Evangelista's Fan by Rose Tremain Page A

Mercedes.
    â€˜Well,’ said Louis, ‘I wouldn’t say that. Leclos is just the same, here on its hill. Still the same cobbles and smelly gutters. Still the same view of the sea.’
    â€˜You’re wrong,’ said Mercedes, ‘nothing lasts here in Leclos. Everything folds or moves away.’
    â€˜But not the place itself. Or you. And here we both are. Still alive.’
    â€˜If you can call it living.’
    â€˜Yes, it’s living. And you’ve baked a cake, I see. Baking is being alive. Now here. Have a sip of wine. Let me drink a toast to you .’
    She needed the wine to calm her, to get her brain thinking properly again. So she drank. She recognised at once that Louis had brought her expensive wine. She offered him a chair and they both sat down at the table. Under the harsh light, Mercedes could see that Louis’ face looked creased and sallow.
    â€˜Honorine told me you’d been hiding from me.’
    â€˜I don’t want you here in Leclos.’
    â€˜That saddens me. But perhaps you’ll change your mind in time?’
    â€˜No. Why should I?’
    â€˜Because you’ll get used to my being here. I’ll become part of the place, like furniture, or like poor old Vida up at the church with her broken foot.’
    â€˜You’ve been in the church? I’ve never seen you in there.’
    â€˜Of course I’ve been in. It was partly the church that brought me back. I’ve been selfish with my money for most of my life, but I thought if I came back to Leclos I would start a fund to repair that poor old church.’
    â€˜The church doesn’t need you.’
    â€˜Well, it needs someone. You can smell the damp in the stone . . .’
    â€˜It needs me ! I’m the one who’s instituted the idea of economy. No one thought of it before. They simply let everything go to waste. I’m the one who understood about the candles. It didn’t take a philosopher. It’s simple once you see it.’
    â€˜What’s simple?’
    â€˜I can’t go into it now. Not to you. It’s simple and yet not. And with you I was never good at explaining things.’
    â€˜Try,’ said Louis.
    â€˜No,’ said Mercedes.
    They were silent. Mercedes drank her wine. She thought, this is the most beautiful wine I’ve ever tasted. She wanted to pour herself another glass, but she resisted.
    â€˜I’d like you to leave now,’ she said.
    Louis smiled. Only in his smile and in his laughter did Mercedes recognise the young man whose wife she should have been. ‘I’ve only just arrived, Mercedes, and there’s so much we could talk about . . .’
    â€˜There’s nothing to talk about.’
    The smile vanished. ‘Show me some kindness,’ he said. ‘I haven’t had the happy life you perhaps imagined. I made a little money, that’s all. That’s all I have to show. The only future I can contemplate is here, so I was hoping—’
    â€˜Don’t stay in Leclos. Go somewhere else. Anywhere . . .’
    â€˜I heard about the fire.’
    â€˜What?’
    â€˜The fire at the laundry. But I think it’s going to be all right.’
    â€˜Of course it’s not going to be all right. You don’t understand how life is in Leclos any more. You just walk back and walk in, when no one invited you . . .’
    â€˜The church “invited” me. But also Madame Picaud. She wrote and asked me what could be done when the laundry burned down. I told her I would try to help.’
    â€˜There’s no insurance.’
    â€˜No.’
    â€˜How can you help, then?’
    â€˜I told you, all I have left is a little money. One of my investments will be a new laundry.’
    Mercedes said nothing. After a while, Louis stood up. ‘I’ll go now,’ he said, ‘but three things brought me back, you know. St Vida, the laundry and