‘I am the luckiest wife to have you home safe.’ Marguerite kissed Charlie’s ear in a snatched moment alone.
Over bidons of wine and loaves of bread spread thickly with olive paste and tomatoes, shaded by a broad-branched chestnut tree through which a golden evening sun glinted, the wives listened to the news.
The accident had metamorphosed into a tragedy. Four had lost their lives, another six had been brutally injured while one body, a sturdy man, a fine and solid worker, had been ejected, when his truck door was flung open, over the side of the mountain to plummet into the ravine. The women listened open-mouthed, crumbs on their pink lips. Luigi’s body had still not been found. The survivors had turned back for home, grieving, shocked, in mourning, heads set, weeping, for Piemonte. Charlie, Gabriel and the other Frenchmen had accompanied them, which was the reason for the delay. Together, they had transported the corpses with the injured, the shocked pickers and damaged trucks back to their villages and broken-hearted families.
It was a tragedy that had far-reaching repercussions. Charlie lost the better half of his rose crop. Their Provençaux neighbours rallied round them, worked fast and skilfully, loyal dancing fingers, but the blooms had passed their best. They were browning at the edges. The factory refused a fair portion of the consignments and Arnaud negotiated hard, beating down Charlie’s contracted price, justifying his unkindness by saying the flowers were not top notch and he’d never be able to sell them to Chanel. He paid the Gilliard couple poorly because he knew he could get away with it. Charlie, blood boiling, swore that Arnaud was hoping his tactic would send them under so that the massive Grassois perfume factory for which he acted as agent could step in and buy them out at a rock-bottom price.
‘Never will I give up my plot to them, do you hear me, Maggie? It’ll be over my dead body.’
Had it not been for the funds Charlie had put aside for what he hoped might be an investment in more land, they would have sunk there and then. He and Marguerite would have been forced to sell. As it was, they had a small reserve to keep them tied over till the jasmine flowered in September.
Paris, November 2015
‘Leastways, that was how we counted it. But it didn’t happen that way. Life had a far crueller trick hidden up its sleeve,’ said Marguerite to Kurtiz.
Marguerite and Charlie, La Côte d’Azur, May 1953
Charlie was less than happy when Marguerite broached the subject by soft candlelight, her head nuzzling his shoulders, whispering to him that she had a role lined up for two weeks of shooting during the month of July, and she had ‘provisionally’ accepted it. Charlie, worn down by his losses, protested, slapped his hand against the table, causing the cutlery and his empty dinner plate to jump and rattle, declared that he had been living under the illusion that she had put all that nonsense behind her. He had believed that their existence together had quashed that demon within her, that she had let go of all such starry-eyed imaginings. Had she forgotten how unhappy those screen tests and whatever else had gone on had made her?
It’s the past, she had claimed only the previous year, best forgotten. Charlie had never challenged her on that; indeed, he had been quietly satisfied. She had seemed so content that he had never doubted she had moved on from the pipe dreams of her youth.
Marguerite was silenced by his tirade but not cowed because she was ninety per cent certain that his love for her and her happiness would win him round. In any case she was determined to play in the film – they needed the salary she would be paid, and better to have two sources of income than just the one. At the first opportunity after the men had returned from Italy she had driven the truck to Grasse and, from the same café where, earlier in the year, they had watched the Oscar ceremony together, she had put the call through to the studio director to confirm her participation.
That night, while Marguerite slept, Charlie sat on the patio alone, drinking one too many bottles of locally made wine, squinting bleary-eyed out at the darkness, the strips of dotted lights from the stars overhead, trying to figure out what in God’s name had brought this on. Out of the blue, it seemed to him. And then he remembered that, on his birthday that year, they had driven to Grasse to enjoy an evening out, to celebrate at a café in the main square. There, together, they had watched the Oscars – its twenty-fifth ceremony and the first ever broadcast on television – in coarse-grained black-and-white images on a set more cabinet than curved screen. They had squashed themselves alongside dozens of hatted farmers, perfume-makers and sales girls from the local community to enjoy a show hosted by a bloke called Bob Hope, whom Charlie remembered from the wireless. His mother used to listen to Hope’s shows in the kitchen while roasting the Sunday joint.
