by Adele Geras
‘Mlle Louise … oh, quelle surprise …’ She began to talk and talk at high speed and as they made their way to Mme Franchard’s rooms, Lou managed to land on a couple of important words, as though they were stepping stones in an unending stream of French: faible … malade … joie … ravie … From these, she deduced that her great-great-aunt wasn’t feeling too good, but would be delighted to see her.
Solange showed her into Mme Franchard’s bedroom. Poor old thing, Lou thought. She really must be faible and malade if she’s in here and not in the paper-filled salon. She stood by the open door, feeling a little embarrassed. Mme Franchard’s eyes were closed, but Solange went up to her and leaned over to whisper in her mistress’s ear while Lou waited, wondering what was going to happen.
‘Approchez, approchez, ma chère Mlle Louise.’ Solange left the bedside and beckoned to Lou to come closer. She brought a chair forward from its position under the window and indicated that Lou should sit on it.
‘Le thé … j’arrive …’ Solange was gone and Lou was left alone. What on earth could she say? She took Mme Franchard’s hand and held it. It was thinner than ever, covered with veined skin, papery and pale and she didn’t know what to do with it once she’d grasped it in hers. If I squeeze it, I might break the bones, she thought and shivered and wished she could let go of it again. Don’t be so squeamish, she told herself. She’s old and not feeling good.
‘You are here,’ Mme Franchard whispered. ‘Merci, ma petite, I am grateful you come here. I have thought of you many times.’
‘I should have come before, but I’ve been so busy. I’ve been writing a screenplay.’
‘Qu’est-ce que c’est que ça? Screenplay.’
Lou only just caught that remark. She said, ‘Oh, I’m sorry. Je m’excuse. It’s like a play for the theatre, but it’s for a film. Un film,’ she added, and in case that wasn’t clear enough, she went on, ‘Les mots pour les acteurs dans un film.’
‘Je comprends. That must be not easy. And your film is a love story, perhaps?’
Why are we talking about screenplays? When she’s so ill and weak? Well, why not? Lou said, ‘No, it’s a film of my grandfather’s novel. Blind Moon. The book you read.’
‘That is good,’ Mme Franchard said. ‘I am happy if that will be a film.’
This wasn’t the moment to tell her about the intricacies of getting a screenplay optioned, green-lighted and the rest. She said instead, ‘My father wanted to come and see you. He will come soon, he says. He sends you …’ She was about to say: regards, but Mme Franchard looked as though she was in need of something a bit more meaningful. ‘He sends you his love.’
‘I am happy …’ Silence fell as Lou thought of something else she might say. Mme Franchard’s eyes closed again and soon the only sound in the room was the rasp of her breathing. Where was Solange with that tea? Lou looked around. A giant chest of drawers stood against one wall, and on top of it, resting on crocheted mats, several small photographs in silver frames were lined up in a symmetrical arrangement. A cupboard made of very dark wood took up most of another wall and the bed was high with an old-fashioned brass bedstead. The pillows behind Mme Franchard’s head were edged with crocheted lace, like the mats on the chest of drawers, and there was a table under the window. The upholstery of the chair she was sitting on had been velvet once but the nap and the colour had almost vanished, leaving it greyish and bald and she could feel it wobbling slightly when she moved.
Solange came in then, and put the tray down on the table. Lou moved to help her but she indicated that this was unnecessary. After handing Lou a cup of tea, she then set about lifting Mme Franchard into a sitting position. There followed the enormously complicated and delicate process involved in seeing that the old lady took a couple of sips of liquid. Lou wondered how easy she would find it to look after an old person, however much she loved her, and thought it would be even harder than looking after a baby. How kind Solange is, Lou thought. She found that her eyes were filling with tears and she blinked and took a deep breath.
The drinking of tea was over at last and then she was alone with Mme Franchard again. Perhaps the drink had given her strength, because she began to speak. Not as fluently as the last time they’d visited but still.
‘There is a letter, ma chére. There … on top.’ She pointed with a skinny hand to the chest of drawers. ‘Please go and bring here, yes?’
Lou was glad of the chance to move away from the bed. She could see the letter, propped up against one of the silver photo frames. As she took hold of it, she said, ‘This is a picture of your sister, isn’t it? Louise?’ She picked up the photograph and held it up, as though Mme Franchard could see it from where she was.
