Madame Barbara

by Helen Forrester

  ‘You could be right about the exercise,’ responded the colonel, as he lit a cigarette. ‘I was amazed when I saw you move so fast. Maybe you could show my boys a bit of it.’ He sighed. ‘I’m too old. But they’d love it.’

  Michel replied, with an exact Virginian twang, ‘Sure, I would.’

  Colonel Buck laughed. ‘You sure have an ear for accent. How did you learn an English accent?’

  Michel told him of the English retiree who had taught him English and how he practised at every opportunity.

  ‘Kinda useful?’

  ‘Dead cert,’ responded Michel promptly, with a twinkle in his eye.

  The colonel was amused by the colloquialism. He was enjoying Michel’s company.

  ‘Can you understand the English lady you have been ferrying around?’ he enquired. ‘I had dinner with her last night, and found her accent difficult.’

  The colonel’s casual mention of Barbara shook Michel. He did not know what to say, could only feel a resurgence of acute anguish.

  He took a breath, while he told himself to stop being a fool; eating with her did not mean necessarily, that the colonel had taken her to bed as well.

  Lucky man, to have a bed to take her to, he thought sardonically. Despite his misery, he wanted to laugh; he wanted to weep.

  The threat to the colonel that afternoon had reminded Michel how much he owed the fretful, older civilian, temporarily encased in a uniform; and his effort to save him from being hurt had been automatic.

  That the colonel already knew of the connection between Michel and Barbara; that because he knew and was pleased about it, he would be particularly careful of her, never occurred to benighted Michel.

  ‘Accent?’ He tried to consider the question sensibly.

  ‘Yeah. She tells me she comes from the North of England. I guess they talk different.’

  Michel threw up his hands. ‘All English still big problem to me. But I learn.’

  ‘Can you write it?’

  Thankful to avoid the subject of Barbara, Michel replied, ‘Since the war, I not try much, but yes, I can. I write to an Englishman I know.’ He added mournfully, ‘Spelling très difficile!’

  ‘If you know the word, you can always look it up in the dictionary,’ replied the colonel, with a grin. He gestured to his top left pocket in which he himself kept a French dictionary.

  ‘What kind of job will you look for, when we’re gone?’ he enquired. ‘Will you still drive the taxi?’

  ‘If Monsieur Duval wishes it. However, the taxi is old – it will not last. And there is no hope of buying a new one – or even getting parts for it. Duval is a blacksmith, and he himself makes some parts for it.’ He gave his usual expressive small shrug. ‘You understand it has not much future.’

  The colonel laughed and sipped his Calvados. ‘You’re right. It must date back to the 1920s.’

  ‘From 1928,’ replied the Frenchman.

  ‘What would you like to do?’

  ‘If my land is not cleared soon, I try, first, to work for a poulterer who still has his land so I not forget my knowledge of hens, while I search for other work. I know much about hens and maybe I return to work in connection with them, though I long to do something else.’ He cleared his throat. ‘As you know, we have no public transport. I cannot do anything much, until at least I have a bicycle to ride to undamaged areas where there is work.’

  He accepted a cigarette from the colonel and lit it. ‘Merci, Monsieur.’ He then went on, ‘The biggest problem is truly public transport, no bus – even the railway Paris/Cherbourg come only last year.

  ‘I believe I can find work with hens. While I do this, I see what is happen in other towns – see if hotels are rebuilt, and so on. Maybe get job as truck driver or in hotel.’

  As he became more animated – and the colonel, long used to listening quietly to the sorrows of the bereaved, listened attentively – Michel began to open up. ‘My mother and I cannot move at present because of my brother’s terminal illness,’ he told the colonel. ‘If I have a bicycle I could go to work, say, twelve miles away from Bayeux.’

  ‘Bikes are hard to get?’

  ‘Almost impossible. The Germans, in their retreat at the end, took every one they could find – buses and trucks, anything to get themselves out fast.’

  The colonel thoughtfully ran his tongue round his teeth, as Michel continued, ‘You know, some British troops landed with bicycles – and, later, you could find an abandoned, damaged one. Very quick they get found – and into the black!’ He sighed. ‘I myself have a frame. But to buy wheels with tyres and brakes on the black is not possible for me.’

