Survivor

by Lesley Pearse

  Etienne moved and propped himself up on his elbow, looking down at her. ‘I bet you didn’t tell her you’d met me again in France and been unfaithful to Jimmy?’ he said, arching one eyebrow.

  ‘No! How could I tell her that? She loved Jimmy.’

  ‘I’m just reminding you that there are many reasons for not telling the whole truth,’ he said pointedly. ‘Maybe Mari doesn’t think Edwin is “the One”. Or maybe she knows he doesn’t care as much as she does. Or he could have some hideous disfigurement.’

  Belle managed a faint smile. ‘Now you are being silly!’

  Etienne smoothed her hair back from her face. ‘Come out on the boat with me today. We’ll take a picnic, and I’ll make love to you on a deserted beach.’

  ‘Why is it that you believe making love is the cure for everything, from a headache to fallen arches?’ she asked.

  ‘Because, ma chérie, you have been exceptionally healthy since I began making love to you. That is all the proof I need.’

  Belle giggled. Etienne still had the power to make her feel eighteen again.

  It was just two days after the phone call about Mari’s injury that Mog returned from the shop with a letter in her hand. Belle and Etienne were still in the kitchen, lingering over breakfast.

  They had gone out in the boat on the previous day, and had spent a lovely afternoon together. They hadn’t returned until after dark, and Belle had been reminded that it was a long while since they’d been spontaneous, and done something just for fun.

  ‘There was this letter for you, from England,’ Mog said, handing it to Etienne. ‘It looks very official. Could it be about Mari?’

  Etienne opened the envelope with a knife. As he read the contents, he frowned.

  ‘Bad news?’ Belle asked anxiously.

  ‘No,’ he said, ‘just surprising news. It’s from a solicitor. It seems Noah left my old place in Marseille to us.’

  Belle was so surprised, she could only stare for a moment. ‘Really?’ she exclaimed, after a moment or two, knowing she must respond. ‘That is amazing! And how like Noah to do something lovely for us.’

  Etienne had bought the land long before she met him. He had repaired the tumbledown cottage, planted lemon trees and kept chickens. During the Great War, when she met up with him in France, he had told her about it. He had even suggested she should run away from Jimmy, her husband, and hole up there until the war was over. But then Jimmy lost his leg and arm, and she couldn’t leave him like that.

  She had thought Etienne had been killed in the war, and so, when Jimmy died too, she and Mog emigrated to New Zealand. It was Noah who discovered that Etienne was still alive. He tracked him down to the farm, and urged him to follow Belle out to New Zealand. Noah bought the little farm from him; he said he and Lisette would love to have a summer home in the South of France.

  ‘Why has the solicitor taken so long to contact us?’ Belle asked.

  ‘It appears they’ve had some difficulty finding out where we are.’

  ‘Why?’ Belle asked. ‘Surely Jean-Philippe knows exactly where we are?’

  Etienne grinned. ‘I suspect Jean-Philippe didn’t want to say. The solicitor says, “Mr Foss challenged his stepfather’s will, claiming that the French house had been promised to him.” He then goes on to say the court ruled that Mr Baylis’s wishes must be upheld.’

  ‘And so they should be,’ Belle said, with some indignation. ‘I’m quite certain Jean-Philippe was well taken care of anyway. But, you know, Lisette did say in a letter some years ago that Jean-Philippe could be difficult with Noah. She didn’t elaborate. But she must have felt bad about it, considering that it was Noah who saved her and her son from the clutches of French gangsters and gave them a new life.’

  Etienne nodded in agreement. ‘I only met Jean-Philippe once,’ he said. ‘And I recall him being a very sullen little boy. Noah was embarrassed by him not answering my questions. But I had assumed he would improve as he got older. Seems he didn’t.’

  ‘It’s an ill wind and all that,’ Belle said with a smile.

  ‘A place in the South of France isn’t worth much to anyone right now, it could even be a liability,’ Etienne said doubtfully. ‘The chances are it has been damaged, requisitioned or even burned down. I recall Noah sent us a picture of his family taken there, and it looked marvellous, because he’d done the place up. But that must have been fifteen years or so ago.’

