Amy had been staring at the altar, and the chancels. Her expression, as she returned, was despairing.
‘I don’t get it. There’s nothing.’
‘I’m not so sure…maybe there is something.’
‘Sorry?’
He gazed her way.
‘Look for two. Two of something. Two doors, two cemeteries, two –’
‘Two fonts? I saw two fonts. Over here…’
They walked over, their footsteps echoing in the stony silence.
This church also had two fonts, and one of them was hidden away in a cobwebbed corner, half-concealed, musty. It was small and humble and somehow melancholy.
Just like in Lesaka.
Amy said: ‘But…Why two? Why ever should there be two?’
‘I don’t know,’ he answered. ‘Let’s just keep going.’
Another tense and silent hour found them in the remote Pyrenean village of Campan, sequestered and isolated at the end of a side-valley. David buzzed down the window and stared, as they rolled down the main street.
Every house had a large rag doll grinning in the window, or at the door. Gawky rag dolls, almost the size of grown men, were sitting in shop windows. Another big doll was lying on the road, fallen from some high sill – it stared up at the wild Pyrenean peaks that imprisoned Campan.
Amy gazed at the dolls.
‘Jesus.’
They parked in a side street and strode to the empty centre of the village. Their route passed a tiny, rundown, shuttered office du tourisme; in the window of the office was a small typed sign. Amy read it aloud, and then translated for David’s benefit: the festival of rag-doll-making was apparently a local tradition, for centuries the people of little Campan had made these big effigies, known as mounaques, and in mid September the people would put their handmade rag dolls on display in windows and doors, in shops and in cars.
It was a village of dolls. A village of silent, impassive doll faces, smiling absurdly at nothing. The smiles felt like jeers or insults.
Not that there was anyone to feel menaced or insulted: Campan was deserted, locked up, empty, taciturn, shuttered. One old woman was stepping out of a horse meat shop; she stared their way, then frowned, and walked quickly around the corner.
They reached the main place of Campan. A mournful war memorial, a bus stop, and a shop, also closed, marked the centre of everything; one short road led to a bridge, over the rushing River Adour. Even from here David could see that the opposite bank of the river was utterly derelict, a field of roofless cottages and mouldering barns.
Campan was wholly empty, and half abandoned.
The other road off the place led straight to the church. A metal gate gave onto an overgrown churchyard surrounded by a tall, grey stone wall.
The church door itself was open, so they stepped straight through. The nave was adorned with cheap purple plastic flowers. Four dolls sat on the front pew, staring at the altar: an entire manikin family.
David hunted for twoness, yet he couldn’t find it. Campan had one font, one door, one pulpit and four rag dolls grinning like cretins, like inbred retards.
Not two.
Amy maybe sensed his frustration, she put a hand on his shoulder.
‘Maybe it’s more complicated…’
‘No. I’m sure that’s it. Two. It has to be.’ He was snapping the words angrily, and unfairly. Amy flinched, and he apologized. He said he needed fresh air and stepped outside again, into the churchyard. The overcast autumn day was clammy and oppressive, but still an improvement on the dankness of the interior.
He breathed in, he breathed out, calming himself. Staring lucidly. Working it out. The distant mountaintops peered over the plastered brickwork of the church wall.
David gazed at the wall.
If there was a second door it might be in this strange, high castellated wall, which barricaded the entire churchyard.
His search was hampered by the wet brambles that brawled between the graves. Enormous spiders scuttled from his steps.
‘What are you doing?’
Amy had followed him out.
He lifted a hand, without turning.
‘Looking…for doors. In this wall. Don’t know what else to do.’
He kicked his way through the sodden undergrowth, flattening wild roses, and clambering over broken tombstones. The air was damp to the point of rain; the graves were slippery to the touch. He climbed and slithered and examined.
The wall was intact, the ancient bricks were apparently unpierced. Amy called out.
‘Here!’
She was behind him, pulling back some ivy, which had draped one section of the wall. Behind the ivy was a door, shut and dead, but a door. He hurried over and leaned near to see: the tiny door exuded age, the stone