I spot him as soon as I walk in. He’s reading a book which I recognise. The title is in French, but the cover image and the word ‘Lumière’ in the title give away the fact it’s the popular book I’d seen on the bestseller shelf at work: All The Light We Cannot See. I smile because his interest in history is even present in fiction. I can see why he was perhaps treated as a bit ‘different’ at school, and that makes me feel sad on his behalf. People like him should be our role models.
‘I see you’re interested in the Second World War too?’ I ask as I sit down opposite him. From his startled expression, I guess he’d been too engrossed in the book to notice me come in.
‘Hi, Cath.’ A smile breaks on his face once the reading spell is broken. ‘I’m interested in most history. And most fiction.’ He waves the book. ‘The beauty of living in the now is that we can look back on all our mistakes and change things for the better. The beauty of fiction is that we can lose ourselves a little.’
‘I’d like to think so.’ I let his words linger a moment because they’re true.
‘So—’ he claps his hands together ‘—we shall order some food and drink and take a look at these letters.’ Sometimes his accent and grasp of English leave things open to interpretation, and I’m not sure if that was a question or instruction. Either way, I like the confidence he has to take charge.
‘Great. I’ll have an omelette and a black coffee,’ I say.
When the waitress comes to take our order, she engages Olivier in conversation as I sit uncomfortably, unable to recognise even one word. Every now and then her knee kinks and she giggles, pulling on the sleeve of her jersey top. From his body language and tone, it seems Olivier is oblivious to any attraction the waitress may feel. Perhaps it stems from his childhood, or maybe he’s married. I glance at his hand but don’t see a ring.
‘My apologies,’ he says after she’s gone. ‘I come in here a lot and we chat about the tours and things. She was just asking how the latest tour had gone and I was telling her we’re about to translate some letters written during the First World War.’
‘Not a problem,’ I say. ‘It’s me who should be apologising. I should at least try to speak some French. I’ve tried to learn a little bit, but the practice versus reality is a whole other issue. No offence, but you all seem to speak so quickly, it’s hard to pick out the words I should recognise, never mind understand the ones I don’t.’
He gives me a sympathetic glance. ‘To be able to speak English, I basically sat with headphones on every afternoon during my school years. Then I pushed myself to use it at every opportunity and now get plenty of practice on the tourists. Fortunately, there is no shortage of English-speaking people in this region. So don’t be too hard on yourself.’
‘I suppose. I don’t think I’ve ever met a French person in the UK, though I meet plenty of people who speak English with a foreign accent, so who knows.’ I shrug.
‘When Anais comes back, you should thank her – just a very simple merci to start with.’
I can do that. Just as I convince myself I spot her flouncing back with the coffees.
‘Merci,’ I say as she places them down on the table. She smiles and nods before scuttling back towards the kitchen.
‘See. Easy-peasy,’ Olivier says and I smile at how he makes such a childish phrase sound so sophisticated with his French accent.
‘That was okay, and I’m comfortable asking for other things, as long as they are croissants, coffee, omelettes, or ham in quantities of one, two or three.’ I laugh.
He stifles a grin. ‘What more do you want? You’ve covered the main food groups. But now I see why you may need my help with the letters.’ He pours some milk into his coffee and stirs the dark liquid. ‘Unless, of course, your great-grandfather wrote from the battlefields to talk only about his breakfast?’ I look up to see the corner of his mouth twitch, and realise I’m seeing a sliver of his less serious side.
‘If you’re not careful, you might not find out!’ I grin, and he does too.
‘In that case, I’m very sorry. Please forgive me.’ He throws me an over-animated pleading look and I narrow my eyes in jest.
‘Hmm, last chance, buster.’
He salutes me before moving on. ‘Have you already tried to use an online translation tool?’
