Madame Barbara

by Helen Forrester

  As he took her elbow to steer her across the sunlit road, she remarked upon the shop’s doing business on the sabbath. She told him that in England, the Lord’s Day Act forbade Sunday opening, except for shops selling a few basic necessities.

  He stopped, his eyes twinkling. ‘How people buy, if shops are closed Sunday?’ he asked in some surprise. ‘Here, shops shut Monday – when everybody else go to work.’

  Barbara thought of the short shopping hours imposed on British shopkeepers by a government bent on limiting demand for goods of any kind. ‘It sounds a good idea to me,’ she said approvingly. ‘Provided they have anything to sell.’

  ‘Lots of flowers, Madame. There is shortages, many shortages.’ He sighed, and added, more honestly, ‘Buy anything if I have much money. It is …’ He paused, to gather a sentence together, and then went on, ‘… how you say in English? – they are under the counter.’ He looked quite triumphant at having remembered the idiom.

  Barbara smiled and looked up into his face, a twinkle in her eye. ‘It’s true in England too. Everything interesting is under the counter – because many factories were bombed flat and the others have not really got going again since the war, and a lot of whatever they manage to produce is exported.’ She laughed. ‘I bought my nylons off an advertising rep, who stays with us regularly. He got them from an American seaman he met in a pub.’

  In his mind, Michel carefully translated.

  So that accounted for her nylons. No Americans! He was secretly absurdly happy. Then he asked suspiciously, ‘What is an ad – what you call him – rep? Useful friend?’

  ‘Oh, he’s not a friend, really. He’s one of our regulars.’

  Michel looked bemused. He said, ‘Explain to me, s’il vous plaît, Madame.’

  She laughed again, and said carefully, ‘OK. My mum and I run a bed-and-breakfast – a little hotel for travellers. You remember, I mentioned it to you yesterday? People who want to stay only one night, you understand? Have breakfast and then go to work.’

  He nodded, and she continued, ‘Our regular customers are sales representatives – salesmen. They travel from city to city. They represent their companies – that’s why they’re called reps – a short name for them. They come to Liverpool to talk to businessmen and sell their companies’ goods.’ She glanced at him to check that he was following her successfully. Then she went on, ‘They like to stay with us because our house is by the sea, and yet we are near a railway line to Liverpool and Birkenhead where they do business.’

  He silently digested her remarks. ‘Liverpool big port, like Le Havre? I have seen it once.’

  She nodded. ‘It’s huge.’

  ‘I go there with my uncle one time only – I not see much. We have also men in France like reps – before the occupation.’

  ‘Did you? They often carry samples of what their companies make, to show to customers – and sometimes they’ll sell one or two on the side, or exchange them for something they themselves want.’

  She paused in her explanation, while they crossed the road. Then she added, ‘Nowadays, they often have nothing to sell, but they call on their old customers to remind them that they’ll soon be in business again.’

  ‘Why don’t they have anything to sell? The war’s over for nearly three years.’

  ‘I’m not quite sure. As I said, lots of factories were destroyed. Sometimes, they can’t get raw materials – everything in the world seems to be in short supply. We export most of what we manufacture to America, to pay for the war. But, sometimes, there are not even enough freighters left to carry the stuff.’ Her face was suddenly full of pain. ‘We lost so many ships.’

  He saw the pain when he glanced down at her, and it troubled him.

  ‘For breakfast, you make big English breakfast?’ he asked, to try to divert her to a more cheerful subject. After all, English breakfasts were famous, weren’t they?

  ‘Yes. It used to be bacon and eggs and tomatoes and sausages – and toast.’ She sighed regretfully at the thought of plates heaped with breakfast. ‘Even now, we’re still tightly rationed.’ She shrugged and lifted her hands in a gesture of hopelessness. ‘Now it’s usually pancakes with syrup or baked beans and fried potatoes. The reps eat other meals out – in cafés, thank goodness.’

  ‘I understand bed-and-breakfast. Before the war, I remember there are some here – by the sea.’

  She nodded.

  ‘I remember you say you need paint to make house clean again.’

