Daughter of Catalonia

by Jane MacKenzie

  Colette’s sister withdrew discreetly into the kitchen when they arrived, reappearing briefly with coffee, but in fact there was nothing said that she could not have listened to. Colette was now embedded in her silence, and thanked Madeleine for her help on Friday as though there had been nothing but a tragic accident to discover.

  ‘And you found my son, as well, I think,’ she added. ‘For that I truly thank you. He could not have lain there much longer, they tell me.’

  To Robert she said very little, a mere greeting, but her eyes came back to him again and again, almost fearfully, as though a ghost had walked into her home in broad daylight.

  It was Solange who made the occasion bearable, reminding Colette of pre-war days, and sitting close in female complicity to talk of their youth, and ancient characters and old village stories. As she asked after Monsieur Le Grand, or old Madame Pierrette who had always caused such havoc at the market, Colette warmed and flowered, and Madeleine was reminded of that day, several years ago, when Solange and Tante Louise had worked the same easy magic on her grandmother over lunch in London.

  It was hard to come back to the present, but Madeleine had to ask. ‘Colette, how is Martin?’

  She watched to see whether Colette would withdraw again into her shell, but she looked around quite naturally as she replied, as if to any villager.

  ‘Martin is doing well, thank you, Madeleine. He is no longer so woolly-headed, and he looks well, but he still sleeps a lot. They say he may possibly come home tomorrow.’

  ‘And Daniel?’

  ‘Daniel is the best son a mother could have!’ Colette turned half to Solange, as if to share her motherly pride with this woman of her age. ‘If he could live at the hospital he would be there with his brother full-time. He’s at his vineyard at the moment, thank the Lord. This house is no place for him, with all the people who keep passing by to talk about death.’

  ‘How is he taking his father’s death?’ Solange asked.

  Colette looked down at her hands for a moment, then back at Solange. The answer she gave sounded well rehearsed, but it would do very well for the village, thought Madeleine.

  ‘He’s well, thank you. It was difficult, recently, with his father. Jean-Pierre was becoming less well, and more unhappy about being so handicapped in his life. Daniel was so good to him, but in many ways he knows, like me, that this was a blessing. His main concern these last two days has been for his brother.’

  She glanced at Robert again as she said this, an unfathomable expression in her tired eyes. He returned the glance, and held her gaze.

  ‘Could we visit Martin, do you think?’ They were almost the first words Robert had spoken during this visit. ‘Would he accept a visit from us?’

  They held their gaze still, and Colette moved her hand towards Robert, pausing uncertain, as if she wanted to touch him, but didn’t dare. There was a silence, and then he slowly held out his own hand. Their fingers touched, and he closed his hand gently over hers.

  ‘We don’t want to upset him, but we’d like to see him. You know that.’

  ‘Yes. Yes, I know. You are right, I am sure. Why yes, I suppose it is inevitable. Go if you wish, you young people.’ The uncertainty in Colette’s voice was palpable. Help me, it seemed to say. I don’t know the way forward.

  Madeleine wanted to answer her, to tell her that all they could do was follow Machado’s uncharted road, but she knew that, didn’t she? But no stumbling steps – follow Robert, thought Madeleine, he is moving forward for us all.

  And it was Robert, her supposed baby brother, who led the way as they entered the hospital ward later that afternoon – just Madeleine and Robert, come to see the real baby brother they hadn’t known existed. As they neared the bed, Madeleine had a sudden jolting memory of her mother lying in the same starched sheets, and that same antiseptic smell. But it was no frail invalid who turned to watch them approach. Martin vibrated health and youth, and looked very out of place in a hospital ward.

  He watched with idle curiosity as Robert came towards him, then he saw Madeleine behind, and his whole body stiffened. Robert checked, and turned to Madeleine for confirmation that this was indeed Martin. She nodded, and then moved forward, and spoke rather hurriedly.

  ‘Martin, this is my brother Robert. He came from England to see you. We wanted to know how you were doing.’