Marguerite and Charlie had perched on stools, sipped beer, gorged on platefuls of saucisson, olives and local goat’s cheese while socializing with fellow flower producers. The fuggy bar went silent, awestruck. Here before them was the United States of America. Hollywood, the land of Marguerite’s dreams.
Once the ceremony was under way, Marguerite was glued to the screen, open-mouthed, barely a sound expressed. Leo Katsidis was nominated. There he was, larger than life. However, he failed to be crowned best director for his latest offering, which also missed out on the best picture category. His leading lady, Jean-Anne Peters, at his side – nudging his shoulder, a new face to Hollywood, wavy-haired, pretty, bubbly – was not taking home the prize for best actress either. Katsidis’ face was flashed up on the screen at intervals. Little could be read from his marble-eyed, hawk-nosed inscrutability. The only award bestowed on his film was for the best supporting actor.
‘He’s not done so well tonight, your director friend, eh?’ commented Charlie to Marguerite.
Schadenfreude. Marguerite could not deny her sense of satisfaction, of jubilation, but reawakening within her was the longing to be there, to be a participant in the glittering celebrations, to be in front of a camera again, rather than sitting in that smoky bar in boots and trousers with farmers and shop girls.
Later, they had ascended the hills, scented with almond blossom, to their home, La Paix, through darkness, in silence. Was that when the worm had resurrected itself? Charlie asked himself now, as he listened to the hooting of the owls, the shuffles of invisible paws traversing the gardens, tramping leaves down upon the earth, while pouring himself another glass of unsteadily aimed red wine. What he dreaded more than anything else was that Marguerite would be hurt again, that she would return in the damaged state he had found her in when he’d rescued her from Lady Jeffries’ villa those six years back. Emotionally crippled, incapable of expressing tenderness. All the patience it had taken, the restraint he had been obliged to show, to open her up, loosen her, gain her trust and affection.
Yet he knew that Marguerite was not his to own, not his prisoner, his personal prize. If cinema was the environment she truly desired, where she would come alive … except those studios had meted out not happiness or wellbeing but a different response … No, he couldn’t let her go. But he must leave her free to make her choices …
His befuddled thoughts wound in ever-decreasing circles and he grew more groggy with every glass he poured until eventually he fell asleep in his chair. A short while later Marguerite crept barefoot to his side to nudge him awake and lead him up the stairs to their bed.
In spite of his reservations, soft-hearted Charlie, after one or two obdurate, tight-lipped days, set his disillusion to one side and acquiesced. Marguerite, in response, swung her arms about his neck and kissed his cheek. ‘And the money will be a godsend too, Charlie. It’s not a fortune but it will pay our summer bills. Buy feed for the beasts.’
How could he refuse her? July was a quiet time on the farm. The most arduous challenge would be the summer watering and he could handle that alone. He nodded. And after this role, he asked himself silently, will there be others? Would they ever settle to the family he so fiercely craved?
Marguerite and Charlie, La Côte d’Azur, June 1953
/> Marguerite and Charlie were pressed tight, buttressed among an animated crowd stepping out of La Maison du Cinéma down along the Croisette in Cannes. Jostled by bodies exiting from a full house, arm in arm, they were giggling, laughing uproariously, shouting over each other, Marguerite squealing to verbally re-enact a moment, bending over with mirth, eyes watering, relishing the slapstick moments the film had afforded them. They had been to see Les Vacances de Monsieur Hulot, the latest offering from the actor-comedian, Jacques Tati, whose genius had that effect on them both.
Such an outing was a rare event for the couple, these days. They had decided upon it partly because they needed respite from the responsibilities up at the farm and partly because they had been invited to a party. Lady Jeffries was giving a dinner party, a soirée, in honour of Queen Elizabeth II’s Coronation celebrated ten days earlier.
