by Gloria Cook
‘There’s nothing he can do. Would you run along to the vicarage and see if the vicar’s at home?’
The vicar came and performed the last rites. Bruce slept all the way through.
Jonny saw the vicar out and took coffee up to Louisa. The patient’s breathing was barely audible now. She was a tiny figure of heartbroken resignation. A lost child. His heart ached for her. ‘Lou, darling, where shall I leave this?’
‘Bring it in if you’d like. Otherwise, leave it on the chest out there.’
He went into the room and passed her the cup. Intending to steal out again, he couldn’t resist glancing down at the man in the bed. He saw an emaciated shell, a shadow of a human being. Dear, wonderful, strong Louisa. It would be hard for anyone to watch such a state of deterioration. Now she had to see this through knowing the man was her father. ‘My God! I’m sorry, I remember him as such a handsome chap. Fair, like you, youthful, beguiling. He used to play with me, he could be so funny. The memories are coming back now.’
She looked up, tears gathered at her eyes. ‘Jonny, will you tell me about them, after he’s gone? It would mean so much to me.’
‘Of course. Has he woken?’
‘No. I’d so like him to, but it would be cruel to wish him back. I’ve told him I’m his daughter, I hope he understands. He’s almost there, with her, our mother. He’s mumbled her name twice. He knows she’s near.’ To forbid the tears she sipped the coffee.
Before this Jonny had not believed in an afterlife. ‘Lou, refuse if you want to, but could I stay, in case she comes, in case Mother comes to all of us.’
‘I’d so like your company, Jonny. To share something so meaningful with you.’
He got a chair and sat beside her. Holding hands, she holding Bruce’s cold, withered fingers, they watched and waited. Louisa whispered through the gathering stillness, ‘Go to her, Father. Go to Mother.’
Coming back from the far reaches of a distant plane, Bruce opened his eyes. He blinked. Saw shadows. ‘Who… is it?’
‘It’s Louisa. A friend is with me.’
Jonny hesitated. Should he say it? There was only going to be one chance. ‘It’s Jonny Harvey. Ursula’s son. I’m with Louisa. Your daughter. She’s yours and Ursula’s daughter.’
For an instant he appeared to be thinking clearly. ‘I thought… now I know…’
His eyes closed. The ravaged face was lit for a moment by a smile. The smile faded but the light stayed. A peace filled the room. There was a hint of perfume.
‘Mother?’ Jonny looked up expectantly. He was touched by something, something like a light tap on his shoulder and something deep and profound in his heart. It made him weep tears of joy and sorrow.
‘Mother?’ Louisa ventured. Then it was as if she was being held by another pair of arms.
There were four people in the room. The light left Bruce. Then there were two.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Ben was catching his breath on the hard flagged kitchen floor of a bombed-out cafe. It was nearly summer but he was cold and exhausted from lack of sleep and he had eaten little for several days. He accepted a cigarette from the weary hand of one of his French compatriots. They didn’t speak. Each of them, now down to seven men and one woman after a recent bloody fight with a small German convoy, knew the importance of gaining a little rest before going out on their next operation. They had taken part in blowing up railway lines, watching locomotives climb the air like crazy caterpillars and enemy troops being blown to kingdom come. They had laid explosives in weapon arsenals and run like hell before everything within blast distance was annihilated. Now the expected liberation was imminent, the group were concentrating on cutting enemy communication lines.
Against the opposite wall, the woman – just a girl, really – a pretty thing from hardy peasant stock, with a deceptively naive gleam to her dark brown eyes, moved, inadvertently revealing a flash of bare thigh. Ben looked away. He hadn’t felt sexual urges since the conflict with Emilia, it had drained him of that need, and Josette was young enough to be his daughter. He hated the idea of any man lusting after Faye, taking advantage of her. He believed himself fully capable of killing anyone for hurting her. What would she think of him now he was a ruthless killer, even though he did it in the name of justice and peace? He allowed himself just a few indulgent seconds to linger over Faye every day. More would fill him with anguish, loneliness and a longing that he couldn’t bear, and that might make him careless and cost one of these good French people everything.
He’d always believed it to be a privilege to fight for liberation, to shield and protect. It was. Yet the more he went on perpetrating acts of sabotage the more numb and dehumanized he felt, and sullied and vile. He couldn’t remember exactly on what occasion when he had shot a particular German soldier. He had been the last enemy in a stand-up fight as he and the others had made their escape after taking out an officer’s car and motorbike and sidecar outriders. A cry from the soldier made him stop and look back, kick him over so he could see his face and aim his Bren gun at his head. He’d had every intention of finishing him off.
‘Hilfe mich…’ The soldier had stared up at him out of pain-stricken, frightened eyes.
Ben’s guts had lurched and he’d very nearly vomited over his own boots. He had killed a boy, for as surely as the soldier was about to die, he was only about eighteen years old. And the boy was asking for his help. For an instant he didn’t know what to do, help the boy out of his misery or leave him to his fate, all alone and far from home.
Then a hand had pulled on him roughly. ‘We must go!’
Yes, he had to get away. He went, but not before the next moment passed and he saw the life expire from some German mother’s son.
The anonymous boy, whom he would never forget, was no more. And he himself was someone else. Someone else from the brash, self-confident businessman who had roamed this now desecrated country to hunt down new quality wines in its sun-glazed vineyards. Someone without a real identity, just a new name when it was considered wise for a change. He had once lived the high life, dined in the best hotels with the top echelons of local society. Now he crouched like an animal, a savage, dirty and scavenging for food, but while he cared nothing for himself, he felt the same for his country. And Faye.
