When I Was Young

by Mary Fitzgerald

  “Your father cuts hay. Yes?”

  “No. We have a hill farm. Mother has sheep. There is no pasture, just hillside. Sometimes we give the sheep…” I searched my brain for the French for turnips but I couldn’t find it. “Er… a vegetable…I’m sorry, I don’t know the word.”

  He smiled. “Your French is very good, Miss Eleanor. Perhaps you mean les navets?”

  “I think so.”

  “You said your mother has sheep? Is she the farmer?” Grandmère asked, as we walked along.

  “Yes. She inherited it from her parents. Dada doesn’t…” I wondered how to put it. “My father was a newspaper reporter before the war and since then he has been… ill. Mother has to do it all.”

  We had reached the village square, a large cobbled space surrounded by houses and one or two shops. Arched arcades fronted the buildings and I could see a few people lingering beneath them in the shade, waiting for the last moment before going into church. Some of them called greetings to Étienne and Grandmère and greetings were called back. I noticed that I was being stared at but not unpleasantly and no doubt, after church, the family would be questioned.

  Mathilde and Jean Paul had gone on ahead towards the church which dominated one whole side of the square. It was huge, much bigger than the church in the village nearest to our house and was built of the same pale stone as the other buildings in the area. A statue of the Madonna and child stood on a stone plinth to the left of the first entrance step, the plinth decorated by little vases of wax flowers. The statue was painted in dazzlingly bright colours, chalk white skin with rouged cheeks and blue and gold on the Madonna’s robes. The crowns that the Madonna and child both wore glittered in the morning sun. One or two people crossed themselves as they passed the statue and I bit my lip. I had no idea what I was supposed to do.

  A bell was pealing, calling the worshippers and as we approached the steps that led up to the great wooden doors several people hurried up behind us.

  I paused on the top step to look back over the square and realised with an uneasy jolt that this was the place photographed in that newspaper clipping. Were any of those men who had called out to Étienne this morning the same as the laughing people in the photograph?

  Suddenly, I felt uncomfortable and homesick. Our cold little hillside might have been bleak but it was familiar and at that moment I wanted to be there.

  Chapter 5

  It was cool and echoing inside the large pale stone church. The sound of footsteps on the tiled floor struck sharply over the quiet murmured responses of the worshippers but it didn’t matter. It sounded right.

  I sat next to Grandmère at the end of the row beside the central aisle. Lisette sat between Étienne and Mathilde, whilst at the far end, Jean Paul shuffled noisily in his seat. Once, when he’d been particularly noisy, Grandmère leant over and smacked his hand with her little black prayer book.

  “Ow!” His smooth cheeks coloured fiercely and snarling stupidly he gave her an insolent look. I sneaked a look at him along the pew and to my alarm, the look was transferred to me.

  So far this morning this was the first time he’d acknowledged my presence. Neither he nor Mathilde had spoken to me when we went into the church. Jean Paul had leant against the huge entrance door, kicking at a tuft of dry grass which poked up between the stone flags while beside him Mathilde ground out her cigarette beneath her neat high heeled shoe.

  “Good morning,” I’d said when I reached them. I was determined to take the initiative today and forget about being shy. After all I had been sixteen for several days now and consequently nearly an adult. If my English reserve was the reason for their coolness then from now on I would start to alter their opinion of me.

  “It’s a lovely day,” I added and smiled at Mathilde and Jean Paul, hoping that they would see that I wanted to be friendly.

  It made no difference. My effort came to nothing and I might as well not have bothered because neither mother nor son deigned to reply. Jean Paul didn’t even look up from his feet and Mathilde merely turned her head and gave me a long cool look.

  I felt my cheeks burning and my palms, already hot from the walk to the village, were suddenly slippery with sweat. I couldn’t think how I had offended them.

  Out of the corner of my eye I saw Grandmère’s strong fingers clutch at Étienne’s jacket sleeve as though to prevent him from raising his hand. The tension in the family was palpable and with a sinking heart I realised that I was causing it. Tears pricked at the corners of my eyes. I wanted to go home.

