Madame Barbara

by Helen Forrester

  In panic, Michel followed the remains of the railway line, where it had been partially cleared, and began to climb a slope where the damage was not quite so heavy. He toiled up towards the Abbaye aux Hommes, which was still standing.

  He began to have hope. Suzanne had a room behind the Abbaye, away from the city centre.

  He was right.

  He found her sitting listlessly on the front doorstep of her house, as if waiting for him. The windows had been boarded up and part of the roof was broken open to the sky. Smoke from fire had painted feathers of soot up its walls. An older woman, her landlady with whom Michel was acquainted, was seated alongside her. The street was silent, without traffic or even a pedestrian. Most of the houses were obviously derelict.

  When Michel shouted a cheerful greeting to them it echoed eerily.

  Both turned, as if shocked. As he waved, and increased his pace towards them, Suzanne did not spring up to greet him.

  He saw with a pang that she looked wan and tired, poor darling, and that she had had her hair cut very short. It was about an inch long and she had combed it close to her head, like that of a little boy.

  As he reached them, he laughed with the sheer relief of finding her alive. He bent down and joyously flung his arms round his Suzanne.

  Her companion gave a little snigger.

  In his embrace, Suzanne rose slowly. She did not respond to his greeting, and turned her face away as he tried to kiss her.

  He leaned back, still holding her. ‘It’s me – Michel,’ he said, and then his voice faded, as he realised the significance of the haircut and that the body in his arms was curiously clumsy and heavy; it did not have its usual willowy suppleness.

  He slowly dropped his arms and stepped back.

  ‘What happened?’ he asked, though he knew already. ‘Suzanne! Answer me.’

  To cover the silence her companion spoke up. She sounded cold and cynical, a woman embittered by war, as she said, ‘Can’t you see?’

  He looked at her, appalled. ‘A goddamned Boche – and you got your head shaved for it?’ He exploded with rage. Words of condemnation poured out.

  She didn’t say a word to him in her own defence, never pleaded that she had been misunderstood, that it had been indeed rape, nothing that might have excused her behaviour.

  Her pregnancy was now obvious. Michel had seen her about four months before; she must have suspected it then. It could not have been rape – the locals would never have touched her if it had been that. To be set upon by a mob, have her head shaved, be stripped to her underwear, and then paraded through the streets, she must have been seen to be fraternising regularly with the enemy.

  She now began to giggle at his stupefaction.

  He lifted first one hand and then the other, and gave her the hardest slap of which he was capable, one on each cheek. Scarlet patches stained her face. She probably carried the bruises for weeks, he thought maliciously.

  ‘You dirty bitch!’ he screamed, and the empty walls around them echoed, ‘Bitch! Bitch!’ Then he hissed at her, ‘So that’s why you didn’t write! Well, you can thank God your father and mother are dead – he’d have beaten you to death for this.’

  She must have been suddenly afraid for her physical safety because, without a word, she turned and ran clumsily up the steps into the house, and slammed the door. He heard the bolts being shot. The other woman had risen, also suddenly nervous. He turned and spat in her face.

  Now, over three years later, seated at the side of the road to the cemetery on a damp, cold April day, Michel looked at a girl whose heart had been broken because a foreign soldier had given his life for the freedom of Caen, and for a bitch who had betrayed them all.

  He repeated to Barbara, a trifle depressedly, ‘Caen is still a ruin, Madame.’ He stopped, as if his thoughts had strayed elsewhere, and then said with forced cheerfulness, ‘Nevertheless, when I took the Americans there recently, there was some life. People try to begin again.’

  He sighed, and Barbara became aware of his deep fatigue. He suddenly ceased to be the rather quaint taxi diver, and became a fellow human being who looked as exhausted as she herself felt.

  He went on, ‘Everybody in Caen lose somebody. Much sorrow.’ With her big eyes puffed from weeping, she herself looked like our Lady of Sorrows, he thought. He repeated tentatively, ‘I take you tomorrow, yes? Americans go to Paris for the weekend. We go to Caen, yes?’