  Martin looked at them both with something like panic in his eyes, and Madeleine thought, he’s just a boy, how is he supposed to cope with this? Then Robert took over. He sat down on one of the bedside chairs, and gestured to Madeleine to take the other chair.

  ‘I bet you’re desperate to get out of here,’ he said, waving a hand in the direction of the other beds further down the ward. ‘I was in hospital once to have my appendix out, and I still hate the sight of the places. But you’re going to be a doctor, aren’t you? You’ll have to get used to the places, then. I thought about studying medicine, but I could never have coped with the chemistry. I had to choose something else.’

  His manner was just right, Madeleine realised. He wasn’t so much older than Martin, and spoke with a blush and a sincerity that put them on a level. Martin relaxed infinitesimally, and answered in a muted voice.

  ‘What are you studying?’

  ‘Law. I’m in my first year. But you wouldn’t want to study law – it’s dry and mostly rather boring. I’d rather have studied literature, or history, like Papa, but my grandfather would never have agreed. But he would approve of medicine, and so would Papa. I don’t know whether Papa had any medics in his family – we don’t know much about his family, really. But Papa certainly wasn’t a scientist. He would have loved to have one in the family!’

  Martin had no reply to this flow of seemingly innocent disclosure, but Robert just kept on talking, moving on to ask Martin about school, exams, his sports, his friends, and confiding equally from his own side, creating some beginnings of intimacy.

  They didn’t talk about Jean-Pierre’s death, or Martin’s accident, and it wasn’t until they were leaving, frowned out by a stiff-collared nurse, that Martin turned to Madeleine and spoke.

  ‘Daniel tells me you found me on Friday, you and your friend. I would probably be dead if it wasn’t for you. I should say thank you.’

  His tone was strained, and Madeleine made haste to answer.

  ‘We spotted a shape across the stream, but it wasn’t us who came to find you. It was a team from the village, and Daniel was one of the ones who brought you out. All we did was call for their help. So I would say it’s Daniel you should thank, not me!’

  ‘Yes,’ the boy’s face grew more animated, almost comical, ‘and will they let me forget it! Daniel, and Eric and Serge and all the others. They’ll be reminding me of it for years!’

  ‘Not if they have any sense! They’ll need you one day too, when you’re a doctor. Just tell them to mind their manners or they can sing for your help when the time comes! Anyway, they couldn’t have gone fishing on Friday night, and they would far prefer to be out there as part of the action than sitting at home listening to the rain! You’ve given them all something to be heroes about, so just tell them to be grateful!’

  Martin grinned at her, a timid schoolboy’s grin, and she bent and kissed him on both cheeks, in a gesture both conventional and full of hope.

  EPILOGUE

  They were due to meet Philippe and Bernard and Solange for dinner that evening, but when they returned to the hotel everyone was out, and with a sigh of relief Madeleine drew Robert up to her room. They hadn’t had much time alone.

  ‘I’ve found the letters Papa sent to Maman,’ she said, and then watched as he handled the jewellery box, stupefaction juggling with excitement as he lifted off the false bottom. In silence he read the first of Luis’s letters, and tears came to his eyes. Like Madeleine four days before, he read and reread each paragraph, taking his time. She watched him closely, but said nothing.

  When he reached the second letter, written in the November, on
e year after their flight from Collioure, it dawned on Madeleine that the letter had been written just at the time Martin had been conceived. Was it a terrible fraud for Luis to write these words of love to Elise when he was sleeping with another woman? Or were the words a call to Elise, calling up her memory to drive away his need for Colette? He had written about his long dark tunnel, and seeing Elise’s face at the very end. She looked at Robert, still gently weeping as he read, and she tried not to judge.

  When Robert finished the final letter he immediately looked up with a question.

  ‘What was that quote from Voltaire? Do you know?’

  ‘I’ve found it since. We are all full of weakness and errors; let us mutually forgive each other our follies – it is the first law of nature.’

  ‘Mutually forgive! How dare he write this to Maman? What did she ever do to be forgiven? There was nothing mutual in this – just our father ruining lives!’

