OUTSIDE — an extract

Prelude
The leaves swirl and eddy around the stones at the centre of the orchard. I cross to the large walnut and climb up into the canopy. I close my eyes. Listen. Only the sound of the gentle pressure of the wind, drawing the leaves across the stony ground at the base of the tree. As one, the leaves pull back, then return. A tide, returning like waves seeking a shore. I rest and wait. 

Then with a jerk, I’m tumbling. I’m twisting, falling through branches, confused, grabbing what I can. Mouth jammed full of pungent leaves, a rock hits my head, thighs sting, I am dragged over sharp stones. Water churns over my head, I sink into the depths. Of what I don’t know. I struggle then dive down. I swim. I have control now. I can rise. The water falls away. I lie amongst the dry leaves.

There is a hunter’s moon and the trees in the orchard are clear and stark but strangely fragmented, a collage, overlapping, torn edges, torn pieces, some blank, others in shadow and uncertain. Stone fragments of a female form. All is in flux. The air is warm and sweet. The colours are rich, dark, clear, transparent. Those leaves, there, have sun shining through them, light broken up.  I look down at the leaves of the single tattoo. They tremble. We are cleaved. We are fragments now, too. Nothing stays the same. The moon continues its path across the sky. I reform and the figure is there. Still.

The Moon
The wind drops. There is the shadow of a figure below in the orchard.

‘Hello,’ I call.

No reply.

I am wedged up in the canopy of the walnut tree and climb down to have a look. I recognise the atmosphere, the tension in the air, as if something is poised and waiting. I had made its presence felt so strongly in my last set of drawings. It hasn’t happened yet with these.

I’ve been up in the canopy for a couple of hours, climbing down every so often for a jog around to keep from seizing up. I started working when the full moon was on the last leg of its journey. There is still enough light from it to see the drawing.

That light from the full moon heightens my senses. There’s a stillness to moonlight, as if everything is on pause. The chalk, my hand, the paper and the drawing, all becomes part of the landscape. My sense of self goes.

There is no one around, there are no shadows. I stand still and listen. For a while the silence hurts, then it softens. I feel safe.

I think of those last drawings. They are atmospheric. They went down very well when they were exhibited at Cannes.

The London Gallery seized the portfolio when I presented it. They have been pushing me for it. It is now two years overdue. These are the first finished drawings that I have done in the woods. Tom’s work has been a success in the States and the gallery has managed, cleverly and unusually quickly, to slip a joint exhibition of our work into a short, prestigious event coming up in Cannes. The show will pick up on our connection with France and will fit in nicely before the big one coming up for Tom. After Milan, then Paris, he will be in Australia for nine months.

I am standing in front of those finished, framed drawings, and I’m looking hard at them. I’m trying to see them out of the context of the studio. It is the opening night of Woods in Occitanie: Sculpture by Tom Chastain. Drawings by Iris Lascelles. It is being held at the Palais des Festivals, where The Film Festival is putting on a special screening of four new films, all shot in Occitanie. The new young president of France, Macron and his wife Brigitte, will attend.

A waiter comes up and I drain a glass of champagne quickly, I pick up another. The canapés are delicious and I walk away from my work, wondering what spice it is they’ve added to the prawns. It’s a ploy I use – I focus on things other than the work. I skirt the room, arrive back near to my drawings, standing sideways to them. I then turn quickly to try to see them at a glance. But I’ve not been separated from them for long enough for the trick to work.

The gentle murmur in the room turns to loud chatter as the main party arrives. They are followed by the two leading actors, Madeleine Bisset and Juliette Caron. It is Madeleine’s 75th birthday. This event is notable, as Macron will present yet another award to the great actress. There is a large entourage.

They all group around Tom’s work and chat. The room is buzzing.

‘Yes, he’s being collected now, I saw his work in New York.’ Two women move over to look at my drawings.

‘Oh, I like these,’ the younger woman says.

I shift away slightly. The women study the drawings carefully.

‘Yes Juliette, these are beautiful.’ Madeleine Bisset turns to me and smiles. She is as lovely as people say.

‘You’re Iris Lascelles, no? How haunting they are, such a sense of place – that figure in the trees – look Juliette – wicked, a green man. Very attractive. Beguiling. And so young, he could be your son – almost?’ She tilts her head provocatively.

‘Not quite,’ I laugh.

They carefully scrutinize the drawings, standing back and discussing them. Madeleine draws me aside as Juliette wanders off. She asks about the drawings. Where are the woods and this orchard? I tell her about the Causse and it turns out that she knows it; she made a film there many years before. Juliette returns and I notice the organiser putting small red stickers next to all the drawings.