  He could barely admit to himself that he was desperately lonely for friendly female company. Not normally communicative about his private affairs, he had, on their way to the cemetery, talked a little to her about his family’s misadventures, and had felt a certain amount of relief.

  Since his fiancée’s desertion of him, he had made no effort to find himself another girl; he was acutely aware that he was no hero, that his shoulder was hunched, and that he had no assets to attract a matchmaking father.

  Even his engagement to Suzanne had been arranged by their parents, a marriage of convenience which would eventually, with a little luck and much hard saving, make it possible for the young couple to buy out Michel’s mother and his siblings.

  Originally faced with this same nationwide problem of the subdivision of land in each generation, Suzanne’s father had already bought out his own brother’s share of the Fortier farm, and Suzanne was his only surviving child; because of the problems of land tenure, peasants tended to keep the number of their children small.

  But there had been no romantic love between him and Suzanne, Michel admitted frankly to himself, just affection and an agreeable sexual contentment. It could have been a reasonable marriage.

  Now, inside him lay an unhealed wound, as if she had stabbed him. She had deserted him for a German, an enemy, probably some great hulking brute of a Prussian. He felt that he also had thereby been publicly shamed, stripped of his self-respect.

  Another Frenchman he might have accepted with better grace. But he had felt sick at the idea of a German, one of Hitler’s cohorts, who had tortured and killed men, like his friend Henri, because they continued to fight them underground.

  She had got off more lightly than if she had been a man, Michel thought. Men known to be quislings, collaborators who betrayed the Freedom Fighters to the Germans, had been summarily shot, if they did not commit suicide first.

  To a degree, justice had been done, admitted Michel, but it did not mean that he had come to terms with the betrayal.

  If she had not had a good woman friend to help her, she would have starved to death, he was sure of that. She would have been an outcast.

  The ultimate insult had, however, come only the previous month. He had heard, through one of his mother’s friends, also a refugee in Bayeux, that Suzanne’s German had recently sent for her and his child to join him on his farm, a farm which had apparently escaped the ravages of both the Russian and American advances. He was said to be now sowing his second year of crops. It was quite a story and the news spread fast in the back streets of Bayeux.

  It seemed to an outraged Michel very wrong that his own land, and that of his fiancée’s parents, should have been decimated, while one of the enemy’s farms remained inviolate.

  And who would ever have expected a German to do the honourable thing, and marry the girl? Enemy soldiers were not expected to do that, particularly a Boche.

  Michel asked himself again and again why her father had, in the first place, allowed her to go to work in Caen as a waitress in such troubled times – miles away from parental supervision.

  He supposed that the family must have had an urgent need for ready money during a time when farms were being stripped of their produce to be sent to Germany. It seemed the only explanation. He still felt, however, that her father had been most unwise – and so had his unfaithful trollop of a daughter. Though there did not seem much hope of it, Michel wished savagely that she would eventually starve amid the ruin which was Germany.

  He had been truly happy and surprised when Anatole had eventuall
y been sent home by train by the American Army in Germany; they had discovered him amongst a group of refugees from Eastern Germany fleeing the Russian Army; he was trying to walk back to France.

  At least, Michel agreed with Maman, they could nurse Anatole, make him as comfortable as possible, until he died. And Michel was the first to say that, even confined to bed, his brother had given both their mother and Michel some moral support.

  Anatole was allowed by the Government a small regular sum with which to maintain himself, because he was a returned deportee very ill with tuberculosis. He also had free medical care. Because there was nothing much that could be done to help him medically, he had elected to be brought home to his mother rather than be put into an overcrowded hospital.

  Michel’s small savings account was emptied in an effort to buy extra comforts for him, such as second-hand pillows to prop him up, and black market milk and eggs to augment his diet.

