Writer's Notebook

I guess the sudden press interest in our village took us all by surprise. Had we been a more worldly wise, maybe we might have profited a little more from it. Some of my committee seemed to think so.

"A golden opportunity to raise public awareness for our centre and for the principle of civic education." That's how my treasurer saw it. But despite his speed to want to jump on the bandwagon, the media circus came and left far too quickly enable us to react in any meaningful way. Here today and gone today may well sum up our history, but in our mega sounding, bit byte reduced computer age, well a day was just too long.

And to be perfectly honest I'm not sure that the celebrity status it would have brought us, would have truly been to our advantage. Celebretism - isn't it strange how you use some words in a foreign language that you've never actually used in your own. This word celebretism is a case in point. After, the events of the past few days, I feel perfectly at home using it in French, but never having had much to do with such hallowed beings in my previous English speaking life, I haven't a clue how to render it in English. So celebretism it will remain, and maybe one day it will bring me celebretism when for the first time, it receives an entry of its own in one of our language's more illustrious dictionaries. Anyway, to get back to what I was saying celebretism was scarcely compatible with radical ideas of 'culture for all' and 'a chance for the most disadvantaged' which lay at the heart of what we were trying to do at the centre.

Mayor Demille certainly seemed to think so. He, of course thrived through being in the spotlight. With the cameras behind him he took the whole world on a tour through the narrow streets of the village, mentioning Violette's connection with each place, not failing to drop in a word here and there about her friendly relations to his own family, but being strangely reticent about her friendship with Gérard.

Oh, but I get ahead of myself. I forgot to mention that the whole reason for this media circus was Violet's impending marriage to one of France's most eligible bachelors. The announcement some months ago had come as a complete shock. No one in the village, not even her mother, had heard a word from her since she left the village almost a year ago and took herself off into a hostile, friendless world. Rumour had it..., but I'll let rumour itself tell you what it had found it, never wanting to be on intimate terms with the havoc and devastation rumour sometimes creates. So how had this lonely, helpless girl suddenly turned her fortune around and ended up becoming one of the most envied women in France? And was she happy? Amidst all the euphoria of the announcement, followed by the wedding preparations, this was the one question which kept coming back to haunt me. I wished from the bottom of my heart that she was truly happy; as happy as I was with Morgana and the thought of our impending wedding. And in all the TV interviews she always smiled beautifully. But I myself had once looked into those bright blue eyes, and as I did so now, I couldn't help feeling a spent cloud was dimming their brightness.