The French Promise

by Fiona McIntosh

  ‘It’s so gorgeous at night. We used to do this when the children were young.’

  ‘Romantic, eh?’ He’d stroked her bottom suggestively.

  ‘Oh no,’ she’d said.

  ‘Oh yes!’ he’d assured her and given her a wicked grin.

  He had taken her hand and led her up a small rise and at the top she’d sucked in a breath in a small gasp. Bathed by the moon was a field of pale lavender, silvered by the ghostly light.

  ‘La lavande blanche,’ she’d whispered in awe.

  Luc had nodded. ‘I can remember the first time I saw it. It wasn’t a field like this but a patch within the blue. A night like this – full moon – and it was as though the patch had been painted silver by fairies. I took my grandmother up the next day to show her and she was overcome by its beauty and begged for seeds. I thought no more about them because they were so random. I was only interested in the blue. She had tied some seeds of the white into a small twist of silk. I’d forgotten about them until we arrived in Tasmania and started planting. I gave them their own field at Harry’s bidding … just to see – and to remember her.’

  ‘Oh, Luc, it’s beautiful.’

  ‘Harry popped me to the post,’ he’d said. ‘I was always going to call it “Lisette” because it’s wild and unpredictable, like you.’

  It was meant to be a romantic moment but she’d laughed as he’d leant in to kiss her.

  ‘Qu’est-ce?’ he’d frowned.

  ‘It’s “pipped”, not “popped”,’ she’d giggled.

  ‘There’s a price for laughing at me and I shall exact it now,’ he had threatened, pulling at the zip of her dress. She’d squirmed, laughing harder.

  ‘Oh, Luc, we can’t.’

  ‘We can. Je me suis prépare,’ he’d said, nodding behind her. She’d turned and there was a blanket and two glasses with a bottle of wine. Heaven only knew where he’d purchased the wine.

  ‘Just like old times,’ he’d whispered. ‘Welcome to my bedroom,’ he’d grinned.

  She felt herself blush now at the memory; couldn’t remember a more loving time with Luc. His demons had gone quiet and she had finally been able to say she believed both of them were blissfully happy. A voice broke on the rim of her thoughts. She blinked. ‘Pardon, darling?’

  ‘I said, you’re spilling the lemonade,’ Jenny admonished. Lisette righted the tray and smiled inwardly. Yes, indeed, life had taken a wonderful new turn since meeting Nel and Tom. They’d bought their lavender fields and had negotiated for Des’s farm as well. The family even had a proper home now, too. After Jenny’s arrival in November 1952, their family had felt complete. And once the French lavender seeds had taken and thrived, Lisette had admitted she’d never seen him like this. It was as though the Luc she’d known throughout the war – the dark and broody one – had entirely disappeared.

  The success of the lavender and the security of his own family around him had released the old Luc, it seemed, and she was revelling in the glow. Now his laughter could be heard in the fields and he’d walk in after a long day, teeth gleaming a smile out of his healthy, tanned skin; eyes so bright and full of amusement that there were moments when she could barely believe he was the same person. She loved him all the more for it, of course. And she hoped there would be celebrations tonight when they learnt whether Harry’s idea had merit.

  More than a decade of happiness and calm had been theirs. That’s precisely why she had not mentioned Max Vogel’s letter, which had arrived the previous month. She hated to keep a secret from Luc but Max churning up their past, bringing back Kilian, raising the issue of the dead Bonets and the hated von Schleigel, was more than she could bear. She and Luc had done their part for the war. They’d suffered their wounds and bore the scars but they didn’t need to keep paying a penance, especially not now that Luc had found a sense of peace.

  She’d felt obliged to respond to Max’s letter. He certainly had a charming manner, but most of all it was the small photo he’d included of himself, taken in one of those photo booths that she and Luc had once used on the pier, pulling faces just before the flash exploded.

  It was such a shock to learn of Max’s existence, but staring at the tiny photo of him she could have been looking at the young Markus Kilian. It had upset her for days afterwards to see Markus so alive in his son.

  She’d written to Max on the day Luc had taken the children Christmas shopping, and then she’d kept the sealed letter close and secretly posted it at her first opportunity.

