LITMIR.BIZ

       INTRODUCTION

      A bus stopped in a village in the south of France and a woman with grey hair descended. She wore walking boots and tough, practical clothes. She hauled a large rucksack on to her shoulders, but she was out of season. The village was shut like a mussel on a rock. She didn’t walk away but watched the nearly empty minibus drive out of the village and back down the hill. The village looked over a valley to another, almost identical village, whose houses clung to the sides, which rose to a church tower. All around were steep wooded hills of dark green pine. A white tumble of clouds fell out of the whiter sky and hung in the valley like a lost baby. A sudden squall of wind and a flash of rain, the mother sky wailed with grief, then it fell too and the whole valley became a swirling mist of wet cloud. It was March.

      Wednesday

      Dear Stephen,

      I’m sorry we parted on such bad terms. I know it seems crazy what I’m doing but I feel so much better now that I’m here. It took me much longer than I expected. The railway no longer runs to Draguignan and I had to bus it. I was afraid I would arrive in the middle of nowhere in the dark, but I managed to reach St Clair by early afternoon. Oh, Stephen, Jeanette still runs the café. I think she recognised me but I was tired and I didn’t want to talk. The village is different, it’s nearly all holiday homes, much smarter, there’s no weeds growing in the walls. I wonder how many real villagers are left. I didn’t see any.

      You were wrong about the hut being derelict. You see, it’s not England here. If you left a place in England for 20 years the brambles and the damp would take over, but here the summers are so dry they scorch plants to the ground. The pine trees are taller. The one near the hut is quite large, but that

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