An unknown English girl tries to make her way in 1970s London. Vicky Graham wants to produce a small independent movie based on a story she’d heard quite by chance on Perpignan station in the south of France. An event in the 1890s, never to be forgotten by the railway workers involving intrigue, sacred rites, the Knights Templar, malice and deception – charged with erotic passion. It took place on the station platform in the shadow of the sacred mountain Canigou on the day of the dead. The artist Salvador Dali chanced upon the story. It was sought by the rich, the famous, including Otto Rahn, Cocteau, Hitler in the locale, already resonating with mysticism and myth. Was the priest from Rennes-le-Château brought to raise the dead? And why? Who was Belle, the beautiful daughter of the local horse and carriage company? Why did she leave suddenly for Paris never to be seen again? And why for this untried film-maker did Belle seem familiar? And the charismatic Italian whose voice was the marvel of Rome. He belonged to the Vatican and would give up a fortune – even God's Will – to run off with Belle. What is the horror that no rail worker would reveal, not for any price?
Vicky, unsuccessful in raising money for the film, takes on various jobs, finally succeeding as a trainee producer for radio. Alone she has to fight for survival – and always has. For comfort she is drawn back to the pattern on her childhood wall, a flickering design made from rustling leaves in the lamplight forming a doorway her mother called a portal. Its appearance brought Vicky a sense of sweetness. The accompanying sound was like no other and could not be explained. The portal revisits her later in life and becomes the doorway to other times, other realities.
While working at the BBC, Vicky crosses the path of the recently acclaimed outstanding violinist and composer Luciano Raffi, charismatic, otherworldly – bringing music not heard before. Lifted out of the unloving greyness of the everyday she contrives to meet him and manages to hear his first European concert, the music said to originate from the Knights Templar sending the audience into rapturous adulation rarely known. She seeks him out and finds they have Perpignan Station in common. He too knows about the secret.
They spend a wild night across Paris in the bars and clubs until time for his flight to the U.S. Raffi is alive, joyous, unafraid. The edge is too tame for him. He burns his candle over-bright. They are drawn into a powerful attraction, unconsummated, and plan an assignation in New York. He'll send her red roses. He'll never forget her. She is glad her life has been so hard. It makes the debut into joy so more splendid. She is joined to him, transformed by the promise of their future.
She never sees him again.
Raffi disappears, his music with him, and leaves his world in disarray. The music had been brought from a distant place. Was it too dangerous a sound for this world?
Vicky’s fortunes improve, but success, marriage, the highlife cannot altogether take him from her thoughts. Some years later an old-fashioned card arrives with a red rose on the front. She is offered an assignation in a Parisian hotel.
Raffi is back in her life but at a cost. To follow that love will take her beyond the known realms, where the laws of this universe have no hold. ‘If you follow you will lose me for good,’ he promises. ‘And yourself.’
Between one eye blink and the next he is gone.
Unable to retrace him she goes back to the source at Perpignan, seeking its well-kept secret, and finally she understands the danger of Raffi’s music, and worse, the truth of his existence. To reach him she must journey far beyond the limits of the known world.
An unknown English girl tries to make her way in 1970s London. Vicky Graham wants to produce a small independent movie based on a story she’d heard quite by chance on Perpignan station in the south of France. An event in the 1890s, never to be forgotten by the railway workers involving intrigue, sacred rites, the Knights Templar, malice and deception – charged with erotic passion. It took place on the station platform in the shadow of the sacred mountain Canigou on the day of the dead. The artist Salvador Dali chanced upon the story. It was sought by the rich, the famous, including Otto Rahn, Cocteau, Hitler in the locale, already resonating with mysticism and myth. Was the priest from Rennes-le-Château brought to raise the dead? And why? Who was Belle, the beautiful daughter of the local horse and carriage company? Why did she leave suddenly for Paris never to be seen again? And why for this untried film-maker did Belle seem familiar? And the charismatic Italian whose voice was the marvel of Rome. He belonged to the Vatican and would give up a fortune – even God's Will – to run off with Belle. What is the horror that no rail worker would reveal, not for any price?
Vicky, unsuccessful in raising money for the film, takes on various jobs, finally succeeding as a trainee producer for radio. Alone she has to fight for survival – and always has. For comfort she is drawn back to the pattern on her childhood wall, a flickering design made from rustling leaves in the lamplight forming a doorway her mother called a portal. Its appearance brought Vicky a sense of sweetness. The accompanying sound was like no other and could not be explained. The portal revisits her later in life and becomes the doorway to other times, other realities.
While working at the BBC, Vicky crosses the path of the recently acclaimed outstanding violinist and composer Luciano Raffi, charismatic, otherworldly – bringing music not heard before. Lifted out of the unloving greyness of the everyday she contrives to meet him and manages to hear his first European concert, the music said to originate from the Knights Templar sending the audience into rapturous adulation rarely known. She seeks him out and finds they have Perpignan Station in common. He too knows about the secret.
They spend a wild night across Paris in the bars and clubs until time for his flight to the U.S. Raffi is alive, joyous, unafraid. The edge is too tame for him. He burns his candle over-bright. They are drawn into a powerful attraction, unconsummated, and plan an assignation in New York. He'll send her red roses. He'll never forget her. She is glad her life has been so hard. It makes the debut into joy so more splendid. She is joined to him, transformed by the promise of their future.
She never sees him again.
Raffi disappears, his music with him, and leaves his world in disarray. The music had been brought from a distant place. Was it too dangerous a sound for this world?
Vicky’s fortunes improve, but success, marriage, the highlife cannot altogether take him from her thoughts. Some years later an old-fashioned card arrives with a red rose on the front. She is offered an assignation in a Parisian hotel.
Raffi is back in her life but at a cost. To follow that love will take her beyond the known realms, where the laws of this universe have no hold. ‘If you follow you will lose me for good,’ he promises. ‘And yourself.’
Between one eye blink and the next he is gone.
Unable to retrace him she goes back to the source at Perpignan, seeking its well-kept secret, and finally she understands the danger of Raffi’s music, and worse, the truth of his existence. To reach him she must journey far beyond the limits of the known world.