by Shirley Mann
‘Someone has to secure the future of this farm,’ he said calmly.
‘Well, why can’t I do that?’
‘Because you’re a girl,’ he retorted, going back to his ledger.
She stepped forward and bent over his large book. She put her hand over the figures to stop him reading them.
‘Nonsense, of course I can. I’m as good as any man and you know that. I’m not just marrying some man to provide an heir for this place.’
‘Well, he’s coming for supper tonight, you can tell him that yourself,’ her father said, pushing her hand away.
‘No!’ she protested. ‘But has he . . . I mean . . . does he know about this crazy idea?’ she stuttered.
Her father shrugged. ‘Probably not, but he’ll see the sense in it. He’s been too busy to find a wife and you’re a good catch.’
Bobby was so indignant she could not speak properly; all she could manage was a loud ‘Hah!’ before storming out of the room, all her prepared replies forgotten in her anger.
*
Bobby refused Aunt Agnes’s pleas to change out of uniform. She believed the trousers and boots gave her an authority she felt she was losing fast with every minute she was back at home and with bad grace, she stalked into the drawing room at ten to seven as instructed, Aunt Agnes hurrying in her wake. The room was a typical large farmhouse sitting room with random pieces of furniture dotted around the marble fireplace with a solitary log smouldering in the grate. On the mantlepiece above it, were black and white photographs showing austere ancestors sitting primly on high-backed chairs. The room had been dull and oppressive when Mathilda married Andrew and it had been the first place she had insisted on decorating, mainly to eradicate all of his mother’s overdone, Victorian style that had made the room seem like an outdated parlour. Mathilda had introduced the primrose wallpaper, the light tapestry armchairs and the contrasting green carpet and curtains, and had clasped her hands in glee when it had been finished, prompting her young husband to take her up in his arms and swing her round.
Now there was a different woman sitting on the edge of the armchair. Mathilda Hollis always seemed as if she were constantly looking for an escape from the room. Her eyes darted from left to right and she would hold her breath whenever the stranger who was her husband started to speak.
Rachel had unearthed some old sherry that had been hidden since before the war and was beginning to pour the dregs of it into the best glasses on a silver tray in the drawing room. Andrew Hollis was standing by the fireplace with his chin tilted upwards, telling his wife that she needed to keep better control of the household budget. Mathilda had started to play with the lace on the back of her chair nervously. She looked up in relief when it seemed that Bobby was about to speak, but then the door knocker sounded. Bobby looked around in alarm, her suitor was early.
Rachel put down the sherry bottle, checking to see if there was any left and went to answer it.
They all heard her gasp.
‘Ma’am, sir . . . There’s a . . .’ She stuttered, coming back into the room slowly.
Andrew Hollis tutted in exasperation and went to push past her. He stopped suddenly in his tracks. In the doorway was a tall, young man with a head of deep auburn that mirrored the hair of both Bobby and her father.
‘Je m’appelle Michel. Excuse but I not know where to go.’
Mathilda Hollis’s face suddenly lit up like a flash of lightening and she ran towards him.
‘Michael, Michael, my son!’
Chapter 10
‘Who is he?’ Mrs Hill held a stunned Rachel by the shoulders at the entrance to the kitchen. ‘Speak, girl.’
‘I don’t know what he said. Well I think he said . . . he spoke in broken English . . .’ her voice tailed off into a whisper. ‘I think he said he was Mr Hollis’s son.’
Mrs Hill smoothed her pinny over and over. She shook her head from side to side in wonder.
The door knocker went again.
‘Oh, for crying out loud. Don’t stand there like an idiot,’ she urged Rachel, who was standing with her arms uselessly at her sides. ‘Go and answer it, it’ll be Mr Turner. Oh, and the pie’s burning.’ She rushed to the other side of the kitchen, grabbing the old oven gloves from the pine table on the way.
