The Winter Ghosts Read Online Free Page A

Having provided my father with a son, she had found herself obliged to go through the whole business again five years later when she’d thought all that kind of thing was over. At the time, when I was growing up, I just took it as read that there was something unlikeable about me and tried not to care too much about it.
    Nonetheless, during the summer and autumn of that year, I recovered. But each tiny improvement in my health took me further from George, and in truth, his remained the only company I wished for. It felt like a betrayal to learn to live without him.
    Life went on at its steady pace. The shadow cast by the War grew weaker. All those months and years, sliding by, one much like the other. And still, despair at the break of another dawn. Each morning, as light gave back shape to the futile world, a stark reminder of how much I had lost.
    But in the Grand Hôtel de la Poste in Tarascon, at the fag end of 1928, I woke at ten o’clock, having slept right through the early-morning horrors, and without a weight pressing down upon my chest. I flexed my fingers, my shoulders, my arms, feeling them as a part of me, not something separate. Not something dead.
    Again it is possible that it is only with hindsight that my thawing emotions are evident. Or that, having stepped back from the edge that previous evening, I see there had been some significant change in me. But I want to remember that I rose from my bed with a certain energy. Outside in the street, I could hear a girl singing. A folk song, or some tune of the mountains, which touched me by its simplicity. I flung wide the shutters, experiencing the snap of cold air on my arms, and felt, if not precisely happy, then at least not unhappy.
    Did I smile down at the girl? Or did she, aware of my scrutiny, look up at me? I cannot recall, only that the old-fashioned melody seemed to hang heavy in the air long after she had stopped singing.
    I was the sole occupant of the dining room. A plain woman served me warm white rolls and ham, with fresh butter and a coarse plum jam that was somehow both sweet and sour. There was coffee, too; real beans, not chicory ground with barley and malt. I had an appetite and ate with pleasure, not solely for the purpose of keeping body and soul together. I took my time with my pipe, filling the salle à manger with clouds of smoke that danced in the December light, and was tempted to stay another night. In the end, a certain restiveness within me demanded I keep moving.
    It was a little after eleven by the time I had settled my bill, retrieved my Austin from the garage and put Tarascon behind me. I headed south towards Vicdessos. I had no particular destination in mind and was content to see where the road took me. My Baedeker recommended sites with splendid caves at Niaux and Lombrives. It was hardly likely they would be open to visitors in December, but I felt a stab of interest nonetheless. Enough, at least, to make me journey that way.
    I followed the line of the river through a magnificent, archaic landscape. Mostly, I had the road to myself. I saw a wooden cart drawn by oxen, then an old military truck rumbled past. Its engine wheezed, its green tarpaulin roof was ragged, splattered by mud, and one of its headlamps was missing. An old warhorse, not yet put out to grass.
    The mercury was falling but there was no snow, although the higher I drove, the heavier the canopy of frost that covered the plains. But I could imagine that if one came this way in late summer, there would be fields of yellow sunflowers and olive trees with their silver-green leaves and black fruit. On the terraces of the few houses scattered on the sharp hillsides, I could picture earth-coloured pots filled with white and pink geraniums the size of a man’s hand, and vines of red and green grapes ripening in the noonday sun. Twice I pulled over and got out to stretch my legs and smoke a cigarette, before continuing on.
    The lush winter beauty of the river valleys of