The Pearls that were their Eyes [Pt.1]
Harbour, Saint-Vaast-la-Hougue, Ile de Tatihou in the distance.
Buron. Edwige. Freddy Joyce.
Margaux. Yeti. Filibuster.
Liberte. Bonne Sainte Rita. Silence II.
In the fishing village of St-Vaast-La-Hougue, the harbour wall extends a long way out towards the Ile de Tatihou, an accusatory finger pointing at an island once used as a quarantine harbour to prevent pestilence creeping ashore from merchant vessels. It ends in a small lighthouse, topped with pillar-box red ironwork which features the shape of stars. I think about the commissioning of those railings. Who wanted their harbour lights tricked out with stars. Now we navigate by a different set of charts. Now the waitress scans my pass sanitaire and I scan the horizon. Now, only birds live on Tatihou and watch the waves for warnings and possibilities. They array themselves on a pontoon to dry their wings, gulls thick set and thuggish, cormorants composed of black angles, their backs to the tides which have shaped the town of St-Vaast, given it its ancient oyster and mussel beds. Time runs high here then goes slack. That is the way with coastal towns which make their livings on what the sea gives up. Day boats still sail out of St-Vaast and sell their catch on the quayside. Lobsterpots, stacked to highrises, litter the quay, black and crackling with drying kelp and tiny barnacles, mouths agape. Rope in artless loops of washed out tangerine, turquoise, lemon threaten to trip you. Crab, lobster, scallops, cockles and whelks, turbot, seabass and mackerel, all are landed here. The boats have names like Tomahawk, Cherbourg and Providence.
Buron. Edwige. Freddy Joyce.
Margaux. Yeti. Filibuster.
Liberte. Bonne Sainte Rita. Silence II.
Rising up from the concrete in salt-faded patisserie colours, are the hulls of boats in dry dock, waiting for repairs which may never come. Out of the water they look somehow shamefaced, as if caught in a state of undress. It’s not clear if any of these vessels will put to sea again. One, a vast hulk named Somme II, has entrenched itself against the back of the workshop and been converted into extra storage space, like two oyster shells calcifying together. Gaps in the hull reveal how it was constructed, elegant cross sections of rib and rivet, a miracle of craft and physics. High above the pavement, the wheelhouse rears up beneath the cresting wave of the boat house roof, a tableau of storms weathered decades before.
Somme II, Boatyard St-Vaast-la-Hougue
Behind the boatyard, at the extreme end of the harbour at St-Vaast-La-Hougue, hunkered against the sea wall like a barnacle, is the Chapelle des Marines. A chapel has stood on this site since the 11th century, its back to the waves, its arrow slit windows terminating in grinning faces. It is tiny, perhaps three meters wide by six meters long. It was at one time surrounded by a churchyard and burials took place there but these remains have long since been disinterred and redistributed and no-one seems sure of where these bones might now be found.
Chapelle des Marines, exterior.
Even on a wincingly bright and clear winter morning, it is has a dim, underwater quality, the sunlight filtered through the muted nineteenth-century stained glass coming to you as if you were standing on the ocean floor. From a niche to your right you are observed by a wooden carving of St Vaast himself, fingers raised in benediction, the folds of his Marian blue robe rippling in waves.[1]
Beyond the altar rail, high on the wall, are a carved Madonna and child, unpainted and hemmed into their recess by jars of red and white roses. The air smells damp and cold, as though someone has very recently struck a match only to blow it out again. The altar itself has an improvised feel, the brass scene of the crucifixion seeming like an after thought, dwarfed by mismatched containers of flowers, real and artificial. The sanctuary lamp which burns steadily and announces God is in the house. None of these fixtures are unusual in and of themselves, in communities where Catholicism squats comfortably over the relics of pre-Christian beliefs, where roadside shrines flash regularly by in a blur of piety and rust. The chapel could be any of hundreds which dot the landscape of Manche, were it not for the faces that stare down at you from the plaques on the walls, not gilded saints but the drowned of St-Vaast-la-Hogue.
Buron. Edwige. Freddy Joyce.
Margaux. Yeti. Filibuster.
Liberte. Bonne Sainte Rita. Silence II.
Peris en Mer. Disparu en Mer.
[1] St Vaast (as he is known in the Norman and Flemish languages – he is St Vedast to the rest of the catholic world) is called to the aid of those with sight trouble. His attributes include a wolf with a goose in its mouth.