I gaze at the lone figure amongst the trees, only half hidden, leaning. The work is finally coming into focus for me. They each become clear, they crystallise.

Madeleine lifts her chin toward Tom, ‘He spends a lot of his time away eh?  New York, Chicago. He is single minded?’

I smile at her and nod.

‘The Green Man, yes,’ Madeleine continues, turning back to the work. ‘He’s only just visible though. The whole image – not just him – has a great sense of loneliness.’

Yes, I know it’s there.

‘You have that expression also, in English, no?’ she asks, ‘that the grass is always greener on the other side?’

They start to move off, her voice audible.

‘As I’ve told Juliette before – in matters of love – in the past, I never said no, to green grass.’

She turns back to me and smiles broadly.

I gaze again at the figure in the orchard.

I smile to myself, remembering her words, as I climb back up to my perch. I carry on for another hour, but I’ve been at it long enough. It’s getting light now. The wind has settled. Over the last few days it’s been blowing hard, gusting on and off.

I don’t hear a car drive up to the house, but there’s someone coming softly through the orchard. I peer through the canopy and catch sight of the crown of a familiar head.

'Jojo?’ I ask.

It looks like him, but slightly different. I haven’t seen him for a few weeks. The figure starts to climb the walnut tree and pulls himself up beside me.

‘Oh. For a moment, I wasn’t sure it was you.’

I glance down, thinking I see the shadow of the figure again.

‘Hello Iris. You’re back,’ he says.

‘Haircut?’ I ask. He does looks different. Maybe he’s just more relaxed.

‘One of the women on the film crew did it.’ He smiles fondly to himself.

Why do I feel so irritated?

The sun is up, now. I suggest a cup of tea.

We go into the studio and I show him some of the new orchard drawings.

‘That’s me,’ he says. ‘Well sort of, you’ve haven’t quite caught me. Made me look a bit . . . sinister?’

  I can’t read his expression.

‘No, that’s not right - you have got it. I look . . . potent. A kind of fertility figure. Lurking there.’

He smirks.

Sylvie phones. ‘I’m going over to the Obscur farm tomorrow to see Pen Bosc. I’ve been meaning to introduce you two for a while. You know Jojo’s mum. She’ll be off to Paris in a few days. Do you want to come?’

‘I don’t think I can. I’ve been struggling with this work I’m doing. I’m just getting on top of it,’ I say.

‘Call me back if you change your mind,’ she says. ‘I’ll have to pick you up, you’ll never find it on your own.’

I wonder if his mum is anything like Jojo.

I am still trying to get somewhere with these drawings. No point in getting up so early now, the moon has moved out of its phase. I’ll have to wait until next month. The wind has stopped buffeting, it only lasted a couple of days. I am back up in the crown of the walnut tree when I hear a scuffling in the grass below.

It’s Jojo. He has driven his truck across the field over to the edge of the orchard and he is unloading what looks like large stones. He returns to the house and parks the truck. Coming back to the orchard, he carefully wheels the stones separately through the fruit trees using a sack barrow. He arranges them carefully in the centre.

‘Jojo Bosc. What are you doing down there?’

He’s sighting them up as if they have to be in line with something.

‘There’s one missing.’ He climbs up beside me.

‘When M. Poubeau died, I took something away from the orchard,’ he says. ‘I didn’t want it destroyed by people coming in, anyone who bought the place. You know what incomers are like.’

I look down. He has set out five large stones. From where I sit, they just look like old blocks of stone, each slightly tapered, part covered in moss. He’s laid them as if they were encircling something. A circle, maybe three metres across.

‘There’re supposed to be six. One’s missing.’

I wait for an explanation.

‘I thought I’d lay them out to show you. So that you can see just how complete it would all look, if we did it. They are meant to be here. The stones had always been in the orchard. Remember, I told you the old boy’s story, that there’d always been something here – a sacred grove and a shrine to fertility. These stones, he told me, were at the centre of it. I think there was a tree in the middle.’

We go down and look at the stones, move them around a bit.

‘If we can work out, somehow, where it would have been, we can plan it out and put the tree in,’ I say, joining in with his enthusiasm.

‘I know what its orientation should be, roughly, and where it should lie. There may have been a labyrinth too. Not sure. Sylvie inherited books from Poubeau. She may have a clue. There was an opening,’ he says. ‘I took the stones away to protect them. In case someone discarded them or broke them up. You know – them not being taken into account by whoever bought the place. Anyway, I’ve brought them back. It was seeing what you’ve done at Hypolyte. Then, I saw the drawings of me. Well, of the orchard.’

He looks over at me, ‘I thought it might help your drawings. To get it right. Or anyway, it would bring the stones back to where they should be.’

I’m not sure if I should feel touched, or curious as to what he’s up to.