‘I thought about it, but I wasn’t sure it would be accurate enough, and I’d really like the true translation, the one that will help me get a deeper understanding of my great-grandfather’s personality. I have the letters he wrote in English to my great-grandmother, so these may not give anything else away. I just thought his tone might be different in these because he wrote them as a father and not a husband. Of course, his French could be terrible, in which case, that may explain a few things – perhaps it’s hereditary. Who knows?’
‘Me, hopefully.’ He smiles. ‘Shall we take a look?’
I take my leather wallet and carefully slide out the fragile, yellowed papers.
He gasps before handling them as if they are delicate bubbles that could pop and disappear into oblivion at any second. ‘These are very rare, you know.’ He doesn’t take his eyes off the letters. ‘The mail was censored during the war, and I don’t recall seeing any British letters written in French before. I’d have to look into it, but my guess is that these three skipped censorship. If the officers couldn’t understand the language, they may not have trusted the content. Perhaps he was trusted and did a self-declaration …’ He trails off and I stare at him blankly, not really following what he means.
‘Sorry, I got carried away. Soldiers could use a green envelope and declare the content as relating only to private, family matters as a way of bypassing censorship,’ he clarifies.
My eyes fall to the letter and he starts reading it aloud in a quiet voice.
23 Mai 1916
Ma chère Rose,
J’ai converser avec un français allié qui m’a aider à apprendre le français. Il passe le temps et est une distraction bienvenue du grondement des ennemis obus et du tintement des balles. Je sais que tu ne liras pas ça avant d’être plus grande. Ta mère veillera à ça. Je voulais t’écrire une série des lettres en français pour t’encourager à apprendre la langue quand tu seras plus âgée. Je pense qu’il serait important à l’avenir de parler une autre langue.
Gros baisers
Papa
I catch him wide-eyed and engrossed as his eyes dart left to right across the page. ‘This is wonderful,’ he says eventually, before noticing my puzzled expression. ‘Sorry, I’ve just never seen anything like it. He is telling your grandmother, Rose, that he is learning French from one of his Allied comrades to pass the time and that it is a welcome distraction from the shellings. He also says that he has written to her in French because he wants her to learn the language when she is older because he thinks it will be important in the future.
I feel a pang in my chest. ‘Insightful,’ is all I can manage to squeeze past the ball in my throat.
‘It’s amazing he found the time to learn anything more than a few phrases. The troops actually invented their own language at one point to tackle the language barrier issue.’
‘Is it fairly accurate then?’ I ask, in awe of how my great-grandfather managed to learn a language on the battlefields when I couldn’t even manage to do it in the safety of my high school with a qualified French teacher at my disposal.
He tilts his hand left and right to indicate it is so-so. ‘There are some common grammatical mistakes, just tense and the adjective positions here and there, but given the conditions and time he had to learn, I’d say he did a fantastic job.’
Emotion wells up inside me, and I barricade the sob in my throat. ‘It’s a lot to absorb,’ I say, my voice squeezing through a barrier of emotion. ‘He was out there, not knowing if he would live or die or ever see his family again, and his one wish was for a better future for his daughter.’
As a parent, I could understand that, but in a life or death scenario, could
I learn a language just so I could write to Kieran in the hope it would spur him on to better himself? I don’t think so. There were days I couldn’t even bear to make him pick his dirty socks up off the bathroom floor and all I’ve ever battled is everyday life. My stomach feels hollow at the thought of my grandma not fulfilling her father’s wishes. I know it would have been impossible for her, and I certainly don’t blame her, but the situation is just so profoundly sad.
‘Did your grandmother ever manage to read the letters?’ he asks softly, seeming to sense my melancholy.
I tilt my head. ‘I presume so, but I don’t really know. I’d never seen these letters until I found them in a box of my mother’s old things after she’d passed away. She died unexpectedly, and we lost my grandmother years ago.
‘I’m sorry about your mother. Losing a parent is hard.’ He swallows, and something flickers across his face before his brow furrows in the middle. I appreciate his sympathy.
I draw a deep breath to keep my voice steady. ‘What does the next one say?’
