The September Garden (7 page)

Tuesday was usually her afternoon off. Even so, as a favour to Madame Orlande, she agreed to fetch the fish. As the hall clock tinkled out the afternoon hour of two, she took her coat from the hook in the vestibule and tapped on the salon door.

‘That’s me done for the day, Madame,’ she said, poking her head around. ‘Lunch is cleared and the clean sheets are ironed and folded in the linen press. I’m heading off now.’

Sitting by the fireplace where a small fire flickered in the grate, a magazine over her lap, Beth Orlande was startled, shaken from her thoughts. She looked, thought Adele, tiny within the grand, grey proportions of the room. The marble of the fireplace looked as pale and as bruised as the fragile, translucent skin over her cheekbones.

‘Oh! Oh yes. Thank you, Adele. Have a nice—Oh, don’t forget the
cabillaud
.’

Madame hadn’t bothered to light the lamp, Adele
noticed, even though the wintry afternoon was darkening already. Inky shadows filled the corners, like strangers waiting for an introduction.

‘
Cabillaud
, Madame?’ objected Adele. ‘Oh, you mean
colin
, don’t you?’

‘Yes, yes … whatever you like …’ Madame Orlande trailed off, her eyes returning to the page open before her. Adele knew she had not been reading the magazine but blindly turning the pages.

Madame often seemed nervous, Adele decided, and often a little sad. But, since her daughter had been marooned in England, her distraction and her vacancy had become more profound. Even so, thought Adele as she opened the front door onto the cold day, Madame has lived in France for seventeen years and she still gets the word for hake wrong. She was forever mixing her fish up. This irritated Adele and in the village of Montfleur, where fish was everyone’s way of life, this was unforgivable. Monsieur was no help, teasing Madame whenever she tripped over her sentences, which was often. He was no help at all.

A frigid, solid breeze came straight off
La Manche
and blustered along the streets. As soon as Adele shut the tall blue gates behind her, she felt it hit her cheeks. She wound her scarf tightly, turning up her collar. The stone-paved streets were quiet and bleak. Dried leaves, bowled along by eddies of wind, made a scratching noise on the pavement.

Of course, she didn’t mind doing this small errand for Madame. The
Orageux Bleu
would be chugging back into the harbour very soon and Jean would be busying himself with ropes and boxes of fish and tangled nets, and she would gladly watch and wait for him, and collect 
the fish for her employers’ supper. It was peaceful by the water’s edge. She went to the harbour and sat down on the bench near the moorings, searching for the boat, for its lantern swinging out at sea in the smoke-coloured dusk. The dark-red stone of the church near the mouth of the harbour stood out against the sky in the fading light, its blush heightened by the deep, cold blue behind it. Water in the harbour was choppy and sloshing; out at sea white horses hurried to shore.

At last the clanging of rigging, like the repeated metallic calling of a seabird, and the boat emerged suddenly from the gloom, labelled by a trail of hungry pewter-coloured gulls.

‘
Bonjour, Adele. Bonjour
!’ called Jean, at the prow, a silhouette to Adele in the half-light, raising his gloved hand in salute.

Adele felt the relief, always a surprise, settling deep in her belly. Jean had made it home, the
Orageux Bleu
was in safe harbour once more. Simon, his mate, stood at the helm, his feet planted wide as he steered the boat to shore, his cap low over his large nose. He bellowed, ‘I like your scarf, mademoiselle! It’s a pretty colour. Suits you so well. Is that a new coat?’

‘Unlikely, Simon,’ she called back, cheerfully. ‘Not on my wages!’

‘New shoes, then?’ he shouted.

‘Not a chance.’ She laughed, standing up to watch the boat glide slowly to the harbour wall. All of a sudden it was upon her. Jean threw her a coil of rope, which she caught, expertly, and dipped to wind it round the cast-iron mooring. Jean leapt from the boat and was at her side 
immediately, taking the rope from her, taking up the slack and fixing it tight. They stood facing each other. Adele felt her face break open with her smile. Simon killed the engine and, in the silence that followed, she heard the familiar creaking and bobbing of the boat on the water. Jean’s kiss was full and warm on her lips.

‘Two hake please, fisherman,’ she grinned at him. ‘For Monsieur and Madame’s supper.’

‘Straight off the boat,’ Jean said. ‘You can’t get fresher than that. You do spoil them. Hey, Simon,’ he called over his shoulder, ‘find us the hake.’

