Northern Girl (35 page)

‘She’ll wake up for her breakfast, I’ll bet.’ Tom tried to lighten the atmosphere a bit.

‘Well, can ah feed ’er, then?’ Jeannie asked in a louder whisper.

Rene pulled her on to her lap and tried to explain. ‘Look, pet, they’ve just arrived, and Maddie and the baby are going to need time to get used to us and to the house, without
all
of us hanging around them. So we’ll stay for breakfast, then we’ll go back home to Bishop.’

Recognizing Jeannie’s deep intake of breath as being a prelude to an objection, Rene cut in quickly, ‘There’ll be plenty more days when you can come over to help with the baby, I’m sure.’ She glanced at Madeleine for confirmation.

Maddie nodded and smiled politely.

Tom set about stoking up the fire while Da went out to the coalhouse to fill up the heavy aluminium bucket, and Mam busied herself in the scullery getting breakfast ready. Rene, unsure what to do, said to Tom and Maddie, ‘I’ll be in the kitchen if you want anything. We’ll give you a minute or two to get your breath, eh?’ She glanced at Tom, who nodded in appreciation.

When Rene entered the kitchen, Hannah looked up from the eggs she was beating, and said, ‘Ah’ve come in here ter give them a bit of time. Ah don’t know what ter say ter the poor lass, she looks terrified.’

‘I know,’ Rene answered. ‘She’s probably really tired, and feeling totally lost at the moment.’

Hannah nodded, adding, ‘Bye, she’s a bonny lass, though!’

‘Yes, she is.’ Rene smiled in agreement.

‘Ah can’t wait fer the bairn ter wake up. Yer can’t see her properly when her face is turned to her mam like that!’

‘Yes, me too, but I came away because Maddie looks so fragile, and I don’t know how to get her to relax. She’s obviously not going to hand the baby over to anybody at the moment, so there was nothing I could do to help. I thought she might be better with some time to just sit and try to acclimatize herself.’

‘Well,’ Hannah pointed out, ‘it’s up ter our Tom ter settle ’er in, really.’ She added, ‘Ah’m that glad you and our Jeannie came over last night instead of this morning.’

‘Yes,’ Rene answered, ‘so am I, as it’s turned out. Although I think as far as Maddie’s concerned it’s probably been a bit more of a houseful to face than she would have liked. So what I’ll do, Mam, is go up and change the sheets while you finish here in the kitchen.’

‘OK, pet, that’d be a help,’ Hannah replied. Then added as an afterthought, ‘And would yer get our Jeannie in here ter get this bread? She could be toastin’ it over the fire the while.’

Madeleine sat by the fire, feeling unable to move. Not even when Tom crouched down in front of her, to ask if she wanted to go up to the bedroom to rest, did she move her eyes towards him. She knew that if she did anything she would cry. And she couldn’t cry again, because if she did she would never stop.

Tom, at a bit of a loss, not ever having seen Madeleine like this before, offered to take her coat, but her response was to shake her head and pull the coat further around herself.

Not sure how to respond, he said in as light a tone as
he could muster, ‘The fire’ll be blaring away in a few minutes, and then we’ll all feel better for it, eh?’

The corners of her mouth moved up slightly, but she didn’t answer, or look at him. Oh, she could see that his family were kind and good people. But they weren’t her people. She had left behind the only life she knew and understood, in order to live with the man who was the father of her baby, and, yes, she loved him. But did she love him enough to spend the rest of her life in a world that she neither knew or understood?

Acutely aware of the repetitive ticking of the grandfather clock, she sat there allowing the sound to bore through her head, in this strange, brown-coloured room. She found herself wondering how many times it would have to tick before she could go home to visit her maman and papa.

Rene came back into the room, where, shocked at the misery on Madeleine’s face, she whispered urgently to Tom, ‘You haven’t told her, have you?’

‘I was keeping it as a surprise for tomorrow, after she’s had time to settle herself in,’ he answered.

‘Well, looking at her now, I don’t think it can wait until tomorrow.’

He glanced over at Madeleine, who was staring at the fire, her eyes swimming with unshed tears.

‘Maybe you’re right,’ he said anxiously. ‘Maddie!’ he shook her arm lightly, causing her to look up vacantly. ‘Maddie! I’ve got something to show you. Just sit there and I’ll be back in a second.’

Racing upstairs, he grabbed an envelope from his
bedside table, and, after quickly checking the contents, he ran back down the stairs, and, coming to rest at Madeleine’s side, he crouched down beside her and handed it to her.

A deep frown formed on her forehead. ‘What is it?’ she asked.

‘Open it and see,’ he prompted with a smile.

From the envelope she pulled out two photographs. One showed the front of a little cottage with a man peering through the doorway, and the other a garden with trees in it, and a group of people sitting under one of the tallest ones.

‘I don’t understand,’ she said. ‘Who are this people?’

‘No, no, not the people. Forget the people. What do you see?’ Tom urged.

‘A house, and a garden?’ Madeleine answered, confused by his question.

‘It’s yours, pet. Well, what I mean is, it’s ours,’ he corrected.

‘Ours …? The house? You mean this house is for you and me?’ she exclaimed.

Tom nodded, looking mightily pleased with himself.

