Nell is trying to be brave while Mick is off for his months at sea, missing him as she feared she would. Some additional troubles make things even worse for her.
This is her song - "If I could be where you are" must be what she thinks a million times, alone without her beloved, getting more and more desperate for him to return.
Enya – If I Could Be Where You Are
Where are you this moment?
Only in my dreams...
You're missing, but you're always,
a heartbeat from me.
I'm lost now without you.
I don't know where you are.
I keep watching,
I keep hoping,
but time keeps us apart.
Is there a way I can find you?
Is there a sign I should know?
Is there a road I could follow,
to bring you back home?
Winter lies before me,
Now you're so far away.
In the darkness of my dreaming.
The light tore, you will stay.
If I could be close beside you,
If I could be where you are.
If I could reach out and touch you,
and bring you back home.
Is there a way I can find you?
Is there a sign I should know?
Is there a road I could follow,
to bring you back home?
To me...
Two and a half long months since he had left.
Seventy-six days to be exact.
She couldn't help counting them. She lived for the rare joyous moments when a letter arrived and reassured her for a little while. The three of them she'd had so far were her greatest treasures, and she re-read them every night.
His letters were no elaborate epistles full of romantic declarations of love. What he penned were mostly accounts of where he'd been and what he'd done, yet those mundane things he wrote about were immensely consoling to her lonely, worried heart, being the coveted proof that he was alive and well, or at least had been at the time he'd written. She feasted on his simple words, and she smiled about his occasional charming little spelling mistakes. His handwriting suited him, she found - determined, neatly printed letters, devoid of fanciful loops and flourishes, graceful in their unadorned clarity.
She threw on a worn cardigan over her old brown gingham dress and picked up the big woven basket that sat by the kitchen door to go and get some apples from the Duprés' tree.
Marie, their widowed neighbour and mother of Nell's childhood friend Simon, had invited her to come over and pick as many as she needed, as often as she wanted to. "That tree is so full that it's about to crumble under the weight", she had said, "and we could never use all of those apples on our own."
Nell had taken her up on the offer several times and produced a lot of apple pies, apple sauce and special treats like thin crusty crêpes stuffed with stewed apples, almonds and honey. Baking and cooking were among the few things that took her mind off her anxiety and her loneliness, and she found pleasure in the scents and tastes familiar to her since childhood.
Today, she was planning to make far breton with apples instead of the traditional raisins. She slipped through the small gate that connected the neighbouring gardens of the Duprés and the Kervennecs and set about looking for the nicest, ripest fruit on the low-hanging branches of the gnarled tree.
A rustling of grass announced the arrival of someone, probably Marie in pursuit of a chat.
Nell stretched to pluck a red-cheeked apple from high above and turned around, ready to greet the woman who was almost like an aunt to her – but it was Simon who stood there, having grabbed an apple, munching, eyeing her.
"How's your sailor doin'?" he asked without introduction or greeting. "Comin' back soon?"
Nell replied, irritated, "I've told you he'll be gone till early next year. Why're you asking?"
"Must have forgotten what you said." He slouched against the fence, taking another hearty bite of his apple, grinning impertinently. "Just wanted to say if you need someone to comfort you …"
"Don't be disgusting, Simon. I thought we were friends!"
He tossed the apple core away and threw up his hands. "Hey, I wasn't meaning anything improper, honestly! Why're you're being so prissy? What would be so wrong about a hug between old friends, and a little kiss perhaps? Your sailor boy needn't even know if you think it'd upset him."
"Oh, sure", Nell said sharply, rolling her eyes. Simon had never got over her snubbing him repeatedly, and had kept trying again and again. She had never minded a bit of playful banter or even his hand on his back or her shoulder, their friendship dating way back into their childhood, but she had never encouraged him to go any further, and she had expected him to get the message when it became official that she and Mick were an item.
She should have known that he'd be back for her some time when Mick was away. The only surprise was that he had actually waited that long.
She bent to retrieve the brimming basket and walked past Simon without another word.
He called something after her, but she paid him no attention and kept heading for her own back door.
