Typewriter
Caroline Day’s charming tale is about a writer who types a letter to an acquaintance from many years ago – someone she met in exceptional circumstances…
Chère Madame. Vous ne vous rappelleriez pas de moi, mais de ma part…
Tap-tap-tap-tap-tap. Tap-taptap-tap-tap-tap…
She flicks the return bar – PING – and her fingers fall back into rhythm.
Catherine’s French comes as naturally as the movement of her hands on the keys.
Dear Madame. You will not remember me but, for my part, I recall you vividly. Thirtyseven years ago, your village was holding a vide-greniers, a car boot sale, as we say in English. I had driven for hours through fields of sunflowers and vines and lavender and I was thirsty. And there, suddenly, a church that looked like a child had drawn it. A bar with men smoking cigarettes and drinking red wine at wooden tables.
Tap-tap-tap-tap-tap…
Madame, how to express my thanks?
She had been a different person.
Younger, évidemment. Not the sort to say: “Actually, that was exactly what I did mean.” More the sort to say, “Silly me, you’re right, let’s just get to the hotel.”
Which had nearly happened.
“I’m thirsty,” she’d said. “We could stop?” “Best to get to the hotel,” he’d said.
“This is just French farmers selling off junk. Saint-Tropez soon, sweetie pie.”
You’re right, of course. But for some reason, on that day, with the window wound down and lavender and cigarette smoke in the dusty air and with a kitten running out and making him brake in front of the church, she had persisted.