  Madame Benion was almost beside herself as, in addition to losing her home and livelihood, she had to watch her elder, stronger son die. She and Michel tended him far better, however, than he would have been looked after in hospital, and while they did it she leaned, pitifully at times, on her younger boy for comfort.

  The lifelong sibling jealousy between the two brothers had melted amid the burning need to cope with disaster; and their mother, who had always had to work to the point of exhaustion and could not, therefore, give much attention to her children, had opened up to show her deep attachment to her sons. Misery, instead of separating them, seemed to fuse the remnants of the family together.

  As Michel arranged to meet Barbara again, he told himself that he was being driven simply by need for a break from a ruthless routine. To break loose just for a few hours would do him good. If he took this unknown English widow to Caen, he had a hazy hunch that he would be setting out on a new path. What kind of a path he could not yet envisage, since, whatever she was, she was certainly not a peasant woman.

  The widow was obviously quite startled at his offer of a trip to Caen and he could see that she instinctively hesitated.

  He understood women well enough to read her mind. ‘I take great care of you, Madame,’ he promised. ‘Have no fear.’

  He lit his last cigarette after first offering it to Barbara, who politely refused it. He carefully compiled another sentence. Finally, he said grandly, ‘I take you a little from your grief, Madame, and also you may see what happen to our cities.’

  While she still hesitated, he added, ‘The Americans produce petrol like a cow make water! Lots of it. They say to me “fill her up”. And I do.’

  She considered this and then unexpectedly chuckled, as she realised how apt his simile was. She decided that she might as well accept his offer. She really did, rather morbidly, want to see Caen.

  ‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘I’ll ask the hotel if they can provide a picnic lunch.’

  And I hope I don’t disgrace myself by crying in public again, she thought.

  Chapter Eight

  Barbara spent a sleepless, tear-sodden night. She was, like almost everybody else, so deeply worn out with hard work, poor food and generally doing without that she wondered how she had ever managed to get up the energy to take this trip to France; yet, haunted by the lines of crosses she had seen that day, she could not sleep.

  Why on earth had she come?

  The answer was, she ruminated between sobs, because her mother, Phyllis Williams, and her mother-in-law, Ada Bishop, had been so persistent about it. She had given in simply to please them.

  Her mother had said, ‘Don’t be afraid, luv. Seein’ the grave’ll settle you a bit. Your dad never had one, being at sea, like. But your George has one. You go and look at it. Then you’ll know.’

  Know what? More grief? She cried on.

  When talking to Barbara, Phyllis had not added what she was thinking: See the grave and then you’ll know it’s finished. You got to march forward, not look back. She wanted her girl to look at other decent men, like Graham in the village, who had been in a reserved occupation throughout the war. Barbara could marry again, have kids, be normal. Not always a widow, as she herself was likely to be.

  Her Barbara had had nearly four years of mourning, on top of the ruthless grind of the labouring job to which she had been directed during the war. It was enough plain misery for any girl, Phyllis considered.

  Now the war was over and Barbara was free to work at home again. Since neither Phyllis nor Barbara had any but domestic skills, she believed that both of them must work to build up their bed-and-breakfast. No matter how unpromising the business seemed at present, it appeared to Phyllis to offer the best prospect of a decent living for herself and her daughter. Even if Barbara did remarry, it would still offer her and her husband a home as well as employment; the country was so short of housing that any man would be glad to live in such a place.

  Despite Barbara’s now being able to help her at home, the end of the war had not brought much rest to either of them. Added to their fatigue had been the continued daily monotonous struggle against rationing and shortages of everything; particularly hard for those like themselves, who had to be hospitable to an equally weary, irate clientele.

  Further, many had to cope with the return of disoriented or wounded men, or, like Barbara and herself, the knowledge that their men would not return at all. Of the men who had come home, many had returned to homes and jobs that no longer existed, and to wives who were prematurely old – and so tired. They had also had to face children who had never seen their father and resented this strange man who took up so much of their mother’s attention; several of Phyllis’s neighbours had faced this problem, and had, in seeking comfort, wept helplessly on Phyllis’s shoulder.

