The walls of the priest’s kitchen were stained brown and black - tobacco brown, soot black, with a patchy patina of grease like badly applied varnish.
“Like those old brown paintings by forgotten artists lining the walls of remote museums,” Susan said aloud, talking to herself.
Alcohol had always given her words and thoughts which she would never have expressed when sober, even if they ocurred to her. The priest did not respond, absorbed in ritual coffee preparation: the struggle to open the rusty lid of the tin, the search for the measuring spoon, never where it should be, the rinsing of the pan still ringed with the morning’s grounds, the boiling of the water and finally, triumphantly, the hot strong black grainy liquid poured into chipped, thick-rimmed cups.
“Voilà. You take milk?” He sat down at the rough wooden table. Susan’s eyes were searching the crowded shelves above the stove.
“Vous avez brandy? Le cognac?”
“Non,” the priest lied. His one bottle of Courvoisier was safely stored away to be eked out slowly on winter nights. He was not about to let it disappear down this woman’s greedy gullet. Susan smiled, reading his mind.
“I am a vampire. But I crave alcohol, not blood.” She leaned forward, inspired. “I am a vampoholic!” Susan laughed, suddenly unreasonably happy. “Vous comprenez? Vampoholique!”
Père Lafitte was not at ease. Such uninhibited behaviour, such joking, came from a world that was not his world. He smiled guardedly. “Oui, je comprend. But the couvent, the nunnerie, you were serious?”
Susan’s face darkened. She did not want to be reminded of George or of anything at all outside this reassuring room. She looked up at the halo of summer insects circling the bare bulb hanging from the ceiling.
“No. I was not serious. Well, yes, I was. But not now.” She wrapped her hands around the hot coffee cup. “Were you born in this village, Father?”
The priest sighed wearily. Here we go, he thought, la biographie obligatoire.
“Non. I was born in Toulouse. My mother became ill. I looked after her many years. Many years. Then she died. She left me un terrain, a piece of land, near here. I became a priest. I became the village priest. I am sixty-three years old. Voilà. C’est tout.”
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