Merle had seen
a lot of country with Arnaud between Toulouse and Malcouziac,
villages along streams and on hilltops, bigger towns with gas
stations, supermarkets, and modern buildings, but this land of
vineyards and buttery stone was as pretty as it got. Maybe she was
already biased toward the village, proprietary in a way. Maybe she
was just tired.
    “ It’s big,” she said, taking off her
sunglasses to look at the house. The day was sunny and warm in a
way a Connecticut summer so rarely was. Heat reflected off the
stone house opposite hers, a tidy, plain house with geraniums in
pots. Next door to her house the shutters and door were freshly
painted in a glossy royal burgundy. Upstairs music and a lace
curtain blew out the open window while at the Strachie’s all was
closed and silent.
    “ So you see, all these shutters are
locked,” Arnaud said. He rattled the door shutter, its curved top
matching the rock framework. “I can see the padlock there, through
the crack.”
    As Merle peered through the half-inch space between
the shutters the shouting began inside. Through the inner glass she
caught a glimpse of movement, a shadow. She looked at Arnaud and
raised an eyebrow.
    “ That is the lady,” he said,
sighing. He yelled back at her in French.
    “ What is she saying?”
    “ Babble. This is her house. Leave
her alone.” He took Merle’s arm and led her back toward the middle
of the village.