by Hore, Rachel
‘Do you remember, Fay?’ this new tender version of Mme Ramond whispered. ‘There was a song I used to sing you, a silly nonsense song about planting cabbages. It always made you laugh.’ She began to hum. ‘“Savez vous planter les choux, à la mode, à la mode . . .” That’s how it went. You used to love to sing. Such a sweet voice you had.’
‘I know you,’ Fay whispered in gathering wonder. ‘I do remember. You’re Thérèse, aren’t you? Sister Thérèse. But . . .’ She studied the woman before her in her neat wool suit, the crucifix at her breast, the gold ring on her finger. ‘You’re married.’
Mme Ramond glanced down at her hand. ‘If you’re a nun,’ she murmured, ‘you wear a ring to show you’re a bride of Christ. But I was released from my vows. My name is Nathalie now. It always was my name, of course – I was born with it. I only became Thérèse when I entered the convent. I had always had an attachment to the Little Flower of Lisieux.’
She raised her eyes to meet Fay’s. Fay was so full of questions but she didn’t know where to start. This new knowledge made everything different in ways she couldn’t begin to comprehend. The whole story about her mother. Everything.
‘Why did I leave the convent?’ Mme Ramond said. ‘Is that what you wish to ask?’
‘Yes. And about Serge.’
Mme Ramond folded her hands in her lap and sighed. ‘Tomorrow I will tell you,’ she said. ‘The next bit is difficult for me to relate and I don’t have the strength for it now.’
As Fay rose to go, Nathalie Ramond asked her to pass the old album that lay on the sofa next to her. The older woman opened it on her lap and turned the pages until she came to the photograph of Fay and her father.
‘Here we are, my dear,’ she said. She separated the photograph from the page with care and passed it to Fay, who looked up at her enquiringly.
‘I can’t remember at all how I came to have it. Take it, it’s yours.’
‘Oh, thank you,’ Fay said, thrilled, examining it again with feelings of tenderness. Then with care she hid it in her handbag.
Chapter 25
‘Mademoiselle, wait – you have a letter.’
Fay thanked the hotel receptionist, seeing with surprise and pleasure that the letter was from her mother. She went into the breakfast room, which was empty, settled herself at a table and slit open the letter with the handle of a teaspoon someone had forgotten to put away.
The note inside was written on cheap paper in Biro, probably all the hospital had. Her mother had written quickly, agitation evident in the handwriting, which was less even and elegant than usual. In it, Kitty went straight to the point.
My darling Fay
Dr Russell has given me your message and I knew I had to contact you straight away. I’d simply no idea you’d meet Nathalie Ramond or that the wretched woman was even in Paris. I urge you not to talk to her, Fay, or if I’m too late, don’t believe everything she tells you. I repeat: do not believe her. It was because of her I nearly lost you.
I realize now that I should have spoken to you myself and told you everything, and when you return, if you can bring yourself to even speak to me, I shall try to explain properly. I never did when you were a child because I wanted to protect you, and later – I’m ashamed to say this – I did not have the courage. Now my failure torments me in every waking moment. I know I’ve let you down badly all over again.
I hoped you’d see your old rucksack with the label and remember something of what happened, and, if you did, you’d find Mère Marie-François, or the old curé, I think his name was Paul Lavisse.
I’m so sorry, darling, sorry for everything.
I hope the concerts are a big success and that you’re having a lovely time, Fay. I can’t wait to see you again to have a proper talk.
Dr Russell is looking after me very well. I think we are almost friends.
From your loving mother,
Katherine Knox
Fay read it through a second time, her hand over her mouth, her face strained with despair. It not only upset her that her mother sounded so distressed, but because what she said threw Fay into confusion once more. What part of Nathalie Ramond’s story should she believe? All of it or bits? Which bits? What should she do and whom should she trust? Over the last few days her world had shifted on its axis, and now, just as she’d been getting used to the new perspective, it was shifting once more.
She laid the letter on the table and stared sightlessly ahead, her chin resting on her hand, her lips quivering. She felt like crying.