12 Juin 1916
Ma chère Rose,
Dans la dernière lettre de ta mère, elle m’a dit que tu étais son rayon de soleil, la distrayant d’inquiétude. C’était un réconfort à lire. Presque aussi réconfortant que la belle campagne ici en France. Un jour, nous vaincrons les Allemands et serons en paix. Ensuite, vous viendrez et verrez par vous-même.
Les jours sont longs et je vis pour les lettres de ta mère.
Tu es sa force.
Gros baisers
Papa
‘Here he is talking about how Rose is her mother’s strength, and how hearing about her keeps him going. He’s trying to be brave but in this one line – “Les jours sont longs et je vis pour les lettres de ta mère” – he is saying the days are getting longer and he lives for the letters from your great-grandmother. It seems he’s reached a point where he’s finding it hard, understandably, of course. He also says that he’d like for your grandmother to see the French countryside.’
‘Ah yes, he’d written that in one of the English letters too … but she never came.’ My stomach lurches and a sob escapes on my last word. Olivier puts his hand on mine; the heat from it creeps up my arm, and my eyes linger on it before he snatches it back.
I don’t know what to say or do other than pretend it didn’t happen. He felt sorry for me. That was all. ‘I’m sorry, it was so long ago, and obviously I never even knew him, but it’s sad that she never came to fulfil his dying wish.’
‘Not many people had the means,’ he replies sympathetically. ‘But you’re here now.’
Our eyes connect and though I can’t speak, I hope my gratitude shows.
‘What regiment was he in?’ he asks after a sip of coffee.
I rummage in the envelope for the piece of paper it was written on. ‘The sixteenth Battalion. The Welsh Regiment but that doesn’t sound right. None of my family were from Wales.’
‘So many men responded to the call to arms, it wasn’t always possible to place them in their local regiment. We can look up some history on them if you like?’ I nod. ‘Shall we read the last one?’
I nod again. ‘Yes please.’
25 Juin 1916
Ma chère Rose,
Je ne peux qu’espérer que cette lettre te parviendra. Nous avons eu beaucoup de fortes pluies et les conditions ici s’aggravent, mais je ne vous châtierai pas comme je l’ai fait avec votre mère.
Je reçois le vent d’une offensive imminente dont je ne peux pas discuter. Tout ce que je peux dire, c’est que cela arrivera bientôt.
Je t’aime de tout mon coeur,
Papa
‘This one is before the Battle of the Somme. He’s alluding to a big offensive looming but there’s no indication he knew how big.’
‘His letters changed after that,’ I whisper. ‘They were more sombre, less full of hope.’
‘The Battle of the Somme changed many men. Nobody expected the devastating losses,’ Olivier says matter-of-factly. ‘The British Army had been shelling the Germans in the run-up to the attack and believed their trenches would be empty. Some British soldiers were so confident they’d find nothing but bodies they were even reported to have kicked footballs across no man’s land that day, like carefree boys on their way to school.’
My eyes drop to the table just as the waitress appears with our food, but I no longer feel hungry. I thank her and the solemn moment passes.
‘I know you’re tracing your great-grandfather’s footsteps but where will your journey take you?’
‘I know he landed in Le Havre in December, so I’ve been there already. Then I know he was in the trenches near Neuve-Chapelle until June 1916. He fought at the Somme, in the Battle of Mametz Wood, before taking part in the third battle of Ypres, where he was killed.’
Olivier nods sombrely and for a moment, we both stare at the letters.
‘If you like, I can write down the word-for-word translations for you?’ he says, more upbeat.
‘That would be really kind. Thank you so much Olivier.’ I’m already pulling out my notebook and pen. We spend the next hour chatting as he explains the wording, how to pronounce the phrases, and what they mean. I enjoy watching him and his animated enthusiasm as much as I enjoy his knowledgeable explanations. He talks a lot with his hands and cracks jokes. It doesn’t take me long to realise I’m enjoying his company more than I’d expected to. Actually, it’s more than that: I’m tuned in to him. The whole of me is. Perhaps more than I should be.
