Monty Watson’s folk band arrived as the fruit tarts, sorbets and éclairs were uncovered. Dessert was eaten to the music of violin, guitar and hurdy-gurdies, stringed instruments shaped like fat banjos, whose plangent tone was accompanied by a drone similar to that of bagpipes. This style of music must have been heard on farms and in market squares for centuries, Shauna thought. After the empty plates were cleared, everyone formed a circle and danced in a side-stepping pattern, with raised arms. After that, the older French folk danced complex bourées while the younger ones and the guest-workers partnered up and waltzed or jigged to the best of their ability. Shauna saw Mike Ladriss inviting her mother to waltz.
Blimey, she thought, I’ve never seen Mum dance in a man’s arms. Not even Dad’s. Her parents used to groove to the likes of T. Rex and Redbone, throwing their hair about, clicking their fingers. Can Mum actually waltz? And with somebody so much taller? The question didn’t occupy Shauna long, as Laurent took her into his arms.
‘I want to ask you something.’
Her heart crashed like a bird against its cage. But frustratingly, Laurent followed up with, ‘Do you think it will rain later?’
‘I think it could go either way. The clouds are very high.’
He led her away from the dancing, to the straw bale throne now vacated by Albert. They sat side by side, greenery and balloon strings tickling their necks. Laurent put his arm around her.
‘What would you think about developing a new wine, in honour of my grandfather?’
‘I’d say “Do it.”’ She was glad she could answer robustly. Disappointed, though, by the impersonal nature of the question. ‘A deep, strong red, I should think.’
‘Mm. Cabernet Sauvignon blended with Merlot, and Petit Verdot for a manly flavour. Verdot’s a tricky grape, it makes you work hard. There were a couple of hectares once, but they didn’t survive the war. I’d have to plant at least half a hectare, though really, this area is too cool.’
‘Cool? Are you joking?’ Late as it was, Shauna could still feel the sun’s rays through the crown of her hat, her layers of cotton. But this wasn’t the conversation she wanted. Stifling irritation, she asked, ‘How long till you get mature vines?’
‘Depends. I could see the first harvest by 2010.’
I, not we. ‘That’s a chunk of your future. Do you have spare land to cultivate?’
‘Not unless I dig up the meadows.’
‘You wouldn’t!’
‘True, I wouldn’t. I could never drain them properly.’ He smiled, challenging her earnestness. ‘No, I would have to buy a few parcelles from a neighbour.’
‘Sounds better!’
‘Not straightforward, actually. In France, you cannot just buy a person’s vineyards. They must be offered publically—’
‘Oh, for God’s sake! Why are you telling me this?’
‘Who else should I tell?’ He made to kiss her, but she turned away so that his upper lip grazed her ear. It was the end of the day, his beard was making itself felt. ‘First, I’d have to talk to the bank. I’d have to take somebody on to help with the extra work. Raymond told me this morning that he will retire at Christmas.’
‘You’ll miss him, but it can’t be hard to recruit vineyard workers around here.’
‘I will miss Raymond. He was my rock when I first took over.’
‘Isn’t this place littered with rocks?’ Shauna didn’t like the peevish note that had wormed its way into her voice, a mask for the sob in her throat. ‘You’re a pretty effective one-man band. You’ll manage.’
‘The thing is…’ His voice in contrast was patient, warm, as if he hadn’t noticed her crossness. ‘I don’t want to work with anybody I can’t wake up beside.’
‘In bed, you mean?’ She looked up at him, the image of a typical French labourer in bleus de travail, cigarette in mouth, gunning the engine of a tractor, fading away. Fading and being replaced by one in a short, flowered dress and jazzy wellington boots.
‘In bed, or anywhere. Shauna, let’s slip away.’
Going into the woods was like a dip into fresh water, a rest for the eyes after the glare of the setting sun. The forest floor breathed a white mist.
Entering the glade, they pulled back in unison. In horror. Laurent muttered, ‘Putain!’ – an uncharacteristic profanity for him. The stone in its centre was shrouded in a golden miasma. Beside it hung a male figure with untamed hair. Hung, not stood. He was visible only from his waist upward. The torso slowly turned and spoke.