  Her guilt was the only blot in an otherwise perfect life. She’d given Kilian’s son all she could and wanted absolutely nothing to do with learning anything more about von Schleigel. She hoped he was dead by now – hoped he’d bitten down on the cyanide capsule that some people believed all German officers involved with the death camps carried.

  Sylvie, a French Resister who had helped Lisette in Paris, had once shown her a cyanide capsule. It had belonged to an SS officer who’d not had a chance to swallow it. ‘He swallowed one of our bullets instead,’ she’d remarked. Lisette had never seen one of those thinly rubber-lined death pills before, but she’d stolen the oval ampoule from Sylvie and had never quite known why. Maybe seventeen years ago she’d been frightened that Sylvie might use it. A few years after the war had finished and Luc was in his bleakest moods, she’d begun having a recurring nightmare where she heard someone biting down on the suicide pill. But she could never tell who it was or see the person’s face, and it had terrified her. Anxious that Luc might be tempted to use it, she’d lied that she’d thrown it into the sea on their way to Britain from France in 1944. She’d not thought about it since, but kept it hidden as a reminder perhaps that she had once lived an extremely different sort of life in her youth.

  ‘Come on, Mum. It’s too hot out here,’ Jenny urged, ‘and you’ll burn.’ Lisette roused herself from her thoughts and hastened after her daughter down the paddock to where the all-important distillation was taking place, happy to be distracted.

  She waved to the men standing by the hungry furnace.

  ‘Cold drinks,’ she called up to them.

  One tipped his wide-brimmed hat. ‘We’ll just get this load compacted, Mrs Ravens,’ and she stood back, her hand lifted to shade her eyes as she watched the two men begin to stamp on the lavender. It never failed to fascinate her that with each new harvest, the farm became a little more mechanised. No more hand-reaping with sickles; now harvesters did the work of a dozen men in double-quick time, the old Commer ute that used to rumble around the fields to pick up the sacks had finally been retired and tractors were now doing a lot of the heavy work. Still, this part – which harked back to the old ways – remained labour-intensive and she was glad of that.

  ‘Don’t let the ice melt, boys,’ she warned and stepped into the shed where the smell was aggressive and the steam from the distillation process hit her like a club. She could pick out distinctive heavy pollens and honey-like hints; she always joked that you couldn’t live with Luc and not become a specialist in ‘smells’. Beneath the first blast of dense sweetness rose the volatile soluble aromatics that would not remain in the extract. There really was nothing pleasant about it. It gave her an instant headache but here stood her husband and son, two blond heads close together and staring into the glass-collecting jar where a light golden oil was gathering, drip by precious drip.

  Luc had built his own distillation equipment based on a machine he called Le Cygnet from his days on the farm in Saignon.

  ‘Lemonade break!’ Jenny called, hurrying over to join them. She hugged her dad and pulled the ear of her brother affectionately. Lisette watched Luc embrace his daughter, pulling her close so she too could stare inside the collecting jar.

  Harry turned and beamed Lisette a smile. ‘Look, Mum, here it comes. Our best ever.’

  She glanced into the jar, impressed but on a mission. ‘Outside,’ she ordered. ‘You all need a break from that.’

  They trooped out and she called to the
men standing above them, who were getting the next haul of fresh lavender ready to be laid out for steaming.

  ‘Come on – smoko. Tell the others. Harry, be a darling and go and get the other big jug on the table, will you?’

  Harry nodded and ran back up the hill.

  Luc swallowed a chilled glass of homemade lemonade and sighed. His face was damp and grimy but he looked happy. ‘Oh, that’s good.’

  ‘Going well?’ she asked as they sat down in the grass beneath the great oak, slightly away from where the other workers were being entertained by Jenny, who was teaching them how to play cat’s cradle.

  As he drained his glass, Luc looked up into the canopy of leaves and sighed, wiping his mouth on his sleeve. ‘This is the one, Lisette.’

  She grinned. ‘Really?’

  He nodded, looking thoughtful. ‘We’re going to take this one to London and have it tested.’

  ‘How can you tell? It smells so vile.’

  He laughed. ‘Is there enough for me to have another glass?’

  ‘Drink it all. Keep your fluids up. Here comes Harry with more anyway.’ She refreshed his glass. ‘All right, lads?’

  They all murmured their thanks and began lighting up cigarettes. Jenny began to play cat’s cradle, on Harry’s fingers this time.

