by Hore, Rachel
Then came a rainy November Friday afternoon when they’d arranged to meet in the foyer of the Louvre and she waited and waited with a mixture of annoyance and concern because he didn’t come. Eventually she went into the maze of galleries by herself, but tired quickly of the frivolity of eighteenth-century girls in swings. She tried the sombre sensibilities of Dutch landscapes, finding them more in keeping with her mood, but really, she didn’t enjoy them either. It would have been fun with Gene. All the time she worried whether she’d come at the wrong time or if something had happened to him.
She heard nothing from him until the next day, when she arrived downstairs, her face pale and puffy after a night of anxious wakefulness, to find a letter by her place at the breakfast table addressed in his loopy scrawl. She opened it eagerly. It was full of apologies. There had been an emergency admission, the child of a family he faintly knew, suffering from meningitis; he’d felt it important to stay with her – the mother had begged – and he’d no way of contacting Kitty. He hoped she would forgive him.
She did, of course she did. Her first feelings were relief, and she quashed the mean little selfish voice inside that said, but you abandoned me, and told herself instead how good he was, that he’d put a sick child first.
There were other times. He had to cry off a day trip to the Palace of Fontainebleau in December because of staff shortages at the hospital. Kitty managed to hide her disappointment, but grudgingly, because the outing had been long-planned and she’d excused herself from a class to go. Though she recognized the importance of his work she secretly felt sometimes that it always seemed to be him who volunteered for an extra shift and a resentment grew, though she hated herself for it.
Matters came to a head during the week before Christmas. She’d arranged to meet Gene one Thursday evening at a favourite auberge in St-Germain, where they liked to go for the traditional cooking and often met two of Gene’s American friends, Jack and his girlfriend Milly. Gene hadn’t arrived when she walked in, but the patron, a pleasant man with a fleshy, creased-up face, like a friendly bulldog, knew her and took her to a table, bringing her a complimentary glass of wine whilst she waited. Everyone liked Gene and this kind of reception was not unusual.
Ten minutes ticked by. Kitty pulled a novel out of her bag written by a Frenchwoman who Milly said was the latest thing, and tried to read, but her French, though much improved, wasn’t up to it and she couldn’t concentrate anyway. Twenty minutes, still no Gene, and by now, some of the other diners were glancing at her curiously. After three-quarters of an hour she’d had enough. She put her book away and caught the eye of the patron.
‘I think I’ve come to the wrong place,’ she told him. ‘If Dr Knox does come looking for me, perhaps you’d explain.’
Outside, sleet was coming down fast and hardly anyone was about. She pulled her collar up tight against a biting wind and set off to walk back to the convent through the back streets. She’d never felt so miserable. When she was with Gene she felt happy and loved. He was completely present for her. When they were apart she thought of him all the time, as though, if her life were a piece of music, he was the bass note underpinning it.
But what if it wasn’t the case for Gene? Kitty knew how important his work was to him. Did he forget her when she wasn’t there? And what if he did? Would it mean he didn’t care deeply enough for her? Should she go on seeing him, or was there no future? These thoughts chased round and around in her mind as she trudged on, her shoulders hunched against the weather.
When she came to the piano shop, she stopped to look in the window. The grille was down, but through the latticework in the light of the streetlamp she could see the miniature model of a grand piano, perfect down to the tiny painted man in evening dress, tails flying, bent over the keyboard, and the music spread before him, pages fluttering in some imagined breeze. She was struck by the thought that she’d never be able to visit this place again without thinking of Gene. He had coloured her whole life in Paris. Without him it would be monotone.
She turned to go and only then registered the sound of a man’s hurried footsteps somewhere behind. In response she hastened her pace, but found herself slipping in the slush. The footsteps gained on her. Then, ‘Kitty,’ came a voice and joy flooded through her.
‘Gene,’ she whispered, swinging round, and found herself clasped in his bear-like hug. Her face was buried in his shoulder and the wet wool of his coat tickled her nose.
