Work Text:
23 December 2017
The heavy bells of the church of Saint-Pierre-aux-Liens tolled the afternoon hour in their usual sonorous baritone as a solitary figure took in her usual lap of the deserted village centre, apparently undeterred by the lazy flurry of snowflakes which drifted in the icy chill.
The remote little outpost in the Rhône valley had seemed a world away from the bustling chaos of the city that she had left behind her.
She was more than aware of the cluster of curious eyes which burnt into her back, idly observing her brisk movements from behind the illuminated comfort of the various shuttered windows which surrounded the cobbled square. No doubt there was a vague debate springing up between intrigued neighbours as to the true motivations of the lonely stranger who seemed to periodically appear from nowhere to walk the stony streets before vanishing up into the hillside like a scarlet spectre.
Apparently, as rumour would have it, she was a friend of the Mathieu family.
The Englishwoman.
The initially reclusive figure had arrived at the end of spring with the weary, hollow-eyed gaze of someone apparently bearing the weight of the world on her back. Conversing in stumbling French, long-since deprived of her previous fluency (much to her late mother’s chagrin, she was sure), she had somehow managed to string together enough words from her sparse vocabulary to secure the rent of a tiny, somewhat rustic cottage which stood in isolation upon the edge of the slopes of a local winemaker’s vines.
Clad in an overflowing crimson coat which hung loosely from bony shoulders that had receded slightly since the garment’s purchase, the solitary figure paused and turned her gaze upon the steeply slanting hillside covered in dormant vines which slept safely through the uncharacteristic winter’s chill. Nodding approvingly, she was still able to pick out the distinctive red clay tiles of her ramshackle cottage roof from the depths of the valley below.
Not quite enough snow to act as a cause for concern just yet.
Serena Campbell shivered slightly and pulled the fluffy fibres of her hat closer to her hair; still unused to the icy chill which seemed to inch around the bare nape of her neck from her freshly cropped bob. Her mother had always expressed her open distaste towards the furry monstrosity, which was precisely why she had persisted in wearing it in the first place. It had become nothing short of an old friend.
After initial resistance she had eventually embraced the open-ended nature of her new existence: life reduced to nothing more than mere chalky earth, aged vine and blooming grape. Perhaps there was something to be said for simplicity after all. A chance to commit one’s respective ghost’s to the earth: the space to scream, to cry, to learn to live again without the continual fear of sharing her body with a woman she scarcely recognised as herself.
Cruel.
Harsh.
Embittered.
Angry.
Her conscious neglect of dye–no longer concerned with the false hope of keeping up the pretence of appearances for the benefit of a hospital audience– had prompted her brunette hair to gradually fade to a distinguished silver grey. A fresh new dawn growing slowly outward from the roots, gradually pushing the receding darkness further away and unearthing a healing version of a Serena which she had long since secretly feared to be dead and buried in the ground with her daughter.
A collection of fading calluses adorned her surgeon’s hands, toughened by the repetitive manual labour of a busy autumn harvest. Gilles Mathieu and his team had certainly kept her to her promise of assistance, her strenuous toils rewarded in part with a large case of a rather fine vintage from the local Syrah grape.
Serena chuckled softly to herself as she rounded the corner and was spotted by little Amelie Laurent who promptly knelt upon a window ledge and waved frantically at her from behind a steamed glass pane, nearly toppling off her vertiginous perch in the process. The little girl had taken the surgeon to her heart several months ago following a bloody accident involving her brother, who accidentally sliced his thumb off with a knife on a local market day. For the first time in months, Serena had heard the distressed shriek and felt her medical instinct kick in, pushing her way impatiently through the crowded square to the teenage boy’s aid, confidently challenging anyone who obstructed her path with a hurriedly barked “Je suis médecin!”, much to the surprise of the locals who knew very little about the strange new arrival in their midst. Emergency aid administered and severed thumb saved, the mysterious surgeon had gained a star-struck, if somewhat shy little admirer in the shape of Amelie.
Since the harvest season had ended, Serena Campbell had found herself increasingly uncertain of what lay ahead. Bernie’s unexpected arrival and their subsequent reconciliation after numerous months apart had been a glorious highlight in an otherwise uneventful summer, a chance to recalibrate, to attempt to pick up the threads of what they had once had.
