Madame Barbara

by Helen Forrester

  After a little thought, he laid down his mackintosh close against the first stalks of the crop to give himself the maximum of warmth and shelter if it rained in the night. It was not a comfortable bed, but he was so exhausted that he fell asleep immediately.

  His weariness had been so great that the sun was high when he awoke to the noise of a tractor in the near distance.

  Harvesters, he guessed. He sat up very quietly, only to moan with cramp in his back and legs. He jumped when a pair of frightened rats ran out of the wheat and splashed into the ditch.

  Better get out before a dog found him, he decided. Reluctant to show himself to the harvesters, who seemed to have started their work on the far side of the field, he kneeled as he folded his mac and restrapped it to his bike, and put the empty bottles into the basket. Rumpled, unshaven, bits of straw all over his black trousers and pullover, he lifted the bike onto its wheels. Hunched over it to be as invisible as possible, he pushed the gate open and slid out into the lane.

  He looked up and down the road. Nobody. Holding the bike upright with one hand, he hastily brushed at the loose straws on his clothes, but without much success.

  He was dreadfully hungry and thirsty.

  After cogitating wearily as to what he should do, he decided that the farm itself was most likely to yield some water and put him on his way.

  The house door was ajar. To one side of it was a dog kennel with an empty enamel dish set on the ground in front of it. As Michel approached it, a large dog shot out to the length of the rope that held it. Barking ferociously, it leaped at him, straining to reach him.

  Pushing his bicycle, he edged round it. A voice from within the house shouted, ‘See who it is, Annie.’

  With an apprehensive glance at the dog, Michel turned to face the door.

  It was opened by a thin young girl in a grubby summer frock. She was so fair that she was almost colourless, and she stared disinterestedly at him. Then she half-turned and shouted back into the house, ‘It’s a tramp, Mum.’

  ‘Well, tell him to go away.’

  The girl woodenly repeated the message and moved to shut the door.

  ‘Mademoiselle, I want only some water from your pump over there.’ He pointed across the yard to a pump with a trough in front of it. ‘I’m very thirsty,’ he pleaded.

  The girl paused, and then the door was whipped wide. He was faced with a hugely fat woman in a black apron. She flourished a rolling pin, and shouted into his face, ‘Get out afore I brain you. You’re the second I’ve had this morning. Lazy good-for-nothings, that’s what you are. Go and get yourself a job.’

  Forgetting that a day’s beard had added considerably to his tramplike appearance, Michel turned without a word and, carefully avoiding the growling dog, wheeled his bike back to the lane. When safely outside, he stood trembling against his bicycle.

  He had not been afraid of the woman; he could have whipped her rolling pin out of her hand in a second; it was the unthinking reception that had filled him with despair.

  Despite memory of the kindly priest and his wife, this latest insult was too much.

  Barbara, chère Barbara, I don’t think I can face this, he cried inwardly. This everlasting doubt of me because I’m French. How can I work for you here if I am to be treated like this?

  He stood debating whether to give up and turn back the way he had come.

  Or would it be better to continue on to Barbara’s village to tell her that he could not stay? Then, to avoid the hazards of another bicycle ride through this difficult country, he could find a berth in a ship out of Liverpool and work his way home to France.

  He swallowed, unsure what to do in his isolation. No small problem was his lack of knowledge of where he was on the map.

  ‘She’s a real bitch, ain’t she?’ a hoarse voice said.

  The unexpected interruption of his anxious cogitation made Michel jump. He glanced round.

  On the other side of the road, squatting on the narrow band of grass in front of the hedge, was a very small man. With at least two days’ beard on his chin and clothes so ragged that they barely covered him, he looked like a pixie who had wandered out of a storybook. The soles of his boots had holes in them and one sole hung loose at the toe. He wore a grubby flat cap which shaded a nut-brown face and beady, knowing eyes. Beside him on the ground lay a stick with a small bundle tied to one end.

  Chapter Forty

  Wrapped in his own misery, Michel regarded the tramp with suspicion.

  ‘Where you bound?’ asked the stranger.

  ‘Swingdong,’ replied Michel.

