The Bench

by Nigel Jones

  Strangely, Honeysuckle’s anguish helped Elizabeth through her loss. She had to help the girl she loved as her own daughter, putting her own grief aside.

  Sophie arrived twenty-four hours later to help Jacques deal with his own loss.

  The funeral took place a week later, a week during which relationships were strengthened. Simon behaved impeccably; making sure humour was not lost because Big Jacques was a funny man in any number of ways. His own laugh demanded that everyone laughed with him. He was a character who was larger than life and whose life should be celebrated. So that is what the week became, a celebration of Big Jacques’s life.

  During the week Jacques watched Sophie expertly care for his mother, always using the right word at the right time. But there was something else, something he had not expected.

  Honeysuckle was the one who was most devastated at his passing, Honeysuckle who would normally be there for everyone else. But now it was Sophie who stepped into that role, and particularly for Honeysuckle, becoming her personal counsellor. It was a role that previously Jacques quite naturally would have taken. Death was no stranger to either Jacques or Sophie and they were both well equipped to deal with it. On this occasion Sophie was the better qualified, and she saw that Honeysuckle was the one who needed the most help. The woman she once believed was her adversary was now the woman she wanted to care for.

  Sophie’s concern was genuine. She liked Honeysuckle, she had always admitted to it. By the end of the funeral she loved her, and the feeling was mutual.

  On the day they were inseparable, never more than a few feet apart. “Look at those two,“ Jacques’s mother had said to him, “they are like sisters.” The smile on her face on such a sad day warmed her son’s heart.

  They stayed on after the funeral to be close to Elizabeth, who after a couple of days was growing tired of their concern. “For God’s sake, I’ll be alright. I have an island full of friends and my best friend lives next door. We can be grieving widows together. Now get on with your lives, both of you.” It was an instruction that was not to be ignored.

  The night before they left they had dinner with Honeysuckle and Simon. It was a seal on the bond that the girls had forged. Over the meal Jacques watched the two of them, and it was quite obvious how close they had become. His mother was right, they were indeed like sisters; two very beautiful sisters.

  When they parted Honeysuckle hugged them both. To him, there was no mention of a kiss, but there was something in her eyes that told him she had not forgotten. Her embrace with Sophie was something new.

  Honeysuckle cried when they embraced, “I know what you have done for me, Sophie, and I will never forget it. Look after each other, I love you both.” She waved as they drove away.

  In the car, Jacques looked across at Sophie who was smiling to herself. “See, I told you that you’d like her.”

  “Oh, shut up!” She slapped his arm.

  The man arranged the blanket on his knees again. Buster’s wriggling had exposed one leg to the raw elements. He looked at the Solent below, the sheltered inland water that had so cruelly taken his father.

  His thoughts turned to his mother. The woman everyone had loved, and none more so than Honeysuckle and Sophie. She had lived on, easily surpassing her three-score years and ten, before passing away peacefully in her sleep in the cottage where she had lived her entire life.

  “They are like sisters.” He could still hear his mother’s words.

  He took a deep breath and rattled the paper bag full of sandwiches to awaken Buster from his slumber.

  Instantly alert with his mouth open, Buster was hungry. He thought lunch would never come.

  TWENTY-THREE

  Jacques watched the snow flurries through the window, a cold winter the newspaper had promised. The forecasters had been right so far, although it was not yet Christmas.

  He put the last of the baubles on the tree and looked across to Buster sleeping by the fire. The scene brought back happy memories of childhood Christmases, but that is not where he was going to visit today.

  The fire looked particularly inviting, but first he had to get Buster’s lunch. He’d completely given up on dog food by now. He couldn’t stand the look of disdain Buster gave him each time he put down his bowl. He just cooked for two, whatever he had, Buster had. Today’s lunch was beans on toast, a choice he knew he would live to regret!

  Unaware and uncaring at the fallout that was about to invade their living room, Buster devoured the beans and the toast, unbuttered.