It had been stumbling, tentative at first, but she was now confident at least that it would work, could work, no matter how broken she had become, no matter what far-flung reaches of the world they found themselves in. A welcome resolution to the fear that had crept into her mind during their separation; a worry that she would be too different, that too much water would have passed under their collective bridge. Skype and letters could only convey so much, after all. It was only when she accompanied Bernie to the airport and tearfully kissed her goodbye that she momentarily clung to the departing medic, wishing that she didn’t have to let her go again so soon. Bernie had gently gathered her into her arms, soothing, reassuring, promising that it would only be for eight months. Something that she felt compelled, called to do; an opportunity that Serena knew all too well that she could never deny her.
An impatient mental itch plagued her from time to time; the curse of a perpetual over-achiever, never content to let the ground settle beneath her restless feet for long.
No concrete plans had yet been made, but she knew that this was likely to be her first and last Christmas in the little French village.
Responsibilities couldn’t be avoided forever.
She swallowed tightly and drew her coat closer to her as she crossed the stony bridge and peered absently down at the eddying waters below.
Bitter news had reached her disbelieving ears; deaths of close friends and colleagues cut down in their prime. Tears had been shed for them all far away from the bleak reality of the hospital. Guilt prickled beneath her skin; an unmistakable remorse that she should have been stood side by side with her colleagues which was only tinged by the selfish relief that she, or indeed Bernie or Jason, had not been on the hospital premises on that fateful day.
Another Christmas card had arrived this morning. A short, broken message of seasonal goodwill crafted sketchily in Henrik’s usually immaculate hand. The bereaved father was evidently struggling as much as she had imagined; as much as she knew first-hand. Pondering the infinite conversations which he would now never have. Never seeing his child age, never being able to celebrate their triumphs, commiserate their losses. Of being left with a multitude of questions and nothing in the way of answers save for regrets of moments left unseized.
There was also the additional culpability of knowing that the blood of his staff was on his hands.
Something to discuss with Helen this week, anyway.
Helen Evans was the fifth therapist that Serena had grudgingly reached out to; the only one who had enough mettle to not be intimidated by Serena in full sarcastic flight, brave enough to challenge her behaviour yet intuitively sympathetic enough to understand the days when she wanted to weep and the days she wished to talk. It worked well enough, a mutual professional respect swiftly forming between the two women. A weekly Skype session kept her grounded, slowly working through issues arising from her role as a mother, as a daughter, as a working professional; finally beginning to understand and tackle her respective demons.
That wasn’t to say it was proving to be an easy ride. Thankfully, Helen never seemed affronted or discouraged when Serena’s irate digit crashed down upon the ‘end call’ icon whenever conversation steered into more challenging waters, often finding an apologetic, stiffly-worded email of contrition in her inbox several hours after the consultant surgeon had vented her remaining ire upon maintaining the local vines.
Serena drew in a deep breath, feeling the icy air permeate her lungs before exhaling a slow cloud of condensation into the dusky air. The light was fading fast; a crimson stain inching in westward retreat as the fingers of weak winter sun disappeared slowly behind the chalky slopes.
The first Christmas without Elinor was never going to be easy. Knowing that, acknowledging that fact still didn’t make it any easier to bear in practice.
Last year’s festivities had hardly run as smoothly as Serena would have hoped. Her only child had skulked around the house in a sullen silence which Serena had somewhat unsympathetically (and incorrectly) diagnosed as a hangover at the time. Elinor had merely shrugged before returning her attention to her smartphone, clearly unwilling to even attempt to get to know Charlotte or Cameron, barely masking her bristling dislike for Bernie and impatiently rolling her eyes at Jason’s eager instance of watching every available episode of Doctor Who, complete with the trivia quiz book gifted to him by Bernie.
Regardless of Elinor’s somewhat hostile behaviour, the actual day had passed largely without incident, the closest to a happy familial Christmas that Serena had experienced in many a year. Cuddling up on the sofa with Bernie, delighting in seeing the former soldier’s children begin to reconnect with their mother, opening presents and being ably assisted by Jason who had created a colour-coded timesheet in order to produce the perfectly-cooked Christmas lunch (crispy-skinned turkey, golden roast potatoes, soft-boiled carrots) to be ready on the table at the same time, she had felt the beginnings of an optimistic hope for the future. Elinor had at least given her and Bernie a slightly awkward hug before disappearing up to her bedroom that night, initial hostilities somewhat loosened by the consumption of the larger half of a bottle of prosecco. And then the fateful day, 3rd January had arrived. No more second chances.
