‘Why?’ Lucy had demanded, trying to think of convincing counter-arguments and finding that her mind had gone horribly blank.
‘Of course Martin couldn’t divulge anything. As you know, they all had to sign –’
‘The Official Secrets Act,’ Lucy had finished for her. ‘Frankly, I think that’s a load of shit.’ She deliberately used the word, knowing how much May would hate it, pleased that she had been able to hit back so quickly, if childishly.
‘My dear Lucy. You’re courting disaster.’
‘I’m taking a chance, probably the only chance I’ll get. Tim never came home to me. Do you realize that? The real Tim’s still somewhere in France.’ Tired and feeling guilty at his tactical withdrawal to an early bed, leaving her to pack and to organize, Lucy had let herself go, with an uneasy rising excitement. Her new role of rebel was going to be hard to carry through, but at least May would no longer see her as a charming ‘rogue’.
‘I do understand how awful it’s been for you. It’s a long, slow mend, I’m afraid.’ May had tried to be ameliorating.
‘I can’t wait.’ Lucy had been driven to new heights of fury as the deadening complacency in May’s voice had enveloped her. She was surprised at herself for being so openly hostile. But she had held back for a very long time.
‘You’re doing him harm. We all think so. We’re very concerned –’
‘Please mind your own business. And that applies to all of you. Tim and I have made up our minds.’
‘No,’ May had replied sharply, ‘you’ve made up his mind for him.’
She had put the phone down abruptly, taking Lucy by surprise for she had been hoping to put the phone down on May.
‘Tim?’
As she gazed down at his pallid, indoor face and closed eyes, Lucy’s hard-won but paper-thin courage really began to founder. What was she doing going to France with this worn-out wreck of a man? Could May infuriatingly be right after all? For the first time, Lucy lost control and panicked. They had to go home. She had to take the decision now. What was she doing, exchanging chin-up Esher for post-war France? They might as well be setting out for Kathmandu.
‘Tim?’
He opened his eyes and grinned weakly. Lucy was bizarrely reminded of Sally’s plucky smile.
‘Yes, old girl? Sorry. Was I being bad company? Just getting a bit of shut-eye, that’s all.’
‘I’ve been a fool. You’re not up to this. We’re both ill-prepared. We’re going to stay on the ferry and go home again.’
Tim gave her a puzzled look. ‘Wait a minute.’ He said nothing for a while and then muttered, ‘Rotten weather.’ She gazed at him blankly and he added, quite firmly, ‘But of course we’re not going back.’
‘What?’ she demanded unbelievingly. She hadn’t heard such authority in him for years, not since the beginning of the war.
‘Of course we’re not going back,’ he repeated testily. ‘In for a penny, in for a pound, I say. Unless you want to, of course.’
Lucy shook her head. ‘Everyone thinks I’m being irresponsible.’ What Tim had said had been like a golden streak of pre-Raphaelite sunshine in the dull grey of the Channel sky.
‘We’re on our way. Don’t let’s back out now.’ Tim huddled back into the blankets. ‘I thought we’d go to a village I know called Navise. Base ourselves there for a few days and then amble.’ Once again, Lucy was shaken by the decisive note in his voice. ‘I’ll have to map-read carefully.’ Tim closed his eyes again against the unfamiliar burst of energy and she felt a transient joy. Despite all her fear and self-recrimination, at least the patient seemed to be partially responding to treatment.
Lucy thought of May and her accusations. Yah, boo, sucks, she said to herself in childish delight, mentally thumbing her nose and watching her stout opponent scamper for cover. Then she condemned herself for being so cravenly childish. A few seconds later, however, she was enjoying seeing May run again.
‘I’ll drive,’ Tim volunteered as they clambered down the companionway to the car deck.
There were not many passengers disembarking and the absence of the ship’s thrumming engines made Lucy oppressed by the lack of noise, the lack of purpose. There had been a certain rhythm to the voyage. Now Tim was insisting on driving, something he hadn’t done in years. She would be completely irresponsible if she allowed him his way and they would sure as eggs end up in a ditch and then what would May say? What would the whole bloody bunch of them say? She saw Peter pulling up his socks and frowning, Martin giving a tight smile, Sally rolling her Diana Dors eyes. Even so, Lucy didn’t want to sap Tim’s confidence.