  ‘Yes. It’s like everything else, hard to find.’

  ‘Same problem in Bayeux. No paint. Nothing much. No factories left in Rouen, je crois.’

  They proceeded quietly together, he holding her arm to guide her.

  There were not many people on the street, and Barbara asked out of curiosity, ‘With all the shops open, do people go to church on Sundays?’

  ‘Some do. Maman does. Not so many as before the war.’

  ‘Do you?’

  Although he was a little surprised at the question, he answered cautiously, ‘Not often.’ Then, feeling that he now had a right to ask a question, he enquired, ‘Do you?’

  ‘No. Since the war, even Catholics like me don’t go very much in England, except for christenings or weddings – or funerals.’

  ‘You’re Catholic?’

  ‘Yes. There are lots of Catholics in Liverpool.’

  He smiled down at her with new benevolence. The desperate longing that he had felt since meeting her became more than a madness; it became a hope, admittedly a distant one, a tiny light flashing out of a darkened sea. Though religion was out of fashion, it was important where girlfriends were concerned. Mothers would be very anxious if you took out a Protestant – even just to see la Tapisserie.

  Not that his mother knew where he was. He normally went out on Sunday mornings for an hour, after she returned from Mass, to hang around a bistro or café for a little while, to pick up news of work and, of course, to gossip endlessly about the indifference of governments. And then he would go to mow somebody’s lawn, or weed, or even walk somebody’s dog – he was not very fond of dogs, but it did bring in a few more francs, and it only took half an hour.

  They turned a corner. ‘The Bishop’s Palace – and la Tapisserie,’ he announced with unexpected briskness. ‘This morning, I ask the concierge, “Are you open?” Non. No open. So I ask if she permit us to see. She say OK. You give her un bon pourboire, yes?’ He rubbed his fingers together to indicate money.

  When he said that the place was closed, Barbara’s face had fallen with real disappointment. She brightened, however, when he mentioned that a tip would open the door; she doubted if, in similar circumstances, it would do so in Britain.

  She immediately agreed to the tip.

  As they walked through the silent Sunday streets, he watched her out of the corner of his eye. Today, her face was not swollen with crying, and he was relieved.

  She is trying to be a good guest, he thought. She had been kind yesterday, when those two no-goods – spivs, she had called them – had tried to get at the taxi. She understood what they were. Suzanne, he felt, would not have understood what was going on. Madame Barbara was smart, he decided.

  As he walked beside her, her skirt occasionally brushing him, he was filled with sheer physical hunger for this sweet-smelling young woman, who could laugh in between her tears.

  He pulled himself up sharply. Where are you going, Michel, my lad? Seriously, you haven’t a hope.

  Then why are you taking her out, you idiot? He could not answer his own question. So forget it. Today, for better or for worse, was his day with Madame Barbara.

  He had kept his hand on her elbow, and she felt him grip her quite hard. She glanced up at him. Despite her smartness, Madame Barbara was not quite sure where she was going either.

  She saw that he was staring straight ahead, his mouth set in a fierce tight line, the thin face, set as if carved out of stone like the bust of some ancient Greek.

  Tho
ugh she did not know this man, she could not help but sense his need. If she were to be sensible, it was still too soon, she agonised, to think of even a casual love affair, never mind a new husband.

  Though she had been a widow for nearly four years, only in the cemetery had she felt that she had actually buried her dead.

  Her mother’s advice to come to France and see George’s grave had been correct. Graves were important. They told you Amen – so be it. And, though it had been terribly painful, the sight of that white cross with George’s name on it had told her exactly that.

  During her widowhood, she had continued to be absolutely faithful to him. Now, the suppressed sexuality of the empty years threatened to betray her. This man was handsome in his dark way – thin, but fairly muscular. Very different from anyone she had met before. She was not afraid that he would find an opportunity to force her; he seemed to her to have a practicality that would rule whatever he did. Common sense would prevail.

  She longed to ask him more about himself, but she was afraid that if she asked many personal questions, she would be thought rude.

  She had not been idle during her time in Bayeux, and had begun to understand a little about how, at least, to address other women.