  ‘You mean Swindon? You’re foreign, ain’t you?’

  Enough starch remained in Michel to make him answer with pride, ‘I’m French.’

  ‘Well, I’ll be buggered. Deserter, eh? Seen one or two of ’em.’ The man blew his nose through his fingers, and then looked Michel up and down, and asked, ‘How long you bin on the road? Not long?’

  ‘No, I’m no deserter, you rat.’ Such helpless rage enveloped Michel that he felt he could easily have dropped his bicycle and killed the man with a hearty kick in the neck.

  With complete aplomb, however, the pixie proffered an immediate apology.

  ‘Sorry, pal. No offence intended,’ he said. ‘I bin nearly twenty years on the road. Demobbed in 1919. Was in hospital with shell shock for a long while. Come out. No work. No family. No nothin’. Got used to it. Sally Army helps me out every now and then. Spend the winter in a workhouse somewhere.’ He smiled ingratiatingly. ‘Gotta fag?’

  Until the storm of rage within him evaporated, Michel listened with gritted teeth to this potted history.

  The tramp repeated impatiently, ‘A cigarette?’

  Michel stared at him. What a wreck of humanity! He must be the tramp who had begged at the farmhouse – and be as hungry as he was himself.

  Michel could not totally forgive the assumption that he was a deserter, but he could feel a condescending pity for such human garbage.

  He shifted his bike so that it leaned against him, and felt up his jersey. Careful not to expose a second packet tucked inside his undervest, he produced a battered package with two cigarettes in it, and moved closer to the tramp. He bent down and proffered the carton.

  ‘Ta, pal,’ said the tramp gratefully, as he took one with a hand so dirty that it was black. Michel put the other cigarette in his own mouth, found his matches in his back pocket, and lit both.

  Both of them inhaled. Michel looked again at the tramp. No matter what he finally decided to do, he had to find a place where he could buy some bread.

  He asked, ‘How I go to Swingdong?’

  The tramp laughed. ‘You do say it funny! You mean Swindon. Give me a ride on your carrier, and I’ll take you – guaranteed,’ he replied.

  Michel hesitated, and then decided that it would be helpful not to be lost yet again. The man was so small, he was no menace.

  The suitcase and mac were clumsily packed on top of the basket on the front of the bike; the pixie arranged himself on the carrier rack. He placed his feet neatly on the long screws which clamped the rack to the bike. Then, holding his staff and its bundle on one shoulder, he put his other arm round Michel’s waist and clung on to him.

  Pedalling was considerably more difficult with a passenger to balance and an unsteady load on the front basket. They wobbled along, however, and each time they came to a hill to climb, Michel insisted that they walk up it and then remount, to coast down the other side.

  During the afternoon, the Salvation Army at Swindon, finding them both sober, did not query them further but sat them down amongst a motley crew looking very much like themselves and fed them plentifully on slightly stale cheese sandwiches and very weak tea.

  Michel then went to consult a uniformed man at the counter by the door, in whose charge he had left his folded-up bike and his suitcase. Laying his map open in front of the man, he asked directions for Worcester.

  The officer showed him. He was used to drifte
rs of all kinds who wandered up and down the country, but this foreigner seemed to have more purpose. Simply to see if he had guessed correctly, he asked, ‘Is that your final destination?’

  Michel stared dumbly at him. Doubt of him again? It was impossible to bear. Then he shrugged. What did it matter? He could endure this journey, see Barbara and beg her to return to France with him. Regardless of what she said, he would go home to France – by sea, if possible. She could follow him, if she wished. As he sought to reply to the Salvation Army officer, some of the hysteria which had once exploded when he was at home threatened to overwhelm him again.

  ‘No, Monsieur,’ he finally replied. ‘I go to a village called West Kirby at the River Dee? I visit a friend.’

  ‘Oh, yes. I know West Kirby. In that case, you could go from Worcester to here.’ He jabbed a finger at the map. ‘Bridgenorth. Then, if you make for Wrexham, there is a road from there which will take you into Chester. From there, anyone will direct you to West Kirby.’ With a kindly smile, he folded up the map and returned it to Michel.