  ‘Humph, I see the problem OK,’ grunted the colonel. ‘Good luck to you, anyway.’

  ‘Thank you, Monsieur.’

  Colonel Buck stared emptily over Michel’s shoulder towards the lobby, and wondered if he could get his hands on a bike. Then he said suddenly, ‘Why, there she is. I’ll ask her if she would like an aperitif.’ He sprang up and went towards the lobby. ‘Mrs Bishop,’ he called.

  She had overslept. Conscience-stricken, she had just discovered from Reservations that, yes, the taxi had returned.

  If she wished to arrange a ride with the taxi driver, he had gone into the lounge to see Monsieur le Colonel, he told her. Madame would doubtless recollect, however, the Canadian in the hotel who had already arranged a trip with Reservations, about which he had yet to tell the driver.

  Troubled, yet reluctant to intrude, she had decided to go in to dinner and leave Michel to contact her.

  At the sound of the colonel’s voice, she turned enquiringly towards him, and smiled. ‘Mrs Bishop, come and have a drink before you go in to dinner. I’ve got Michel here.’

  ‘That’s very nice of you,’ she said, a little surprised to see Michel drinking with him. He guided her to a chair between Michel and himself.

  She looked at Michel and smiled.

  Michel rose. He felt suddenly shy, out of his depth. He clutched his beret to his chest as he looked down at her. Simply to be so close to her jolted him.

  ‘Sit down, sit down,’ urged the colonel to him, as he flagged down the waiter, and then asked Barbara what she would like to drink. At the same time, he proffered a cigarette, which she took. He took out his lighter and lit it for her.

  An aperitif was brought and they drank to each other’s good health. Michel accepted another Calvados. Then the colonel described to Barbara how Michel had saved him from being hit by a stone thrown by a young hooligan.

  Barbara expressed admiration. Bewildered, Michel grinned, and said he had practised savate all his life. He was sorry that the colonel had been threatened.

  ‘It could happen in Liverpool,’ Barbara said. ‘Youngsters ran loose during the war while their dads were away and there was no one to belt them into shape, and many of the dads – being seamen, like – never come home. Tearaways, those kids are. I don’t know what they’re going to be like when they grow up. There doesn’t seem to be nobody left to tell them where they get off.’

  This was all a little difficult for Michel to understand. He did, however, get the idea that France was not alone in having unruly youngsters capable of throwing rocks at Americans.

  The colonel said with some curiosity, ‘Last night, you said you lived in the country?’

  ‘Oh, aye, I do. I used to live in Liverpool, but now I live in a village about ten miles out on the other side of the river.’ She turned to Michel and smiled at him, gently, sweetly. She said slowly, ‘Our bed-and-breakfast is a farmhouse, which’s been built on to.’ She gestured with her hands to explain its enlargement. Then she laughed. ‘We’ve got nearly five acres of farmland instead of a real garden, more’n we know what to do with.’ She spread out her right hand to show five fingers. ‘Me mam – my mother – rents most of it out to a farmer for pasture or for hay.’

  Michel was spellbound. Farmland? ‘How big is five acres?’ he asked.

  Barbara pondered for a moment. ‘I’m not
sure,’ she said, ‘but I think it’s about two hectares.’

  ‘We own two hectares, and, before the war, we make good business on it,’ Michel said impetuously. ‘Eggs, boiling fowl, some roasting chickens. A cow, a little horse for the cart.’ His face fell, and Barbara saw grim exhaustion mirrored in his expression. ‘All gone,’ he finished.

  ‘I’m so sorry for you and your family,’ she said sincerely. Then she told him about the farmer crossing himself before he ploughed.

  ‘For land’s sakes!’ exclaimed the colonel. ‘How strange.’

  ‘I believe he pray not to plough a mine,’ responded Michel, his tone matter-of-fact. He asked where the field was situated, and she told him as closely as she could.

  He nodded. ‘Ah, yes. Les démineurs work that side of the road for two years. Clear mines. Several farmers blow up. Always, there is one more mine!’

  The colonel said flatly, ‘It’s too bad.’

