Daughter of Catalonia

by Jane MacKenzie

  At Madeleine’s side came a tiny flutter of movement, and Elise opened her eyes, gazing straight ahead, in the position where her sheets held her imprisoned. Madeleine leant forward so that her head was above her mother’s.

  ‘Maman?’

  ‘Petite!’ Her mother smiled, a half smile with the merest shadow of the old magic. Madeleine reached for her hand.

  ‘Robert is coming. You’ll see him this afternoon.’

  Another smile, then a sharp grimace of pain, and two words, ‘Ah, Robert.’

  ‘He’ll be here. He’s on his way.’ And God willing you will be awake to see him. Let this not be the last awakening, thought Madeleine.

  The grimace of pain had been enough to make the nurse act quickly. She approached the bed, a full syringe in her hand.

  ‘Not yet!’ Madeleine protested, then leant again towards her mother. She squeezed the shrivelled hand gently, and smoothed a stray lock of hair from her forehead.

  ‘Would you like to drink something, Maman?’ She offered a glass of water.

  Again a precious half smile. ‘Thank you.’

  Madeleine put her arm around Elise’s shoulders and raised her feather-light body a little. As she drank, a tiny, painful sip, Madeleine held her close. There was nothing she needed to say to Maman now. To have her awake was enough.

  Elise leant back against her, and another spasm of pain twisted her face. This time the nurse stepped forward with iron determination, and Madeleine eased her mother back onto the pillows, and then watched helplessly as the syringe entered her arm and she sank again into oblivion.

  ‘You might as well go and eat now,’ the nurse repeated.

  Madeleine sat for a further minute, then nodded dumbly. There was no point in staying now. She picked up her cardigan and went downstairs.

  In the gloomy green dining room, her grandparents were already seated at table. Thankfully this was Sunday, cook’s day off, and a simple cold buffet had been laid out on the sideboard. Self-service lunch, and she could arrive late without a scold. Grandfather was dressed for church. A tall, bent figure, with skin as dry as paper and joints stiff and sore, he sat awkwardly at the head of the table, and glowered at the array of pills set out before him in a regimented line.

  In the drawing room there was a photograph of her grandfather on the day of his graduation from King’s College in Oxford, tall, lean and very serious in his robes, and next to it another silver-framed photograph of him some years later with Grandmama, during their courting days in London, Grandfather in a morning suit, looking very dashing next to the dainty, high-born Parisian demoiselle who had secured his future as a society lawyer. The grave young man in the first photograph showed hints of the determination which had allowed Paul Gresham to climb so fast, but no hint yet of the careful charm which won him his wealthy clients, and the grace and diplomacy he used to rescue them from their indiscretions. Grandmama opened the doors for him, and he treasured his elegant French bride and her connections like a fragile piece of antique lace, working endlessly to give her the social life she took for granted. As a child Madeleine had always been drawn to the silver-framed couple in that photograph in the drawing room: they were almost deliciously elegant but curiously superficial.

  There were no photographs of the grimmer years of the Great War, but in the 1920s there were more pictures of them dancing and parading in Gay Paris. Where were their children, Madeleine wondered, during these visits to Paris? John and Michael, and little Elise, of whom a group photo sat on a different table, the boys in starched collars, Elise in little girl’s ribbons, gravely posing together for a studio camera. There were no more photos of disgraced Elise, but there was one of John and Michael again, as young men, dangling an enormous fish proudly from a hook. Michael must have died soon after, thought Madeleine, in that road accident no one was allowed to mention. And then John: there was a final picture of John, in his uniform, handsome and serious, placed next to the DSO that had been awarded to him posthumously – just one more war hero who had never returned.

  Had it been this final grief which drove Grandfather to isolate himself in the country, and turned him into the hardened fossil who crabbed at life, consumed by the iniquities of tied tenants and the outrages of socialism? Madeleine had known no other side of him. From the moment of her arrival in England with her mother and brother, three windblown, miserable refugees from occupied France, she had lived with her grandparents in this house, and Grandfather had required silence, conformity and above all ‘Englishness’ from these barbarian grandchildren previously raised in what he deemed a bohemian, Communist conspiracy. That past was dead, and their lives were henceforth his to command.

