by A. B. Decker
She paused and took another sip of wine.
“He had a lot in common with my father in some ways. I don’t think he ever realised just how fond of him I was. But it would never have been a great success – we would only have tried to make different people of each other, and heaven knows I had no wish to do that to him.” She carefully mulled over these last words as she put the glass to her lips and took a final sip of the wine. “So, I drink a glass of Chateau Haut-Brion to him now and then, and hope that he can still hear me.”
A smile swept across her face like sunlight racing cheekily over the winter landscape, hunted by clouds. Poor old thing, Ellen said to herself. She carried her past so heavily, and looked far too frail for the burden. But there was something about her, so robust, she would never let the weight drag down the sweetness of her temper. Frank had always had a soft spot for sweet old ladies, and Ellen could imagine he would have been especially taken by this intriguing woman.
She played with her scarf, constantly rearranging it, and stared out onto the passing fields. They looked tired, yellow and drained by the winter. Private reminiscence occupied her eyes where the twinkle had been.
Ellen left her to her thoughts. She could picture her as a young woman in the chequered history that she was going over at this moment. Not conventionally beautiful perhaps, but she had a strength of character in her face that must have been very striking in her youth. And Ellen could imagine she had an allure that must have made quite an impression on the men. But what did she have from it, apart from a fading memory?
She must have sat fidgeting with her thoughts for a good fifteen minutes before eventually jogging herself into action. Horrified, Ellen watched her take another bottle of wine from her suitcase.
“You’ve been such a charming travelling companion,” she said. “Would you do me the honour of accepting this?”
Ellen could hear her English tutor, the colonel, in her choice of words, and smiled at the thought of this quaint liaison.
“That’s very kind of you, but I couldn’t. Really.”
“Don’t be so English. Here,” she insisted, and thrust the bottle into Ellen’s hands. Then, taking a paper handkerchief from her bag, she wiped the wine glasses clean, put them away, and looked at Ellen with an expression that spoke of so much unhappiness which only she would know. Just as only Ellen would ever know her own.
“I have to get out at the next stop. Could I impose upon you one last time?” Her eyes wandered over the luggage. “The porter wanted to put it in the guard’s van, but I preferred to have it all with me. You never know what might happen, do you?”
There was really no way Ellen could refuse even if she had wanted to. So, for the third time on that short journey, she sprang to her feet for the elderly lady, leaving her to continue the stroll through her reminiscences, while Ellen hauled her luggage down from the rack.
“I shall be glad when I get home to Normandy. I think I’m getting too old for all this travelling. You know, it was the colonel who took me back to Normandy in a manner of speaking, though he never knew it. It was his most lasting legacy to me. Such a beautiful part of the world, do you know it?”
Ellen confessed that she knew very little about France at all.
“I was born there, you know. But that’s only partly why I returned. You see, it reminds me so much of southwest England, where the colonel lived. He had a beautiful cottage on the edge of Dartmoor.”
Ellen almost dropped a suitcase on the woman’s head as her heart stopped for an instant. She knew what was coming. Yet she could not quite believe it.
“I’m sorry, my dear. That one is rather heavy, I’m afraid – I should have warned you – it has the other bottles of wine in it.” She smiled with a slight embarrassment in her eyes, which Ellen noticed were starting to twinkle again at the memories of her colonel.
“It caused quite a stir in the village, you know, when I moved in.” The smile broke into a mischievous chuckle. “He never really lived it down. But he enjoyed that. It appealed to his sense of fun, the idea of the scandal. And I was very happy there, especially when spring came round – the wild primroses, the daffodils and the honeysuckle crawling over the hedgerows. It was like a dream. Reminded me so much of my early childhood. He left the cottage to me, but I could never live in the place on my own. I tried, but it was never the same after he died. So eventually I sold it and came home to find a place in Normandy. That must have been about twenty years ago. Of course, Normandy is not quite the same. But the colonel would often take me to Penzance for weekends just so that I could enjoy the view of St Michael’s Mount, because it reminded me so much of my childhood in Avranches, where I grew up. He was very sweet like that.
“But there are no moors in Normandy with their beautiful granite outcrops. I found it a hauntingly beautiful landscape. So my sentimental streak often took me back to see the old place again. But the last time, I found it had changed so much that it no longer meant anything to me. So I don’t go anymore. The cottage was bought by an artist, an American, who converted it into a studio. Lost all its character. I feel so guilty when I think of it, for letting that happen. The poor colonel would turn in his grave if he knew.”
Struck dumb by the sheer scale of the coincidence, Ellen let the reminiscences wash over her. If she could have spoken, she would have told her that she knew the artist in question, would have offered her sympathy, since he had taken something very precious to her as well. But there was no time for such complications. They were already rolling into the station at Strasbourg as Ellen fetched the last of her baggage out and deposited it in the corridor.
Ellen was a willing recruit to the last task she set her: it seemed the most obvious and natural gesture to help her down from the carriage and unload her luggage onto the platform.
“Thank you so much, my dear.” She knew she had left Ellen no choice but to lend her this hand. And Ellen could not begrudge her the small manipulation, especially now she knew what they had in common. When she insisted that Ellen get back on the train before it went without her, that she would soon find a friendly porter to help, Ellen hesitated. She felt that she was letting her down in some strange way. That she should stay with her. But there was still sufficient independence there. She did not need Ellen.
Slowly, the train pulled out of the station, and Ellen’s travelling companion was left on the platform, bracketed by all the baggage that seemed to hold the last remaining bouquet of her past, the sum total of a sad unwritten life. She waved sweetly as she receded into the distance, and Ellen returned to her compartment. The bottle of wine she had left Ellen still lay on the seat, and the sight of it filled her with an oddly uncomfortable feeling. It was a part of the woman’s life that held a special significance for her. Twenty percent of all she had left from a job lot. And she had given it away.
Ellen wondered whether she would be as profligate with what Frank had left her, such as it was. It was this thought that prompted her to rummage through the waste bin and retrieve the scrap of paper with the strange words that he had written. She had pondered over Marthe’s theory about past lives, what she called frontaliers of the consciousness. And wondered whether Frank’s cryptic verse might hold any clues to his own dark frontier.
She read the words once more and found them no less baffling than the first time she had read the verse. But she hoped that, if Marthe could translate the German parts for her, they might enlighten her a little more. So she tucked the paper safely back in her handbag and spent the rest of her journey to Paris and on to Calais writing a long letter to Marthe. She was so looking forward to her coming to stay.
Copyright
Published by Clink Street Publishing 2021
Copyright © 2021
First edition.
The author asserts the moral right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work.
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ISBN:
978–1–913962–18–0 - paperback
978–1–913962–19–7 - ebook