While she was peeling and cutting the apples and preparing the batter, she allowed herself to imagine she was making a treat for Mick, who loved his food. The old saying that the way to a man's heart is through his stomach was certainly true for him. For a while, she dreamily pictured him, leaning casually against the heavy table with his arms crossed, watching her, getting into her way to steal a kiss, nicking a few of the apple cubes she'd prepared for the pie topping or dipping his finger into the whipped cream to lick it clean with relish, grinning mischievously when she slapped or scolded him.
In fact, there were so many things that reminded her of Mick, whatever she did or wherever she went.
A man with his hands pushed deeply into his pockets. A fisherman in a heavy blue sweater like the one he owned. A scallop shell on the shore. Even the large, freshly caught monkfish she'd recently carried home from Jean-Luc's, wrapped in a bit of old newspaper.
Or the little boy with the unruly black curls she'd once seen toddling along the beach. She had not forgotten the dream she'd had after Mick had sailed, nor the bitter, tearful disappointment when she began to bleed, although reason told her she should be glad that she was not yet with child. There would still be plenty of time for that when he was back.
She blinked away a tear or two nevertheless as she remembered the moment and kept whipping her batter until she was satisfied with the appearance of the yellow frothy mixture. This was going to be one perfect far breton, even if it was for Papa, who'd be back from duty tonight, and not for the future father of her own children.
A month later
When Nell came back from the market, glad to drop off the heavily loaded basket she had been lugging along, her mother said, "Simon was here while you were away. Marie's not feeling well and has asked if you could come over and help a bit. I hope she hasn't caught that awful cold that's spreading at the moment. It could be her death, with her bad heart and all." She shook her head sorrowfully. "You better go right over and see what you can do. I'll put away the groceries."
Nell sighed. She wasn't in the mood for Marie's complaints or chatter, but she couldn't refuse helping her ailing neighbour in good conscience.
So she wrapped the warm shawl she'd been about to take off around her shoulders again and went through into the adjoining garden to knock on Marie's back door.
The woman opened, red-nosed, red-eyed and sniffling. "Thank God you're here, Gwenna love. I'm feeling so weak and worn out, I'm aching all over and I break into a sweat if I do as much as put the kettle on."
Nell settled her down in a kitchen chair and fussed about her a bit, made her a pot of tea and took care a few household chores that Marie, who was a meticulous housewife, insisted couldn't be put off until she was well again.
When she had prepared a pot of stew to simmer on the stove until Simon came back from whatever he'd gone off to do, she said goodbye and walked out into the garden, passing the apple tree and the old half-timbered woodshed on her way to the gate.
"Ain't you feelin' lonely, Gwenna?"
Startled, she whirled around to see Simon leaning against the rear wall of the woodshed. She couldn't believe he was trying to hit on her again.
"Sure I am. I miss him a lot. But if we're lucky, he'll be back come February."
"If he comes back at all." There was a glint in Simon's eyes she had never seen there before, putting her off.
"Of course he'll come back", she retorted indignantly. She was so fed up with everyone taking him for a faithless ne'er-do-well simply on the strength of his being a foreigner and a sailor. "Why does everybody think he's a fraud, just because he's American?" She hoped the tears pricking at the back of her eyes wouldn't start flowing right now.
Simon didn't comment on her question. Instead, he grabbed her round the waist abruptly, jerking her unwilling body towards him.
She tore away with an inarticulate cry. "Hey! Whatcha think you're doing?"
"Shush, don't alarm all the neighbours. Can't one hug a friend who needs comfort?"
"I don't need …"
"Oh yes, Gwenna, you could use a bit of comfort, you certainly could." He pulled her close again and prevented more protest by kissing her hard on the mouth. When he finally released her, he stroked her cheek and murmured in a throaty voice, "You're so pretty. It's really a shame you're alone. Your sailor must be out of his mind to leave you on your own for so long."
She wrestled one arm free to wipe her mouth on her sleeve, glaring at him.
He laughed and locked her into another tight embrace.
She struggled to push both hands hard against his chest, but she was no match for his body strengthened from labouring on the farm and in the fields.
He gave a small triumphant chuckle at her futile fight and, to Nell's boundless horror, reached down to lift the hem of her skirt, going for her knickers, yanking them down, while his other arm kept her encircled in an iron grip.