  Grandmama was different. She paid little attention to Grandfather’s outbursts and simply arranged his small comforts, and at sixty-eight still radiated elegance. Amid her velvets and silks, soft leather gloves and laced corselettes, she stood out among her Berkshire neighbours in their tweeds and riding suits, but managed to be accepted, and even played a part in parish activities, provided nothing was too strenuous or demanding. She fluttered and murmured in French, and unlike him was happy to hear her grandchildren speaking French with their mother. But like Grandfather, she could never forgive her daughter for the crime of marrying Luis Garriga during a supposedly well-controlled visit to her aunt’s family in Paris. Nor could she forgive her for being alive when her two beloved sons were dead.

  And as for Luis Garriga’s Mediterranean children, they had to work their way into a place in this family. Robert had achieved approval when he was picked for the rugby team at Winchester, and became his grandfather’s pet when he later chose to study law at Oxford, following in Paul Gresham’s footsteps. He rode well, talked fishing to Grandfather, and was popular among all their social group. Madeleine knew how hard he had worked at this character. Outgoing by nature, yearning for acceptance, and struggling with the elusive legacy and identity of a father he couldn’t remember, Robert had found safety and refuge finally under his grandfather’s gradually unfolding wing. Paul Gresham needed a new son, and Robert had won his wings as the family’s future.

  Madeleine had always been of far less interest. The family may have needed the little boy who came to them so young and unformed from France, but his brown, passionate sister was older, and spiky and unbending. Six years old, speaking Catalan and French in preference to English, her memories of ‘home’ were strong, and she spent her days with her mother, prattling endlessly about Vermeilla, and Papa, and Uncle Philippe, hiding from her grandparents.

  When the news came of Papa’s death in 1944, and Maman became so terribly withdrawn, it was decided it would be better if Madeleine was sent to school. The experience certainly cured her of her childish prattle and exuberance. School life surrounded by girls called Margaret and Audrey, Elizabeth and Susan, all with identical, insular backgrounds, was worse than living with Grandfather. None of the girls, in these post-war years, had ever left English shores. None had names like Madeleine, and they pronounced the name with exaggerated care, as something exotic and potentially suspect.

  Madeleine reacted like a porcupine, curling her soul into a tight ball, with nothing but sharp quills directed at all around her. The girls learnt to keep their distance, and Madeleine learnt to keep hers. She wanted to shout at them. ‘Madalena! My real name is actually Madalena!’ She could imagine them murdering the name in their upper-class accents, and called up memories of her father’s deep voice, his laughing face inches from her own as he swung her in his arms. ‘Madalena,’ he would say, ‘Madalena bella. Your beautiful eyes will win all hearts.’ But now Madeleine learnt to stay in the background, and nursed her memories in private. At weekends she was allowed home, and would cling to her silent mother, willing her to get better.

  As the years went by she mended her manners, learnt to play tennis and the piano, forgot her Catalan, and kept her French for Maman. She had her passions well hidden, and moved through life trying not to stir any waters. She lacked R
obert’s easy good humour and brilliant smile. Where he was popular and sought after, she was happy to live in the shadows.

  She hoped to be unnoticeable today as she entered the dining room, and quietly helped herself to some salad and a little cold meat. Grandfather lifted his head from his pills and grunted a greeting, but Grandmama rose to kiss her on both cheeks, and led her to her chair. She had changed, Madeleine noticed, from the green silk she had been wearing this morning to a sober grey jersey suit. Not yet full mourning, but just the right touch for a house on the verge of a death. Madeleine’s pink cardigan looked both shabby and uncaring in contrast.

  ‘My poor girl,’ intoned Grandmama, pouring a small quantity of wine into Madeleine’s glass. ‘We are all going to have to be very brave.’

  ‘She’s sleeping again,’ Madeleine replied, not bothering to keep the weariness from her voice. ‘I hope she wakes for Robert.’

  Grandmama inclined her head, and gave a small sigh. ‘I must go to see her after lunch. My last remaining child. It will be so very hard.’ Grandmama’s sigh was perhaps genuine, thought Madeleine. It was maybe just her style which seemed so insincere.