‘Hey-up, you two – didn’t hear you coming. I’m communing with my uncle and his chums.’
Shauna began to giggle. Laurent gave an embarrassed cough. Monty Watson’s lower half was obscured by the ground mist filtering through the stalks of wild maize. He’d untied his ponytail and his grizzled hair stuck out like horsehair stuffing from a busted sofa. He must have been raking his hands through it. Walking forward, Shauna’s laughter fell silent as she entered the stone’s aura and read again the roster of names, of lives sacrificed in the cause of freedom. ‘We must get Yvonne’s name added,’ she said.
‘Yvonne Rosel,’ Monty affirmed. ‘But under the dignity of her real name.’
‘Antonia Thorne.’ My Antonia.
‘“L’Épine de Chemignac.”’ Laurent’s suggestion hung in the air. Was that laughter echoing somewhere beyond the glade?
‘“The Thorn of Chemignac…”’ Monty rolled the concept around his mind. ‘Thorn and Splinter. They’d have made a great team, if things had been different.’
‘If things had been different, they’d never have met.’ Laurent spoke flatly. He’d come back to earth.
Shauna read out the names, tracing the chiselled grooves with her finger. ‘Luc Roland, Michel Paulin. We haven’t thought much about them, have we? We’ve made this Henri and Yvonne’s story, with the two, brave Englishmen as the supporting cast. We’ve written out the two French Resistance fighters, and that’s not fair.’
Laurent nodded. ‘They offered up their lives for France and died here.’
‘No, not here.’ Shauna gave her words authority, because the buzz forming inside her head was the music of certainty, of knowing. ‘They died but not on the same night as Henri and the others.’ Laurent and Monty waited for more but she walked away, leaving the clearing, striking left when she reached the main path. Laurent and Monty, after a short hesitation, followed her.
She found the steep path – no more than an animal track – which she’d scrambled up the day she’d thought she was following Laurent. Still no sign of a cave mouth. She hadn’t expected to see it. Its appearance before was an aberration, a split in cosmic time offered to her alone. But she knew without doubt that it was there, hidden behind a shuttering of green growth so dense only a machete would clear it. She waited for the men to catch up, then sketched a rough line with her finger. ‘Henri, Cyprien and Jean-Claude died here on this slope, but Luc and Michel were captured. The night they shared a glass of cognac with Henri, raised their glasses to Yvonne, they got back into the tunnel meaning to slip out into the forest…’
‘Only, the enemy was waiting,’ Monty filled in.
‘Right there.’ Shauna pointed to a scrape of rubble where, for some reason, saplings and brambles had not taken root. ‘German Gestapo men in leather coats, ranged in line in the undergrowth, guns pointing. When the two emerged into the moonlight, they were pounced on. Trussed and taken away for interrogation.’
‘Albert’s doing,’ Laurent whispered. ‘God, that he’d never been born.’
‘Albert betrayed the location of the tunnel but poor Michel and Luc probably revealed the existence of the English agents back at the château. They broke. Of course they did! Eventually, they died from their brutal treatment, and their bodies were brought back here to the woods. All five men were found dead in the clearing, and everyone assumed they died at the same time. It’s what the inscription on the stone says. Doesn’t that tell you something incredible?’
Laurent met
her gaze. ‘That the Germans had motives we can’t even guess at?’
‘That – but also that Luc and Michel’s bodies were in no worse condition than the others. That tells you they held out under torture for days and days. They were unbelievably brave.’
After they’d stood absorbing the idea for several minutes, Monty left them, concerned suddenly about abandoning his musician friends. ‘I need to pay them,’ he muttered. ‘They’ll think I’ve forgotten. Can I send you the bill?’
‘No problem,’ Laurent answered. ‘We’ll follow you in a while.’
He and Shauna walked back slowly, hand in hand. As they crossed the meadows, they heard the drone of folk tunes and saw the brazier still glowing. Laughter reached them like shreds of paper on the wind.
Such a balmy night, gently moonlit, no sharp corners to it. Laurent stopped halfway across the meadow and kissed her. His weight bore her down. They sank together onto the fragrant grass and made love like drowning people.