  “Put the lace on your head, Eleanor.” I was startled by Grandmère’s firm voice as she had come to stand beside me. Then she added “We’ll go in now.”

  At school, we went en masse to the cathedral every year for our dedication service and for various Christian festivals. Added to that, we had assembly each morning with prayers and a hymn so I was quite familiar with the Book of Common Prayer and Hymns Ancient and Modern but nothing I saw or heard that first Sunday in France bore any resemblance to any service I’d experienced before.

  At St Sulpice church we sat halfway down the aisle on a polished pew. Grandmère had curtsied to the altar when we went in but Étienne ushered me forward, understanding, I think, that this form of worship was foreign to me. Mathilde made a brief nod with her head but nothing more and Jean Paul didn’t bother at all. Grandmère was holding Lisette’s arm and pushing her towards the pew and I guessed that she was preventing the child from making some sort of show.

  Two priests led the service assisted by altar boys and I watched, fascinated as they swung the incense and read out the prayers. I couldn’t understand the words at first and then I realised that they were chanting in Latin and I began to pick out the odd word. We did Latin at our school and I was quite good at it.

  The wall behind the altar was painted a brilliant blue dotted with yellow stars in a sort of arch with the point of the arch culminating in a huge silver star. I gazed at it and then allowed my eyes to wander, picking out statues and plaques placed in the walls and stands of candles and so much to see that it seemed more like a religious department store than a church. I loved it.

  Jean Paul obviously didn’t. He squirmed and shuffled in his seat, the most animated I’d seen him since my arrival. I stole another look at him and saw that he was fiddling with the feather that drooped from Mathilde’s green hat. Mathilde pretended to ignore him but I could see that little twist of her lips that meant she was amused. He saw it too and suddenly let out a high pitched giggle.

  That was too much for Étienne. He raised his head from his rosary and glowered at his son. “Shut up!” he growled. “In the name of Christ, behave yourself.”

  It made a small difference. Scowling but now quiet, Jean Paul leant back against the pew and gazed up to the ceiling deliberately ignoring the rest of the service and rudely pursing his lips in a silent whistle.

  The pews filled up, people coming and going all the time, their shoes clipping sharply upon the stone flags but the priests ignored them and carried on saying mass and my fascination with the proceedings started to fade.

  A young family occupied the seats immediately in front of me, mother, father and a little boy who sat on his father’s knee. At one point he struggled to his feet and stood staring over his father’s shoulder directly at me. A quick glance down the pew assured that my family were all looking directly ahead so I wiggled my finger at the baby and made a little face. The baby stared at me for a moment and then his face creased. For a horrified moment I thought I had made him cry and waited in trepidation for the wail that would surely ensue. But to my relief, the creased face was followed by a delighted smile and he let out a noisy crow of pleasure and banged his little fists on his father’s serge covered shoulder. His papa, shushing him indulgently, gently pulled the child down back on his knee and I returned to examining the architecture and decoration of the church. After a bit the baby peeped at me around his father’s arm and I hid my eyes behind Grandmère’s pie
ce of lace and poked out my tongue. This time the baby’s laugh caused his father to look round and embarrassed, I hastily studied the ceiling, not unlike Jean Paul.

  When I dared to look along the pew again I caught Étienne’s face. He was grinning at me.

  The furnace blast which met us as we came out of the church caused me to step back under the arched entrance for a moment. I could smell the heat from the buildings and the stifling air which wafted up from the river.

  “It is very hot today,” said Grandmère sympathetically. “You’re not used to it, Eleanor?”

  “No. Sorry,” I apologised foolishly and taking off my lace head scarf followed her into the square. It was busy with people mingling and chatting to each other as they left the church and I could see Étienne in conversation with a couple and a boy. I recognised him as the boy who had been in the yard this morning with Étienne and the older man.

  “Come,” said Grandmère. “I will introduce you to our friends.”

  They were Monsieur and Madame d’Amboise, he a farmer like Étienne and Madame d’Amboise who taught at the village school.