She watched him reach the car deck, unsure, trudging, but with an invalid’s precision. One hand shook slightly. Was she witnessing a new sense of purpose, or was it just febrile enthusiasm? Either way, Lucy knew she had to take a decision.
‘I’ll drive and you navigate,’ she said crisply.
Tim nodded slowly, as if he had already thought the matter over and decided she was right.
Dieppe was dismal. A crane loomed with a skeletal arm, stranded amongst the fishing boats, and the trawlers were moving on a tide that sent water slapping against the rusting bulwarks of the dock.
War damage proliferated. A warehouse still hung at a rakish angle, half collapsed, a huge crater full of water adjoined the ship’s berth and a wharf had been cut into two separate sections. The air of desolation was heightened by the gulls that mewed and wheeled, searching for scraps.
Tim was silent as Lucy slowly drove through the Customs clearance, hunched in his seat, a little old man again. Yet she still marvelled at the tiny chinks of light she had witnessed on the ferry. Were they good omens like the currant in Sally’s cake? Was the old Tim going to re-emerge, even in the most fractured form?
The overcast sky grew swollen again and more rain fell, the steady hum of the wipers comforting. When Lucy glanced at Tim he was gazing down at the road map, totally absorbed, frowning, his lips slightly parted. It’s all right, old thing, she thought. We’ll muddle through.
‘We didn’t book anywhere in Navise,’ Lucy reminded him after they had driven for some while in silence. ‘Is there a decent hotel?’
He nodded vaguely, still gazing down at the map, a shaky finger following the route.
Yesterday, Tim would have been driven to panic over such uncertainty. Now Lucy had the strange feeling that the real Tim had never left France, only casting his shadow across the Channel. The idea made her at first gloriously elated and then slightly apprehensive. Why Navise?
Lucy’s spirits rose again as she drove over the flat landscape. Even the grey, monotonous sand dunes and the renewed rain didn’t spoil her optimism.
‘You’re quiet,’ she said recklessly.
‘I’m working something out,’ he replied abruptly, and Lucy knew she shouldn’t have spoken. She realized how careful she would have to be. It was as if she had just met Tim again after a long time apart and had forgotten how to talk to him.
He took the map from the side pocket, studied it for a while and then began to give her directions. Lucy followed his route without question, taking the minor roads he suggested, pretending a confidence that she didn’t have.
Tim had the map on his knees, meticulously checking and re-checking, while the rain lessened and streaks of watery blue appeared in the sky.
There wasn’t much traffic. It was a Friday afternoon but only the odd lumbering tractor or battered, high-sided truck held them up. Gradually the wet tarmac began to steam as the sun came out and the dark clouds drifted away.
Why hadn’t she suggested this trip earlier, Lucy thought, trying to stop herself from becoming over-confident. She really should have done so, just for the hell of it, just to spite them all. Had it been the feeling of taboo that surrounded the past that no one could talk about, least of all its victim? Or had she known instinctively that Tim had to bottom out and get as low as he could, rather like an alcoholic? Either way she still felt they were both, for once, i
n the ascendant.
Slowly, the nature of the countryside was changing and small fields began to emerge, with windbreaks made of beech trees. The earth looked lush and there were steaming manure heaps and patch-eyed cows.
In the still misty heat, Lucy’s triumph waned and she felt a sense of entrapment. The landscape seemed ancient, alien, rooted in its own past, hugging secrets.
Apart from a burnt-out house and a bomb crater in the middle of a village square, there was now little evidence of war damage. Dozens of conflicts could have raged here, Lucy thought rather wildly, now masked by the lush foliage. In her mind’s eye she could visualize hundreds of corpses under the soil, mouldering, unidentified. Then she was conscious of the violence of her mood swings. She had to calm down, not expect so much, not expect anything at all.
Lucy saw half-timbered manor houses emerge from the trees, barns criss-crossed with dark oak beams, their lathe and plaster walls lime washed.
‘Does it look different now?’ she asked quietly, wanting to break Tim’s reverie, anxious to make contact but trying to do it casually, as if it was the most normal thing in the world for them to be driving back to his route march.