  No matter which way you looked, the day-to-day struggle to revert to a normal life seemed unending. It was nearly as bad as when they had lived in a slum in the north of Liverpool.

  Before the war, while her husband was at sea, Phyllis and her daughter had moved from Liverpool to run their little business. It was a fortuitous move, for during the war the little dockside street in which they had lived had been bombed out of existence.

  In 1934, the Williamses had been desperate to get out of the city, as crime increased in their overcrowded, dockside district. Unemployment was rife and, even at that time, there was such an air of hopelessness that Phyllis was anxious to try to get her only daughter away from the area. Barbara’s father was lucky to have a job which was likely to last for a while: ‘But you could never be sure,’ Phyllis would say darkly to Barbara. ‘So many ships is laid up.’

  One pleasant summer Sunday, as a treat, they took the train to Hoylake on the Wirral peninsula and went for a long walk along the seashore. At West Kirby, they turned inland to catch a return train from its station back to Liverpool.

  One side of the road they took marked the end of West Kirby. On the other was a stone wall which ran down as far as the shore and then turned to continue along the sea frontage. They paused for a moment to lean on it and look out over the field which it shielded.

  The field looked so neglected that Phyllis guessed that it had not been cultivated for several years.

  ‘There’s a house further up, Mam,’ remarked Barbara idly.

  Her mother turned to look. ‘So there is,’ she said, and peered at it. ‘It’s empty by the looks of it. What a big garden it must have had.’

  They moved on and came to the garden gate. Unlike a farm gate, it was a slightly rusty, elegant ironwork gate. Grass had grown up round it, and suggested that it had not been used much for a long time.

  ‘Let’s have a look,’ suggested Barbara. She lifted the latch and, with an effort, pushed the gate open.

  ‘The place is empty,’ said Phyllis, surveying the dusty, curtainless windows. ‘I think it’s an old farmhouse.’

  Driven at first by curiosity, they walked round it. There must, originally, have been a huge garden, though no cultivated plan was now evident. The house itse
lf, however, looked quite sound. Even the black enamel on the front door was unblistered by weather.

  Phyllis looked slowly round. Gulls screamed overhead; the sea was close enough for the women to hear the incoming tide dashing against a breakwater. Distantly, there was the sound of a steam train approaching West Kirby station.

  Spurred by sudden, almost absurd ambition, Phyllis said excitedly, ‘You know, Barbie, this’d make a great place for a holiday. Looks as if it’s got lots of bedrooms – and all this for kids to play in.’ She made a sweeping gesture with one hand towards the enormous neglected garden. ‘And there’s sea and sand right here – and it’s quiet, except for the train – and, as I remember, they stop round eleven at night.’

  Barbara had laughed a little derisively. ‘You mean a boarding house?’

  ‘Yes, like your gran had in Blackpool. I had a good time in it, I did, when I were a kid.’

  ‘It’s so big! We couldn’t even furnish it,’ replied the practical fifteen-year-old, with a hint of scorn in her voice. ‘And what’s more, it’d be a lot of work – and wouldn’t the rent be something awful? And who could manage a garden that big – it goes on for ever.’ She kicked a stone along the asphalt path at the side of the house. Then she added, ‘And what on earth would Dad say? He were born in our street. He’s used to it.’

  ‘He could get unused to it – and he likes fishin’,’ Phyllis replied quite savagely. Her husband was currently serving in a ship on the Australian run. She grinned, and then added, ‘We’d need a farmer to do the garden, ’cos it’s certain your dad wouldn’t! He likes his rest when he’s ashore.’

  They plodded over to the back of a line of houses which abutted the garden at the far end, to look over a dilapidated wooden fence to enquire of a woman pegging out washing on her clothesline whether she knew if the house were to let.