‘I am so sorry,’ he puffed, when he set her upright. ‘They said I’d missed you by only a minute, but I didn’t know which way you’d gone.’
‘Something must have told you it was this way,’ she said quietly.
‘You were looking in the window of our shop,’ he said, light dawning. He drew her into the shelter of a doorway. They stood, hardly touching, both sensing a distance between them.
His face was in shadow and she glanced up at him, unsure. The initial joy at seeing him was fading now and misery taking hold once more. The fact remained that she felt he’d abandoned her again. What excuse would he come up with this time?
‘You were late,’ she said tightly. ‘Gene, you don’t know what it feels like. The other customers stared at me, it was so public and humiliating. And it made me feel as though you don’t care.’
‘I am truly sorry,’ he said very humbly.
‘You were sorry last time. And the time before that.’
‘Kitty, look, someone hadn’t turned up for their shift. I couldn’t just leave, surely you understand? I am sorry, but it’s what happens in my job. It’s my life, Kitty.’ She was hurt by the stubborn tone in his voice.
‘If it’s more important than me, than us,’ she started to say, and then caught the expression on his face. It was neither the look of abject apology she hoped for nor the stern coldness she feared. Instead it was an expression of immense calm and compassion, as though she were a struggling child failing to understand why its behaviour was unreasonable. Like a child’s, too, her gloved hands were coiled into fists, beating the air.
‘Hey, hey, Kitty,’ he said, grasping them, unfolding the fingers, holding them firm in his. ‘What I am doing with my life is not something I have chosen. It is as though doctoring has chosen me, it’s my calling. To say it is more important than you, though, is to compare two things that are incomparable. It is my duty to tend the sick and I must do it.’
She turned her face to hide the tears that threatened.
‘Kitty, darling Kitty, are you listening?’ She nodded miserably. His voice was gentle. ‘Kitty, how important is your music to you?’
‘I cannot imagine my life without it,’ she said after a moment. ‘It’s such a part of me, I—’
‘And the time you devote to it, all those hours of practice?’
‘That’s different!’ she cried, seeing what he was getting at. ‘I wouldn’t devote the time to the exclusion of people I love.’
‘You wouldn’t?’ he said, sounding surprised, then his tone lightened as he said, ‘Some would though. Your friend Ramond, for instance.’
‘Yes, for Serge music is everything,’ she sighed. ‘I can’t imagine him allowing anything or anyone to come between him and his playing.’ Gene had met Serge at a concert at the Conservatoire. They’d all had tea together afterwards. The two men had little in common and conversation did not flow. Serge had been in one of his moods and had scowled throughout, and Gene confessed to her afterwards that he had found him intense and very prickly, but he’d been impressed, too, by Serge’s ambition.
‘Kitty.’ And now he drew her to him. ‘I’ve never met anyone like you before. Someone I want to share my life with. Kitty, I love you so much. Will you marry me? Do you think you could put up with being a doctor’s wife?’
‘Oh, Gene, I can’t imagine anything I’d like more.’ She craved his love, felt she couldn’t live without it. ‘Yes – the answer’s yes.’
‘My darling.’ And for the first time his lips sought hers in a kiss that w
as passionate but tender. They stood together for a long time in the shelter of the doorway. The sleet was still coming down hard, and a vicious wind blew, but Kitty could not remember feeling warmer or more cared for in her life.
Chapter 9
1961
Wednesday afternoon
Fay found the church of Sainte-Cécile almost by accident, and followed the narrow alley down one side of it to see where it went. When it opened out into Place des Moineaux she stopped, uncertain. The only building that could be the convent – a wide-fronted mansion attached at one end to the church – was shabby and desolate, with patches of plaster missing from the walls. Some of the shutters were hanging loose or missing altogether. The paved garden in front, where a gnarled old cherry tree was coming into leaf, had recently been swept, but appeared otherwise unloved. Only weeds grew in the cracked pots lined up against the wall. The whole place gave the appearance of being shut up and abandoned. However, the wrought-iron gate was unlocked, so with a little hope but not much expectation, she approached the front door, pressed the bell and waited.