  ‘I’ll try to find that picture,’ Belle said. ‘They went there every summer. Lisette loved it as much as Noah. She told me in one letter that people around there still talked about you.’

  Etienne smiled. ‘Well, by the time the war’s over and we have enough money to go there to take a look, I’d say most of those people will have passed on. We’ll have to sell the place anyway. It’s too far away.’

  ‘Noah must have realized that we wouldn’t go back to Europe,’ Belle said. ‘So why did he leave it to us?’

  ‘He was a sentimental man, he knew how much it had once meant to me, and I guess he felt it was right to give it back to me. But I really hope he also wanted to annoy Jean-Philippe,’ Etienne said with a wicked grin. ‘I never told you, because Noah asked me not to, but at the time I was talking on the phone to Noah about sending Mari over there, he admitted to me the lad was a nasty piece of work. He said he was resentful, mean-spirited and very jealous of Rose. He often tried to hurt her. Noah said Lisette was bewildered by it, and they both felt very relieved when he got married and moved away.’

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me this before?’ Belle asked with some indignation. ‘Surely you should have said something when Mari left Noah’s house so quickly after the tragedy? Didn’t you think that Jean-Philippe must have been nasty to her?’

  ‘Yes, I did. But I could hardly leap over there and flatten him, could I? We were both so upset at losing Noah, Lisette and Rose. And it wouldn’t have helped you to know what Noah had told me.’

  ‘What else have the solicitors said?’ she asked.

  ‘I have to confirm I am Etienne Carrera, get someone to witness the document, and then they will send me the deeds. Maybe I’ll also ask if I can see a copy of the will, just to make sure that Jean-Philippe hasn’t blocked anyone else’s inheritance.’

  ‘What might the house be worth, darling?’ she asked.

  Etienne shrugged. ‘I haven’t the faintest idea. It’s in Vichy France, and I don’t know if that makes it more likely to be intact, or less. I don’t even know if Noah had someone taking care of it. But the land will have value, once the war is over, and people start going to the South of France again.’

  ‘Maybe once Mari’s leg is better, she will be able to go to look at it for you?’ Belle said.

  ‘Yes, maybe she will,’ Etienne replied.

  But he couldn’t look Belle in the eye as a sixth sense told him the repair to Mari’s leg wasn’t going to be a quick one.

  29

  Southampton

  Etienne’s instinct was right. Mariette’s knee had been badly smashed by the bullet, and she had her first operation on it the afternoon she arrived at Southampton Hospital.

  The journey from France was all very hazy to her. All she remembered clearly was being on deck, ready with the four children to transfer from the French boat to the English vessel, and the pain in her knee was so bad that she couldn’t stand on her right leg.

  In the end, Luc jumped across with her in his arms because she passed out. Or so Armand said, on the way back to England. She had no recollection of it.

  The rest of the journey, arriving in Lyme Regis and being transferred to an ambulance, was like a series of brief, disconnected snapshots to her, with faces she didn’t recognize leaning over her and white-hot pain engulfing her.

  She only became aware of being safe in hospital the next day, after the first operation on her knee. A man called Whitlock came to see her, sent by Miss Salmon, and Mariette asked him to contact Sybil to tell her where she was. But Whitlock was more intereste
d in hearing the details of how the rescue went, and reminding her that she wasn’t to divulge anything to anyone, than in reassuring her that Sybil would be told.

  So she was left not knowing whether he would contact Sybil, or not. And she was wondering how she was expected to explain her injury to people, especially here in hospital. She was fairly certain a gunshot wound bore no resemblance to a wound acquired falling over or being hit by a car. Was she supposed to say she couldn’t answer that question, if the doctor asked who shot her?

  As it was, the doctor who came to see her after she came round from the anaesthetic just said that he’d removed the bullet from her knee. Then he explained that she’d need a further operation in a day or two as the bullet had splintered other surrounding bone. He didn’t ask any questions about how she got the injury. All he did say was that she would be in hospital for some time.

