Free Lark's Eggs by Desmond Hogan Page B

trailed in the sky, bells tinkling in nearby fields where goats moved in the growing dim.
    The picnic began as potatoes, sausages, scraps of meat were roasted over the fire. There were half-hearted attempts to start a sing-song. A man wearing a traditional costume of the Auvergne played folk tunes on a pipe, the music filling the air.
    The heat became intense, sparks crackling upwards towards the stars that were beginning to illumine the sky.
    Dony’s face and forehead were burning. He got up and sought the quiet of the stream, standing over it. He could no longer stand the heat, the crowd, the din. There was still a faint reflection of twilight on the stream and the sounds of water were soothing, the tinkling of bells still coming from the fields.
    Suddenly a little boy touched his arm and thrust some cheese at him. ‘Voulez vous du fromage?’ he piped.
    Dony accepted it, thanking him. Glancing about he saw Claire’s eyes fixed on him, her cheeks heated as she sat by the fire, a glimpse of colour in her cravat. She’d obviously spotted him by the stream and had sent the little boy with cheese for him. But there was a questioning expression on her face now, the points of her eyes indicated by the flames, knees hugged to her.
    He stood transfixed there, uncertain of himself, hoping that she’d come to him. But when he looked in the direction of the fire again she wasn’t to be seen.
    The group was diminishing as he crouched by the flames once more, couples withdrawing, their writhing bodies distinguishable among the trees. With utter disappointment Dony realized that Claire was among them. She’d probably taken Remy as her partner or perhaps she’d secured someone else, participating with him in the grove among the other couples.
    He started back to bed, hoping that no one had noticed his ignominious departure. But it didn’t matter. He’d never see these people again, never see Claire again.
    They were representative of an interim in his life, a few suspended days away from home, their images embedded in those days. But they had confirmed the apparent failure of his life, his failure to merge with other people of his own age, to enter their world, to endure the hops at home, the smoky atmosphere, the shrieking music.
    The past day had been like a piece of paper curling in intense heat, the edges becoming brown, the paper gradually diminishing, falling into ashes.
    Sleep intersected his misery, a night in the bungalow, his case packed beside him. He was woken at about seven o’clock the following morning, the prospect of the long journey before him. M. Jouvet was to drive him to Lyons where he would get a train to Paris. From Paris he was to catch an evening flight to Dublin.
    The morning was bright outside, trees innocently chequered by sunshine, but the light offered no consolation. There was a spectral quality about it as the previous evening was remembered.
    As he dragged his case into the kitchen M. Jouvet was bent over a transistor set, listening to it intently as though to some important news. It had just been announced that the Russian army had invaded Czechoslovakia during the night, taking it over in one shattering move.
    The news overhung the car trip to Lyons, M. Jouvet talking about it, valleys awakening in evanescent sun, mist drifting idly aboutorange and green tents, the first signs of activity in low-lying villages.
    But the event was lost in the heat of the train journey, place names hailing him—Dijon, Fontainbleau—each stage of his journey bringing him nearer home, nearer to the lies he’d have to tell. He’d have to pretend that he’d enjoyed his holiday.
    It wasn’t until he was in a plane bound for Dublin that evening, a fantasia of moving cloud outside, that he recovered his earlier sense of dismay. The evening papers ranged before him, proclaiming the news of the invasion, displaying the first dazed photographs. The photographs