She was suddenly angry with her mother. What right had Kitty to tell her what to believe, whom to listen to? Her mother herself had lied, it now seemed. It was up to her, Fay, to decide, and she knew what she wanted to do. She would hear out Mme Ramond’s story, and then she’d weigh everything up and judge which was the correct version. The deer park and the whitewashed house in Richmond, or the convent and the apartment on the Left Bank? Or both? Her mind whirled. Did the stories fit together, or was one – or both – a lie?
Fay was still reflecting on the letter when a gruff voice interrupted her thoughts. She looked up to see a middle-aged man, somewhat broad in the beam, and with a fringe of hair around his otherwise bald head. He wore a short apron and carried a set of keys.
‘I’m sorry?’ she said, blinking.
‘It is I who must apologize for disturbing you.’ He went to the corner of the room where there was a small bar and proceeded to unlock the padlock on the grille that stood round it.
‘Oh no, no. I was only sitting here thinking.’
‘Not bad news, I hope?’ he said, lifting a section of the counter and squeezing through behind it. ‘Your letter – it has upset you, no?’ He took a cloth and started polishing glasses.
Fay smiled briefly and shook her head. ‘It’s from my mother,’ she said. ‘I’ve done something to annoy her, that’s all.’
‘Ah,’ he said, his face lighting up. ‘That is part of growing up. We must learn to make our own decisions and this cannot always please our mothers.’
‘No, I suppose it can’t,’ she said thoughtfully. She watched him pour an amber liquor into two glasses.
He passed one to her, taking the other himself. ‘Let us drink to our mothers. Where would we be without them, eh?’
She swallowed a mouthful of the brandy and coughed as it burned its way down. Somehow it made her feel better, more brave. She took another sip, which this time was more soothing.
‘We all love our mothers,’ the barman said, and drained his glass. ‘But remember, mademoiselle, you must follow your heart.’
Whether it was the brandy or the man’s words of advice, she couldn’t say, but when she climbed the stairs to her room to change for dinner, she knew the right thing to do. She would go back to Mme Ramond to hear the last part of her story, she simply had to. Despite the rambling nature of the letter, her mother sounded better, stronger and more eager to talk. Fay had the right now to demand the truth from her. She was no longer a young girl to be comforted by untruths.
Sandra was in the room, lounging on her bed in a petticoat, smoking and listening to the French news on a tinny transistor radio. ‘Not much happening in the world. President de Gaulle’s presenting some medals in Paris tomorrow,’ she remarked to Fay, yawning. She reached over and switched it off. ‘I hope the city won’t be too crowded. It’s our last chance for some shopping.’
‘Didn’t you do some this afternoon?’
‘No. Georges took me to a poky little theatre to see the most ridiculous melodrama. Oh, did you take that phone call? Someone came up asking for you a moment ago.’
‘No, I didn’t.’ That must have been while she was in the breakfast room.
Fay hurried back downstairs to find that it was Adam who had called and left a message. He could meet her after all this evening, if she was free. She rang him back quickly and managed to catch him before he left the office.
When she replaced the receiver her mind was so full of him
that she almost forgot to ring the curé. She tried his number straight away, but again, nobody answered. He was probably out taking the evening service.
After Fay had left that afternoon, Nathalie Ramond returned to her drawing room and for a long time sat thinking of the past. Today had been difficult and she hoped that she’d been right to say the things she had and to leave out the others. It was hard to remember clearly the exact order of events that had taken place at Sainte Cécile’s that dreadful day nearly twenty years ago, but the manner of Eugene Knox’s death she recalled as though it were on a piece of film playing on a loop before her. She closed her eyes to shut it out.
Chapter 26
Twilight – l’heure bleue – wasn’t that what they called it in Paris? Fay could see why. It was like a change of scene when the light of day dimmed and the colours of the sky segued into night. As she walked out of the hotel on her way to meet Adam, a woman was pulling down the shutter of the gift shop opposite with a long pole. Next door, a café-owner was stacking tables and chairs to be carried inside. Outside the fruit shop, a girl in navy overalls swept the pavement with long, weary strokes.
