‘The English Visitor’

Summary

On Thursday morning he walked again from his apartment in Palais Lutetia to the Villa Isola Bella. The quickest way was the low road through the tunnel and past the marina, but he preferred the climb up to the old cemetery where William Webb Ellis was buried, and then the stroll along the Garavan boulevard, past the Pian olive grove park with hunched, ancient trees set against the blue sea, on to the ornate villas of Garavan, some lacking love, but all with wonderful faded colours of green, yellow and rose. He walked slowly because of the heat, and carried the small backpack from his hand, rather than having it in contact with his shirt. On his way home he would buy the few supermarket items that are all a guy living on his own needs.

He was glad to be above the clatter of the seafront, to pass the pepper and carob trees and hear the doves. The distinctive calls reminded him of his time in England. There were plenty of pigeons in New Zealand, but there he never heard the very different voices of doves. The sky was criss-crossed with vapour trails like chalk streaks on the clear arch of blue, another reminder that he was a long way from his isolated homeland.

Through the narrow streets of Garavan he descended to the Villa Isola Bella, opened the gate to the enclosed garden of the writing room and entered quietly, hoping to see lizards on the wall, or the door frame, sunning themselves. Sometimes, when returning to his apartment at night, he would find one or two close to the external light, seeking warmth he supposed. It intrigued him that they could hold so easily to perpendicular walls, like suction toys.

There were no lizards at the room that morning, no letters, no notes slipped under the door. He went inside, opened the window and sat down with his journal. Mansfield had been a journal writer, hadn't she: all writers were, surely. Writing in the journal lessened anxiety and guilt concerning lack of progress on his novel. Journal entries would be the basis for fiction in due course, he reassured himself: a restocking of the creative larder.

What the hell was he doing in Menton, on the Côte d'Azur, trying to write a novel set during the Maori land wars? The dislocation was surely too great.