‘As if I haven’t got enough to do,’ Simon muttered playfully and began to look through the boxes. ‘You better pay us, mademoiselle,’ he teased. ‘And pay us soon.’

‘Oh, I will,’ she laughed. ‘I always pay promptly, Jean knows that.’

Simon wrapped the fish in newspaper. A headline, folded now within its creases, had exclaimed of the German advance through Poland. She sat down again, set the parcel by her feet and watched the evening ritual, watched her man at his labour. The rhythm of the work at sea continued on to the land. Nets were hauled ashore and spread to dry. Ropes were coiled neatly, boxes of fish stacked on the quayside. The fishmonger arrived through the dusk on his bike and began to examine their contents. The business began in low voices, prices were uttered, refused and accepted. The scent of the sea tinged the air around her: sweet then sour with every other breath. There was poignancy in the air, an exquisite pause between day and night. Adele shivered and thrust her hands in her pockets.

‘Good evening,’ Jean said, at last able to rest, to sit 
beside her on the bench. His knitted gloves were grubby, silvery with scales. He tugged off his cap, stripped off his gloves and ran his fingers through his dark hair. ‘You look sad all of a sudden. What ever is the matter? I’ve nearly finished for the day. I’m not going to get anything more out of Simon. You should be smiling. What’s wrong?’

‘Oh nothing. Something … nothing.’ Adele struggled, not wishing to voice her fear. ‘It’s just the newspaper. The Germans can’t come into France, they can’t reach Paris, surely? Our army is there. Between us and them. We have the Maginot Line.’

She stated this, believing it. She watched Jean’s face and how his eyes ranged across the harbour and stared at the water below them, avoiding her. She knew he was thinking carefully about what he was going to say. ‘Even if they do get to Paris,’ he said, ‘they can’t touch us here. It’ll take them an age to reach the end of our peninsula. And just across there,’ he pointed beyond the harbour wall, ‘are our friends.’ He put his arm around her shoulder. She sensed the scent of sea spray crusted on his jacket, the chill of the waves in his bones. He kissed the side of her head, through her hair. ‘You’re not to worry. I am safe from conscription. And so is Simon. They’ll always need fishermen. We’ll always need fish.’

She glanced at him. Her face felt tender in the cold air. ‘Madame says that Monsieur is worried it will be like ’14 again,’ she said.

‘Oh, Monsieur Gendarme has a lot to say about a lot of things, doesn’t he? I don’t like the way he marches around the village like he owns the place.’

‘He … he just does his duty.’ Adele stood up, a surge of loyalty making her want to break off the conversation. 
‘I need to get this fish back to Madame. She is cooking tonight. She enjoys taking her turn on my afternoon off. I will help, though,’ she added. ‘I always do. But first, I must go to the church.’

‘I will see you later?’

Adele bent to kiss him and told him of course he would. She looked into his eyes and realised how well she knew him. She adored him.

Simon, his head lit like a halo by the boat’s lantern, made kissing noises from the deck of the boat. He took off his cap. ‘One for me, Adele, one for me.’

‘Not today,’ Adele called, laughing lightly. ‘You smell of fish.’

‘But I always smell of fish.’

She waved goodbye and headed along the harbour, stepping over ropes, skirting piles of nets and stacks of lobster pots grisly with fish bait.

Inside the sweet-scented church, the air was remote from the outside, as still as an underground cavern. Adele crossed herself and bobbed at the altar and then walked to the niche in the wall. She lit a candle for Sylvie and set it in the tray of sand, among the other dozen or so that burnt erratically, sending thin streams of smoke up into the darkness of the vaulted ceiling. She said a silent prayer for Mademoiselle Sylvie; for Jean; for them all.

Back in the warm kitchen, Beth Orlande said, ‘Adele, would you be so kind as to make the sauce for me?’

‘Of course, Madame.’ Adele took up the knife and began to chop the chervil. She found a bunch of dill on the window sill, and a lemon in the pantry. 

‘This is Monsieur’s favourite dish,’ Beth told her.

Adele felt obliged to smile. Every time Madame made hake in cream sauce, she told her this wholly unexciting fact, as if announcing it for the first time.

‘How is the fishing?’ Madame asked as she washed the hake under the tap. ‘How is the fisher
man
?’

Adele blushed. ‘The
fishing
is good. The fish
monger
was pleased. I think he bought a dozen boxes. I lit a candle, Madame, in the church.’