  Madeleine was surprised by the level of Robert’s anger, and found herself playing Philippe’s role of reconciliation.

  ‘What about your anger at Maman all these years for her weakness, and for depriving us of our roots? She wasn’t perfect either, remember, but if he’d lived Papa knew his bond with Maman would survive anything. Everything I’ve learnt about them makes me realise this. It’s all about their bond, that letter, and the words were never meant for us. It makes me realise why Maman couldn’t share the letters – it feels like the most terrible intrusion reading them, even when they are both dead.’

  Robert was silent, and the room was still except for the small movements of his fingers as he read the letters again. Then he sighed.

  ‘I can’t read them any more right now. Maybe it will become easier over time.’

  He leant forward to look at the other letters, which Madeleine had avoided, and read the letter from Philippe telling of Luis’s death. Tears came to his eyes again, and he put it to one side decisively.

  Madeleine picked up the discarded letters. Leaning forward to put them back in the box, she saw there was one more jagged slip of paper, torn from a small book, which had stuck to the back of the cavity. What next, she wondered? She detached it, and glanced at it warily.

  It was a poem from Machado in French translation, one which Madeleine did not remember reading, and underscored heavily was one verse.

  Today in vain you will seek consolation for your pain.

  The fairies have carried off the fibre of your dreams.

  The fountain is silent and the garden is withered.

  There is nothing left today but tears to weep with.

  But weeping is not allowed – silence!

  Madeleine read the lines with new tears in her eyes, and then handed the page to Robert.

  ‘My God, Robert! Maman put this in here. Imagine living life with such an absence of hope!’

  Robert looked numbed. ‘Silence – poor Maman, she certainly lived her grief in silence. No, I don’t think I want to judge either of them, do you? Papa or Maman? But we’ve found them again, at least.’

  Madeleine held the little sheet and read the words again. It was too late for her mother, but life was re-forming here, in the little village where it had all begun. There were other words of Machado’s which could take them forward, and as she remembered them she laid her mother’s poem back in its secret home.

  ‘Maman,’ whispered Madeleine, ‘We’ll make your garden grow again, I promise,’ and she wept the tears her mother had been denied.

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  The towns of Collioure, Port Vendres, Céret and Amélie-les-Bains are beautiful and thriving places in Roussillon, France. The neighbouring village of Vermeilla, however, is as imaginary as all the people who live there.

  The descriptions of life in 1930s, 1940s and 1950s France are as true as intense research and much listening to wonderful people can make them, and apologies are offered for any inaccuracies.

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  Research for this novel has taken me through countless websites, libraries and conversations with those who were there, but I must acknowledge one book which first set me creating this story in my mind, a non-fiction work which truly brings to life the world of Vichy France. Thanks therefore to Rosemary Bailey for her brilliant book Love And War In The Pyrenees: A Story Of Courage, Fear And Hope, 1939-1944.

  My sincerest thanks also to Louis Baloffi, famously known as Petit Louis, and to Pierrette Périssoud, both of Collioure, for sharing with me so many memories of life from the 1930s to the 1950s.

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  About the Author

  JANE MACKENZIE has always had a love of languages and speaks fluent French. Much of her adult life has been spent travelling the world, teaching English and French everywhere from the Gambia to Papua New Guinea to Bahrain, and recently working for two years at CERN in Geneva. She now splits her time between her self-built house in Collioure, France and the Highlands of Scotland, where she has made her family home. She runs her own consultancy business, and is currently writing her second novel.

  By Jane MacKenzie

  Daughter of Catalonia

  Copyright

  Allison & Busby Limited

  12 Fitzroy Mews

  London W1T 6DW

  www.allisonandbusby.com

  First published in Great Britain by Allison & Busby in 2014.

  This ebook edition first published in 2014.

  Copyright © 2014 by JANE MACKENZIE

  The moral right of the author is hereby asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  All characters and events in this publication other than those clearly in the public domain are fictitious and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent buyer.

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  ISBN 978–0–7490–1573–2