‘Bien sûr. You can bring. I want to see her. Ah, you are like her so much – so much.’
Usually, when people said that someone looked like someone else, they didn’t really. You could see a resemblance if you wanted to, but in fact it often wasn’t obvious. In this case, though, it was so marked as to be a bit spooky, like looking at a photograph of yourself in costume. The other Louise was wearing a dress with a sailor collar and a straw hat. She was standing next to a shuttered window and smiling into the sun, with her hand held up to the brim of her hat. Lou took the letter and the photograph and gave them to Mme Franchard.
‘We speak of the letter but first, I wish you to take with you this picture. Will you take?’
‘Really? Are you sure?’
‘I do not see so good. Better you have, and you see. I will be gone from here soon. The letter is for you, but open it when I am gone. You will do this, please?’
For a moment, Lou was unclear what Mme Franchard meant and then she understood. The old woman thought she was near death. This was her, giving away her possessions in the expectation that she wouldn’t be needing them any longer. What am I supposed to say to that?
‘I will keep the letter safe,’ Lou ventured, and added, ‘for a long time, I hope.’ Briefly, she wondered what could possibly be in it that had to wait till Mme Franchard was dead, but that wasn’t her business.
‘I tell my lawyer what is in that letter …’ Mme Franchard said, and Lou understood that it was probably the old lady disposing of some of her things. What’ll I do, she wondered, if she leaves me that black cupboard? Can I say I don’t want it? Maybe I could sell it – or anything else she might decide to leave me. Lou already had the only thing in the flat that she wanted: the photograph of John Barrington’s mother.
‘My grandfather would have loved to see this picture,’ she said. ‘He never spoke about his real mother, but in the novel, Peter expresses his love so well. I’m sure that must be partly what Grandad thought about his mother.’
‘I am thinking since I read the book. Do you wish to know my opinion?’
‘Yes. Yes, of course.’
‘Et bien, I think this book is not a roman. Not – how do you say in English – invented. I think it is the truth. The things that happen in the book, in life they happen also.’
Lou thought for a moment. No, it couldn’t possibly be true. It would mean … She tried to speak gently. The last thing she wanted was to offend Mme Franchard. She said, ‘But if it were true, that would mean that what happened to your sister …’
She stopped speaking. If it were all true, which was something she’d never considered, that would mean that Grandad spent almost his whole life – no, it must have been made up. She wanted to say something that would bring the conversation to a halt. It wasn’t going to be easy persuading Mme Franchard in her present condition. She said, ‘One thing that is true is that Grandad never really recovered from the loss of his mother. His real mother.’
‘Évidemment,’ Mme Franchard whispered. ‘You do not recover from such a wound.’
The silence returned to the room. Lou glanced down at her watch. Still another two hours till she had to meet Harry. How would they fill the time? She had no idea. Then Mme Franchard said, ‘You will read to me, please?’
�
��Read to you?’
‘Please. From Blind Moon. It is there, with the other books – do you see?’ Every word came out of her mouth with a thick wrapping of laboured breath around it; and Lou could feel the effort required for Mme Franchard to push each one out of her mouth. ‘Please read me a short piece …’
Lou sat on the bald velvet chair and opened the book. This copy, which Mme Franchard had found in a second-hand bookstall, was battered and worn with no dust-jacket and stains all over the cloth cover. Ink. Coffee … Something. She looked through the pages for a suitable extract and then Mme Franchard spoke again, so softly that Lou had to strain to hear what she was saying.
‘My sister’s death. Read where she dies.’
Lou opened her mouth to declare her belief in the fictional content of the passage, but knew that it was pointless to protest. She found the place, took a deep breath and began to read:
Dulcie hardly left his mother’s side while the baby was alive. She used to hang over the little wrapped-up body and stare at it and stroke it all the time. She used to cuddle Mary, too, and he remembered what Mummy used to say before they came here, about how Dulcie wanted children of her own and how sad it was that she couldn’t have any. ‘Why can’t she?’ he used to ask but no one knew, Mummy said. Some people didn’t have children and that was that. Dulcie said to him, after the baby died: ‘That’s why I’m so fond of you. Because you’re the nearest thing to my own child I’m ever likely to have.’ But her husband was dead, just like Daddy, and you couldn’t have a baby if you didn’t have a husband.
