Madeleine watched her, remembering the younger woman from her recent, fragmented dreams, the young woman with the handsome, strong Catalan face and the ready smile, always stroking her hair as she passed her in the bar. She so wanted to see that smile, to chase this frozen look from the woman’s eyes.
‘And you’re Colette,’ she replied, holding out her hand nervously. ‘I’ve always remembered you.’
A long quiver seemed to run through Colette, and then her face relaxed. She gave a hasty exclamation in Catalan, and surged forward, pushing Philippe aside to kiss Madeleine’s cheeks. Madeleine felt young again, a child, and painfully shy amid a flood of emotions. She just smiled at both Philippe and Colette damply as they fondled and exclaimed. She was no longer aware of their words, just of their closeness, and the simplicity, almost the disappointment of this easy reunion after so much waiting and worrying.
It was Colette who brought them all back down to earth.
‘Philippe, my dear. Shall we all sit down? I think we should have a coffee. Yes, a coffee, before we ask any questions. Madeleine, you sit here, and let us look at you properly. There is so much you need to tell us.’
She called to a woman who was out of sight to bring them coffee, and Madeleine sat where she had been directed. The morning’s croissant now churned in her stomach. There was indeed so much to tell, and to learn, and the gulf of her absence was still there between them.
Philippe took his place back at the table opposite her. His eager face showed nothing but enthusiasm and wonder. Colette was occupied, away at the counter organising coffee. There was a moment of stillness at the table, as Madeleine studied Philippe’s almost oversized head, all planes and angles, with the blue eyes of the north, and its shock of now grey, unruly hair.
‘I remembered you so well,’ she said. ‘I always remembered Tonton Philippe. I remembered you being really tall, and always lifting me up above your head. I loved it, and then sometimes I was scared. I know Robert always loved it. He used to squeal and chuckle.’
Philippe laughed. ‘You were already getting too big for me to lift you when you left,’ he replied. ‘And now … well now you’re a young lady. How old are you? Twenty-one? My goodness, but that would be right. Fifteen years. Is it really fifteen years ago?’ His voice dropped, but then he smiled again. Colette, returning in time to hear the hint of depression in his voice, took his hand as she sat down.
‘Enough now, Philippe,’ she chided, but very kindly, as to a child. Then to Madeleine, ‘We need your news, Madeleine. We’ve known nothing about you since you left. We wrote to your mother but never had any replies. So tell us, please. Just in your own way.’
So she told them, about the years at the grandparents’ home, about Robert’s studies, her own genteel incarceration, about hers and Robert’s silent questions and lack of answers, about their mother, her silence, her death.
‘She just lost hope,’ she told them, ‘after we got the news about Papa being dead. Was it you who sent that? That’s what I understood, but I’ve never seen the letter. But then Maman became a different person, and we just grew up under my grandfather’s orders afterwards. But I never forgot. Robert finds it frustrating that he doesn’t have any memories. This was our real life, and it was so short. It was just so short.’
Her voice was becoming rather ragged, she realised, so she slowed down, and took a breath. She looked across at Philippe, and smiled again, uncertain how to continue. He had been watching her very seriously throughout her narrative, his coffee going cold before him. Now he sighed, and spoke very heavily.
‘We never knew. Never any news. And poor Elise is dead. But when I look at you, there is hope, surely? Nobody is dead after all.’
‘And you?’ inserted Colette. ‘How do you come to be here? Are you all alone?’
‘Why yes. Do you remember my mother’s Tante Louise? And her cousin Solange from Paris? They visited here a few times, I think, after my mother’s own family cast her off. Well, I escaped to them after Maman’s death. I still don’t know why my grandfather agreed, since it was at Tante Louise’s house all those years ago that my mother and father met. He sees her as the worst possible influence.’ Madeleine chuckled. ‘I think he just wanted rid of me for a while. I’ve never been a favourite – Robert has that honour. So they let me go, and I’ve felt so free ever since. And Tante Louise and the family in Paris helped me to come here. They could hardly believe that Robert and I knew so little about my father and our lives here, and they could see I needed to find out.’
‘So your family in England know nothing about you being here?’ Philippe was clearly rather startled.