  Lisette returned. ‘So how can you tell?’ she asked again.

  He shrugged. ‘Instinct … experience. I just know. The oil’s clarity speaks for its quality. I can smell the freshness of the lavender. There’s nothing astringent about it.’

  ‘Well,’ she said, taking a sip from his drink. ‘You could have fooled me. It makes me feel ill.’

  ‘I know, but I’ll be honest, I’ve never seen it this good before.’

  ‘Ever?’ she said, astonished.

  He nodded. ‘It’s the white lavender, maybe.’ He shrugged. ‘Perhaps it’s added a new dimension. We didn’t use it in France. No one trusted it.’

  She hugged him. ‘You can thank Harry for that one then.’

  ‘I will. But I thank Saba for keeping the seeds.’

  Whenever he mentioned his Jewish family – which was so rare these days – Lisette held her breath.

  ‘Did Dad tell you?’ Harry said, arriving to refill Luc’s glass again.

  ‘You mean just how pure “Harry’s Brew” is?’ she said.

  Her son laughed. ‘Yeah. Mum, it’s brilliant. Dad’s going to take it to London. If it’s as good as we think, we can sell it back to France.’

  ‘Now that is pretty amazing,’ she replied, smiling at Harry but giving Luc a congratulatory dig. ‘I like that. The lavender has come full circle.’

  ‘I think we have you to thank, my love,’ Luc suddenly said, standing and raising his glass. He turned towards the men not far away. ‘A toast, fellas. Here’s to my beautiful wife, who came up with this grand plan to plant lavender in Tasmania. It’s taken us years but we’ve done it. We’re ready to supply in bulk and start making money.’

  ‘To Lisette!’ the men chorused and drank to her.

  ‘Stop,’ she said, blushing.

  ‘Sante,’ Luc said. ‘You and I leave for London in June.’ Lisette opened her mouth in a gasp of pleasure and Luc winked.

  By the beginning of February the fields were reddish brown again. All the lavender had been harvested and seeds had been kept for the following year’s planting. Now stock would be assessed for the ‘’63 vintage’, as Lisette called it. But the hardest work was done and it was a time for a month of relaxation during the hottest part of the year. With Lisette’s encouragement, Luc had agreed to go fishing: Tom had invited him on a ‘blokes’ weekend’.

  Luc was reluctant to leave his family, now on summer holidays with school out and eager to bury their books beneath their beds for eight weeks. Harry had actually kicked off his school shoes and hurled them across the garden outside the back door as far as he possibly could.

  ‘Did that feel good?’ Lisette had asked.

  ‘Sure did,’ Harry had admitted, squinting into the sun.

  ‘Now go find them,’ she’d suggested, trying to stop herself laughing.

  At the news of Luc’s trip away, Harry had become crestfallen.

  ‘Dad’s not going to be here?’ he’d asked, looking wounded.

  ‘Harry, it will be so good for him to go somewhere with other men. Your father never goes anywhere.’

  ‘He’s going to London soon,’ Jenny had chirped unhelpfully.

  ‘That’s work,’ her mother had admonished and Jenny had given her a look that was laced with irony. Lisette had seized her chance. ‘Now, listen to me, you two. Dad has few friends.’

  ‘He doesn’t have any, Mum,’ Jenny had said, ever blunt.

  Lisette had blinked. ‘He has Tom.’

  ‘Tom doesn’t count. Tom’s family.’

  ‘Oh do be quiet, Jen,’ Lisette had said with a sigh. ‘Dad needs to let out some steam, be amongst men. These are mates of Tom’s who live around Hobart.’ She had shrugged. ‘Frankly, I’m sorry you think I’m not enough fun to be around.’

  ‘I didn’t mean that,’ Harry had said and she’d smiled.

  ‘I know you didn’t. But let him go without a fuss. He’ll be gone all of three days at most.’

  They’d all agreed that morning it was good for their father. The fly screen door slammed just as their mother yelled: ‘Be home for four, or else.’

  The siblings headed down the long drive; agapanthus flanked their path and the flower heads hung heavy on their luminous green stalks like huge pompoms. The rich scent of roses could now push through after weeks of the powerful lavender fragrance that carried on the breeze for miles.

  ‘I’ve got one more week before the holidays are done,’ Harry said wistfully, ‘and then I’m being banished to the city.’