If daytime Paris was furling her wings like the starlings roosting in the trees of Place de la Madeleine, her nightlife was about to spread its gaudy plumage. A necklace of coloured lights now fringed the awning of the tourist café on the square, where a waiter was chalking names of the specials on a slate. The Art Nouveau lanterns by the Métro glowed with tender mistiness as Fay hurried down the steps.
When she emerged from the station in Montmarte, Adam was waiting, a solitary figure dressed in a dark suit, leaning on a railing and staring up in contemplation at the dome of the church of Sacré-Coeur, which dominated the indigo sky like a giant vanilla ice cream.
‘Hello, Adam,’ she called, and saw his expression of wistfulness change to a delighted grin. He returned her greeting and kissed her cheek.
‘You look nice.’ His quick eye appraised her – and she was glad she’d worn her mother’s gold stole to go with the black cocktail dress. The look, completed by court shoes and long gloves (borrowed from Sandra), not only complemented his, but felt right for the mood of the evening. The indigo velvet sky, the strings of tiny lights in the trees, the bright chatter of the crowds . . . tonight the air was charged with excitement.
It seemed natural, the way she slipped her arm in his and he squeezed it gently. ‘I’ve booked a table at a little place I know not far away. The scallops there have to be tasted to be believed.’
‘Lead me to them,’ said Fay, who’d never eaten a scallop. They crossed a square where a few artists were still offering to draw portraits of tourists and set off down a winding street lined with ancient, misshapen buildings – shops and restaurants mostly – with intriguing dark alleys branching off on either side.
‘I’m sorry about the short notice,’ he said. ‘I wasn’t needed tonight, after all. You aren’t in trouble, are you, for letting the others down?’
‘No, it didn’t seem to matter,’ she replied. Dinner tonight had been at one of the other hotels, and was expected to be a quiet affair. Sandra had promised to convey her apologies, though she herself was planning to leave immediately after the meal to meet her amour at a nightclub. ‘What were you expecting to have to do?’
‘Oh, there was a meeting I thought I’d have to go to, but in the end it was all right.’ She sensed by his tone that he didn’t wish to speak about it, so while thinking it strange she didn’t pursue the matter.
Anyway, now they’d come to a cheerful-looking restaurant, its frontage lit by a trail of coloured electric bulbs. There were tables on the street and much decorative greenery. Inside, a bosomy woman in a close-fitting lace dress showed them to a pretty corner near the window where there was a round table set with white linen, sparkling silver and glass and a spray of pink blossom in a vase.
The scallops were indeed delicious, served with a buttery sauce, and the pale wine, which was drier than Fay was used to, slipped down delightfully. She wondered how something so cold could make you feel warm. When they’d finished, the waiter bore away their plates and brought lamb fragrant with garlic and so tender it fell from the bone.
Fay found herself opening up to Adam, and he listened with serious concentration, nodding occasionally, or taking a sip of wine as she related all that Mme Ramond had told her about her mother, and how she’d protected Fay. She spoke with a catch in her voice as she described her father’s death. The shock and sympathy showed naked in Adam’s face, and when she faltered he reached out and caught her hand.
After she’d finished speaking they were silent for a moment, then, ‘That’s awful,’ he managed to whisper.
‘But I know who she is now – Madame Ramond, I mean. Adam, she’s been hiding it from me all this time, deliberately, and I’m so confused. I think she must have done something she’s ashamed of. I – I don’t know what the truth is.’
‘Hey, slow down,’ he said. ‘What do you mean, you know who she is? I thought she was a friend of your mother’s.’
‘Yes, but I didn’t know exactly who.’ And she explained about Sister Thérèse, who’d known her mother from the moment she arrived in Paris, who had seen her dedication to her music, and watched as she’d fallen in love and married and had Fay. All the things that Thérèse would never do, shielded as she was from such matters in the confines of the convent.