  On the morning of her arrival at her hotel in Bayeux, she had demanded immediately a taxi to take her to the cemetery. She was told by the receptionist that there was no transport except for Michel’s taxi, and he was booked up for the next two days. When she enquired if the cemetery was within walking distance, she was told that it was fifteen miles away. She hesitated. She knew she could walk it, but she would be back very late in the evening.

  Frustrated, she told the receptionist to make a reservation with Michel for the third day. Then, tapping her fingers irritably on the counter, she had asked how far it was to Arromanches, where, she knew, George had landed.

  The receptionist shrugged. ‘About ten kilometres, Madame.’

  He was surprised when she calmly said she would walk down to see it the following morning. Such a distance!

  During the two days which she had had to wait for Michel, she had wandered for hours, alone, round Bayeux and its environs. She wanted to be able to tell Ada as much as she could about the invasion, and to do that she had to speak, somehow, with the French themselves, because they had actually experienced it.

  Rather than first looking at the old city, she had, therefore, watched its inhabitants. They were definitely different from the crowds in Church Street in Liverpool; she remembered how, at home, most of the men walked with a seaman’s roll; even if a boy did not himself go to sea, he tended to imitate his father’s walk and stance.

  On the first morning, she had noticed a monk on a bicycle, a net bag of potatoes hanging from the handlebars. She had stared at him in surprise; though she knew there were monks in Liverpool, she had never actually seen one before. On observing her, the monk had cast his eyes heavenward, as if to say, ‘Keep me, Lord, from temptation.’ It had made her laugh quietly to herself.

  Elsewhere, two very old women, dressed in unrelieved black, had caught her eye. They were seated on each side of a tall, narrow window, the shutters thrown back and the lower half of the window open to the street. The sill was so low that she could have leaned in and touched them. Each woman had a small pillow on her knee. The pillows had bobbins attached to them by white thread.

  She forgot her good manners and paused in front of the window. ‘Lace!’ she exclaimed with delight. It was a pretty commodity which had vanished completely from Britain during the war.

  Two old heads shot up, and weary, bloodshot eyes stared at her.

  In confusion, Barbara’s face went pink. ‘Pardonnezmoi, Mesdames.’

  Little lines of laughter wrinkled round the tired eyes. Barbara’s dress told them that she was probably a visitor.

  ‘Bonjour, Madame,’ one woman greeted her. She gestured to her to come closer, to see more clearly what she was doing. Barbara shyly did so.

  She looked regretfully at the delicate lace which hung down from the pillow; in the austerity of her life, she had almost forgotten that lace existed. ‘Exquisite, Madame,’ she said.

  ‘You buy?’ asked the other old lady.

  ‘Je n’ai pas d’argent,’ replied Barbara promptly. She sought for the word for widow, ‘Une veuve,’ she added with a deprecating gesture, hoping they would understand.

  The woman looked compassionately at her. ‘Une Anglaise?’

  ‘Oui, Madame.’ She bowed slightly to the lacemakers, and, in English, thanked them for showing her their work.

  Though they obviously did not understand the words, it seemed they got the intent of them because they both nodded and smiled and bent again to the manipulation of their bobbins. Barbara was grateful to them for not pressing her to buy.

  Using her few words of laboured French, she had not been afraid to try to talk with women, whether townspeople or peasants. Most of them had seemed older than herself and more self-assured than she herself was; and, in their movement and walk, much more aware of their sexuality than Englishwomen. On the whole, she could judge by dress which were peasants, and therefore likely to be refugees from the shattered countryside, and which were not.

  In a bakery, she had found a woman baker wearing a big white apron over her tremendous bust, the only plump woman she had seen. She spoke a little English.

  Barbara needed a snack and she asked for two rolls.

  It was obvious from her dress and her awful efforts at French that Barbara was a visitor. The baker replied politely that bread was rationed. She had barely enough bread to fill the ration. She shrugged her shoulders. ‘Very little bread today, Madame.’ She added with a smile that if Madame were staying in a hotel, they would be pleased to serve her a lunch. Hotels had special rations for visitors.