For a long time nothing happened, and as she watched the sparrows flying about the square Fay struggled with the dark thought that perhaps this whole search was in vain. Her only real clue that she’d been in Paris as a child was the name of the convent on the tatty old label she’d found in the rucksack. With a sense of desperation she pushed the bell again, harder, and this time heard it sound inside. Yet still the mansion stood silent before her.
Just as she was turning to go, she heard footsteps within, then a man’s voice calling, ‘Attendez, attendez,’ and the rattle of bolts being drawn. Finally the door juddered open to reveal a priest with a neat, lean figure and thinning, colourless hair. He had a narrow, sweet-natured face and wore a pair of wire spectacles that had dug a ridge above his hawkish nose. If he was surprised to see a pretty foreign girl on his doorstep he didn’t betray it.
‘Bonjour, mademoiselle,’ he said, with a polite dip of his head.
‘Bonjour,’ she replied. ‘Je m’appelle Fay Knox. Ici le couvent? Is this the convent?’
‘Oui, mademoiselle,’ he told her, ‘but it has been closed for over a year now. I am the curé at the church here. How may I help you?’ His English was heavily accented, but clear.
‘I – I don’t know exactly. It’s hard to explain. Is there perhaps a Mère Marie here?’
‘Not any longer, unfortunately.’ She must have looked as desolate as she felt, for he then said, ‘Come in – please, come in. I have left the kettle boiling on the stove. Perhaps you would like some coffee?’
She followed him through a dowdy hall with a flag-stoned floor and in an instant, it happened. She knew for sure that she’d been here before. She could make out the pounding of heavy boots on the stairs, harsh voices shouting. She spun round, but there was only the curé and everything was quiet again. She blinked at him, bemused.
‘Are you well, mademoiselle?’ The priest was looking at her curiously.
‘Yes – I mean no,’ she whispered. ‘Perhaps I need to sit down. I’ve walked rather a long way.’ This place was significant, she sensed it. It had once been a place of safety, but then something had happened, something that teased the edges of her memory.
The man showed her into a dusty kitchen at the back of the building, where the open window looked out on to a courtyard and a kettle murmured over a gas flame. He pulled her out a wooden chair from the table and glanced at her with concern as he filled a glass at the sink. She drank the water slowly and watched him make coffee in a jug.
‘I am using one of the rooms here as an office because of builders,’ he explained. ‘Too much noise at my house.’ When she sipped the tiny cup of black coffee that he placed on the table in front of her she found it stronger and sweeter than she was used to, but after a moment she felt better.
‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘I don’t know what happened just then, I’m so sorry.’
‘There is nothing to apologize for. But how can I help you, mademoiselle?’
She took a breath and said, ‘I think this place has something to do with my mother, and I need to find out what.’ She went on to explain haltingly about her own experiences in Paris, how she had flashes of memory that she’d been there before, but that according to her mother’s account she hadn’t. She told him about Kitty’s depression and the secret that she was brooding over, about her mother’s continuing grief for her father, and finally about the little rucksack that Kitty had kept hidden away and the label Fay had found inside it. And now that she’d unburdened herself, Fay felt lighter. It was a terrific relief. She’d been scared that it would sound like nonsense, but instead, the telling of it made it seem more real. At one level it still made little sense, and yet now she had put all the elements together in some sort of narrative it sounded plausible. Fay fumbled in her handbag, brought out the label and handed it to the curé. He smoothed it out on the table and studied the writing, first one side, then the other.
‘Fay Knox,’ he said. ‘The K is silent, then?’
‘Yes, that’s right.’