  Apart from the constant pain in her knee, it felt good to be in bed in a warm room, with no further responsibility. She was alone in a small side ward. If she craned her neck, she could just see the big ward through a glass panel in the wall. She was glad she wasn’t in there. Women patients always made a point of trying to find out what was wrong with everyone else, and she needed rest and time to make up a story before she was ready to talk to anyone.

  Yet whenever she closed her eyes, she saw again how she had killed the soldier. She heard the gurgling noise he made, and felt the spurt of warm blood on her hand from his throat.

  She wondered if she would ever be able to forget it. Was she going to see that scene for the rest of her life? She could rationalize it, tell herself that the lives of four innocent children were more valuable than the life of one soldier. She just hoped that other good people in Portivy didn’t lose their lives because of what she had done. Especially Celeste, Luc and Gilpin. Would she ever get to hear any news of them?

  Sister Fairclough, a thin horsey-looking woman, came to see her at nine that night to tell her Sybil had rung the ward to ask how Mariette was, and to say she’d be coming to visit the next day. ‘She said a Mr Whitlock contacted her,’ the sister said. ‘That was the gentleman who came this morning, wasn’t it? Is he a relative?’

  ‘No, I sort of worked for him,’ Mariette said, hoping that would stop any further questions. ‘I asked him to ring Sybil. I lodge in her home, and I knew she’d be worried about me.’

  ‘I’d be worried too, if my lodger had a bullet in her knee,’ the sister said tartly.

  ‘I’m not allowed to talk about it,’ Mariette replied. ‘I’m sorry.’

  Sister sniffed, put a thermometer in Mariette’s mouth and pushed up the sleeve of her hospital nightdress to take her blood pressure.

  It seemed as if she’d taken the hint.

  The next morning, after a long night that Mari had spent mostly awake with the pain in her knee, a young nurse came in with a bedpan and a bowl of water for washing. She was a plain girl with dark hair and glasses, but she understood immediately that Mariette was embarrassed at having to use the bedpan. She somehow managed to get it beneath her, then disappear as she used it and come back at the right moment to discreetly remove it.

  ‘I’ll leave you to wash yourself while I nip off and find you a toothbrush and toothpaste,’ she said cheerfully. ‘I’ll find you a clean gown too.’

  Mariette managed to wash herself quite well – considering each time she moved her leg, it hurt like crazy – but she was very glad when the nurse came back and helped her into a clean gown and combed her hair for her.

  ‘You’ve got such pretty hair,’ the nurse said. ‘But it looks like you’ve got blood in it. How did you manage that?’

  Knowing it was the soldier’s blood made Mariette feel sick. She lay back on the pillow without replying.

  ‘I’ll bring you some breakfast,’ the nurse said, backing out with the washing bowl, clearly realizing that she’d somehow upset her patient.

  Mariette lay in bed, on the verge of dropping off, when she suddenly heard a man’s voice outside her door.

  ‘I was told I’ve got to take someone down to X-ray,’ she heard him say, and Mariette was instantly wide awake. His voice was so familiar.

  She shook herself, remembering that many Londoners sounded the same.

  It couldn’t possibly be Morgan.

  But when the little nurse with glasses came into her room, carrying a breakfast tray, she had to ask.

  ‘A man came just now to pick up another patient for X-ray,’ she said. ‘His voice sounded like someone I used to know. What’s his name?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ the nurse said. ‘I haven’t been here long, and most people just call him “Porter”. Some call him “Scar”, though,’ she said, then clamped her hand over her face in a sudden gesture of embarrassment at what she’d said. ‘I’m sorry, that was horrid of me, especially as he’s a nice man, very gentle and kind to the patients. And very rude, if he should be your friend.’

  ‘He isn’t,’ Mariette said, remembering Morgan’s handsome face. ‘If he had been, you’d have described him very differently.’

  At eleven o’clock that morning, she heard the porter’s voice again. And this time he had come for Mariette, to take her to X-ray.

  As he pushed the trolley into her room, he stopped short and stared open-mouthed at her.