  ‘I wish I was fifteen,’ Jenny bleated.

  ‘Don’t be in a hurry. You’ve got it so good here. Boarding school is—’

  ‘In Launceston,’ she finished, sounding impressed. ‘Actually, I want to go to school in Hobart, if they’ll let me … or even Melbourne.’

  He gave a snort. ‘Forget it. Mum will never agree.’

  ‘Dad might.’

  ‘I know Dad seems to refuse you nothing but I still don’t think—’

  ‘Don’t say it. Let me just keep my daydream.’ He gave her a soft push as they turned up the road towards the piggery. ‘If I never had to leave our farm, I couldn’t be happier.’

  ‘I can’t wait to leave.’

  ‘We’re just different,’ he said fondly. ‘And that’s a good thing.’ Jenny noted an echidna lumbering ahead of them. ‘It’s just that I want to see the world, I want to be involved with fashion, I want to—’

  ‘Who says you can’t?’

  ‘Life! Mum and Dad want us to run the farm.’

  ‘I’m sure they hope we will, but I’m just as sure Mum wouldn’t stop us doing anything we were keen on.’

  ‘Dad keeps saying he’s setting us up in a family business.’ She watched Harry guide the spiky, somewhat irritated animal to move off the roadway and up the small embankment into safer territory.

  ‘I’ll run it for us. And you can take charge of the international sales, if we get the accreditation from London.’

  ‘Which we will,’ she said archly.

  ‘Well, you’ll travel, I promise. Stop worrying. Right now our responsibility is picking blackberries, or Mum really will have something to be cranky about. I think she’s baking one of her special French tarts.’

  ‘Oh, yum.’

  They burst in through the back door as their mother put a finger to her lips. She was just listening to the end of her favourite radio soap – ‘Portia Faces Life’ – while she tackled her pastry. The familiar music sounded and she grinned.

  ‘I love Lyndall Barbour’s voice,’ Lisette cooed, wiping her floury hands on her apron and clapping as her children triumphantly held up their cargo. ‘Magnifique!’ she said, peeping into their bowls. Then she ch
uckled. ‘Your lips are blue.’

  ‘I’ve got a lift into Lilydale with Mr Barnes,’ Harry announced.

  ‘Can’t waste a second, eh?’ Lisette said, expertly laying her buttery pastry into the tin.

  ‘One week of freedom, that’s all I have left,’ Harry replied. ‘I don’t want to waste a moment of it.’

  ‘Well, pick up some bread, then. Can you do that? I just know your father will forget.’

  ‘Where is Dad?’ Jenny asked, returning from washing her mouth and hands.

  ‘Gone into Launny to buy a rod.’

  Jenny’s mouth opened in despair. ‘And he didn’t take me?’ Lisette’s rolling pin halted. ‘You don’t want to look at fishing tackle!’

  ‘No, but I could have been left in the Quadrant for an hour.’

  Her mother couldn’t hide her exasperated expression. ‘I don’t think so, Jen. You’re eleven, not eighteen.’

  ‘Approaching twelve,’ she corrected.

  ‘Nowhere near it!’

  ‘I still wish we were all going,’ Harry mooched, putting on his hat again.

  At that moment, the fly screen wheezed and Luc appeared, looking like a Sherpa, loaded down heavily with fishing and camping gear.

  ‘You need all of that for one weekend?’ Lisette said, bemused.

  Luc beamed them a grin. ‘I don’t. We might, though.’

  She frowned but the kids cottoned on immediately.

  ‘We’re all going?’ Harry said, rushing to his father.

  Lisette sighed. ‘Oh no, Luc. I think I hate fishing.’

  ‘So do I,’ he said matter-of-factly. ‘Which is why you can all suffer alongside me. Except, in my mercy, I’ve decided you can stay at the beach and I’m only going to do one day of fishing at Frederick Henry Bay, the rest of the time at Clifton Beach.’

  ‘But Tom—’

  ‘Tom understands. The shore fishing off Clifton is great at this time of year – he reckons we might catch ourselves your favourite, flathead. Besides, right now I want to be with my family.’ He threw an arm around Harry, who looked fit to burst with happiness. ‘What do you say, Jen? Happy to stretch out on warm sand at Clifton Beach?’