The September Garden (25 page)

‘But, I can see you are not.’

Nell pressed her fingernails into her palm, desperate to stop the tears. She did not want to cry in front of this man.

‘More recently,’ Henri said, ‘Mr Hammond approached me. He knows my skills.’

Nell glanced through the high pub window distracted by the pearly June sky – just like it was on the evening of the village fête. That delicate light, so precious. It filled her with delicious memories.
Alex wants to find me
. She held the idea in the palm of her hand and it felt like an exquisite charm.

She suddenly glanced at her watch, realised the time. She had to sign back in at the nursing home at 9 o’clock sharp and the light summer evening was confusing her.

‘Don’t worry,’ said Henri, watching her, ‘I’ll get you back on time.’

Nell swallowed another tot of brandy.

‘I’m not proud of what I did. I am a thief and a liar.’

‘Oh,
ma chérie,
we are all both of those things.’

‘I took my stepmother’s school certificate and her ration book. That’s all I needed. I had to buy my own uniform.’

‘Your
stepmother’s?’

‘She’s only about five years older than me.’

‘What about your identification papers?’

‘I pretended they’d been lost. In the chaos, it seemed so easy. They were desperate for nurses. Somehow, it was never resolved and I was lost into bureaucracy. I often wonder when they’ll rumble me.’

Henri congratulated her, raised his glass of beer to her.

‘You’re in the wrong job, my dear.’

She sat for some moments in silence, longing to know the answer to the question that had plagued her, driven her senseless, made her reckless with grief.

‘Where is he?’ she finally said. ‘Where is Alex?’

‘Ah. I cannot tell you.’

Infuriated, she asked, ‘But is he safe? Is he in London?’

‘He is not in London. But he is somewhere safe,’ said Henri. ‘Safe, at least for tonight.’

It seemed to her that deep midnight had only just passed, yet already the sky in the east on such a short summer night was awakening with soft luminosity. The full and radiant moon hung just out of her reach. Below the cottage she could hear the waves licking languidly at the sea wall. She’d never seen a spring tide so high or the water so deep and heavy. The air was still, the night was tender and tranquil, like a muffling blanket. Moonlight silvered the barbed wire twisting out of the sand.

For weeks now, her nights had been disturbed by sporadic Allied raids further along the coast, on Caen and on Merville. The explosions and flares lit the horizon like ominous flashes of lightning; and the retorts from the Panzer units’ anti-aircraft guns brought rumblings and vibrations. But up here by the sea, at the apex of the peninsular, Montfleur had been left in relative peace. Even so, despite this, life every day was corrupted by fear.

Standing by the bedroom window, Adele reached her hand down a fraction to touch her fingertip to her sleeping daughter’s cheek. She could see the little girl’s face, oval and pale in the half darkness. Sophie, now three years old, was tucked in Jean’s passed-down truckle bed, snoring in dreamless sleep. Two-month-old Pierre, in the crib next to her, had been an underweight baby, underfed by Adele’s own lack of food and aching hunger.

Incredibly, too, Jean was fast asleep in the bed. The doctor had at last been able to give him a sleeping tablet; they had been hard to get hold of in recent months. Her husband had hardly slept since that night three months ago when the maquisard blew up a convoy on the road to Cherbourg; since the German machine gunner keeping watch on the roof of one of the trucks had strafed the hedge, shattering both of Jean’s ankles and destroying his feet. Two nights later, the doctor, under cover of darkness in his own salon, in danger of the arrest of himself and his family, had removed the splintered bones, fractured toes; he’d sliced through and stitched severed tendons.

‘You will be lucky if gangrene doesn’t set in. Watch out for blood poisoning,’ he warned Adele as Jean, reviving from the first dose of ether, began to spit through his teeth in screaming bloody agony.

Adele now watched her husband sleep. They’d run out of morphine two weeks ago, and his wretched torment had returned with fresh onslaught and carved itself into his wide, handsome face. But, thanks to the sleeping pill, he lay in the mercy of sleep, his dark hair ruffled against the pillow. The covers at the end of the bed were raised by one of Madame Ricard’s small tables so the weight of the
sheets and blankets would not press on her son’s destroyed extremities.

The crutches, leaning in the corner, helped Jean get down the stairs and to the outside lavatory and back. That, in months, was as far as his strength would allow him to go. Simon took the
Orageux Bleu
out with the help of a lad from the village. The people of Montfleur had expected Simon, Jean and the rest of the cell to be flushed out and lined up against the
mairie
wall to be shot. But inexplicably, Jean had been left alone, and Simon to continue with the fishing. The elder and the younger Madame Ricard had sat in terror of the Gestapo’s knock on the door. It never came. Adele wondered if Monsieur Orlande had used his influence this time.