Lady Jeffries was back from London where she had attended several of the cocktail events honouring the twenty-five-year-old princess, who had succeeded to the throne. A party, and one that they had been looking forward to for several weeks, was the special occasion – the rare night out down at the coast. They both needed their spirits lifted following their recent challenges and Marguerite’s upcoming absence.
After the cinema, all dolled up in their modest party clothes (originally purchased for their wedding), they were making their way along the coastal route in the jalopy, which reeked of oil from a leak that never seemed to get fixed. They were recollecting, reliving moments from the film.
‘And what about when the boy sets fire to –’
‘And then when the boat collapses –’
‘And the coughing car!’
Chattering over one another. And, once again, both were reduced to gales of laughter. Only for a fleeting moment had it crossed Marguerite’s mind that she could have auditioned for the role Nathalie Pascaud had played.
They drove on, curving and swaying towards the Cap d’Antibes where Charlie swung left off the coast road to cut inland. ‘Penny for them?’ Charlie, still smiling, nudged her shoulder.
‘Mmm?’
‘Why so serious all of a sudden? We’re going to a party, Maggie.’
Her gaze was firmly on the still water beyond her window, dark as slate.
‘Have you ever been on holiday, Charlie? I haven’t. I’d never seen the sea until you woke me in Marseille. Remember that first morning?’
‘Of course.’
‘We never went away when I was a girl.’
He was turning in through the iron gates of Le Rêve, left wide open for the arrival of party guests. They were on dangerous territory. Not their arrival on Lady Jeffries’ estate, but the land of reminiscences, their childhood worlds. They never ventured there.
‘I don’t suppose my parents could afford it, or there was no one to look after the flour and the bakery business. Rather like you and me with our flowers. How I would love a holiday.’ She sighed, closing her eyes, dreaming of yachts and film stars.
Once, when he was a boy not much older than the rascal in Tati’s film, his parents had taken him, Robert Lord – a decade and more before he had become Charlie Gilliard – along with his younger sister, Sylvia, on an excursion just a few miles from their apple farm to the Kentish coast, to Dungeness Beach. Even though it had been a summer’s day, once they set foot on the immense stretch of shingly beach they had been almost blown away by the force of the wind. They had battled a route through it, like a quartet of broken parasols. He, his sister and their parents had sat on their coats, hair flying high, as though electrified, and eaten the cheese sandwiches his mother had made before they left home. His father had sipped at a beer and picked flying sand particles from between his teeth. What Charlie remembered from that outing was the birdlife – there had been so many birds, wheeling and dipping in the strong wind – and the fact that his parents, usually so consensual, had started to bicker. To avoid the row, Charlie had rolled up his trousers and gone paddling in the cold sea. The icy water stung his white feet, piercing them like arrows. The pebbles rolled and turned under his toes as though the earth was disappearing, as though a great hole was being washed open and he would be swallowed, sucked into its sandy gums, and no one would know where he had gone because they were too busy bickering.
More than a lifetime ago. Another man’s life, Robert Lord’s. Ironic to think that he had been swallowed – swallowed by the open bleeding wound of war – and had disappeared.
Robert Lord was no more.
‘Have you, Charlie?’
‘What?’
‘Ever been on holiday.’
He shook his head. ‘No,’ he said firmly. To close the subject he stepped out of the car, slamming the door behind him.
They were greeted by a butler, not a face they knew. Extra staff had been employed for the party.
Lady Jeffries, arms outstretched, came to greet them. She drew Charlie to one side when she caught sight of him alone a little later and handed him a newspaper. A special Coronation edition of The Times. ‘I thought you might enjoy it. How was the film? Come and get a glass of something chilled.’
The room was crammed with guests, most of them British expatriates who had taken up residence down there. Charlie, foolishly, had not expected that. He felt his spine tighten. Neither he nor Marguerite knew any of them, and he preferred not to make their acquaintance. Who the hell were they all? Being surrounded by British citizens put him on edge.