"Have you lost it entirely?" she hissed. "Stop it this moment, or I'll scream loud enough for the whole village to hear me."
"Oh, no, you won't scream, my dear. Do you think your pretty sailor will still want you if everybody knows you went straight back to your childhood sweetheart when he was gone a few weeks? Everybody knows we're old friends, so who'd have reason to doubt me if I said this was what happened?"
He was now holding her with both arms again, tickling the back of her neck.
A red-hot fury burned inside her, but she didn't dare scream for fear Simon would make good on his threat, not only damaging her reputation among the villagers but also making her look faithless in Mick's eyes.
Would he believe Simon's lies if he heard them?
She was sure he wouldn't, but she couldn't take any chances. She couldn't put the future she and Mick were planning at risk in any way, not when they were going to such lengths to make it work.
When Simon shoved her against the wall of the shed, she didn't fight him any more. Something within her had cracked, leaving her numb and detached.
As if from outside her own body, she witnessed how he opened his belt and trousers, hitched g up her skirt, fondled her there, finally pushed into her.
She closed her eyes and stood stiffly, concentrating on the monotonous hum of the diesel generator behind the house, trying to think of nothing at all until it was over.
He buttoned his fly, did up his belt and actually had the nerve to smile. "This will remain a secret among old friends, won't it?"
She didn't have the strength to do anything, although she wanted to yell at him and slap him and shout it from the rooftops how he had just abused her and their old friendship.
Feeling soiled, she pulled up her knickers and stumbled away to climb the stile at the back of the Duprés' farm plot, running across the fields and the Brest road, not stopping until she came to the cliff-top path that led to the chapel.
She tore open the heavy door and let it crash shut behind her, falling on her knees in one of the creaking wooden pews, her tear-streaked face turned up towards the benign painted smile of the Virgin Mary in her blue-and-white gown above the altar.
But it wasn't the Mother of God whom her heart implored for forgiveness and help.
When the hard, narrow kneeler became all too uncomfortable, she slumped back onto the seat. She sat there for a long, long while, churning the same questions over and over in her mind.
Why hadn't she simply run away after his first attempt to embrace her? Why hadn't she hit him in the face, or somewhere further down, and dashed off?
Had she done anything to encourage him?
She was quite sure she hadn't, but why was she feeling so guilty now?
She jumped when the chapel door opened. Quickly, she went back down on her knees, her forehead resting on her clasped hands, as if deeply immersed in prayer.
Peering over her fingers, she saw with relief that it was only Madame Bénoît coming in to say her daily rosary. She was old and half blind and certainly wasn't going to notice anything odd about her behaviour.
She waited for a few minutes until the old woman had settled down and begun to mumble faintly, then she got up and left to go home, trying to look as if she'd just been out for a long walk after looking in on Marie Dupré and her reddened eyes were due to tears of loneliness or a bout of that cold.
She went through the motions of the usual modest supper with Mother and Loïc and retired upstairs very early after scrubbing her whole body fiercely with the cheap rough soap until her skin felt raw and clean.
Inside, she still felt filthy and used and betrayed by her old friend who had suddenly turned into a lewd and greedy monster.
For the first time she did not take up Mick's letters to read before switching off the light. His words on paper couldn't soothe the turmoil inside her head and her heart tonight. They'd only make her feel even more lonely and lost.
She lay there, wide awake, clutching her duvet, yearning for his gentle touch, his scent, his kiss to drive away the revolting thought of those other hands pawing her, those other lips on hers, that ultimate violation of her body, of her privacy, her modesty.
She pressed her face into her pillow to muffle her soft sobbing and tried to ward off the recurring ugly images, tried to replace them with the memory of Mick making love to her.
She found she couldn't. The groping broad fingers, the triumphant grin, the rough intrusion on her body drowned out the sweet caresses and the warm, cosy comfort of Mick's embrace that she had been able to recall so easily all the time before.
Somehow that was worst of all, the way Simon's leery bestiality rendered her unable to go back to those moments when Mick had so tenderly, so innocently set about to discover the most secret parts of her, when she had been so happy despite the impending separation.