  Michel asked if he would write down the names of the places he had mentioned, which he did.

  ‘Thank you, Monsieur.’ He collected his bicycle and made his escape, unnoticed by the pixie who was deep in conversation with a group as ragged as himself. Two people aboard one bike was too heavy going, Michel had decided. And, furthermore, the pixie stank.

  With mixed receptions wherever he stopped, he fought his way north to Chester. He gave up trying to shave in streams, in cold water without soap, afraid always of irate landlords. His beard looked more fearsome every day.

  At one point, in a tiny town square, he stopped at a public lavatory to take off his trousers and stitch up a hole in their seat with needle and thread thoughtfully provided by Claudette.

  He was alone in the place and scared of being found trouserless. He had, however, just put them on again, when a heavily built labourer in grubby overalls, a man about his own age, came in to relieve himself. Michel was washing his hands and face at a tiny, filthy sink, his folded bicycle and suitcase close behind him.

  On his way out, the labourer paused to glance down at the bike. ‘Where’d you get a bike like that, mate?’ he asked suspiciously. ‘It’s an Army bike.’

  ‘In France,’ Michel replied, his heart sinking. Now what?

  There was no towel, so he hastily wiped his hands down the back of his trousers, hitched the folded bike up onto his right shoulder and picked up his suitcase. Fearful of being cornered in a limited space, he deliberately crowded the Englishman from behind, and the man automatically moved up the steps to street level.

  ‘Aye,’ the labourer agreed quite innocently at the top of the steps. ‘A lot of us had ’em for the invasion. Was you in it?’

  He’s going to accuse me of stealing it in a moment, thought a scared Michel. Why can’t the damned British mind their own business? While he unfolded the bike and set it upright, he did not reply. Then he said heavily, ‘Yes, I was.’

  He began to buckle his suitcase and mac back onto the carrier, as the labourer responded, ‘You couldn’t have bin. You’re not English, are you? You’re French?’

  Totally exasperated, Michel quickly closed the buckle on the strap and swung himself onto the machine, as he said with bitterness, ‘We French were there, dead cert.’

  He pedalled off into traffic at such a speed that there were frightened honks from car drivers. He was so angry that he didn’t care where he went, and was soon lost, while a bewildered English labourer stared after him, and wondered what he had said wrong.

  Early one evening Michel arrived at a railway station, which he knew should be Chester. He had endured five days of these mixed receptions, and they had doused any enthusiasm he had had about settling in England.

  Pushing his bike, he wandered onto the platform and saw, from a huge notice board, that it was indeed that city. That most railway stations had newly painted notice boards facing the railway line itself, which showed the name of the place, was something he had realised rather late in his ride; it had, latterly, been very useful information.

  Aware of being watched by a man in railway uniform, he hastened out.

  Disillusioned, weary beyond words, his hopes in ashes, he knew now that he was within a few hours’ ride of Barbara. How would she take his refusal to stay in her impossible country – so like his own and yet so horribly unlike?

  Kindnesses he had received, he freely admitted; but the blatant suspicion of a foreigner, the not infrequent indirect references alleging cowardice of the French during the war, had wounded him immeasurably. Would the British never understand what had happened to his beloved Calvados – and the ruination of the rest of France?

  Today, he must find a bed-and-breakfast, get a bath, make himself respectable. He did not like her country, but he would not let his darling Barbara down in front of her mother or her village.

  The first housewife advertising in her window, ‘Bed-and-Breakfast – Vacancy’, took one look at his dishevelled appearance, announced that her rooms were full and slammed the door in his face. The second one, used to untidy English hikers, was more amenable, and agreed to provide bed and breakfast for ten shillings. He brought out his small supply of English money, acquired with difficulty in Bayeux; it had been secured by a safety pin in his back pocket. She gave him change for the pound note he proffered.

  ‘I want a bath,’ he told her.

  ‘That would be another shillin’. I’ll have to put the water heater on,’ she replied. ‘It takes about an hour to heat.’