  If he hadn’t reacted to her, she might never have realized it was Morgan.

  Because he had changed so dramatically.

  His black hair was streaked with grey, presumably a result of the shock of the burn that disfigured his right cheek and neck. It slightly puckered his eye and one side of his lips, but it looked as if he’d had extensive plastic surgery because the scar tissue was pale and shiny, almost like snakeskin. It was only by looking at the left side of his face that she could recognize the face of the man she’d fallen in love with on the way to England. That cheek was as golden and smooth as she remembered.

  ‘Morgan!’ she gasped. ‘I thought I heard your voice this morning. But I convinced myself it was just someone who sounded like you.’

  ‘Mariette! Of all the people in the world!’

  ‘That you hoped you’d never run into again,’ she added pointedly.

  He hung his head. ‘I’m sure you can see why I didn’t want you to come and see me in Folkestone. I looked like a monster.’

  ‘Did you really think I was that shallow?’ she retorted. But even as she spoke, she knew that, in fact, she had been back then. And he must have looked a million times worse than he did now.

  ‘You were just an impressionable young girl then, and I’d also treated you very badly the last time I saw you,’ he said. ‘I was amazed you even wrote to me afterwards.’

  As he turned the good side of his face towards her, she was astounded to feel that old familiar tugging sensation in her belly that she remembered so well. It seemed ridiculous, considering all she’d been through since they’d last seen each other.

  ‘You’ve got a very bad knee injury, I’m told. The surgeon needs an X-ray to look at how he will rebuild it,’ he explained.

  He manoeuvred the trolley to the side of her bed and then removed her bed covers so she could shuffle over.

  ‘Can we talk sometime?’ she asked.

  He let go of the covers and lightly touched her cheek with one finger, just the way he had on the boat coming to England. ‘What is there to talk about?’ he asked. ‘Maybe, on the ship, it did seem special. But you lived in one world, and I came from another. You didn’t deserve the way I treated you; the only excuse I can offer is that I knew I was out of my league.

  ‘I don’t know why I wrote to you when I was in the Folkestone hospital. As soon as I’d posted the letter, I regretted it. Anyway, it was all a long time ago now. Let’s leave it and just remember the good parts.’

  30

  Mariette lay on the trolley looking up at the ceiling and tried to think of some way to open up a conversation with Morgan as he wheeled her to the X-ray department. But she knew his silence
was the kind that meant he had no intention of holding a conversation, no matter what she said.

  Once they got to the department, where they had to wait to be called in, he moved away from her trolley. It was then that she noticed how he hung his head slightly, as if trying to hide his scars, and her heart went out to him. It was bad for any man to be disfigured, but for someone as handsome as Morgan had been, it had to be a terrible disaster.

  After the X-ray, he wheeled her back to the ward, once again in silence.

  But, as he helped her from the trolley back into bed, Mariette felt she must say something. ‘I wish you had told me the truth about your injury and given me the chance to help you get through it.’

  He just looked at her hard for a moment. ‘You would have run away. Or, even worse, pretended you didn’t mind when actually you couldn’t bear to look at me.’

  ‘Maybe I would. I admit that, back then, I wasn’t the most compassionate of people,’ she agreed. ‘But you weren’t the nicest of men, were you? I was really hurt by the way you behaved that night in Green Park.’

  ‘I know, and I was really ashamed of myself.’

  ‘A lot of water has gone under the bridge since then, so that doesn’t matter any more. But considering you said in a letter that you cared about me, you should’ve been honest about your injuries and let me decide what to do. I was left thinking you’d found someone else.’

  He turned away from her. ‘I was never right for you, Mari, we both knew that. I couldn’t read or write well, I had nothing to offer you. You needed a man who could take you dancing at the Ritz and all that. I went out to your uncle’s place before I had to report to the army training camp. I couldn’t write well enough to express why I’d behaved so badly that night we went out, but I thought I could explain it to your face. Yet as soon as I saw how you lived, I knew there was no point in even trying to make you understand and forgive me. You could never be happy with a ship’s steward, or an enlisted man. You needed a toff who could keep you in style.’