‘Wow, it’s almost dinner time,’ I say, checking my watch during a lull in the conversation.
‘You’re in France now. Often our meals take a few hours and all merge into one.’ He smiles.
‘Still, you’ve been very kind, and I’ve taken up most of your day off. I should let you go and relax,’ I say, taking out my purse.
He places his hand on mine, and that familiar warmth returns. ‘Please, I can get this. To see those letters has been a real treat for geeky old me, and I’d like to thank you for sharing them with me.’
‘But you’ve just spent an hour translating them – I’d like to pay to thank you,’ I protest. ‘And for all the interesting stuff you told me about the war.’
‘Please, it was nothing. I enjoyed it.’ He holds up a hand as though his words are final, and I relax into a smile, defeated.
‘Okay, thank you.’ It has been a long time since a man has bought me lunch and accepting graciously doesn’t come easy. I hover awkwardly, not knowing the etiquette for walking away from overly helpful, practical strangers who’ve just paid for lunch.
‘I imagine you will be seeing off your American friends tomorrow?’ he says, helping me out.
‘Yes, noon they leave, don’t they?’
‘That’s right. Then the day after that, I’m off and if you’d like, I can drive you to Neuve-Chapelle.’
My chest eases up before I’d even noticed it was tense. I think I’m relieved to have him come with me, purely because he’s so knowledgeable and it will be like having my own personal tour guide. Or at least that’s what I tell myself.
As I turn to leave, Olivier’s phone rings. I hear him answer in French, cheerful at first, then his tone becomes more serious. Reminding myself it’s none of my business, I carry on towards the door.
‘Cath. Wait,’ Olivier calls after me. I turn around, surprised.
His face has paled. ‘There’s been an accident.’
Chapter Eleven
We’ve almost arrived in Paris. The two-hour journey has been spent mostly in silence – Olivier intent on the road; me, worried sick. Martha had a fall a few hours ago and has been taken to a hospital in Paris. The phone call Olivier took in the café was the coach driver filling him in. When Olivier told me, I’d panicked and insisted on accompanying him to the hospital. But for the last half an hour or so, I’ve been sitting here chewing the corner of my nail, wondering if diving into the car with him was a massive over-reaction. Martha might be emba
rrassed; she might wonder why a practical stranger has travelled for two hours to visit her. Olivier has to go, he works for the company she was on a tour with, but me? I’m just a hanger-on. Is there such thing as an old folks’ travel groupie?
When we park at the hospital, Olivier already knows where to head. I assume the coach driver told him where she’d be before setting off to take the rest of the passengers back to Arras.
The corridor opens out into a waiting area and I spot Cynthia and Roland sitting on the edge of some pink padded chairs with a pale-yellow wall as their backdrop.
Cynthia, who has her fist pressed against her lips, jumps up to her feet when she sees us arrive. ‘Oh Cath, Olivier!’ Worry is etched into her features as she takes us in an embrace, me first and then Olivier. Roland stands up to shake our hands.
‘What happened?’ Olivier and I both say in unison.
Cynthia looks between us both. ‘She tripped and fell backward down some steps. I don’t know how it happened. It was awful.’ She clasps her hand to her mouth, and Roland places a comforting arm around her.
‘She’s a tough old bird, she’ll be okay,’ he says, patting her.
I’m about to ask what her injuries are when a man in a white overcoat approaches us. I can just about decipher his words when he asks if anyone can speak French.
Olivier steps forward and the two enter into a brief conversation while the three of us look on.
‘He says her injuries aren’t too bad, but she has broken her leg. We can see her now.’
Cynthia’s whole body sags with relief, and we all follow the doctor into the small room where Martha is sitting up in bed, chatting away to a nurse. Harry is beside her, holding her hand.
‘You had us worried!’ I say when she catches my eye.
‘Oh, I’m fine. The doctors and nurses have been looking after me, haven’t they, Harry?’
It Started With a Note Page 8