‘Stay with me, Shauna,’ Laurent said afterwards, his voice rousing the surface of her skin like a breeze on ripe wheat. ‘Help me make Chemignac a modern, award-winning business. Your mind, your skills, my knowledge – together, we cannot fail. Will you?’
‘Stay?’ She stared upward, consulting the moon. Unmasked and full, it warned her of the dangers of half-truths. Of leaving things unsaid, questions unasked. ‘You want me to stay because I’m a scientist? A useful adjunct to your business?’
Laurent sat up, blocking her view of the heavens. ‘I want you to stay because I love you. Do you think we can be apart? I don’t think we’re meant to be apart and I don’t care if that sounds crazy.’
She put her arms around him, pulling him lower until his lips were a hair’s breadth above hers. ‘I want to make wine with you, and love to you, and even grow a family. I also want to make my mark in the world of research. If you think you can put up with me wanting the world, then, yes Laurent, I want to stay.’
Epilogue
Five years on, 13 July 2008, Dakenfield, Somerset, the west of England
The PA system had arrived. Hairy men in baseball caps were laying cables under mats, securing them with tiger-stripe duct tape. A local TV news team would be along in a couple of hours. For the staff and residents of The Beeches care home, it was a gala day. Red, white and blue bunting crisscrossed the dining room and fluttered in the garden. Entwined Union Jacks and Tricolores trumpeted the entente cordiale.
At ten thirty, Elisabeth Vincent and her guest arrived on foot from the B&B where they’d stayed the night and presented themselves to the home’s manager, who came out of her office to greet them.
‘Is Aunt Antonia ready for all this?’ asked Elisabeth.
‘One never knows with Miss Thorne,’ the manager replied cautiously. ‘Shall I tell her you’re here, both of you?’
‘Why don’t we go and find her ourselves?’ Elisabeth suggested. ‘I think we should play this whole thing very casually. One thing I’ve learned about Aunt Antonia, she can’t bear a fuss. And I want to introduce Mike to her myself.’
Elisabeth smiled up at her companion, who was peering short-sightedly at a poster announcing today’s event. He’d left his glasses back at the B&B. Mike Ladriss in many ways resembled the stereotypical absent-minded professor. But then, Elisabeth admitted, she was undoubtedly a stereotype herself, though out of a very different mould. Everything about them was in opposition. He was over six foot, she barely five foot on tiptoe. She collected crystals and planted vegetables by the phases of the moon. He forgot to eat, and took clocks apart in his spare time. They each came ready-packaged in a protective layer designed to keep love and other such hazards at bay. They couldn’t quite say who had thrown off the armour first, but they agreed that Chemignac’s moon and the fruit of its vines had played a part in their ultra-cautious love-affair.
The manager touched the posy of carnations in her lapel; red, white and white-sprayed-blue. ‘Miss Thorne says it’s all bunkum, today’s celebration. Bad taste. But she’s decided to humour us and speak on camera. You’ll find her in the conservatory, but I should warn you, she told me yesterday that you’re not related. She says you’re an imposter.’
‘I have the family tree in my handbag,’ Elisabeth replied. ‘She was my father’s half-sister, and though it took me fifty years to track her down and get her to admit our connection, I have birth certificates to prove it.’
At eleven o’clock, an official car drew up, disgorging the Lord Mayor of Dakenfield and other dignitaries. They were followed by members of the Royal British Legion and a deputation from the town of Garzenac. With them were two guests of honour, Raymond and Audrey Chaumier. A troop of boy scouts and girl guides arrived next with their pack leaders, and finally the film crew – harassed because the car park was full and they’d had to leave their vans down the street.
At eleven thirty, the ceremony began with a representative of the Mayor of Garzenac presenting Miss Antonia Thorne, otherwise known as the SOE agent Yvonne Rosel, with a medal struck in her honour. The cameras homed in for a midday news feature. Sixty-five years ago today, at a place called Chemignac, members of the local Resistance attempted to escape an ambush. They failed, but one woman made it out…
The reporter crouched beside Miss Thorne’s wheelchair and, even though she’d been briefed not to mention her interviewee’s age, began ‘So, Antonia, I believe we have to congratulate you on being ninety-five years old?’
‘Miss Thorne, please. And great age is not an achievement. It is a pain in the bum.’