I want to show him what I’m trying to do with my drawing, as he was so interested in the last ones. We climb back up the walnut tree. The sun is shining now, still early morning, but so warm and comfortable. I lean back. I relax against the trunk.

A sharp gust of wind whips up out of nowhere.

‘Where did that come from?’

‘Oh, you know. It happens. Listen there’s something else I want to tell you . . .’

Up in the canopy there is a sudden gust, the flexible branches of the walnut sway, dip down low and we are sliding, falling.

We each grab out, try to hold on, trying to steady ourselves as we slide and tumble, scraping arms, legs, rolling down the slope, landing wrapped around each other.

We are both grinning.

I wake up blinded by the sun falling across white sheets.

I squeeze my eyes shut against it.

Moving my head sideways, I gaze at the dark ginger curl of hair wrapped round an ear. It moves.

‘More,’ a voice, deep from the pillow.

A hand cups my knee.

I smile and pounce.

‘Are you invited to Patrice’s wedding?’

‘Yes. He’s marrying Sylvie’s cousin, Claudine. From the garage. Her mum invited me. She wanted one of the prints of the orchard for his mum. Her great grandfather used to live here. I was so touched, I gave it to her.’

‘You mean one of the pictures of me?’

He’s drying his hair.

Patrice works for Sylvie at the tree nursery. He must be in his fifties. His third marriage. Claudine is twenty-two.

‘You know that white shirt you wear, the one with the slanted top pocket. The one that’s way too big for you. Can I wear it?’ He asks. ‘I think it’ll fit me. Save me going home.’

It fits.

The wedding takes place up on the Causse, at Montmiral. It’s an hour’s drive. The director of a small local theatre is a friend of the family and he acts as master of ceremonies. We follow the bride and groom through the medieval village.

The village is part derelict. The swallows and swifts are back, nesting in the eaves of the dwellings. They are not deterred by the clanging of the bells as they stream into the church tower and out again, then into the battlements of the ancient mairie. Most of them are carrying twigs.

Once the formalities of the wedding are completed at the mairie, we emerge, blinking furiously, dabbing tears. The master of ceremonies leads the bride and groom back through the village. He stops beside some steps and climbs up them, looking over us all. He presents the best man, Yves, who makes a speech. Yves finishes with a comment on the groom’s age.

‘We can only imagine that when Patrice delivered those trees over to Hypolyte he lingered in the old orchard and returned . . . renewed. It is, after all, a miracle that he and the beautiful Claudine are now joined as one.’

Over by the fountain a young woman reads a poem she’s written. We then gather by the old wash-house, as a hat is handed round with twists of paper in it. Each twist has two lines, we read them out in turn, completing a poem. 

Tables are laid out in the square and waiters appear from all sides. They serve the feast. We make our way to our seats and bump into Sylvie. She gazes at Jojo’s shirt. She lifts an eyebrow and smiles, half turning her head towards me.

Music is played – it starts with a man and woman singing French chansons and finishes with the local jazz band.

When the party has finished, everyone piles into cars, buggies, jeeps and we tour the farms and villages up on the Causse and down in the valleys.  Horns blast, voices sing and all around people come out of their houses and wave and shout ‘Bon Courage.’

That night, exhausted, we return to Jojo’s house and make up a bed in front of the wood burning stove in the living room. He’s replaced the roof and has started painting the walls. A tree is growing out of the floor in the back room. We gaze at it from the bed, through the open doorway.

‘I need to live with it a while,’ he says. ‘I can’t transplant it until early winter, anyway.’

‘It’s an oak, isn’t it?’ I say. ‘Aren’t oak trees supposed to be sacred? It could go in the old orchard at Hypolyte, in the centre of the stone circle.’

I’ve entered into the spirit of what he’d like to do in the orchard.

‘I’d wondered about that. I had a word with Sylvie and she told me that, from memory, without looking it up, a tree was supposedly placed to one side, inside the circle,’ he says. ‘There was water there, at the centre, a source.’

‘Oh well, that’s not going to happen. There’s no water anywhere near it. But the tree could still be planted.’

He gets up and closes the door.

I wake in the night and look round the room. It is painted with white lime. He has stained it unevenly with the palest grey-green, pale warm ochre and blue. The lime glows in the moonlight. He opens his eyes and sees me gazing at the walls.

‘I stayed up and did it over the night of the full moon,’ he says. ‘It was shining in the room. As it moved across the sky I stained parts of the lime, then rubbed more of it in to capture the shadows. I think it works.’

It works beautifully.

‘You’re a painter, eh, as well as a tree planter?’ I ask.

‘Well I paint frescos, my mum showed me how to do it. My dad was an artist, a painter,’ he says, ‘we left him too long ago for him to have taught me anything, though. I was very young.’