  The other customers nodded agreement with the baker, and then, as Barbara thanked her and turned to leave, one of them enquired, in French, if she were from England or America.

  ‘From England. I’m visiting a cemetery,’ Barbara responded slowly in English.

  At the word ‘cemetery’, they immediately became less formal. Several women joined in the conversation in a babble of French. So while the baker handed out loaves and made change, she good-humouredly did her best to translate for her customers.

  They told of men lost in the course of their Resistance efforts. One had lost a daughter, one a son in the French Army at the beginning of the war. One woman whispered in broken English that the lady baker was running the business for a lost husband, presumed dead. ‘He never return,’ she said sadly. ‘My son – he serves in Algeria.’

  Barbara discovered that shared grief was a wonderful door opener.

  She went into a fairly close-packed café for a coffee, which was not very good, if indeed it were coffee at all. When paying for it, she laughed with the waitress over the muddle of mixed coinage in her change purse. A lady at the same table, who addressed her in English, offered to help her sort it out. This led to a polite enquiry as to whether she had come to France for a holiday, and Barbara, with tears rising, told her that she had come to see her husband’s grave.

  An elegant-looking older woman, who, although at the next table, was almost shoulder to shoulder with them, suddenly clapped her hand over her mouth and burst into tears.

  Barbara whirled round in her chair and, in the tight space, found herself putting her arm round a perfect stranger and asking if she could do anything to help her.

  In a few words of English, the woman told her that she could not help overhearing Barbara’s conversation, and it had reminded her of her own loss, of the torture and death of her son. She apologised for her tears, and, when Barbara said it was better to cry and patted her gently on the back, she told her baldly what had been done to her boy.

  Barbara, whose sole intention had been to gain some understanding of the Normans’ experience, berated herself for impingeing on people whose grief was even more acute than her own. She wondered,
with horror, who had been cruel enough to tell the mother the terrible details of her son’s death.

  Swallowing hard, the woman smiled at Barbara and rose to leave. She bent and kissed the English woman on each cheek, and then she said, ‘Merci bien, Madame.’

  Handkerchief to mouth, she walked swiftly out.

  As a chastened Barbara got up, she whispered her question to her table companion.

  ‘Why, the sales Boches, the SS, of course, Madame,’ she was told. ‘They tell – frighten us. SS is terrible, Madame.’ Her companion’s face was suddenly pinched and old.

  The SS, the most feared of all Hitler’s forces! That makes two of us who hate, Barbara felt furiously, even if George died in battle, not under torture. I’ll never forgive. Never let them forget.

  When, yesterday, she had seen Caen it had been an appalling shock to her. Even Liverpool did not look as bad as that. Michel had told her that Rouen and Le Havre were in even worse states. And as for Lisieux and Falaise, both famous battlegrounds to Barbara, he had said simply in response to a question, ‘Finish.’

  As a result of this acquired knowledge, it was with a sense of great pity that Barbara was considering Michel, as they reached the rear of a fine eighteenth-century building, and he pulled a bell. She wondered, again, if he had lost someone.

  The door guarding la Tapisserie was answered by a short, stout woman wearing a shapeless beige cardigan and a white apron. She surveyed the pair a little sullenly, as if she were being put to unreasonable trouble.

  She obviously recognised Michel and gave a slight nod. Then she bade them enter.

  They climbed hollowed steps, and then went along a stone passage dimly lit by tall narrow lancet windows set high in the wall. They were led into an empty room, which was almost completely dark.

  The concierge hastily switched on lights, single bulbs hanging by wires from the ceiling. They lit the huge room dimly. Along three walls hung a narrow white strip of embroidered fabric. As Michel led Barbara to the beginning of it, small detailed figures began to emerge.

  He grinned mischievously at her and began, ‘See, here.’ He pointed. ‘King of England sit on his throne. He is sick. He have no children,’ he explained, pointing to the little figure, complete with crown and sceptre. ‘He tell Harold – this is Harold. “Go to France. Tell Duke William of Normandy he is King of England when I die.”’