‘They are not my family!’ The bitterness in her voice surprised even Madeleine. ‘Until Maman died she and Robert were my family. Now there’s just Robert and me, and some new beginnings of family in Paris, who loved my mother, and who’ve done more for us in a few weeks than my grandparents have ever done.’
‘And us, petite.’ Philippe gestured from himself to Colette, and then around to the bar. ‘You have a family here who have been waiting for you for a long time.’
He looked across at the two fishermen still sitting at the bar. ‘Daniel, Eric, you need to meet someone very special.’ His voice was celebratory, almost jubilant. ‘Let me introduce you to one of the most beautiful young women this village ever gave birth to.’
He took Madeleine’s hand and pulled her towards the bar. ‘You young men won’t remember this girl’s father, Luis Garriga, but he was one of us, a real friend. Madeleine, meet Daniel, Colette’s son. Do you remember him? He would have been about eight, perhaps, when you left?’
Madeleine looked with interest at this young man from her past. He was perhaps a year or two older than her. A startlingly handsome young man, whippet-like with fine angular features which bore no resemblance to his sturdier mother. Deep brown eyes studied her for a long moment from a face tanned by the sea, and she had the immediate impression that everything he did was measured in careful steps. He seemed to study her for a long while, then his lips parted in a very sweet smile as he held out his hand. His fellow fisherman, Eric, was a year or two older, with an already toughened body, and a long scar on his cheek which was presumably a legacy of his craft. His hold on Madeleine’s hand lingered longer than necessary.
‘Surely we should remember someone like you?’ he murmured, his voice a caress.
Madeleine laughed. ‘I would have been six years old, just a scrubby child at the time. I don’t suppose a bunch of boys would have deigned even to speak to me.’
‘True enough,’ mourned Eric. ‘So you went away and didn’t come back until we’d all grown up. How very wise.’
Daniel jabbed his friend in the ribs. ‘Don’t be listening to this fool,’ he urged Madeleine. ‘He talks nothing but nonsense, and anyway, he’s only been married a few weeks. I’d like to hear what Sandrine would say if she could hear him right now.’
‘She should be glad to have a full-blooded male for a husband,’ swaggered Eric, but with a grin that robbed his words of any arrogance. ‘Anyway, I’d better be getting back to her, perhaps, if she’s to stay as adoring as ever.’
He shook hands again with Madeleine, wished a general ‘Bonne journée à tous’ to the four of them, and sauntered out into the street.
‘Don’t pay any attention to him, Mademoiselle,’ grinned Daniel. ‘He actually runs around after Sandrine more than you would believe. He just likes to keep up his reputation, that’s all.’
Madeleine smiled. ‘The village playboy?’
‘Every village needs one!’ agreed Daniel. He looked at Philippe, still standing at her side, and seemed to consider his words carefully before he asked, ‘Have you known Tonton Philippe for a long time? Have you come back to visit us? When did you arrive? Will you be with us for a while?’
It gave Madeleine inordinate pleasure to hear someone else say Tonton Philippe. It made Daniel seem part of her family. She remembered Madame Curelée’s comment that
Colette’s boys were like Philippe’s family.
‘I just arrived last night,’ she answered. ‘I’ve booked into the Hotel Bon Repos for a week, but I may stay longer. I’ve wanted to come back for a long time, and I can’t tell you how happy I am to be here.’
‘And we too.’ It was Philippe who spoke, still with the same festive air. ‘Daniel, if the boats aren’t going out again today you should get some sleep, and then this evening you can take Madeleine down to the beach and show her your boat. For now, I am going to show this young lady our village. There’s time for a stroll before lunch.’
He looked across at Colette, who was still seated at the table, strangely still, watching her son, her expression inscrutable.
‘What do you say, Colette?’ Philippe’s voice coaxed. ‘A special lunch today?’
Colette didn’t move, and Madeleine murmured about having lunch at her hotel, but then Colette seemed to emerge from a private reverie. She lifted her head to Philippe, as if monitoring his face, and there was a moment’s hesitation. Then she stood, pushed away her coffee cup, and came briskly across to them, taking Madeleine’s hands in a firm grasp.