‘Oh,
mon Dieu!
’ She clapped her hand over her mouth, then asked, ‘Why did you not tell me, Tom?’

‘I planned to take you there tomorrow, as a surprise, but you looked so sad that I had to tell you now.’

Madeleine sat there, saying nothing, but her mind was working very fast. How could she have doubted whether she loved this man enough? This man who had done this thing for her, this huge thing, which she knew
must be well beyond his means. She had no idea how he’d done it, but he had, and she had no doubt that he’d have to work long hours to afford it. But he’d done it for her.

Tom, concerned about Madeleine’s continuing silence, tried to encourage her by saying, ‘Ah know it’s a bit run down, but it will be lovely when we’ve finished decorating it. I thought we could do it together, bit by bit, and Mam is happy for us to stay with her until it’s done. Come on, pet, we’ll manage till then, and we’ll have fun choosing the wallpaper and all that, won’t we?’

Madeleine knew then that, no matter what lay ahead, if this husband of hers, who she loved more than ever before, had found a way, against all the odds, to make this huge gesture to her, then
she
was damned well going to find a way to make a new life here in England with him.

She looked up at the family. Rene and Jack stood side by side, Jeannie and Hannah held hands, waiting and wondering.

As an answer, Maddie stood up, gently handed Francine to Rene, and threw her arms around Tom, before, unashamedly, kissing him hard on the mouth. The only sound in the room was Jeannie’s embarrassed exclamation, ‘Eee, Gran!’

Although
Northern Girl
is a work of fiction, it was inspired by the true story of how my parents met, and created a life together …

‘I was dancing with an officer when I first saw Tom [my mother, Madeleine, recounts]. He was making fun of me while he was with other girls, some even sitting on his knee. After a while, he managed to ask me to dance, and it all started from there.

Over the next few months we had a lovely time, and he came to see me every day. Sometimes he would go to a shop in the market place, where there was another girl. But I guess he must have preferred me.

Some months later after he was moved to Belgium I discovered that I was pregnant, and that was a terrible thing to happen in those days. It was such a worry for my family, as well as for me. (My sister Martine told me of the shocked and urgent whispers going around the village: “
Have you heard about Madeleine Pelletier?
”)

We had no idea how to contact Tom. Eventually Martine went to Lille to meet an officer of his detachment, a very nice man. But when Tom was contacted from Lille, he said that the baby couldn’t be his.

Sometime after that he was demobilized and he returned to England, where, I heard later, he was given a big, hero-style welcome-home party.

After Francine was born, my family and I managed to get Tom’s home address and we contacted him, to let him know that he had a lovely little girl. It must have been a huge shock for his family.

He then started to write, and eventually, when he saw his daughter, any doubts he’d had were dispelled. She was his, and in his heart he’d always known it. But what could a man who was just out of the army with no proper job give to a woman and a child who lived in France? The initial denial of his child had been a result of nothing more than poverty and fear.

Tom and I married in France. Before I went to live in England (the only option we had) Dominic, my brother, insisted on going before me, to check on where I would be living, and to meet Tom’s parents. When he arrived in Bishop Auckland he took the bus to Evenwood. By amazing coincidence he recognized two little criss-cross lines on the back of the neck of the person sitting in front of him. It was Tom.

After an emotional reunion, Tom and Dominic continued the five-mile bus journey together. It was a huge surprise for the family when they walked into Tom’s house but they couldn’t do enough for Dominic. Anyone who knew the Dawson family will know exactly what I mean. They were very warm and caring people.

I remember the day Francine and I arrived in Evenwood. It was very early in the morning, and the
whole family had got out of bed very quickly. Rene, Jeannie, one of their aunties (Hilda), Hannah and Jack, all looking at us.

As I remember it now, the whole family seemed to be standing there just smiling at us. But I was too sad to smile.

Tom did not understand how hard it was for me when I arrived in England. I knew no one, and I couldn’t speak the language. We also had a little girl to look after and she was only one year old at the time. What if she fell ill? How would I speak to the doctor? How would I speak to anyone about anything? But Tom was young, and he didn’t realize what I had given up.

Little Jeannie wanted to take Francine to show her off to her friends, but I was afraid and reluctant to let my little girl go away from me. Everything was so new and so different here, and it took me a
very, very
long time to get used to this difficult way of life.’

After many years of heartache and almost unbearable homesickness Madeleine did get used to this way of life. And by looking at newspapers, listening to the radio and to people conversing, amazingly she conquered the language barrier.

Her yearly visits home to France, although very necessary to her, could also be detrimental, as she suffered such heart-wrenching pain each time she left her family to make the tearful journey back to the north-east of England. However, aware that without
the warmth of Tom’s family she might not have coped at all, bit by bit she began to allow herself to embrace the cultural differences.

Two years after the birth of Francine, Madeleine found herself pregnant again, and returned to France. After the birth of their son, she journeyed back to the north-east of England, where she and Tom continued to bring up their two children until the early 1960s when, due to lack of building work in the north-east, she and her family moved south.

At eighty-three years old, Madeleine, who still retains her very attractive French accent, enjoys the loving affection of her children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and, of course, the friends she has made over the years. And most surprisingly, she’s more at home now in this once alien country of England than in her homeland.

Sadly, Tom died some years ago.