His good humour had soured, curdled by his childhood memories and the fear of being recognized, no matter how minimal the chance. Marguerite had meant no harm in bringing up the past but it was a boundary he never allowed himself to cross. It had unsettled him. He had spent years ridding himself of the plague of memories. He wished now they had popped into Cannes or Juan-les-Pins and ordered a meal, just for the two of them, then returned home. Any social skills he might once have possessed had long since disappeared. It was a lifetime since he, Pete and their fellow RAF buddies had passed convivial evenings together in British pubs.
Marguerite had disappeared to the cloakroom to do her face. Charlie accepted a coupe of champagne handed to him from a silver tray by one of the kitchen girls. Her name had slipped his mind. Under normal circumstances he would have recalled it. He exchanged a few sentences with her, then broke away.
Out in the corridor, the silence and marble floor mollified him. He placed his glass alongside the telephone on a half-moon side table against the wall and idly leafed through the newspaper Lady Jeffries had given him. He had read, of course, of the death of King George VI the previous year and young Elizabeth’s succession, but he preferred not to take an interest. England was his history, France his present and future. He read French newspapers when he had time to read at all.
For want of something better to do now, and to delay his entrance into the dining room, he flipped through the pages and glanced at the photographs. It was more than a decade since he had set foot on English soil. London would have changed dramatically, pulling itself up by the bootstraps after the bombings. Ration books were still in use, he noted. Here was the young Elizabeth in her robe of gold. The Archbishop of Canterbury decked out in all his finery. Guns and drums and oaths. Elizabeth stepping into the gilded State Coach, eight Windsor greys to draw it. Charlie turned the page, taking it all in, thinking about all those clamouring citizens standing in the rain; some had waited overnight, hoping for a fleeting glimpse of their new monarch.
He wondered how his family had fared. Might they have been present, jostled and peeping, among the sodden springtime throng? Better off out in the country, he told himself, attempting to stem the ache that was opening up inside him. He was cursing his memories of that day on Dungeness Beach. How old would his sister be now? She would surely be married with kids. Kids. Were both his parents still alive? Curse it. He must drive these memories out now. He tossed The Times onto the table, took hold of the glass, downed its contents in one and made his way into the dining room where the table wa
s laid with dozens of plates and candelabra blazing. The dinner guests, sixteen in total, were gathering. Marguerite was seated at the far end, a coupe of champagne to hand, with an elderly gentleman either side of her. She waved at Charlie as he settled into his allocated chair, two seats to the left of Lady Jeffries.
Conversation was in full flight. The subject appeared to have been born in the drawing room while the guests were enjoying an aperitif. It concerned the armed forces. Charlie paid it little attention. The places to his right and left were now occupied by well-heeled women, glinting with diamonds.
A salmon entrée with mayonnaise was served, accompanied by an excellent white wine. Light-hearted chit-chat floated like bubbles. Charlie exchanged niceties at his end of the oblong table, glancing to confirm that Marguerite was fine. She was laughing flirtatiously, sipping her Krug, eyelids fluttering, gorging on the nectar of flattery. She was without a shadow of doubt the prettiest, no, the most alluring female at the table. Pride swelled within him. His gawky mudlark was maturing into a swan-necked beauty. Before they had left home this evening, as he was dressing, he had paused to watch her leaning in to her mirror, spraying cologne on her neck, dabbing her cheeks with a powder puff. Two Maggies: her reflection and his flesh-and-blood wife. She had lifted her immaculately made-up eyes and in the glass caught sight of him appraising her. She had swung on her stool, tilted her head, beamed at him – ‘How do I look, Charlie?’ – and the room had lit up.
How he dreaded that the world of cinema would steal her from him. Or that his own past would come knocking and lock him away from her. If his life was to be without Maggie, he would rather not live it. That was the depth of his love for her.
His reflections were abruptly broken. ‘Deserters? Shoot every yellow-belly one of them, I say,’ spat a retired grey-haired chap seated across from him. The fellow had the air of ex-army about him.
The Lost Girl Page 27