‘That’s me told! And you were in France in 1943, parachuted into hostile territory to aid the French Resistance. Is it true you were nearly shot before you’d even touched the ground?’
‘One is either shot or not shot. There is no such thing as “nearly shot”.’
‘Right, no, I suppose. I was told you fell in love with the man who rescued you?’
‘He didn’t rescue me. He was part of the reception committee and I was perfectly capable of defending myself. I’d been taught to kill. They talk about women being allowed to fight on the front line nowadays – let me tell you, we SOE girls were on the front line fighting for our lives in the 1940s.’
‘Amazing! It must have been nerve-racking, dropping into enemy terrain—’
‘It was terrifying. And it was exhilarating, dangerous and dreadfully, dreadfully sad. It wasn’t a game.’
‘And afterwards, you came home and told nobody about your exploits, not for years. That’s pretty awesome.’
‘Official Secrets Act. And there was nothing to tell. I didn’t win the war. I didn’t defeat the Germans. I was a tiny cog in a huge machine. I got buckled, spat out and that was that.’
‘You never wanted to go back?’
‘As an agent? Someone had taken photographs of me. My cover was blown, so I couldn’t go back. After the war, I didn’t want to.’
The reporter flashed a desperate smile at the camera, saying, ‘In a minute, we’re going over live to Garzenac, in southwest France. But now, let me speak with two of our French guests, Monsieur and Madame Chaumier, who met the intrepid Antonia – Yvonne, as she was then known – in the dark days of Nazi occupation, and have stayed in touch ever since.’
The reporter pushed a microphone in front of Audrey. ‘I believe you tracked down Miss Thorne when she was in hospital by writing to the Mayor of Dakenfield? You were worried when she stopped answering your letters.’
A translator repeated the question in French.
Audrey gave the matter some thought, nodded and said, ‘Oui.’
‘You met “Yvonne” when she was hiding in your village? That must have been pretty amazing.’
Another pause. Then, ‘No. It was the worst time. We had to run for our lives, and I heard the guns. The shooting went on and on – how many bullets does it take to kill cornered men? I am glad our friend is at last being honoured, but I do not like to remember the past.’
With visible r
elief, the reporter handed over to her colleague in France.
In Garzenac’s central square, tears in their eyes, Laurent and Shauna watched the dedication of the memorial to all the town’s Resistance fighters. Donations from Clos de Chemignac and other local businesses had paid for the stone to be moved from the woods to the town, and the carving of several more names, including that of one woman.
‘Stand by,’ one of the British film crew researchers told them. ‘After the Mayor has done his speech, we’ll be interviewing you, Monsieur le Comte, then you, Madame.’
‘Shauna and Laurent, please.’
‘Cool. We’ll be asking about your family history and what you know about “Yvonne” and her time at Chemignac.’
Shauna and Laurent exchanged glances. They knew too much. Albert’s crime had not evaporated, even with his death in 2005. Those few who knew of it held the knowledge close. They always had done. Not to protect Albert… To protect Isabelle.
‘What can I say?’ Shauna muttered when the researcher was out of range. ‘That Yvonne came to me in a waking dream and shared her pain and love life with me?’
‘Just talk about a brave, strong woman,’ Laurent advised, ‘one you are proud to be related to. People love that story, how you and your mother traced her, proving she was a lost relation. The Mayor and Monty have spoken of the other men who died. I will talk about my grandfather.’ He gave the smile that always made Shauna want to hug him and sink her teeth lightly into his neck. ‘Then, I will tell them about our new wine, and why I named it in his honour.’
The wine, Écharde de Chemignac, was being liberally poured out to the gathered company. Establishing itself as their bestselling brand, its label carried the Chemignac coat of arms above a twisted thorn tree. A blend of three red grapes, it had been developed by Laurent and Shauna as a full-bodied, muscular wine that aged well. They were currently working on a blend of whites, to be called ‘Épine de Chemignac’ – ‘Thorn of Chemignac’. Crisp, dry with hints of gooseberry and a suggestion of flint, it ought to be a fitting tribute to Shauna’s great-aunt.
A Gown of Thorns: A Gripping Novel of Romance, Intrigue and the Secrets of a Vintage Parisian Dress Page 27