  ‘Nurse will tell us when we need to go up,’ muttered Grandfather. Then, as if it would solve everything, ‘We’ll wait for Robert.’

  And after lunch he came, striding through the doors and wafting in the cool, crisp air of the world outside, where normal people lived and worked and walked in the spring sunshine. He kissed Grandmama on both cheeks, clasped Grandfather briefly, then took Madeleine in his arms.

  ‘Is she really going, then?’ he whispered.

  ‘Really, yes, Bobo. She’s more and more drugged – hardly wakes. But she smiled at me this morning.’

  She drew him up the stairs, and hesitated by her mother’s door. ‘She’s in a lot of pain now, Bobo. It’s hard to watch at times. You’ll see. It will be best if she goes quickly now, really it will.’

  Robert nodded impatiently and put her aside to open the door, entering the room with the almost offensive vigour of the young and healthy. He slowed, though, as he approached the bedside, and then stopped, reaching for Madeleine’s hand. His face was leaden as he surveyed the ashen face, thinner even than the last time he had visited, sunk in deep sleep.

  He was silent for several minutes. Madeleine watched him rather than their mother, trying to read his thoughts. She was so unsure of how he would react, but until he spoke his face gave little away. When he did speak, his bitterness was fierce. Bitterness at the illness, but especially at Elise. It was unlike him and it shocked Madeleine to the core.

  ‘It makes me so angry to see her lying there like that,’ he muttered with real fury. ‘It just seems to sum up her life. Lying there so passive, so stupidly passive. Giving in as usual. Suffering as always. Why couldn’t she ever live? She might as well die of cancer. She doesn’t even want to be here with us.’

  Madeleine flinched at his anger, but heard his pain and the years of loss he was trying to express. For a young man eager for life, Elise had been a poor role model, meek, submissive and inactive, too rarely laughing, too frequently placating.

  She thought carefully before replying. ‘She loved us, Bobo. She lived a lot through us, I know, and should have got more from life, but she wasn’t always passive. She could be quite fiery at times, especially when defending us – defending you mainly, when Grandfather wanted to punish you for breaking a window, or for wrecking the plant border with your cricket games.’

  Robert smiled briefly in acknowledgement, and she pressed home her point. ‘Do you remember how she would laugh with us later, up here away from the rest of the house, and she would produce some chocolates from the hidden drawer to calm you down. You used to get so mad when Grandfather told you off!’

  ‘I know, I know,’ he acknowledged. ‘There were some special private moments. But what a life overall, in the end. Was she ever really happy, do you think?’

  His hand was still in Madeleine’s, and she squeezed it. She noticed out of the corner of her eye the nurse quietly leaving the room, and was relieved at their solitude.

  ‘I think so, Bobo. Oh yes, she was happy. I have memories of her laughing so freely, so gaily. Teasing Papa, teasing me too. She was really alive then.’

  ‘I don’t remember anything from those early days. I don’t even remember Papa.’ His voice was bitter, anguished.

  Madeleine stood for a moment, conjuring up memories. They came, but with time it was taking longer and longer to retrieve those memories. Maybe it was part of losing your childhood. But the memories were so important.

  She shook herself slightly, and squeezed Robert’s hand again. ‘I don’t remember much myself. Just some images which come back to me. Papa in a kind of blue overall, and Uncle Philippe, and they both smoked tiny little cigarettes which they rolled themselves. I don’t think there was much tobacco available. And Maman in a flowery apron. We had a big wooden table and a fire in a stove in the corner. I wasn’t allowed to touch it.’

  ‘A fire? It was the south of France, Madeleine!’

  ‘There was a fire, with logs, and a really old black stove,’ Madeleine insisted.

  ‘I wish we knew more. I wish I had asked more.’ Robert removed his hand and moved restlessly to the other side of the bed. Madeleine held his gaze across their mother’s sleeping body, wanting him to listen.

  ‘She wouldn’t have told you anything. Not after he died. We used to talk about home all the time when we first came here, but after she got the letter she stopped talking.’