‘What’s your mum like? Sylvie says I should meet her.’

‘She’s alright,’ he says. ‘Very involved in what she does – stone carving. She has exhibitions all over the place. She’s worked for Obscur most of my life, running the farmhouse. They have some sort of agreement now – you know, a formal one – where she goes off from time to time showing her work and they absorb the money into living expenses and the farm. So far it looks like it works for both of them. She keeps chickens, very good eggs. Her tomatoes are the best. If you do go there for lunch, she’ll make you her tomato salad. We had a lamb for a while. And a pig. I go over and feed the chickens when she’s away and take shopping round for Obscur.’

‘Sounds like you get on with her,’ I say.

‘She has always been distant. No, remote is more like it.  Kind in her own way. She was better when I was young,’ he says. ‘I think she had me when she was in her mid-thirties. It’s not late nowadays, I know, but perhaps she just never had the energy to spread between me and her work. And we had to live.’

I think how different his life has been from mine.

He turns towards me. ‘You never mention your parents. Where do they live – in France?’

‘No. I was brought up in London. My father was French – he died when I was small. My godfather was around a lot, for a few years when I was little. He visited us all the time, it was him who taught me to draw. He was an artist as well. Like yours,’ I say. ‘I don’t think they were lovers, although I did hope at one time that he was really my dad. You saying that about your mum- mine was always distant, and great when I was young. She turned into a cold fish though, as I grew up. I haven’t seen her for a long, long time.’

‘Mine’s not a cold fish,’ he says. ‘I think she just lives in her head. At a distance from people. Her work is always there, between her and the outside world. Yes, we get on. On the whole. She’s really angry with me about Natalie. I’ll have to see her before she goes off to Paris to calm her down. She’s got a big temper.’

I laugh, thinking – he’ll be fine, she’ll forgive him.

‘Planting over at Castanet, you free 13.00? Want to show you something. Near St Christophe. Go in kayak. Lunch there?’

I text back, ‘Yes.’

The Aveyron is high, it has broken its banks in places. The wind, up again, is fresh. It chops the water. We cross the last weir, slipping over it and into the Viaur. The character of this river is different. Languorous, it’s protected from the wind as it moves slowly through a deeply wooden, almost silent landscape. There is a feeling of timelessness. Climbing up the steep slope, I stop and look back down and along the river. A flock of crows fly overhead. One of them calls and they answer, one at a time, the noise see-sawing across the valley. Then silence again. The kayak is out of sight and all I can see is woodland along both stretches of the bank.

‘There are Neolithic remains around. You find them in the caves. I’ll show you some wall paintings. They are well hidden,’ Jojo says. ‘The caves are not talked about, we leave them alone. There are no other signs of people having lived here.’

We sit under a rocky overhang and eat our lunch.

Jojo shows me the caves. We move down a long passageway that opens out into a cavern. I have seen prehistoric cave paintings before, I’m expecting images of the hunt; horses, bulls, or deer. These are large colourful drawings, on each of the walls. Unusually, they are of trees. I’m surprised at how detailed they are. There are dense wooded areas, some abstracted, lit by the sun, most of them showing moonlight and shadow and empty spaces.

We retrace our steps to where we’d started and take another turning into a cave. There, covering the walls, are his paintings.

These are frescos. Finely painted in plaster and pigment. They fill two more of the caves and one of the caverns. Like the painted walls in his house they have a mysterious beauty. They are also ominous and overwhelming. Like the ancient cave drawings, they are of trees and woods – but his are neither continuations nor copies – they are very much his own. In one, a view is traced through branches to the ground, where a figure is standing. It is very still, wary. Other drawings show the trees abstracted, lit by moonlight but there is also what looks like a broken shaft of sunlight. The figure is also shown in fragments.

I look at him.

‘You’ve seen a figure in the orchard?’ I ask.

‘No,’ he smiles. ‘They are based on the story, the myth that Old Poubeau told. The orchard has an atmosphere, you know, you’ve felt it. But there’s no figure there. It’s all imagination.’

The only hunting scenes he has done are of deep water. Fish turn and spiral over every surface. Flickering light and movement, shafts of light reflecting and falling on them through the water. The dark blues and greens of malevolent shapes, dark shadows, hunt them.

‘Why have you done them here, in these caves, where no one will ever see them?’ I ask. ‘Does anyone know about them?’

He shakes his head slightly.

He and I have been in a glorious limbo, for a short while. Time has stood still for us. But the caves have their effect on me. I’m disturbed that he keeps his work to himself. Why should it be such a secret?

I’m also troubled that our lives are now complicated. I have been searching for simplicity.