  Outside the snow was getting thicker, and Jacques remembered his mother’s saying, ‘little snow, big snow. Big snow, little snow.’ Today’s was little snow, by evening it would have settled and probably be a couple of inches deep.

  It did not matter. Buster had enough food in the house to last till spring.

  Jacques put another log on the fire and watched it spit vehemently onto the rug in front of the hearth. He put his foot on the offending shard, which was smouldering on the rug and ground it out, adding another dark splodge to the evolving pattern.

  He stared into the embers and was back in Vietnam.

  The war had taken several twists and turns, and several more lives.

  After he had returned to Vietnam it was a couple of weeks until Sophie joined him. They were lonely weeks, weeks he consciously hoped would never happen again. He and Sophie had spent long periods apart, but the death of his father had made him feel his own mortality. For the first time, he thought of death. He did not fear his own death, one day it would happen, but he did fear not living his life. And his life was now firmly intertwined with Sophie, regardless of his feelings for Honeysuckle.

  When Sophie arrived he could hardly remember being so happy. She had probably been having similar thoughts because she cried when she ran to his arms.

  The next year was fantastic; they lived each day as if it was their last and each night as if it was their first.

  The war raged around them as they lived in their bubble of happiness, until one fatal day.

  It was the 31st January 1968. Tet Ngyun Dan, the first day of the traditional lunar calendar and an important Vietnamese holiday. Jacques was working late with the Americans in the U.S. Embassy, which was situated directly opposite the British Embassy. There had been a massive build-up of North Vietnamese troops, and supplies had poured into the South via the Ho Chi Minh Trail from Laos, whilst the increasingly irritating and highly effective Viet Cong escalated their activity. The intelligence they had collected suggested the biggest offensive to date, designed to destabilize the American-backed Saigon government and cause the people of Saigon to rise up against it, thus hoping to end the war with a single blow.

  In the early hours of the morning Jacques was discussing the likelihood of its success with the Embassy staff when he heard gunshot from the yard outside. At the same time the Viet Cong hit five other primary targets in Saigon, including the airport and the Palace. The Tet Offensive had begun.

  Jacques was not armed, so along with the others at the meeting they made their way to the arsenal of weapons kept at the Embassy. A gunfight was rapidly developing outside but as yet no one had gained access to the Embassy. Armed, Jacques took up a position at one of the windows, and returned the fire of the now entrenched Viet Cong who were shooting at them from behind planters in the courtyard.

  “This is like the Wild West!” He yelled to the man next to him just before the bullet hit him in the back, an unlucky ricochet from a wall.

  At first it seemed surreal and he did not know what had happened. Then the realisation hit him; finally his luck had run out, he had been shot. The last thing he heard before he was passed out was a cry of, “Medic!”

  Unfortunately there were no medics, but there was a man who had seen twenty of his colleagues shot and several die, he knew just enough to keep Jacques alive. The bullet had not hit his heart, but had penetrated a lung, which had collapsed. He owed his life to that Marine.

  It was six hours
before the Embassy was completely retaken by U.S. troops. During that time Jacques had been drifting in and out of consciousness. When awake he was coughing up blood, he knew the signs and he knew he had a chance. It was a matter of time. Did he have enough? When he was unconscious he dreamt of Honeysuckle and Sophie, Saphine and Yvette. He preferred those times.

  The last time he awoke he was on a stretcher with drips supplying him with blood and other fluids. An oxygen mask was being held to his face and all he could hear was shouting.

  The next time his eyes opened he was lying in a hospital bed with Sophie by his side.

  Her eyes were red from crying and she smiled at him. “I leave you alone for one minute, and look what you go and do.” She stood up and gently lent over and hugged him. “I thought I’d lost you.” There were tears in her eyes again.

  Jacques wanted to talk but couldn’t, he just mouthed through the mask, “I love you,” and instantly he was asleep again.