‘I thought we’d never get out, that we’d always go round in circles. The roads double back on each other.’
‘Were you in Navise long?’ she asked hesitantly, acutely aware that she was leading him on.
‘A few days.’ But there was a finality in his voice now, as if he had already said too much. ‘There’s a small hotel. I can’t remember the name, but Navise is right off the beaten track. They shouldn’t have too much trouble putting us up.’ He closed his eyes against another excess of words. ‘I say, old thing. Do you think all this was wise?’ he asked suddenly.
Lucy’s hopes plummeted and she knew that whatever she said now would be crucial. It was the first time he had expressed doubt and in a few clumsy words she could wreck everything she had gained – that they had both gained.
‘Yes,’ she said baldly. ‘It had to happen. You were going down.’
He gave an odd chuckle. ‘Is this up?’
‘It is if we’re together.’ Lucy spoke briskly.
Tim suddenly stroked her shoulder and she felt tears in her eyes. He had hardly shown her any affection recently, unless she counted his wary dependence, his need for her to reassure him on so many dozens of depressingly trivial details.
‘Is it strange coming back?’
‘It’s unnerving. Do you mind stopping for a moment? I’m feeling a bit queasy.’
Lucy drove on to a rutted layby and bumped to a halt, switching off the engine.
She turned to Tim and saw that he was shaking, crouched down in his seat, the sweat pouring off him. ‘Do you want to get out?’
‘No. I’m just wondering if – ‘
‘What?’ She knew she had interposed too quickly.
‘Nothing.’
Once again a feeling of awesome responsibility overtook her. He should never have come off the medication. Suppose he had to be taken into hospital here? In this remote countryside. Lucy had a fleeting image of a tall building amongst fir trees, the echoing slam of its front door and Tim, separated from her, escorted down endless corridors to some desolate cell. Probably padded. She tried to pull herself together, attempting self-ridicule. She was merely being dramatic, Lucy told herself. But then so was her situation.
His shaking continued and Lucy impulsively put her arms around Tim, hugging him tight, but his body was rigid and she quickly let him go, realizing her mistake, making the excuse of opening the sun roof of the Riley. The scent of honeysuckle filled the stuffy interior.
‘I couldn’t reach you in England. I want to help.’
There was an uneasy silence. Then Tim spoke unwillingly.
‘I wouldn’t have agreed to come here if I hadn’t felt I had a sense of purpose.’ The admission made Lucy turn to face him, but he wouldn’t meet her eyes and was staring ahead into the damp, grey landscape.
‘Purpose?’ She tried to probe gently.
‘I have to come to terms with some things that happened.’ His voice was trembling now and he kept clearing his throat. ‘I can’t do that in England. I keep – I’ve been turning it all over in my head for too long. Naturally I haven’t been able to confide in you.’
‘The Official Secrets Act?’
They grinned at each other and there was a renewed hint of conspiracy. Hope swept her again.
‘Bollocks to that,’ he replied, leaning back in his seat and closing his eyes, the smile still on his lips. Sunlight bathed his pale skin, showing a line of blackheads around his nose. Tim tapped the steering wheel with mock joviality. ‘Drive on, Macduff.’
Lucy switched on the ignition and pulled back on to the road. She felt some progress was being made, however small.
Navise was small and disappointing. A shanty-like garage dominated the outskirts with a yard full of wrecked German tanks and armoured cars, the scrap value of which had clearly not yet been realized.
Beyond the battered petrol pumps and sun-baked forecourt was a patch of waste ground on which crouched half a dozen mangy-looking cats, nonchalantly gazing at the dusty road.
As Lucy drove the Riley down the long approach with its attendant plane trees, more nondescript buildings appeared and she glanced at her watch. It was just after 4 p.m. A man was slowly unlocking the door of a boulangerie with scarred paint and partly boarded-up glass. Leaning against the chipped wood he yawned and stretched, watching them pass with little interest. The cats had offered a better welcoming committee, Lucy thought.
As the Riley turned the corner and they drove into the afternoon shadows of a medieval square she was pleasantly surprised. The place was equally shabby but quiet and dusty and somehow timeless, its very drabness appealing. The slightest lick of paint would have broken the spell.