In the past few months, as the weather eased itself into the warmth of summer, she had noticed that German soldiers began to outnumber the population of Montfleur. Units seemed to be on the move, colonising the surrounding fields with their camps, building makeshift kitchens and digging foxholes and commandeering people’s doors to cover them. There was an incessant rumble of trucks up and down the country roads and a more frequent hard marching of boots across the square. Perhaps, Jean had commented, this was in response to an intelligence that they had no hope of even guessing at. Their radio had been down for weeks, the cell disbanded.

It was only tonight that her mother-in-law had managed to obtain a new battery for the radio, but when they tuned in just before bedtime they heard a babble of incoherent messages that were impossible to decipher. They switched off.

Adele glanced down. Pierre was stirring and uttering plaintive mews, his little gumless mouth nuzzling the back of her hand. Fearful of both Sophie and Jean waking, Adele plucked him from the crib and headed downstairs to the parlour to feed him. She sat by the banked-down fire. Even in June, the stone house did not feel warm and she shivered under her shawl as her baby suckled.

Pierre was a slow, lazy feeder; he had no energy to try. Adele, realising she would be sitting there for a long time, felt in the pocket of her dressing gown for Madame Orlande’s letter which had arrived a week ago. She reread it, feeling a sting of pathos as she perused her old employer’s hand. Such a marvellous letter writer she had once been. And now reduced to a few lines on a fragment of pilfered paper.

Her eyes fell heavy as Beth Orlande’s words drifted through her mind.
Pray for my dear Sylvie … my dear sister and her family … how are the cabbages and the beans, Adele? … how are the neighbours? Our camp is truly intolerable … we have one stove between ten of us and ten books between about sixty of us. I have been rereading
Rebecca
, darling Sylvie’s favourite book … All fine old fillies here … we’ve become quite a rabble … English, Dutch … an American woman who was something at the consulate in Paris. Wrong place, wrong time, she keeps saying. She’s been saying that for months. She bores me. We sew uniforms and make socks for German soldiers. They will have the warmest feet in the war. I have taken up table tennis … Quite unladylike. What would Sylvie say? I hope for a visit from Monsieur if things quieten down. Can’t believe it has been three years. Three years in this 
hole … Pray for Monsieur … He takes it all very hard.

‘She knows nothing of you, little one, or of Sophie,’ Adele whispered to Pierre’s oblivious little face. ‘She knows nothing at all.’

She folded the letter away and dozed. The small square window, cut into the deep stone wall, grew lighter. The night, she sensed sleepily, altered and the silence was suddenly being consumed by a deep rumbling. It came closer and closer by the second like processional thunder. Adele, suddenly alert, knew that it was aircraft. She was used to the sound, but
this
grew so immense and so embracing that the air was bracketed by metallic vibration, stuffing her brain and blocking her ears. And then she jumped up; the engines were droning in over
La Manche
. Allied bombers, covering the sky, coming their way. She clutched Pierre to her chest.

And then cannon fire, like she had never heard before, from way out at sea. The thunderous roar tore up the air. Windows rattled, the shutters vibrated. The explosions thumped in fury onto the land to the south of Montfleur over and over again.

She turned in shock. Madame Ricard appeared at the parlour door in her white nightgown.

‘Oh,
Maman
!’ cried Adele. ‘What is it? What on earth is it? This is worse than ever.’

‘It’s over at the Bay of the Seine. I’ll try the radio,’ said the older woman. ‘See if I can’t find some news.’

Madame Ricard bent to her radio set but the airwaves were strangled and merely spluttered an awful whining, then silence. ‘I can’t find any frequency,’ she sighed. ‘All hell has been let loose,’ she muttered, glancing up at the ceiling, out of the window. ‘This is appalling.’

‘Hold the baby,’ said Adele. ‘I need to get Jean and Sophie downstairs. We should go to the cellar.’

In the upstairs bedroom, above the protection of the sea wall, the weight of the bombardment was phenomenal. Adele stood in the doorway, petrified. With each insane salvo, she felt as if a train was passing over her, emptying her body, demolishing her senses. Sophie was crying, clutching at her father, as Jean struggled to reach his crutches.

‘You know what I think this is,’ he said, eyes bright in the half-light, his fingers clutching at Adele’s arm. The air raid siren began to howl, ineffective and drowned instantly by the thunderous noise. ‘Those are naval guns.
British
naval guns. Adele, my love. We’ve fought for so long. This is what we’ve been fighting for. Waiting for. This is
it
.’

During a moment of quiet in the cannons’ terrible voice, Adele heard thumping on the front door. She went up the dark cellar stairs and was met with a morning of light and lucidity; an exceptional summer’s day. As she opened the door the bouquet from Madame Ricard’s rose bushes by the step was immediately swamped by the acid scent of gun smoke on the breeze.

Monsieur Orlande stood on her doorstep. Behind him, on the street, a handful of harassed soldiers hurried along banging on front doors of the other sea wall cottages with the butts of their rifles, barking orders.

‘These houses are to be evacuated,’ said the gendarme, gruffly, his eyes roving, unable to meet hers. ‘It will be safer for you all to come inland. Into the village.’