‘Well, Mademoiselle Knox, yours is a strange story, but I am not sure how I can help you. I have only been priest here for ten years, and in that time I do not remember any Englishwoman named Kitty. There were only two nuns left here after Mère Marie-François died over a year ago. Not so many young girls today feel called to this life. One of them is also now at peace, and the other is sadly wandering in her mind. She lives in another convent in the city where they have a hospice.’
‘Do you think it would be worth me going to see her anyway?’ Fay said doubtfully. The certainty she’d felt just now was melting away again. But then she glanced at a crucifix hanging above the door and remembered what she’d felt in the hall just now, that this place was somehow significant, and her resolve strengthened.
‘It could, but I don’t think it would be much use,’ the priest said. ‘I wish you could have met Marie-François. She was Mother Superior here for many years. Certainly through the Occupation. I wonder if there is anybody else who might remember . . . Wait! No.’ He seemed to be talking to himself rather than to Fay. But then suddenly he became quite animated. ‘Well, maybe I’ve thought of something, after all,’ he said, putting down his coffee. ‘There was a woman who came to visit the Reverend Mother once, quite close to the end. She was at her funeral, too.’ He pushed back his chair. ‘Perhaps you would wait a moment, mademoiselle. I’m sure she left her telephone number.’
He departed the room and she heard a door open and close and then there was silence for what felt like a long time. Eventually she got up and walked out of the kitchen and peered into some of the other rooms. They appeared neglected and forlorn, any furniture covered in dust sheets. It felt peaceful this time, but again she was haunted by a sense of the familiar. She entered the dining room with its bare, dusty tables by one door and when she exited by another there was a shallow step down into the hall that she negotiated instinctively, as though she had known it was there.
By the front door was a narrow arched niche in the wall, about twelve inches high and four deep, in which lay a set of keys. Somehow she knew there had been a statuette there once. She could see it clearly in her mind: it was of a woman in a deep-blue robe, her hair covered in a white coif, standing with her hands folded in prayer. Fay remembered the smooth cold glaze under her own fingers. She looked about the hall, but there was no sign of it, nor of any ornament or picture, come to that. How sad it was that the place had closed. She was wondering what would become of it, when she heard the priest returning and quickly made her way back to the kitchen.
The priest greeted her with a smile. ‘My papers are in a mess. I couldn’t find it at first. The woman’s name is Madame Nathalie Ramond.’ He held out a scrap of paper which Fay took, seeing he’d written on it a telephone number. ‘As I told you, she came to visit Mère Marie-François in her last illness. She was an old friend come back after being abroad. She aske
d to be kept informed of the Reverend Mother’s progress. It may be that she will be able to help you, I don’t know.’
‘Thank you,’ Fay said, slipping the paper into her handbag. She didn’t know why, but she sensed there was something the man was not telling her. But then a priest must be full of other people’s secrets.
‘Answers often bring new questions,’ he said mysteriously as he showed her out. ‘However, I wish you God’s blessing, my child. As for your poor mother, I will pray for her.’
‘Thank you so much,’ she said, touched at his sincerity. His eyes through the thick spectacles were kind and concerned, but when she glanced back as she went through the gate, the door was already closed, and the building assumed the same abandoned appearance as before.
Fay made her way to the nearest Métro to go and meet Adam, but first she had to find a phone box to ring this Mme Ramond. At the top of the steps down to the station though, she encountered a hungry-looking North African man selling newspapers with headlines in angry black print. He tried to press one upon her, speaking French in an accent she didn’t understand, and there was something desperate about his manner that intimidated her, so she shook her head and ducked past him down the stairs. In the station she bought tokens for the telephone, then when a booth became free dialled the number on the slip of paper the priest had given her. Finally a woman’s voice answered.
‘Hello, je voudrais parler avec Madame Ramond.’ Fay had to repeat it before she was understood.
‘C’est bien moi.’
Fay introduced herself and said what she’d rehearsed on the way from the convent, that the priest had suggested she speak to Mme Ramond about an important matter. She’d decided deliberately to keep it vague. The station was noisy and, anyway, it would be easier to explain everything properly face to face.