‘And then this letter arrived from my mother.’ She unclipped her handbag and drew out the envelope. As she did so, she glimpsed the hurried script and remembered the rawness of the words. Should she show this letter to a stranger? Her mother might not like it. But Adam wasn’t a stranger to Fay. Not any more. She felt close to him, as though they’d known each other for years. Yes, she wanted him to see it. She unfolded the single page and passed it over.
‘Are you sure?’ he asked, seeing her hesitation, and she nodded, so he took it.
Was it really possible to feel like this about someone you’d met so few times? Fay asked herself. Then she remembered the story of her parents – and knew that it was. Kitty and Eugene had known almost instantly that they were meant for one another. The question was, did Adam feel the same about her?
All this she thought as she watched him read the letter, his forehead creasing. She ate and felt better simply for having shared her burden.
‘How very puzzling,’ Adam said, returning the letter to her. ‘You seem to be caught in the middle of all this. What do you think you’ll do?’
She thought about her argument with herself earlier. ‘What I want to do is to hear Madame Ramond out. I’ve begun to remember more things, Adam.’ And as she said this, she knew it was true. She remembered Sister Thérèse now, her pleasant dimpled face, the sigh of her habit as she moved. When Fay had visited the convent she’d recalled the tramping of boots on the stairs, her fear as the Gestapo had searched the building.
But there were things she did not recall. Of her father’s death, nothing. Her mind simply refused to engage with it, though when she thought about it now it conjured a faint feeling of terror, like the fleeing coat-tails of an evil dream.
‘It’s as though I’ve been handed pieces of a jigsaw,’ she told Adam. ‘But there are still some missing. And there’s a great area of sky where I can’t see where to put the pieces I’ve already got. Madame Ramond must have some of the missing pieces and my mother may have others, but I’m the one who has to fit them together and make sense of them.’ She glanced at her mother’s letter, lying on the table. ‘Or decide whether they belong to the puzzle at all. It’s my picture, you see. The picture of my life. I have to understand it.’
‘How will you know what is true,’ Adam asked, ‘if there are conflicting accounts? Who is telling the truth? You see, it’s not just you. We all have to face this. People have different versions of what happens. Everyone is sure that theirs is the right one. Take the episode I told you about when I rescued my sister from drowning. My mother insists that she wa
s nearby, and that she rushed over to help pull Tina out, but I don’t recall her being there at all. Did my five-year-old self remember more clearly than she did, or did I distort such an event to put myself at the centre of it?’
‘That’s strange, but you’re right, of course,’ Fay said quietly. ‘I don’t know how I shall determine what is the truth, but I’ll try to get as close to it as I can.’
Adam nodded. ‘I understand.’
‘Madame Ramond gave me something.’ Again, Fay reached for her handbag. This time she withdrew the photograph of herself with her father. Once again she gazed at it, appreciating how safe and comforted she must have felt with him, how fondly he held her. She passed it across to Adam, who examined it, his face softening.
‘You look very like him in some ways,’ he said, glancing up at her. ‘It’s your expression. You both have the same smile.’
‘Thank you,’ she whispered. He couldn’t have said anything that she’d wanted to hear more.
They finished their lamb in companionable silence and ordered sorbet, which arrived in tall scalloped glasses and which they ate with long spoons.
The restaurant was filling up now, the air swirling with the smell of food, with smoke and conversation. From somewhere near the back wafted the sounds of jazz piano. Adam lit a cigarette. Each was lost in their own thoughts, but in a way that seemed natural, not because they couldn’t think of anything to say to one another.
The waiter came with coffee. ‘I’m looking forward to your concert,’ Adam said, stirring sugar into his. ‘It’s a programme of Russian music, isn’t it?’
‘Yes, you’ll enjoy it, I think. Colin seems most worried about the Tchaikovsky. He’s unkind enough to say we sound hysterical rather than ecstatic in one of the movements.’
‘Relief at reaching it, perhaps?’
‘Not at all, it’s a lovely piece.’
‘It’s helpful to know for my review. I shall watch you all for signs of hysteria.’