Adele folded her arms, and looked up at him. Her anger, her loathing fixated on his droopy moustache and
the bulk of his stomach bulging his uniform. She noticed two buttons had popped off. Of course, he was alone and had no woman – wife or maid – to take care of such things. Surely, she thought, one of his Nazi subordinates would do a little tailoring for him?

‘And you’ve come here especially to tell us yourself?’ she muttered. ‘Why didn’t you send one of your minions from the
mairie
? Why didn’t you leave it to the Bosch?’

‘I want you all to come to my house. Away from the sea wall. I have a better cellar.’

‘We don’t want to come to your house, sir,’ retorted Adele, aware that Madame Ricard was at her elbow.

Monsieur Orlande glanced over her shoulder at the older woman. ‘By the look on her face, I think Madame wants to, very much,’ he said. ‘You have your family. Don’t be a fool, Adele.’

‘A fool? Is that what I am now?’ she snapped. ‘Better that than
collabo
.’

Adele went to close the door. Her mother-in-law put her foot in the way.

‘Adele, shut up!’ she cried. ‘Stop this now.’

Adele turned away, her throat tight in frustration, in anger and the grinding fear that she had grown so used to.

She heard Jean’s mother say, ‘… of course, Monsieur, we are so very grateful …’

Her voice was swamped by the sound of another round of salvos, thumping over the sea.

‘What on earth is going on?’ Madame Ricard asked.

‘We are being invaded,’ said the gendarme.

Adele glanced at him, drawn by the tone of his voice. His face was pale; his moustache twitching.

‘Invaded, sir?’ Madame Ricard responded.

‘They’re landing.’ He was distracted, his eyes wandering down the street, up to the sky. ‘The coastline is under fire, I’ve been told; from Quinéville to Arromanches to Ouistreham.’

‘The Allies!’ breathed Madame, incredulous.

‘Here is my key,’ Monsieur barked. ‘Take it or leave it.’

In the distance the guns boomed. Passing through the melee of activity around Montfleur harbour, Adele held onto her limping husband. Beside her walked Madame Ricard with her grandson in her arms. Sophie trailed behind them.

German soldiers, their features tight with fatigue and fear, lined up in platoons, and began to march. They were ready for action but quaking, it seemed to Adele, at the prospect of it. What a change, she thought, to the cocky, self-assured men who had harassed her, teased her, after the fall of France. Yet, still, they were immaculate: boots shining, rifles gleaming.

The residents of Montfleur, Adele noted, had other, more complex expressions as they responded to the sudden and undisputed transformation of their day: restrained glee, a glimmer of hope, and yet still, not daring to speak of it.

As they passed the
Orageux Bleu
, Simon, thought Adele, was less restrained. He was whistling, packing up some nets, winding some rope. He nodded to them all, first of all wary; but then he realised that now, perhaps now, he could say what was on his mind. He stepped onto the quayside.

‘This lot are being deployed south where the heavy fire is.’ He motioned towards the soldiers. ‘I reckon they are short of men. I’ve heard that the divisions are depleted
because of the Eastern Front. The timing is right. The message was on the radio last night:
the dice have been thrown
. Did you hear it?’

‘We couldn’t make it out,’ said Adele, glancing over her shoulder in fearful reflex. She flinched as the guns out to sea roared again. She wondered at the mayhem, the chaos of battle, what the men were
doing
beneath all that noise. Allied soldiers on French soil? It was too astonishing to comprehend.

Jean, leaning heavily on Adele, was gazing down at his boat, idle on the high water in the harbour.

‘I long for the end,’ he whispered, his face unrecognisable with pain. ‘I so long for it all to end.’

‘Jean, here, look at this.’ Simon rummaged in a box on the boat and drew out a
tricolore
, folded and bound with rope. ‘Take heart because, any day soon, we shall unfurl this and fly it from the top of the
mairie
.’

Adele helped her husband lie down on the
chaise
by the empty fireplace in Monsieur Orlande’s salon. He winced as she lifted his legs onto the cushion, his throat drenched in sweat. Hobbling the kilometre over rough cobbles from the sea wall cottage to the Orlande home had taken its toll on his savaged feet. His eyes swam; his jaw was fixed.

‘I will call the doctor,’ she said. ‘He might have something he can give you.’

Jean grabbed her hands and made her sit by him. She knelt on the carpet and rested against the
chaise
. ‘Not yet,’ he sighed, despairing. ‘Don’t go.’

Pain made him breathless. Adele looked around the room, knowing Monsieur kept his brandy in the small cabinet. The
sunny morning made mockery of the dust, revealing it lying thick on the
buffet
and the secretaire where Madame used to write her letters. There were empty bottles of wine discarded in the fireplace and crystal glasses lined up in a row stained with telltale smears of red, long evaporated. Next to Monsieur’s chair was a plate of cheese crumbs, manna for the mice; old pipe tobacco reeking in an ashtray. A grey cobweb extended from one corner of the mantelpiece to the wall.