‘It never was a pretty place,’ said Tim. ‘But it’s even more neglected now.’ He paused and said, ‘Not exactly Esher High Street, is it?’
Lucy was just about to ask him if he had stayed here during the war but stopped herself just in time. Instinctively she realized the cross-examination she so yearned to undertake would be premature.
She gazed round the dull little square, taking in the battered tourist sign which read CHATEAU PAVILLY.
‘We stayed there,’ Tim said absently. He wasn’t sweating any more but he was still agitated.
‘Do you want to stop?’ she asked him. ‘We could move on to Honfleur.’
But he wasn’t listening. ‘We had a night in the cellars of the hotel over there and then we moved into the château for a couple of days. Martin had a dicky foot and we had to rest up.’
Lucy felt almost in shock as she brought the Riley to a halt in a spare parking space by a dry fountain that had once gushed water from the mouth of a battered stone shepherd boy. Was Tim going to blurt out the whole story?
‘Who owned the château?’ she asked when he didn’t say anything more.
‘The Goutins. They’re merchant bankers in Paris but they never appeared,’ He paused. ‘They had employed a caretaker.’ Tim paused again and Lucy could smell the rank odour she had noticed so many times in England. She had never decided what it was. His lips worked, but no sound came out.
The sight of his distress made Lucy look closely at her surroundings. She knew she had to give him space and time. A couple of cars were parked beside the Riley in front of the hotel on the north side of the square. There was a signpost indicating Honfleur in one direction and Robic in the other. Opposite was a small Norman church with a half-open wooden door, surrounded by a graveyard. Next door was a three-storeyed eighteenth-century building which looked as if it had once been some kind of agricultural co-operative. On the ground floor was a tightly shuttered shop without a sign.
The other two sides of the square consisted of a crumbling medieval house which had been partially boarded up, and a flat-fronted monstrosity which now sold tractors.
Th
e hotel was long and low with dirty white walls and shutters that had once been blue and were now peeling, the paint hanging in shards. Clematis grew up to the first-floor windows and there were a few tables and chairs scattered about on the pavement outside with Martini-sloganed umbrellas and Ricard ashtrays. Flowers in tubs brightened the area around the door. A sign read HÔTEL DES ARBRES, BAR AND RESTAURANT.
In the middle of the square, around the fountain, were half a dozen bay trees in a straggling semicircle. They looked undernourished. So did the dogs that lay in their shelter. One of them had a cut paw that was encrusted with dried blood.
Yet despite the slightly squalid nature of the square Lucy felt more buoyant and hopeful than she had ever done over the last few years of gathering misery and apprehension. In contrast, she recalled the discreet 11 o’clock murmur of the coffee drinkers in Caves Café.
‘Nothing much has changed,’ said Tim softly, almost as if he was talking to himself. ‘The tractor showroom’s new.’ He paused and Lucy wondered if she should speak or just wait and let him run on again.
‘How long had you been walking?’ she asked, too casually.
‘Two or three weeks,’ he answered, and Lucy felt as if she was hacking away at the ice on the edge of a frozen lake. She didn’t want to get out of the car for fear of changing his mood.
‘We’d managed to get hold of some casual clothing and I don’t mean French smocks.’ He laughed at the feeble joke.
Lucy watched a silky grey cat pad across the road and wind itself around the legs of an old man who sat on one of the seats in the centre of the square, head bowed, eyes closed, gripping his stick.
‘Some of the locals were helpful, but we still slept much of the time in ditches or in the forests and we were damn cold. The country was pretty low on rations during the Occupation, and several times we had to grub up what we could get from the fields. We even ate raw chestnuts, which were surprisingly tasty! We’d hoped to look like labourers but we were getting so unshaven and filthy that we didn’t think we’d pass muster if we were stopped.’ Tim laughed. ‘Anyway, none of us could scrape up more than a couple of words of the lingo. So we slept by day and walked by night but even that had its risks. There were quite a few German patrols and the local dogs had a habit of barking incessantly once they were disturbed. Then we got help from a farmer who knew we were escaping British soldiers. He told us that the owner of the Hôtel des Arbres would be sympathetic’
The Men Page 6