When Rachel showed Edward Turner into the drawing room, he raised his eyebrows in surprise. A tall, dark man, he had deep brown eyes and sleeked back hair with a fringe that flopped in defiance. He wore a pin-striped suit and the shiniest shoes Rachel had ever seen. He surveyed the room, his practised eyes taking in the scene in front of him. The blackout curtains were pulled around the bay window at the front and the sherry glasses were half filled, but the rest of the scene was like a melodrama. Mrs Hollis was clinging dramatically to a young man standing by the fireplace in a woolly scarf and old jacket. The jacket was covered with dark stains. Edward peered at them concluding they looked suspiciously like dried blood. Mr Hollis was staring at the young man’s auburn hair and was as white and still as the alabaster statue of the Roman emperor next to him. Roberta was sitting up straight in an armchair by the fireplace. He took a second look, surprised. The figure in front of him was a long way from the youngster he had met at the airfield before the war, no longer a fresh-faced, awkward girl but a woman, looking remarkably – he almost smiled – like a heroine in a film. Another woman, she must be a relative, he decided, was standing by the window, clutching the curtain.
Bobby looked round at her family in total disarray and realised it was going to be up to her to take control.
‘I’m so sorry, Mr Turner, but there has been an unexpected turn of events and we have a visitor from France, Monsieur . . . um, Michel.’
She looked round for help but did not receive any. Her family looked as if they were frozen in time.
She ploughed on. ‘He has only just arrived, but we suspect he has a story to tell and we probably need to hear it. I wonder if we could postpone this dinner until another day.’
‘Of course, of course,’ Edward said quickly. ‘I can come back another time.’ He started to back out of the room, almost relieved. His father had insisted on this ridiculous charade and Edward had finally agreed on making just one visit and one visit only to stop his mother taking to her bed in hysterics. But, looking at the fraught face in front of him, he reluctantly admitted, he was intrigued. She was rather lovely but, stubborn to the core, Edward was not going to give in to his father just because of a pretty face. He concentrated on the scene in front of him. His war work had taken him down routes he could not share with anyone, but his training took in the dried blood stains, the three auburn heads and the young man’s haunted stare.
After several years of rising to a higher and higher position, Edward had almost forgotten what it was like to feel that surge of excitement that was so shallowly buried behind the lapels of the Whitehall suit. The scene in front of him resurrected some of those feelings and it made his brown eyes twinkle.
‘May I . . . um . . . call tomorrow?’ he asked in the halting speech he had adopted as part of his bumbling persona. He had to do some checks and then come back to find out more. ‘I may be able to be of some service. As you know, I . . . um . . . work for the government.’
‘Yes, yes, do,’ Roberta said, shuffling him out of the room.
As she walked him down the hallway, she looked at him properly for the first time. He was not as old as she remembered and, she reluctantly acknowledged, he did have rather nice eyes. It was a shame he was so shy and socially inept.
With an unexpected tinge of regret, she opened the front door. ‘I’m so sorry, Mr Turner, we’re not sure what’s happening here. We may be a little clearer tomorrow. Please do come for luncheon when I’m sure things will be calmer.’
‘I don’t want to intrude but I fear . . . I’m afraid the authorities will need to know about this,’ he said, reluctantly letting go of her proffered hand to walk down the steps to his sleek,
black car.
Roberta paused for a moment in the corridor, holding the doorknob to the drawing room with her right hand, which suddenly seemed hot and clammy.
She took a deep breath and walked back into the room. What had she come home to?
‘Eh alors?’ she asked the young man, who finally managed to extricate himself from a sobbing Mrs Hollis and steer her carefully into a chintz covered armchair.
‘I can speak the English,’ he said. ‘My mother . . .’ He looked towards Andrew Hollis, who blanched. ‘She teach me before she die. She always tell me to come to find you.’
‘Your mother was . . . Nicole?’ Andrew whispered. ‘She is dead?’
‘Oui,’ the young man said quietly.
