Zazou and Rebecca

Zazou, an ageing artist enjoying a resurgence of his artistic powers and reputation, and Rebecca, a disabled daughter he knows nothing about, find their lives suddenly entwined. Rebecca appears one afternoon, in her wheelchair, at Zazou's house, exhausted by the journey from her home in the north of France to the village of Villefranche-Ferrals near the Mediterranean coast. She has been despatched by her mother, Ruth, who can no longer cope with her daughter's presence. In spite of Zazou's scepticism about the truth of Rebecca's story, and against his wishes, the women in his household immediately make her welcome. Clare, a strong and forthright Irishwoman, and Aline, Zazou's young model, help Rebecca establish herself as part of the 'family', while Rebecca herself tries to learn more about her father from his paintings. 'At the next painting she could pause again, briefly. Here was water, no mistake: disembodied forms dissolving and mingling in the semi-figurative style she had seen in the house. Here a fish, but not a fish, a sea-monster, or a human-being. Here the shadows under the sea's surface, the sunlight shaping reflections, spinning shadows so that the blues and oranges seemed to break out of the frame. And moving on, and on, canvas after canvas, with these abstractions of waterfalls, streams, drips, splashes, but also landscapes, faces, bodies, birds. Throb of head, wane of concentration. Please, to sit quietly in front of one canvas, still and serene, and imbibe this man my father. To lose myself in just one picture. A union in the world where my father is.' As the daughter, damaged both physically and emotionally, and her taciturn father grudgingly begin to accept one another, other influences from the hippie commune beyond the village further threaten to disrupt their fragile relationship. Aiden Skilbeck, a guitarist from the commune, makes an unexpected impression on her, and Ruth arrives at Villefranche-Ferrals, wanting to re-establish a connection with her daughter. When events take a disturbing turn, Rebecca has to make some difficult decisions.

David V. Pearson was born in 1950, in the Black Country town of Dudley, West Midlands. In his teens he lost his accent, acquired long hair and a beard and, in 1969, followed the ’hippie trail’ through Europe and Asia to India. As a so-called ’mature’ student, and with a young family, he gained a degree in English Literature and Educational Studies from the University of Exeter, then taught Art, English, Drama and French at various schools in Somerset. To celebrate his retirement in 2015 from paid employment, he took part in a trek over the Pyrenees via the ’Chemin de la Liberte’, a celebrated escape-route used by allied airmen and civilians fleeing Nazi occupation during World War II. He and his wife now spend much of the year in the heart of the Somerset Levels, and the rest at their village home-from-home in the Languedoc.