He noticed something. His mother couldn’t notice it because she was too weak to see, but he knew the truth. Dulcie wanted Mary. She wanted her to be her baby and not Mum’s. You could tell by the way she used to hold her and look at her as if she wanted to eat her. As if she was a big bird who wanted to fly away with her and never come back. When the baby died, Dulcie cried and cried. She didn’t stop for hours and he said to her, ‘Why’re you crying, Dulcie? You’re crying more than Mummy.’
‘I loved her. That’s why I’m crying. I couldn’t have loved her more if she’d been mine. And I’d promised your mother something, too. I promised her that if … if anything … anything bad … happened to her, I’d look after Mary. As if she were my baby.’
Peter wanted to say it. He wished he could have shouted it out at her, made her listen to his words. He knew. He knew that Dulcie wanted Mummy to die. She didn’t say so, but she wanted it to be the other way round: Mummy dying and the baby living and then she really would have carried her off for ever.
Now his mother was ill. Properly ill, not simply waiting to have a baby. Not just starving like everyone else, but burning with fever which made her say mad things and gabble in French. Mummy never spoke French. Never. ‘I’m English now, you know. Ever since I married your father.’ But now, her skin was hot when he kissed her. Peter didn’t want to kiss her, but he made himself do it. He had to, because if he didn’t touch her hot skin with his lips, if he didn’t take her hand and hold it in his hand, she would think he didn’t love her and that wasn’t true. He did. He loved her more than anything, all there was in the world, and he also hated her for being so weak and thin and useless and for lying there crying about the baby when he was still alive and needing her to look at him, to look at something that was here now, and not far away and in her mind. In her memory. He needed her to say: I’ll look after you, Peter, but she couldn’t and she didn’t and there was only Dulcie who’d started looking after him sometimes. She brought him bits of food. She talked to him. He didn’t know what he thought of Dulcie. He used to quite like her but now he was a little scared of her, and thought that maybe he didn’t like her very much, because he could see what she was doing. The baby was dead and she couldn’t have her so she might be starting to want him instead. Was that possible?
The sun had just gone down, and the whole sky was orange, as if someone had set light to it, and the shapes of the palm trees and the huts of the compound were like black paper cut-outs against the sky. He didn’t want to go and see his mother who’d been taken to the hut used for all the women who were too sick to be with the others. She just lay there, silent, most of the time so what was the point? But if he didn’t go, she’d be sad. She was sad already, he knew that, but she was sure to be even sadder if he didn’t go and sit with her. Peter made his way across the compound. His sandals were so thin now that he felt as though he were walking barefoot on the earth, aware of every stone along the path.
He could see the women’s hut ahead of him. There was Dulcie with her back to him. His mother was speaking. She never spoke. Hardly ever. When she did, it was in French and no use to anyone. But she was saying something in English. He stopped and shrank back, not wanting to interrupt and wanting to listen because his mother was crying. Speaking to Dulcie and crying.
‘You can. Please. I need more water, more food. Ask the guard. Ask him. A medical officer – someone – there must be … I don’t … can’t die. Can’t leave Peter alone.’ That was his mother and she was sobbing so much that all the words came out bubbling, floating in tears.
‘He won’t be alone, Annette. He won’t. Never. I’ll look after him. Promise. Promise, Annette. Don’t worry. I’m going, I’ll find someone. I know who to speak to. There’s someone – one of the guards. I’ll bring water … aspirin even. Just hold on, don’t worry about Peter. He’ll be with me. He’ll be all right, I promise you.’ Then Dulcie came down the four steps to the ground and Peter hid in the space under the hut until she’d gone. He stared after her as she went down the path to the women’s hut. Why? Why was she doing that? She’d promised Mummy – he’d heard her – that she was going to find the guard, the one who might be persuaded to give Dulcie some aspirin to make her better. Who’d give her water, maybe, and food – something that’d keep Mummy alive. Perhaps she was going to fetch something she’d need to take to the guards’ barracks, though what this might be, he couldn’t imagine, but that was it, for sure. She’d gone to get something and when she’d got it, she’d go and fetch help for his mother. Meanwhile, he’d talk to Mummy. Try to cheer her up a bit and after a while Dulcie would be back with some help. Water and aspirin. Maybe some food.