  They shook hands with me enthusiastically and welcomed me to the community.

  “Are you enjoying your visit?” asked Madame d’Amboise.

  “Yes, thank you.” I said. “Although I am finding things very strange.”

  Was it my imagination or did the couple give each other a quick glance?

  “I mean,” I said quickly, anxious that I shouldn’t be giving the wrong impression, “I mean that I’m not used to the food, nor the hot weather. And my French isn’t very good.”

  “M. Martin tells me that your French is excellent,” said Madame d’Amboise kindly, “and would put even teachers like me to shame.” She looked fondly at the boy standing beside her. “My Luc has practically no English. He should study more.”

  I smiled at Luc and he shook my hand. “How are you,” he said formally and I gave him a formal reply. He was a few inches taller than me and had brown hair and a narrow clever face like his mother. When he smiled his face softened and he looked younger.

  “Luc is in school with Jean Paul,” said M. d’Amboise. “He is studying to be a doctor.” This last was said with great pride and he beamed with obvious pleasure.

  I looked around wondering if Jean Paul would finally join in the conversation now that we were with one of his contemporaries but he was nowhere to be seen. Turning in the other direction I caught sight of him walking quickly with Mathilde towards the road which led to Riverain. Lisette was trailing behind them, not really keeping up but wandering along in her own private world.

  When I looked back again, Luc was still smiling and I smiled too.

  “You must come round one evening, all of you and Eleanor can tell you how she’s getting on,” said Grandmère. “She can tell you about her parent’s farm. It is on a hill.”

  “A hill!” M. d’Amboise pursed his lips. “Not dairy then.”

  “Sheep,” I said.

  “Difficult creatures, I believe. They need a lot of care.”

  I nodded. Mother certainly grumbled enough about them and always looked exhausted. The thought struck me then that perhaps I didn’t help her enough and there in that pretty French square with the July heat burning the tiny hairs off my bare arms and the backs of my legs, I felt mean. Mother never had a holiday.

  Grandmère took my arm. “We must go and prepare lunch.”

  “Me, also,” said Madame d’Amboise. “Marie is coming from Angers with the children.”

  We walked home, just the two of us. Étienne and M. d’Amboise had gone to the bar in the square and Luc had gone home with his mother.

  “Marie is the d’Amboise’s daughter. She is about ten years older than Luc and sadly, her husband was killed in a road accident three years ago just before her little boy was born. She has a daughter too, the same age as Lisette.” Grandmère sighed and fanned her face with her prayer book. “It has been hard for her, bringing up the children on her own and Edith d’Amboise is hoping she’ll come back to live in the village. But then,” Grandmère shrugged, a gesture I came to know well, “is it not a comfort to know that there is always someone with worse troubles than us?”

  “Yes,” I said, not giving a thought to what her troubles might be but only wondering who I knew at home who had a harder life than me.

  There was no sign of Mathilde or Jean Paul when we got back to the farm but Lisette was sitting on the bridge over the river with her dollies. “Naughty Jacques,” her little voice sang. “Naughty Angelique.”

  “Lisette! Go and change out of that dress. This minute!” Grandmère called and turning to me said, “And you’d better do the same, Eleanor.” Her stern face relaxed for a moment. “You did well this morning,” she said. “Keep the lace for your next visit to church.”

  I have it still.

  Our lunch was roast chicken smothered in herbs and so aromatic that my mouth watered as Grandmère put it on the table. To start our meal she had served soup which I came to learn was what they had every day before their main meal but today tiny pink things floated in the liquid and I stared at them, not entirely sure what they were.

  “Do you like shrimps?” asked Étienne. He had taken off his suit jacket and rolled up his shirt sleeves before sitting at his place. I could smell the alcohol on him and beads of sweat had gathered on his forehead which he wiped away with the back of his hand.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “I’ve never had a shrimp.”

  The family paused, their spoons halfway to their mouths but only Lisette spoke. “Shrimps are little fish,” she announced importantly. “Very little.”