  ‘She didn’t have the right to be like that,’ growled Robert. ‘Loads of women lost their husbands in the war, but they still helped their children to remember. They still talked about their husbands. It wasn’t fair to us to stay so silent. She just excluded us and left us with nothing!’ It was a poignant cry, and Robert shook his head as if to shake away imminent tears.

  ‘Maman wasn’t allowed to, you know that! None of us were allowed to remember. Poor Maman was a family disgrace, come home to do penance. Don’t ever blame her! When did she ever let you down? She loved you and protected you and helped you to be happy here. How can you judge her? Look at her! Look how tired she is! And yet she smiled for me this morning!’ Tears were in Madeleine’s eyes for the first time. Robert came back round the bed to her side, and put his huge arm around her shoulders and hugged her.

  ‘Sorry, Lena. Sorry. I know, I know. She loved us so much. Will she wake again, do you think?’

  ‘I don’t know. They give her so many drugs now, and when she wakes she’s in pain.’

  ‘Then I hope she doesn’t wake. Look how peaceful her face is.’ Robert stroked his mother’s cheek, and freed the hand which the nurse had again tucked severely under the stark white sheet and grey blanket. ‘We should let her go now.’

  ‘Will you be all right?’

  ‘A strange question from you, Lena. What about you? What are you going to do here without Maman? Join the bridge club? Or marry one of the worthy young men that Grandmama keeps throwing your way? What’s that doctor’s name − Peter, isn’t it? The one who only does dried-up research and runs away from real patients? He’d marry you tomorrow and bottle you up and label you like one of his experiments.’

  Madeleine smiled. ‘Peter’s all right, Bobo. He’s interesting, at least, and doesn’t talk about land laws and foxes, or stupid village gossip. He’s been nice too while Maman’s been unwell – coming round in his car and making me go out for some fresh air sometimes. And never putting me under any pressure. That’s pretty human behaviour, isn’t it?’

  ‘Not very passionate though, either, is it?’ Robert grimaced. ‘You surely wouldn’t marry him, Lena?’

  ‘No. You can rest assured. I don’t want to marry him or anyone. I just want to get away from here. If all else fails I can get a job as a secretary. That was Maman’s only success with the elders as far as I’m concerned – getting them to fund my studies. So I’m employable if only I can get away. But I
don’t have a bean to get started with.’

  ‘Fund your studies!’ snorted Robert. ‘Is that what you call it? With your brain it should have been you at Oxford, not me. And all they would allow you to do were secretarial studies! You’re not going to live any life at all as a secretary. You should run away to Paris, that’s what. I was thinking about it on the drive here. You should go to Tante Louise. You’d get a real life there – the kind of life you’ll never have here.’

  Madeleine could only gape at him. What was he saying? Paris? She tried to digest the idea. He might have been suggesting she go to the moon, for all she could imagine it.

  She looked again at Robert, his intense eyes all lit up. Oh, my God, France, she thought, and the idea was suddenly electrifying.

  ‘Could I?’ she questioned, more to herself than to him. ‘Could I really go to Tante Louise? But how? I can’t live without money, and if I don’t work I only have what Grandfather gives me.’

  ‘I don’t know. We need to write to Tante Louise. Maybe if she invites you the elders will stump up the cash to send you there.’

  ‘Are you joking? After Maman went to Paris as a girl and disgraced the family by running off with Papa? They’ve hardly even communicated since, the elders and the Paris family. They blame Tante Louise for everything.’

  Robert took his time replying. ‘All right,’ he said eventually. ‘So you find the fare somehow and then get a job in Paris. There must be people there who want a bilingual secretary. You could make more money there than here, surely? And Lena …’ Robert’s voice took on a new urgent edge.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Maybe once you are in France you could find out something about us. About Papa. Maybe Tante Louise can help answer our questions about him. You could even go south to Vermeilla and find Uncle Philippe.’

  Madeleine stared at him blankly, her head spinning. So many possibilities opened up before her, but it took such a leap of faith to believe them achievable. Robert had a child’s imagination, unlike her. They’d sapped her imagination, the elders, with their restrictions and inertia.