She stifled a desperate sob, stuffing the corner of the pillow into her mouth, when she found she wasn't even able to picture his beloved beautiful face. All she saw in her mind's eye were curly black hair and large green eyes, but strangely disjointed.
How could that be possible? How could she forget what exactly the man she loved more than anything looked like while the crude touch of an abusive outsider remained so firmly burned into her mind that she almost expected to see marks left on her body by his coarse fingers?
She wished she'd asked him for a photograph before he left, something to aid her newly unreliable memory.
She wished she'd had some money of her own to contribute to the purchase of their cottage that would have rendered this whole business of his going so far away for so long unnecessary.
She wished she was three months older and finally had him back – back for good.
But most of all she wished she could turn back time and make undone what had been done to her.
The ugly episode had just about begun to fade from memory, albeit slowly, helped by the additional workload of Christmas preparations, when she realized that she hadn't needed those cotton pads at the bottom of her chest of drawers in a while.
She wasn't too worried about the fact because her period had never been of the regular-as-clockwork kind, but when there was still no sign of the monthly curse two weeks later, she decided reluctantly to confide in her mother. It was two days before Christmas.
Mathilde blanched when she told her, appalled that Simon, the ruddy-cheeked, easy-going young man from next door whom she'd known since he'd been a baby, should have done such a thing to her girl. "God help us all when your father hears about this", she sighed.
"Must he …", Nell began.
"Gwenna, dear, we will have to tell him soon. If you are four weeks overdue now, it won't be too long until it's beginning to show, and we don't want him to find out we've been keeping this from him, do we?"
She gave her daughter a pleading look, appearing even more fragile in her state of shock about her daughter's dilemma. The thick woollen sweater she wore seemed to weigh down her haggard figure like an oversized anchor would drag down a tiny boat.
Once again, Nell felt compelled to hug and comfort her mother in a moment when she would have needed a consoling embrace herself.
But this time, she didn't have the strength to do it. She simply went back to work, and, knowing her mother had a point, conceded, "I'll tell him after the holidays."
She hoped and prayed for the monthly torment to come, waited with a sinking feeling for the cramps and the slight nausea she usually hated so much. She didn't care if she'd be too sick to enjoy the Christmas roast and the sweet treats, for she wouldn't be able to enjoy them as usual anyway, if only some droplets of red signalled that she was not pregnant from that brute next door, that she wouldn't have to face her father and tell him that she was with child.
Christmas came and went in a blur, and nothing happened.
She began to feel sick to her stomach, a sickness neither due to pregnancy nor to its opposite. It was due to the paralyzing fear of her father's reaction, and to knowing that she couldn't put the confrontation off for much longer.
Finally, the day before New Year's Eve, she plucked up all her courage and told him truthfully what had happened, bracing herself for violent words and violent actions.
He didn't strike out at her, but he might as well have punched her in the gut when he said he didn't believe a word she said and it must have been that dirty good-for-nothing American who'd gotten her into this pickle. "Why are you making up lies about Simon just to protect that shady foreigner of yours? Why don't you just admit that he's had you and that you're expecting his little bastard kid? I told you so. It's what those strangers do. They promise you the world and next thing you know they are off to God knows where, never to be seen again!"
"You know he's left to work, and to earn the money we need to buy our house."
"Oh, yes, your house. What's all this about a house of your own, huh? Isn't our place good enough for the Mister from the States? Don't you get me any ideas, young lady. You're certainly not better than anyone else just because you've got it into your head to marry a foreigner. If he ever shows up to marry you, that is."
"He's not like that. He will be back."
"Well, perhaps you'd better hope he won't be coming back. I've a good mind to break his sorry American neck for what he's done to you."
She knew he meant it and dissolved into tears of utter misery. It would be no use trying to explain again and again what had really happened that day, in the Duprés' garden. He wasn't inclined to believe her, and there was nothing she could do to prove that she indeed told the truth.
Slowly, she also began to doubt that Mick was going to believe her.
The new year that had held so much promise and hope for her suddenly appeared bleak, threatening even.
The happy anticipation of her reunion with Mick was now tainted by the dread of having to tell him she was pregnant and it was not his child, by the fear he would reject her after all, thinking she'd betrayed him, and that she'd have to bury all her dreams.