  I tried one, taking a gulp of the pale orangey soup with it in case, but to my relief, it was delicious. “Really nice,” I said. I hoped that the relief didn’t sound in my voice. Étienne grinned and Grandmère gave her careful smile.

  “Good,” she said. “I thought you’d like it. My secret is that I put tarragon and lemon thyme with it.”

  I had no idea then what she was talking about. I’d never heard of tarragon nor lemon thyme and I mentally searched my French vocabulary for a match. Later, I picked both for Grandmère and many other herbs too and learned to rub them through my fingers as she did whilst imagining how they would flavour the meals we planned.

  Neither Mathilde nor Jean Paul joined in the conversation although they had looked at each other with raised eyebrows before continuing with their meal. Mathilde never spoke at meal times and Jean Paul only when made to by his father or grandmother. These were difficult conversations generally descending into embarrassing shouting matches which, strangely, like Lisette, I hated but learnt to accept. But that was later. On this hot Sunday he was silent.

  “I like shrimps,” said Lisette, nodding at me across the table.

  “So do I,” I said. “They are a delicious discovery.” My French was stretched with this sentence but I was glad I tried for Lisette gleefully repeated ‘delicious discovery’ and laughed.

  “What sort of food do you have at home?” Grandmère asked. “Jean Paul will have to know what to expect.”

  I looked at him. We had finished the soup and now he was shovelling chicken and tiny buttered potatoes into his mouth, barely stopping for breath. “Meat and potatoes,” I offered, “sometimes sausages and chips and bacon. That sort of stuff.” It sounded pathetic compared to the couple of exquisite meals I’d enjoyed so far and my excuse was worse. “Mother doesn’t have much time to cook.”

  How could I explain that she also slapped the food on the table having taken as little interest in the preparation as possible. That she had grubby hands and that our plates were chipped and we served ourselves from the saucepans on the stove. My heart sank.

  “I had bacon and eggs in England.” Étienne poured wine into all our glasses. “It was good. I liked it.” He drained his glass and poured himself another. “And fish and chips. That’s what they eat in England. D’you have that?”

  I
nodded. “Yes, we do.”

  That afternoon I walked across the rickety bridge and through the trees to the vineyard. Each vine shrub was held by wire to a post and more guiding wires led along the rows. Several small bunches of dark green grapes hung from every plant, each individual grape no larger than a pearl and I wondered when they would be ready for harvest. I touched the nearest bunch, curious to know what it felt like and as I’d guessed, the grapes were hard and didn’t give between my finger and thumb. Now I needed to taste one and guiltily glanced back towards the house for a quick look before slyly pulling a few of the immature grapes from the nearest bunch.

  “They’ll be very sour.”

  The voice from beside me gave me such a fright that the tiny grapes I’d popped into my mouth got stuck in my throat and I choked and coughed while I worked desperately to locate and swallow them.

  “Oh, sorry.” The voice was now apologetic and I turned to see a faintly amused Luc d’Amboise standing in the row of vines.

  “Sorry,” he repeated walking towards me. “I didn’t mean to startle you.” The grin on his narrow face belied the concern in his voice.

  “I just wondered what they tasted like,” I muttered. I knew that my cheeks were flooding scarlet and I could feel the hard little grape lodged halfway down my gullet. The ways in which I showed myself to be an idiot seemed to be endless. “I’ve never seen them growing before. I don’t think they grow in England.”

  I didn’t add that we didn’t eat them either or at least not at home. I’d only ever had grapes at Suzy’s house where a succulent looking bunch was always draped on top of the fruit bowl. When I’d mentioned that fruit bowl to mother she’d done one of her usual dismissive snorts. Foreign and a waste of money, had been her verdict. What was wrong with apples?

  Luc seemed to consider what I’d said. “I think the Romans grew them in England once but it isn’t warm enough there now. You must come back in September. They’ll be ready then. Although M. Martin grows for wine so they won’t be as tasty as ours. Papa grows for the table. You would love them.”