‘Mummy?’ he said, quietly.
‘Is that you? Come here, Peter my darling.’
She took hold of his hand and brought it to her lips and kissed it and Peter hated the heat of her lips and how dry they were and he could feel the tears beginning to prickle behind his eyes and he knew he wasn’t going to cry – mustn’t cry because he’d been very brave all the time and had hardly cried at all since they’d been brought into the camp, even if he’d wanted to sometimes. Wanted to often, but he hadn’t, till now. And now he wasn’t even crying for the right reasons. He didn’t know what to do. Should he say something? Yes. Yes, he would.
‘Mummy, Dulcie’s gone back to her hut. She hasn’t gone to find a guard.’
‘Gone to find a guard. That’s right. I asked her … I might … if she …’
He wanted to shout at her: No, no, she wants you to die. She doesn’t care if you do. She’s wanted you to die always. She wants us, me and Mary. Children. Not you. She doesn’t love you. She doesn’t want you to live. Don’t you understand? He said nothing. His mother had slipped into sleep.
‘Mummy? Wake up, Mummy! Talk to me. Please …’
Peter began to pull on her hand and then when she still didn’t answer him, he pushed at her shoulder and she wobbled about like a broken doll.
‘Mummy! Mummy!’ His voice was louder than he’d meant it to be.
‘Sssh!’ someone said. ‘There are sick people trying to sleep here, you know. Why don’t you go away and come back in the morning?’
‘She won’t wake up. Please. Help me. My mother won’t wake up.’ Peter heard his own voice sounding like a baby’s voice, rising and starting to shriek. ‘Help … please someone come and help me.’
One of the women came to sit next to
him. He knew her a little. Her name was Magda, or Myra or something like that. She put an arm round him and said, ‘Don’t cry, darling boy. She’s gone. She’s not sleeping any more. Can you see? I’m so sorry, my precious. She’s dead. She’s not suffering any longer. At peace, that’s what she is. At peace with the angels in heaven.’
Peter sprang up and began to shout: ‘I don’t believe in heaven. It’s not there. No angels, no God, nothing. I don’t believe in any of it. My sister died and she didn’t go to heaven either. I saw where she went. Into the ground over there. And if my mother’s dead, it’s Dulcie’s fault. She killed her. I saw it. I was there and I saw it.’
Some other women gathered round. One had gone running towards the guards’ barracks and another covered his mother’s face, which was good because Peter didn’t want to see her, looking like a skull with hair, a yellow-skinned, horrible skull with stringy yellow hair who wasn’t his mother but a monster that you had bad dreams about at night. He sat down by her body, her covered-up face, and started to cry. Didn’t matter being brave any longer. There wasn’t anyone who’d be ashamed of him. Worse than the skull of his mother, worse than this camp, worse than anything was the aloneness. There wasn’t anyone in the whole world who was attached to him. He belonged to no one and it was like standing in the dark and knowing there was a cliff nearby and if he took a step in any direction he might plunge into endless darkness and never come out of it.
‘Oh … oh, Annette … how can she be dead? I was with her – not so long ago. What’s happened? Oh, God, how can I bear this?’
‘You killed her,’ Peter shrieked. ‘I saw you. I heard you. You could have gone to get help and you didn’t. You went to your hut and didn’t come back. I saw you. I was hiding by the steps and I saw everything. You’re foul. You’re horrible. You wanted her to die. I know you did. I know it.’
Peter expected everything. He expected the ground to crack open and the whole hut to fall into it. He waited for the sky to fall on his head. He was ready for Dulcie to hit him. He wanted to hit her. Spit on her for killing his mother, his beautiful mother who loved him and whose hair was silky and long and golden and who had pale, smooth skin and soft hands and who wasn’t, who couldn’t be, a skeleton under a piece of dirty blanket in a Japanese prison camp and who wasn’t going to be put in the ground for the ants and grubs to eat and never speak to him again. He wanted to die. He would have been happy for a bullet from some gun to come and stop the endless hurting.