‘Don’t even think about it, my dear. Today is, as Philippe says, special. And it’s Saturday. Daniel will not be fishing tonight, I think. We’ll eat late to give him time to sleep, and you’ll eat with the family. We must give you some of our own anchovies. And a taste of our own wine as well.’ She smiled again, the smile lighting her tired face. ‘Believe me, we are really very happy to have found Luis’s daughter.’
CHAPTER SEVEN
Philippe was like a man possessed as he propelled Madeleine through the cobbled streets of Vermeilla, calling out right and left to passers-by, to women arguing over the vegetables in barrows in front of narrow shop front, to an old man whittling wood on a stool in the street, to workmen in small workshops with doors wide open to the streets.
‘Look, Serge, Jean-Claude, Alain, Claudine – look who I have here! It’s the daughter of Luis Garriga, come home to see us at last!’
Daniel and his young friend might not remember Luis, but it seemed everyone over the age of forty remembered the name at least. People stopped what they were doing and stood to watch, their gazes curious but non-committal. But Madeleine could hear them murmuring to each other, her father’s name, small mutterings, which could have been equally good or bad. Philippe towered over most of the townsfolk as he called out his news like a schoolmaster calling his children to class. Beside him, held firmly by the hand, Madeleine felt uncomfortably exposed.
At the corner of the market square Philippe came to a halt, and a small group formed around them. Philippe’s enthusiasm seemed to pierce the Catalan reserve, and they began to exclaim, gathering round Madeleine, and again she felt excluded as the language passed her by. But Philippe spoke in French, and some replied in French, looking at Philippe, men speaking to each other rather than to her, sharing their own memories.
‘Luis, hey? Now there was a man.’
‘I remember now, there was a family, and they left when the Germans came.’
‘That’s when we all left, surely?’
‘No, they left before, remember? The Germans were looking for them. Luis had to get them out.’
Then a few women who had been in deep conversation behind came forward to Madeleine, women dressed in espadrilles and cotton skirts, some with flowered scarves tied round their heads, and one dressed all in black, perhaps in mourning. One extended her hand with a gentle formality, and Madeleine found two hands enclosing hers.
‘You are Madeleine Garriga. We remember you as a child. You used to play with my niece, Louise, who lives now in Port Vendres. You are welcome, welcome to Vermeilla, Mademoiselle.’
‘Your mother, too,’ added the second woman. ‘I hope she is well. She helped us so much when my son was sick before the war. She knew better when that fool of a nurse from Argelès told us we had to keep giving him that foul medicine, remember, Anne?’
‘Yes indeed, a good woman, and not above any of us, for all her fine education and her Parisian family.’
‘And Luis was a good man.’
‘A handsome man, too. You look just like him my dear.’
‘It’s like you to say that, Anne Morales, with your husband standing just behind you!’
There was good-natured laughter and suddenly the crowd became almost merry, tribal caution set aside as the mood of reminiscence gripped them.
‘I used to play boules with Luis. He could rarely beat me, though.’
‘So you say, Alain, but nobody ever saw you win.’
There was much jocularity, in Catalan and in French. The growing crowd gathered around the open doors of a stone wine cellar. The smell of maturing wine was heady, and the group demanded a tasting. The vintner’s protests that his wine was not yet ready were swept aside, and Madeleine found herself sipping a very fruity, sweet wine rather like port, which they called Banyuls. She had never before taken wine at eleven o’clock in the morning, but this morning was an intoxication all of its own. She stood passively in the midst of the crowd. In the flow of reminiscences nobody asked her any questions or even really talked to her. She was a mere young girl, an audience for their memories.
Next to her, the man called Serge, a large, squat man in his fifties, leather-skinned like all the men around him, finally raised his glass to her and spoke to her through the chatter. His voice was strangely subdued, as though he didn’t want to be heard by the motley crowd. But he caused a small silence around him nevertheless.
‘He was a good man, your father. One of the few who could really hold his head high during the war. Those you see around you here, we all know what we did during those years. No one has anything to be ashamed of. But there aren’t many who did as much as your father. You should be proud, Mademoiselle.’