‘A candle for my Sylvie? Thank you.’ Her voice had a brittle note. She laid the filleted fish in a dish and washed the blood, scales and stringy gut off her hands. ‘It’s better that Sylvie is safe in England with my sister. Better for all of us. We’re not so worried now we know she will stay there.’

Adele glanced at her employer, thinking how much she was trying to convince herself. She knew Madame missed her daughter. She saw how tired she looked. Her hair, usually rich and dark, looked drab. Grey hairs peppered it. Madame somehow looked hollowed out. Not like me, thought Adele wryly, I have enough flesh for both of us.

‘Of course my sister worries about
us
, but I have written and told her not to,’ went on Madame. ‘She has a lot on her plate. She has an evacuee teacher from London. Bit of a houseful, really. And they lost their gardener in September. A lovely old retainer. Popped his clogs – just like that, apparently.’ She clicked her fingers.

Adele mused over someone’s clogs popping, and let her thoughts drift to Sylvie’s cousin, pretty little Nell, and the way her hair curled. She cried suddenly, ‘Oh, I forgot, Madame. I need to feed the blessed rabbits.’

‘Not to worry. The Androvsky children have been 
round to do it. They enjoy themselves. The sweet little bunnies, they say. They are quite sweet themselves, really, if a little troublesome.’ Beth Orlande pointed to the wall that divided the two houses. She lowered her voice. ‘Monsieur Androvsky also paid a call this afternoon, asking again – it must be the third time – if Monsieur could provide references so that he, and his family, can leave for England. He thinks that we can simply send him over to Lednor, to live with my sister. I suppose they need teachers in England. He thinks that Monsieur has special powers to help him leave the country.’ Madame looked insulted. ‘I think it’s a bit rich, actually. He’s not the only one with problems around here.’

Adele murmured that she was right, that they all had their worries.

‘My daughter is hundreds of miles away, across the sea. At least
his
children are with him.’

‘So they are … but you know Mademoiselle Sylvie is in a safe … a
safer
place than those children.’

‘But she’s not with
me
.’

Adele glanced up to see Madame Orlande’s eyes blazing at her.

‘If it was that easy to pack up and leave, like Monsieur Androvsky seems to think it is, then I’d be the first one on a boat out of here,’ she cried. ‘I want to leave, Adele. I wish
we
could leave. But Monsieur won’t. He simply won’t desert his post. And the Germans, when they get here …’

‘Oh, come on, Madame, have faith.’ Adele tried hard to remember what Jean told her.

‘
When
they get here, they will have me down as an enemy in an instant. I
am
their enemy,’ she whispered, defeated. 

Adele saw an instance of terror flash across Madame’s face. She stared quickly back into the saucepan, at the creamy sauce flecked with green. She asked, ‘How is your sister, Madame?’

Beth Orlande’s sigh ground with sadness. ‘I’ve had no word from her since September. Communication is
kaput
. Ha – see we’re talking German already.’ She laughed briefly.

Adele did not find it funny.

Madame went on, telling her that she wrote a month ago to inform her daughter that they transferred money to a Swiss bank account for her. And that her sister and her husband will be her guardians. For the
duration
. The duration, she laughed, saying, how long is a piece of string?

‘Beth!’

Adele spun round to see Monsieur Orlande filling the kitchen doorway. His eyes were like chips of ice in his red face. His great moustache twitched with fury. In his gendarme uniform, he looked like a giant.

‘Oh
chérie
, you’re home early,’ Madame Orlande cried.

‘Come out here, will you?’ He left the room, and, with an embarrassed glance at Adele, Madame scurried after him.

Adele stared down into the sauce, turning the spoon over and over.

Monsieur Orlande’s bark reached her through the half-closed door.

‘… and how dare you … our financial arrangements … Sylvie … private … she’s our
maid
, for God’s sake.’

Madame’s quick unhesitant apology was barely audible. Adele heard his boots clip away along the stone passageway and up the stairs. 

‘Is that sauce ready?’ Madame was at her side, peering into the saucepan. Her cheeks were flushed, and her eyes watery. Blue veins traced the pale skin over her cheeks. ‘Ah yes, it looks good.’ She dipped in her little finger and sucked it. Her hands were shaking. ‘Tastes good too. I knew I could rely on you to make the sauce. This is his favourite meal, you know.’