  He spent two weeks in the hospital with Sophie almost constantly by his side. She filled him in on all that had happened at the Embassy and elsewhere. How the Viet Cong was hitting town after town, with appalling loss of life, more innocent victims of the damned war.

  To Jacques she seemed angry, angrier than he had ever seen her in any of the conflicts in which they had been involved.

  One day she apologised and said that there was someone she needed to go and say goodbye to, but promised to be back in a couple of hours. Before Jacques could ask who it was, she was gone.

  Four hours later she returned. She had been crying and she looked sad. “What’s the matter, Sophie? You’ve been crying.” Jacques was concerned.

  “I can tell you now. I couldn’t before, you weren’t strong enough and would have insisted on coming. I told her why you couldn’t be there, and she understood. I know she did.” She was crying again.

  He was really concerned now, “Come on, darling, tell me.” He raised his free arm to console her.

  Sophie looked at the broken man’s attempt to comfort her, took his hand and kissed the back of it. “It’s Saphine. She is dead.”

  Jacques took a while to digest the information. “Oh no! Not our Saphine.” The look of pain in his eyes renewed her tears.

  “Come on, Sophie, tell me what happened. It will help.” Again he tried to stroke her face.

  Through her tears, Sophie held his hand in both of hers. ”The night after you were shot, the killing and the bombing started. Restaurants, bars, it seemed anything with U.S. servicemen was fair game. Saphine’s club was targeted, a bomb. They said she was on stage singing at the time.” She paused, “Oh, Jacques our beautiful, Saphine. She never hurt anyone in her life. It’s not fair.”

  It wasn’t fair, but neither was war. That day altered the course of their lives.

  Five days later he was discharged. He wasn’t really ready to be but he wanted to visit Saphine’s grave, and the hospital was in dire need of his bed, so the doctors agreed to let him go as long as Sophie looked after him.

  The next day she took him to say goodbye to Saphine. The woman who had helped to mend his broken heart after Honeysuckle married Simon. The woman to whom he owed so much.

  It was a simple grave, non-secular with its inscriptions and was surrounded by a sea of flowers, some laid very recently.

  The words on the stone said, ’Saphine, loved by all who met her and heard her sing. R.I.P.’ No dates were added.

  “I never knew when she was born, I don’t think she did. We never celebrated her real birthday, did we?” Sophie had made arrangements for the headstone; she was Saphine’s family along with Jacques.

  “No we didn’t.” He smiled. “She would just announce, it’s my birthday today. Let’s have a party.”

  “Never the same date twice, and rarely more than three months apart.” Sophie had a fond look on her face.

  “She must have been at least 120 by that reckoning.” Jacques chuckled.

  “She looked bloody good for her age then.” Now they both laughed.

  Painfully Jacques knelt down and laid some flowers with all the rest. He sniffed and blinked away the tears, which had appeared. “Thank you for being in my life. You enriched it beyond anything you could imagine. I will never forget you.” Now his eyes were tight shut, but tears still streamed down his face.

  Sophie held him.

  Saphine’s death changed them or perhaps they were just ready for a change. A week later they decided to celebrate Saphine’s 121st birthday. “So she can be given the key to heaven,” Jacques said.

  Sophie cooked a meal and set a place for Saphine. She made all her favourite dishes and they drank a bottle of ‘her usual’ Chenin Blanc.

  There was much laughter as they reminisced about her. Jacques described the night she seduced him, to which Sophie said, “That’s not how she remembered it!”

  “So how did she describe it then?”

  Sophie repeated almost word for word Saphine’s description of her first night with Jacques. At the time it had aroused her, as she had dreamt of such a night with him herself. She had relived the description a number of times in her head when she was alone in bed.

  “Did I really? No, it wasn’t like that. She got it wrong,” he said in defence of his actions.

  “No she didn’t, that’s what you did to me as well.”

  “Really?“ Jacques said, feigning mock surprise.

  “But you were better than she said, darling.”

  Now indignation. “She said I was no good?” It demanded the correct reply.