  ‘It’s terrible,’ murmured Barbara. She lifted wide blue eyes towards Michel. They were full of sympathy. ‘I hope you’ll not try to get to your farm before it’s cleared.’ She put out a hand to touch his knee, and then withdrew it shyly because the colonel was with them.

  Michel noticed the half-gesture and nearly choked with desire. He caught his breath, and then replied with an effort, ‘I promise, Madame. It is too dangerous. Thieves try sometimes – or a farmer. But often they are kill.’

  He paused, as he remembered the fearful night of the battle, and then went on, ‘Sometimes I say to my mother we walk safely away from it to Bayeux. We can walk back safe into it.’ He shrugged. ‘Relations of the family on the next farm try to reach the ruin house. They wish bury bodies. They walk over my land to get there. And poof – something big explode. Two man dead, one no feet.’ He clicked his tongue. ‘They are stupid. Anybody want a body off land like that must ask for les démineurs to clear the path first.’

  And Suzanne’s parents may still be lying there, he thought, like so many French, with no survivor to claim them, skeletons waiting for the démineurs. He shivered slightly.

  Barbara had listened, spellbound. She loved the French rhythm of his voice. She thought suddenly that with that voice he could sell anything.

  As they looked at each other, the colonel, placidly sipping his drink, realised the real closeness between them. He remembered meeting his wife at a big dinner and the instant attraction there had been between them. Here it was, repeated before his eyes. He sighed. Happy days.

  He decided with amusement that Mrs Bishop was just right for this lonely, beaten man, who had, he believed, good potential; he would do something with his life yet. She struck him as being sensible and self-assured, a woman with sound experience behind her. She would keep her head – in middleage, he guessed, she would be intensely motherly.

  Despite the chaos of their countries, he hoped they would make it. He would tell his wife about them when he wrote to her later that night; she would enjoy hearing of such an unusual romance.

  A very mixed-up Michel rose from his chair. ‘I must go home, Monsieur. What time Monsieur wish taxi tomorrow?’

  ‘About nine. It should be an ordinary day tomorrow.’ He too got up.

  ‘You will work in one cemetery?’ This was important for Michel to know, so that while the undertakers were employed in one place, he could leave them to take a visitor to another cemetery.

  ‘Yes. You’re thinking of the Canadian who is staying here?’

  ‘Oui, Monsieur. I not know he is Canadien. Reservations say there is message, as I pass him just now.’

  ‘OK. You should be free from about ten. He’s a big burly fellow. Very pleasant, though. Says he’s from Yellowknife.’

  ‘I take him OK.’ Michel rose from his chair and hitched his trousers. ‘And thank you, sir. Thank you for everything.’ His voice was warm.

  The colonel laughed. ‘I owe you,’ he said. He half-turned to Barbara. ‘Mrs Bishop, come and join the boys and me at dinner. I see they’ve just gone in.’

  Michel felt as if he had been shot. Would Barbara accept? ‘Nine o’clock,’ he repeated dully, looking not at the colonel but at Barbara.

  As the colonel heaved himself out of his chair and helped Barbara out of hers, he repeated, ‘Yeah. Nine.’

  Barbara said, ‘Thank you. It will be nice to have company.’

  Then she stood there, smiling sweetly at a devastated Michel, as if nothing were wrong.

  What was she thinking? He was desperate. In front of the colonel he did not know how to invite her for the following day. But he had to talk with her. He would be wise, he thought frantically, not to pursue her further, but almost intolerable longing told him otherwise. What was it, he cogitated, that he did not understand about her?

  He bowed to her and then to the colonel, turned and clumped out, to arrange with Reservations about picking up the Canadian.

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  As Michel was walking through the courtyard of the hotel, he paused to pass the time of day with the gardener, whose neat bed of perennials seemed to continue to flower so well. The old man was fond of Michel, and had recommended him for the two part-time gardening jobs that Michel now did.

  ‘You’re working late, Gaston.’

  ‘Weeds,’ replied Gaston, sitting back on his heels. ‘And what else can an ancient like me do to amuse himself?’

  ‘Sit on a bench in the sun and drink Calvados. And thank the good God that you have nothing else to do,’ responded Michel with a grin.