  He paid the extra shilling and received a confusing amount of coinage in change. ‘I get a meal while I wait, yes? A café nearby?’

  She directed him to a shabby café further down the road, and he asked if he could leave his bike and case with her. She smiled and said, ‘Of course. Bring the bike round the back. I’ll put your case in your room.’

  I have to trust her, he thought. This town is busy – and I could lose the bike and the case if I left them outside a café.

  Sick-tired, without hope, extremely hungry, he went to eat where she had instructed.

  They had only one hot dish still available on the menu, the waitress told him cheerfully. He wondered why they bothered to write a menu if they were so short of food. He ordered her, however, to bring whatever she had.

  He ate, without comment, a fried egg, a pile of baked beans, one sausage, and some fried-up boiled potatoes.

  ‘Like some tea, luv?’

  ‘Yes, please. May I have a glass of water as well?’

  She raised her eyebrows in surprise, but said, yes, he could. He thought longingly of glasses of Calvados, lots of them, so that he could get drunk and drown his awful disappointment. Being afraid to enter a pub after Barbara’s warnings about drunks, he had consumed no alcohol throughout his journey.

  Now, he longed for drunken oblivion. His dreams of being with Barbara and running a snug bed-and-breakfast, raising hens for her, building a new life, were gone. It was not possible. He could not stand being quizzed, the dubiety, the insults, the awful tea!

  He had nothing to be ashamed of, yet by subtle and not so subtle means, he felt he was regarded as untrustworthy, contemptible. English people could be so damned polite, yet put you down. He had not missed the raised eyebrows of the slut who was serving him in the café – just because he had asked for a glass of water. Didn’t the English drink water?

  Michel’s landlady kept her word, however. The bath water was hot. When he mentioned towel and soap, she said that you had to bring them yourself. But seeing as he was obviously a Frenchie, he wouldn’t know, would he? A very worn towel and a sliver of kitchen soap were provided.

  Michel retired to the privacy of a tiny bathroom under the roof, where he bumped his head when he stood up straight. In five inches of hot water, he scrubbed himself clean. With his cut-throat razor, he cut off as much of his beard as he could. Then he shaved the rest at the little sink, being careful to hus
band a small piece of soap for a second shave in the morning; at least, he would meet Barbara looking decent.

  ‘He looks quite respectable now he’s shaved,’ the landlady told her husband in surprise; she had taken Michel in despite his uncouth appearance simply because she was in dire need of money.

  Michel spent the late evening in their neglected back garden mending a slow puncture in the long-suffering bike’s back tyre; the new wheels and tyres which Colonel Buck had found for it had stood up very well to a tremendous strain; this was his first puncture, mended today by courtesy of a small repair kit put together by old Duval himself. Duval, Michel remembered ruefully, had warned him about the English, as had his tearful mother, and two sisters and their husbands. He could never say, he thought, that he had not been warned.

  Chapter Forty-one

  The following afternoon, a solitary cyclist pedalled slowly down the long hill into West Kirby. He wore a trilby hat and a raincoat, and working trousers that looked as if they badly needed cleaning and pressing. New shoes, brightly polished, looked rather out of place.

  Michel had refrained from changing into his new suit on that day, in case it got spoiled by unexpected rain or dust during the last part of his long journey. He would change immediately upon arrival, he had decided.

  After finishing mending the puncture the night before, he had, however, spent some time picking bits of hay and other debris out of his pullover and trousers, so that he would look tidier on his arrival. On the rack at the back of his bicycle was strapped his battered suitcase.

  At the foot of the hill, he dismounted by a railway station where a young woman was walking her dog. He took off his hat and politely asked the way to Mrs Bishop’s bed-and-breakfast. Despite a reasonable night’s sleep and a boiled egg with toast for breakfast, he was trembling with nervous apprehension, with fatigue and with hunger.

  Standing before her, with the slanting rays of the sun behind him, the woman’s first thought was that he looked handsome. Definitely a foreigner, though. She shaded her eyes to take a better look at him, while the dog snuffed suspiciously, and Michel suppressed a desire to kick it. He refrained, however; the British were so fussy about their animals.