  “No, darling. You are much better than any girl could possibly imagine in her wildest dreams.”

  “That’s okay then.” Jacques had a sudden thought. “Did you ever…”

  “Nothing to do with you, now finish your dessert. It’s time I started your physiotherapy programme. Gently at first, of course.” She stroked his leg beneath the table.

  Over the next few weeks they talked about the future. Jacques started the conversations. “We’re not achieving anything are we? My intelligence gathering and insight into Charlie’s mind, and your words have not stopped this war. Sorry, that’s not fair, your words do make a difference. The tide is turning in America. Your articles and other journalists’ work add weight to the lobbyists, that and the American people who are tired of their sons coming home in body bags. It is me, I don’t make a difference.”

  “Yes you do. You have no idea how many lives you have saved.”

  “Maybe, but someone else can do that. I’m not a unique talent that can change the course of a war. Your words can at least change attitudes.”

  “What are you saying, Jacques?”

  “Perhaps that I want to stop fighting. I’m not sure. I’ve been involved in wars since I was sixteen, if you count Dunkirk. Now I’m forty-four, and this is not even my war. I’m a mercenary who has gone out to find conflict.”

  “No you are not. You work for your country, and the people who govern it deem your presence here to be in its interest. You are not a mercenary and I don’t want to hear you say that.” She sounded quite cross.

  “You’re very attractive when you are angry,” he said. Sophie just shook her head.

  “Let’s get married,” he said suddenly.

  “What?” Sophie’s mouth was agog.

  “Let’s get married. You and me, to each other.” He was grinning now.

  “Have you just come up with that idea on the spur of the moment, dear?”

  He did not have a clue if she was angry. She had never called him dear. “I suppose so.”

  “Then I suggest you think about it for a while and if you still think it’s a good idea, ask me properly, dear.”

  Okay, so she was cross and she had successfully made him feel like a five-year-old, or worse still a geriatric five-year-old.

  It was an end to the conversation, but not to the idea. As all good five-year-olds he did as he was told, and thought about it.

  Three weeks later while Sophie w
as writing an article and faxing her latest offering from the office in town, he prepared dinner for them both. Not a feast, but the best he could manage. He bought over 200 candles and distributed them throughout the apartment, then lit them. He relieved the local florist of all he had to offer and arranged them everywhere. All apart from the rose petals, these he stripped from the flowers and scattered across the floor. He put on her favourite music and waited for her return.

  At 6:30, in she walked. At 6:31, she said yes. At 6:32, she was crying. At 6:33, they were kissing. At 6:35, they were making love.

  They got married one week later. In her handbag Sophie had a photograph of Saphine, which she got out so she could witness their marriage.

  The only thing that Sophie did not know was that Jacques had telephoned Honeysuckle a few days before the simple ceremony to tell her what they were doing. He wasn’t sure why he called. He just knew he had to. They talked for a long time and he realised that Honeysuckle was genuinely happy for them and was sorry she could not be there. She promised that she would throw them a party when they returned. He never mentioned that he’d been shot and had come close to death.

  The other call that they both made was to his mother. He could hear her tears of joy down the phone, and promised her that they would celebrate their wedding with them all soon. Neither did they tell Elizabeth that he had been shot.

  Two weeks later he was deemed fit to travel, so they returned to the Isle of Wight and their belated wedding breakfast at Farringford.

  They spent a week planning it with Honeysuckle and Elizabeth. If the truth were known it was not really Sophie’s thing, but she did it for Elizabeth. She deserved to celebrate her son’s marriage and she had been such a good friend. Honeysuckle’s enthusiasm got her through it and some of it rubbed off, she found herself actually looking forward to it, especially when Yvette said she could attend and wouldn’t miss it for the world.

  Yvette arrived the day before and asked to stay with Elizabeth. She wanted to meet the woman who had produced such a remarkable son and to Sophie said, “I’ll see bloody Honeysuckle tomorrow anyway.” Sophie just giggled.