  ‘Zut! You aren’t married. Wait till you’ve got a wife to complain about prices going up and up.’ He shook a muddy finger at the younger man. ‘For the sake of peace, you would have to work longer – and buy less Calvados.’ He laughed, and carefully hauled out some groundsel, which he put on one side as a gift to his canary.

  ‘That’s not likely. I’m not a good catch.’

  ‘Come on, now. I complain, but marriage has much to recommend it. Who would care about an old so-and-so like me if I had no wife? Eh?’ He nodded his head, and then pounced on another offending piece of groundsel. ‘Tell your maman to look out for a likely girl for you with a nice little dowry – or do a little shopping yourself’

  Michel had to laugh. ‘First I get a decent job. Then I think about it,’ he promised.

  Then he winced. How could he say that once Anatole died, he would be free to go anywhere a decent job was offered – and only after that could he think seriously of marriage?

  He watched the gnarled fingers deftly moving in and out between the plants.

  Do a little shopping yourself? But the only person he wanted was Madame Barbara, and he dreaded her being influenced by three very presentable and kindly Americans.

  It was ridiculous. What if Barbara believed in him, wanted him, despite her inexplicable fraternisation with the Americans?

  He stood uncertainly in the peaceful, darkened courtyard. Despite good food and wine, he felt spiritually drained; dreadfully aware of his own inadequacies when compared with a rich American.

  He did not need to shop, he decided, as he stood watching Gaston. If he wanted Barbara, he had to fight for her, carefully and cunningly, not simply watch her being taken away from him.

  Why not?

  Father Nicolas had counselled acceptance of fate, and prayer for strength. But he had also, in his gentle understanding way, been quite interested in Barbara. Once he knew she was a Catholic, he had not condemned Michel for looking at her, even though she was English. Was the bon père wiser than he?

  Tush, what did a priest know about love? Or the need to defend the beloved?

  ‘Merde! I forgot something,’ he said to Gaston, his mind made up. He turned on his heel and went back in to the reception desk.

  ‘What time does the Canadian want to go out to the cemetery?’ he enquired. ‘And I need to leave a note for Madame Bishop. Give me a pencil and a piece of paper.’

  The receptionist automatically put a pad of scrap paper and a pencil in f
ront of him. ‘Monsieur Cardinal said that you are to set the time. I told him that the Americans hold a lease on the taxi, and that you must attend to them first.’

  ‘OK,’ replied Michel automatically, as he pondered. Better meet her after I’ve brought the Americans back home at the end of the day, he decided, and then he wrote in French, ‘Six p.m. courtyard entrance. Michel Benion, taxi driver.’

  He felt that it sounded businesslike enough, if Reservations should read it.

  He watched while the receptionist put the note in a pigeonhole behind him, and then he said, ‘Tell Monsieur Cardinal 10.30 a.m.’ He’d get him safely back before he had to fetch the Americans from their cemetery. This time Reservations wrote the note and put it in another pigeonhole.

  Michel wished him good night, and then went to use the public washroom.

  Back in the courtyard, he said au revoir to Gaston, who was slowly getting to his feet, having won his battle with groundsel.

  The old man grinned a toothless grin. ‘How’s your brother?’ he asked, as Michel went by.

  ‘As usual,’ replied Michel, ‘thank you.’ It had been a long day, and he felt he had drunk too much Calvados, but his mood lightened when he remembered that he would certainly have an interesting story to amuse Anatole.

  He was late, and, as he loped down the streets to his home, he hoped Maman and Anatole had had a peaceful day.

  His mother heard him as he ran lightly up the stairs. She smiled slightly. It sounded more like her lad. So often he plodded up, torn with weariness.

  She was used to men who worked to absolute exhaustion. That was life. But, in her heart, she had hoped that Michel might escape from it by entering the Church. Though many families gave a child to the Church, as far as she could recollect, no Benions had done so in three generations.

  Then her husband had shown her the benefit to the family of an alliance with the Fortiers next door. She had immediately agreed. The young couple had been friends and neighbours all their lives and Suzanne was a hard-working girl; she would not be too difficult to live with.

  Now, as she heard his almost boyish run up the stairs, Madame Benion wondered if perhaps the lad still had the energy to study for the priesthood – though how she would run the poultry farm, if it was decided to restart it, without either Anatole or Michel to help, she did not know.