Madeleine looked back at him attentively. Philippe, she noticed, was listening keenly to his words. A quiet murmur of agreement came from his companions. She nerved herself to reply in the same calm, steady tones.
‘I am proud. And I have come here hoping to be more proud. To learn what he did. So that you can all tell me.’ She raised her glass back to him. ‘I’m here on a voyage of discovery. I hope you will all help me.’
Serge was silent for a moment, and then replied very seriously. ‘We will tell you all we can. But the war was a complicated time, Mademoiselle. Not everything is easy to discover.’
He nodded towards Philippe. ‘Start with Philippe here. He knows more than anyone, and was your father’s closest friend. But here in Vermeilla, Luis Garriga had many people who would wish to call themselves his friend, even if he was more lettered than we are. And we are glad to know his daughter.’
There was a gallantry to his words which seemed to take even himself by surprise. Madeleine reached up instinctively and kissed him softly on both cheeks, and around them hoots and clapping broke out. She could have sworn that she saw Serge blush beneath his olive tan. Philippe came over to her and said, ‘You could quickly conquer some hearts here, my dear. Poor Serge hasn’t been kissed like that since his wife mistook him for the postman. Now, these folk are either going to go about their daily business or stay here far too long, and you and I have things to do. Would you like to see where you lived, all those years ago? I don’t suppose you remember, do you?’
Since arriving in the village Madeleine had been asking herself this question. Where had she lived? Would it still be the same inside? Would she recognise it? She agreed quickly, and they disengaged themselves from the group and moved away down what seemed to be the main commercial street running through the village, with several shops spilling goods onto the pavement – a motley jumble of vegetables, buckets, items of clothing, huge cans of olive oil, and bags of dried beans and lentils. A little way along they turned right into an even narrower street, where the roofs of the houses almost met overhead. Not an inch of sun would ever reach this street. Madeleine read the street name, rue Colbert, and her h
eart flipped in recognition. They must be within metres of her former home.
Philippe stopped in front of a weathered door, one step up from the street, and entered direct onto a narrow stone staircase which led upstairs. He led the way up three flights of stairs, emerging onto a little landing under the roof, with a small skylight making it quite bright after the gloom of the climb. There in front of them was a single door to the right. To her surprise Philippe didn’t ring the bell, or even hesitate, but pulled a key from his pocket and opened the door.
‘Welcome,’ he said, with some shyness, ‘to my home. Or rather to your old home, my dear. You see, I moved here after your father … after your father died. It was bigger than my old rooms, and I didn’t want anyone else to sit in his chair, or cook on your mother’s old range.’
Madeleine followed him in, catching her breath as she looked around. The flat was so much smaller than she remembered it. Tiny windows were closed in further by wooden shutters. The little kitchen and sitting area were divided by a thin wall along half the length of the kitchen. In the sitting area, sure enough, there was the stove she remembered, empty now, but with a small basket of logs tucked in behind it. A small sofa and one easy chair, and shelves built into the wall full of books. And a low coffee table strewn messily with papers, books, an old pipe in an ashtray, a small empty box with no hint as to its former contents. There was a minuscule bathroom, with a bath you had to sit up in. And there were the two bedrooms, one of which was now more of a junk room for Philippe’s life possessions, but which had once been her room with Robert. There were still two small beds. Philippe seemed to have changed nothing at all in fifteen years, except for adding two rather fine oil paintings in the sitting area. Madeleine was sure these were his. They were recent views of Vermeilla, and her parents had never had any money for buying artwork.
She stood in the middle of Philippe’s innocuous mess, drinking in her memories, which came crowding back. The wooden table in the corner of the room, with its three chairs, was where they had eaten every day all together, as a family. The room had always smelt of cooking, she remembered. And there were still only three chairs. Robert had sat in a high chair when they lived here, and she could recall as clearly as if it were yesterday her mother telling her father the child was now too big for his chair, and they would have to buy a grown-up chair for him. When Philippe had eaten with them, which he often did, Luis had pulled a stool out from the main bedroom. And if there were more people, well there was no room at the tiny table anyway, and they had eaten on their laps, perching wherever they found.
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