She would have traded everything in a heartbeat to have that imperfect Christmas once more.
Instead, this year she had opted to remain in France. Alone.
It wasn’t self-indulgence, it wasn’t melancholy… it was an acute awareness of the inconvenience that she believed that she would cause by returning unannounced. Bernie was away, Jason was still residing at Alan’s, the Fletchling’s were mourning Uncle Raf, Ric… well, correspondence had been unusually quiet from the Griffin household, but the whispers had still reached her ears. Coming home would only mean returning to a too-large house, rattling around like a spare part and being handled as if she may shatter at any point by those around her; those who were all grieving, all in a similar state of discombobulated shock.
No, alone was better. Besides, the Mathieu contingent had invited her to join them for lunch, she was going to call Jason and Skype Bernie and raise a glass to her absent partner who was somewhere beneath a Sudanese sky, spending Christmas in a humanitarian aid camp.
A quiet Christmas.
She trudged wearily up the steep slope from the village, glad of her wool-lined boots as she followed the ever-narrowing road which snaked up towards the winery.
Slightly perplexed, she followed another set of footprints through the fresh drifts of settling snow which crunched slightly beneath her feet.
Puffing slightly as she reached the summit of her climb, Serena felt her breath leave her lungs once more as she saw the tall, slender figure shivering upon her doorstep.
“Bernie…” she choked slightly upon the name, impatiently brushing away scalding tears which threatened to escape unbidden from her smarting eyes.
“Bernie!”
The visitor turned upon hearing her name, a fond smile gracing her lips as she dropped the canvas holdall which was slung lazily across her shoulder and all but ran across the icy path to greet her returning partner.
Serena collapsed into the embrace, burying her face in Bernie’s shoulder as she felt two strong arms close protectively around her, breathing in the familiar citrus scent of Bernie’s shampoo. She hadn’t known just how much she had needed to see her, to hold her…
“What are you doing here?” she eventually murmured into the cashmere folds of the copious scarf which was wound tightly around Bernie’s neck.
“Well, umm, it’s Christmas, so I…” Bernie shuffled slightly as she was prone to do upon moments of expressing personal sentiment. “I couldn’t stand the thought of being the best part of three thousand miles away from you… so I applied for some leave. As I hadn’t taken so much as a single hour of holiday leave since I arrived, a week was the least they could do, so they said. So, I booked the first flight I could find…” she broke off with a shy smile. “And happened to time my arrival with the worst weather that this region has seen in years, and ended up shivering on the doorstep waiting for you to come back!”
Serena opted to express her thanks by placing a lingering kiss upon Bernie’s frozen lips, a free hand rising to softly caress the visible inch of skin at the top of her neck.
“Thank you…” the most she could muster, spoken with such sincerity that they expressed a novel’s worth of emotion.
“Thank you, Bernie…” she rested her forehead against Bernie’s and exhaled comfortably before gently placing an affectionate kiss upon the tip of her cold nose.
She smiled softly, motioning towards the house with her head, clearing the remnants of a sob from her throat with a brusque cough. “Right, well, let’s not catch pneumonia though, shall we? Bloody freezing out here…”
She extracted a large battered set of rusty keys from her coat pocket and slowly set about opening the notoriously reluctant front door. It had taken her several weeks and more than a few embarrassing moments of having to ask to be let into her own house before she had established the correct technique.
A well-rehearsed kick to exactly the right place near the bottom of the frame was enough to persuade the aged timbers to yield and grudgingly allow access to the house.
“Not the only action woman around here, darling…” she smirked proudly upon seeing Bernie’s slightly astonished expression before seizing the sparsely-packed canvas bag and escorting her approving visitor into the cosy warmth of her temporary new abode.
And for the first time as the chipped navy door closed behind them, separating the two women from the world once more, Serena Campbell truly believed that no matter what, all would eventually be well.