Bobby’s father slumped in the armchair on the other side of the fireplace opposite his wife, who had not taken her eyes off the Frenchman. She had stopped sobbing, but her shoulders were still shaking.
Bobby rang the little silver bell on the walnut side table sharply. It made Aunt Agnes jump. Rachel appeared immediately from the other side of the door where she had been trying to listen.
‘Rachel, would you take my mother into her bedroom and get her a drink please. Do we have any of that marrow brandy left?’ she added as an afterthought.
‘I think there is some at the back of the kitchen cabinet,’ Agnes said in a weak voice.
‘Good, it’s nothing like the real thing but it might help.’ Bobby went over to the silver tray and downed two of the glasses of sherry, holding on to one glass for any brandy that might be found. She passed a third glass of the precious sherry to her aunt, who drained it in one gulp, while watching the events unfolding in front of her in silence.
Rachel’s eyes were wide as she scanned the room in front of her. She eventually stepped forward to help Mrs Hollis out of her chair, but she struggled to move her dead weight. Agnes put down her empty glass and went to help. They both ushered Mathilda out of the room.
Mrs Hill was hovering in the hall. She took over from Rachel on one side and with Agnes on the other, they gently steered Mathilda towards the stairs. Rachel ran into the kitchen to search the cupboards.
In the drawing room, Bobby looked from one man to the other. She was sure the large grandfather clock in the corner was ticking louder than usual.
At last the young man spoke. ‘I am sorry, I know not what to do.’
Bobby’s father had had his head in his hands but looked up at the French voice. ‘You had better tell me from the beginning – le début,’ he said faintly.
‘I will begin at the end and perhaps you will understand why I had not the choice. May I sit?’
‘Of course,’ Bobby said, waving her arm towards a hard-backed chair near the rosewood sideboard.
Her father looked up in surprise. He had forgotten she was there. ‘Roberta . . . perhaps you should leave?’
‘No, father, I think I need to hear this.’
He had no strength to argue.
‘I am with . . . La Résistance,’ Michel said, looking behind him nervously out of habit. ‘It is safe to speak, yes?’
Andrew Hollis nodded slowly.
‘We were ‘elping . . . someone . . . leave. They were to meet a plane on a field near our village in Normandie. It all went very wrong.’ Michel paused, wincing in pain at the memory. ‘Somehow, someone, oh I do not know, the Germans were waiting for us. They know we were going to be there. We come out of the bushes; we shine our torches when we hear the motor of the plane. They shoot all my friends. They shoot the person who was to be rescued. They fall on me, I hold her. Bang bang. She . . . dies, here, in my arms.’
He looked down at the stains on his jacket and fingered them incredulously, shaking his head. ‘They all die, my friends . . .’ He looked round helplessly, hoping for someone to wake him from this nightmare. His eyes blurred with tears.
Bobby ran over to him, knelt down on the green, swirly-patterned carpet and gently took his hand. ‘It’s OK, it’s OK. You’re safe now.’
He looked down, searching for some reality. He found it in a familiar face that was before him, the same colour hair, the same features. He put his hand out to stroke her cheek. She reached up and covered his shaking hand with her own. The connection between them was palpable.
Michel’s eyes glazed again, the room in front of him replaced by the scene he had left behind in France. ‘I had nowhere to go but the plane door – it was open, an arm leaned out, the motor still runs. I just reach and the hands pull me in. We take off, there is gunfire everywhere. I look back, there are all my friends on the ground . . .’
He started to sob and Bobby stood up and encircled him with her arms. She looked desperately towards her father. His normally erect figure was slumped, his eyes staring into the distance as if he could not focus on what was happening in front of him, but Bobby’s next words made him start and he looked up.
‘I don’t think we need to know any more tonight,’ she said.
He nodded, putting his head back in his hands.
She pulled the young man to his feet and rang the bell again but Aunt Agnes was already coming through the door.
‘I will take him to the spare room and get some clothes from Archie for him,’ she said calmly, ‘and then he can have some pie and warm milk. I have asked Rachel to make up a bed for our guest, and Mrs Hill is warming a hot water bottle for him.’
Andrew had not moved but Bobby looked gratefully at her aunt. Agnes moved forward to take hold of the young man, who glanced back with wide eyes as he was led out of the room.
‘Merci, merci, merci,’ he uttered.
Once he and Agnes had gone, Bobby turned back to her father. She had never seen him lose control but at that moment, he stared wide-eyed at her then flung open his arms in despair.
‘What do you expect me to do? What? Oh, for Christ’s sake, what?’
‘It’s all right, Father, we’ll talk in the morning. Oh, no, Edward Turner is coming tomorrow,’ she remembered.
‘I can’t think tonight, I just can’t,’ Andrew Hollis muttered and stumbled towards the door.
Bobby collapsed into the armchair her father had just vacated and leaned back, closing her eyes to shut the world out. Her thoughts were jumping all over the place and none of them made any sense.
‘Oh, do be quiet,’ she told the grandfather clock, which was smugly sounding the supper hour and she flung herself out of the chair, grabbing her discarded glass on the way.
I need brandy, Bobby thought, her head already spinning from the sherry, and went into the kitchen clutching her empty glass. At that same moment, Aunt Agnes brought Michel in behind her to have his supper and milk. The two redheads were haloed in the gaslight.
Mrs Hill gasped. ‘It’s the shadow. It’s come to life.’
Bobby turned around to look at Michel; it was just like looking in a mirror.
Chapter 11
The following morning, Bobby was crossing from her bedroom to the bathroom when she saw her father standing staring out of the landing window. He was still in his dressing gown, which was unheard of so long after sunrise.
‘Father?’ Bobby said quietly.
He turned around, his face as pale as the white wall behind him. His tall body crumpled and he felt for the wicker chair behind him. He could not look at his daughter.
‘Father, are you all right?’
‘No, no, no, I’m very much afraid, Roberta, that I’m not.’
Bobby edged forward. She felt very uncomfortable and in vain looked around for help.
‘I don’t know what to say to you . . . or your mother,’ her father started. ‘I had no idea that Nicole . . . it was such a long time ago . . . I never thought I would get back alive.’
Bobby had never in her life had a cosy tête-à-tête with any of her family, let alone her austere father, and she had no idea how to deal with the dejected figure in front of her. She started to creep away but he called after her.
Her father’s muffled voice whispered to her.
‘I have to explain. You have to understand. I had had a letter from Agnes telling me about Michael’s death. I was given compassionate leave. I was billeted at a house. It belonged to Nicole. While I was there she had a telegram to say her husband was missing in action, believed killed. We were both distraught . . . that evening, we had some wine . . . Oh, Bobby, how can I ever face your mother again?’
She took a step towards him. ‘I don’t know what to say,’ Bobby said, ‘but if he is . . . your . . . son, then we have to help him.’
‘Yes, yes, of course,’ Andrew Hollis stood up, glad to have found something he could do.
‘Thank you, Bobby.’ For a brief moment, they looked at each other and Bobby saw tears in her father’s eyes. She fought for breath.
He stretched out his hand towards her and she moved forwards to clasp it. It was the first time the father and daughter had ever reached out to each other.
He abruptly withdrew his hand and said in a more controlled voice, ‘I’ll get onto it, um, have you seen your mother?’
‘I think she’s downstairs sorting out some clothes. Father, I don’t know how to say this but, she does seem to have come to life this morning,’ she added.
‘Do you think so? It would be wonderful to see her as she used to be . . .’ he tailed off, slowly making his way along the landing towards the stairs.
*
‘Hello, hello, anyone at home?’ Harriet peered through the kitchen door. It was normally such a scene of activity, but today it was unnervingly quiet. On the wooden table in the corner, next to the wash-house, was an old jacket with stains on it. The breakfast things had been cleared but were waiting to be washed.