Anything left in the kitchen had been ransacked after the explosion that had destroyed the cafe. He had half an hour before it was his turn to take over as lookout. He shut his eyes and tried to recall the taste of a dry Chablis with trout, a Beaujolais with chicken, a sweet Sauternes with pâté de foie gras, or his favourite, a majestic Burgundy with home-grown game. His imagination failed him. There was nothing on his tongue but ash and nicotine. Oh, to puff on a fat Havana cigar, just once more. To take a hot, soapy bath. He hadn’t washed for days, nor had the others and they all stank. In a flash of his typical broad humour, Raphael, the group’s leader, a classical music master, had joked that the Bosch only had to sniff the air and they would all be dead meat, just as they smelled.
Something made him snap his eyes open. It was an instinct through continually living on his wits more than an actual noise, but next instant he was sure there was something. Something wrong. In a fast but not panicked fluid movement he got to his feet, listening hard. ‘Did you hear that, Raphael?’
Raphael nodded, deadly serious. He had heard the noise.
The others gathered round, hurriedly strapping on rifles and guns and grenades. Ben’s mind was on the two lookouts. No alarm had been raised – Ben was convinced they had been silenced. He drew a line across his throat to display his fears. Raphael nodded, as grim as a funeral chief mourner, and led the way cautiously into the cafe. Ben went immediately after him. They dropped low, behind the splintered bar. All was quiet. Arnaud had been stationed at the church and Julien at what had once been the school, places that gave the best advantage to watch the roads. Raphael tossed his head to indicate Ben should steal to the left and he would go to the right. Ben made a sign: OK.
Slightly hunched over, nerves screaming tight, bodies taut as springs yet ready to fly into action, they started out, the rest gradually following on. The group would fan out and make sure, as they had done not long ago, that the perimeter of their resting place was secure.
His Bren gun held in position, Ben was nearly at the school, looking for Julien, when the first shot split the air. It was not fired at him. He was aware of a cry as one of the Frenchmen was hit. As he threw himself behind a heap of rubble he caught a glimpse of Julien sitting in a heap, blood splashed down over his dirty shirt. Ben’s cut throat illustration had been chillingly true. The group had been discovere,whether betrayed or tracked down, they had a fight on their hands. Across the little dusty road, German helmets were bobbing up from cover in force and it was obvious they were outnumbered.
Raphael tore back from the church. ‘Take cover!’ Before he could follow his desperate order and take cover himself, he took a bullet in the head and dropped dead in the road, his beret spinning crazily in the air before landing on him.
The day turned into chaos and insanity. In the brutal exchange of fire, bullets from machine guns and rifles whizzed and zapped, hitting buildings and glass, making shrapnel and splinters, thudding into soft flesh and mincing bones. Ben was aware of his compatriots and enemy soldiers falling, in ones and twos, like wheat cut down by an unholy sickle. He was in for it this time. There was nowhere to go but into glory. Death was coming to him but he was resigned to it. He’d been glad to serve his country and this occupied land, he had done what he’d had to do.
‘Louis!’ Josette shouted to him.
‘Run, Suzanne!’ Suddenly she was not there any more. She disappeared in a blast.
The rubble of the school was holed in several places, and to avoid being hit, Ben lay nearly flat, firing through a ragged opening. A sharp pain and a curious thud told him he’d been shot in the shoulder. The Bren gun fell from his hands. He rolled on to his back and reached down to his waistband and pulled out a small firearm. He got up, he’d fight in the open. He wouldn’t allow himself to be captured and tortured for information. He stalked towards the Germans, firing as he went. His legs buckled as bullets slammed into them and he dropped to the ground with a terrific thump. He must have received a bullet in the spine for he was completely paralysed.
He must have been the last alive in the group – the firing had stopped. In seconds he was surrounded by Germans pointing guns at him. An officer bent to him and yanked the hair back from his brow and exclaimed in delight. The scar had given away that he was the wanted man known formerly as Jean-Claude. Ben thanked God that no matter how much time he had left, no matter what was done to him he was incapable of feeling a thing. His only regret was that he’d never see Faye again. Or Tristan. Or Emilia. He loved them all. However many moments he had left, he’d glory in reflections of them. What were they doing? Did they ever think of him?
He was back in Hennaford. Working Ford Farm’s fields with his older brother, Alec. Loving with Emilia. Moving into Tremore. Bringing home Brooke, his lovely American bride. Viewing Faye after her birth, disappointed that she wasn’t a son. Then he was filled with a father’s love for her, a love that had come too late, yet somehow he knew she loved and forgave him.
Blood trickled out of his mouth. He coughed. ‘Faye…’ It was on this blessed note that his memory ceased for ever.
Chapter Twenty-Five
‘I don’t want you to use anything this time, Nate. This is the perfect place to conceive a baby, where we had our first kiss.’ Lottie was stretched out dreamily on a picnic rug, gazing up with all her love for her new husband.
‘I agree it’s the perfect place, Lottie darling, but it’s not the perfect time.’ His desire fragmented by doubts, he gently rolled off her and pulled her clothes together, but immediately brought her to face him, lying side by side, caressing her face, his tender brown eyes fervently persuasive. ‘It’s been a long build-up, but I’ll be shipped overseas any day now. The whole county’s been shut off. It’s a miracle I was able to make it here today. Don’t go all quiet on me. You know how I hate to disappoint you. I’m thinking of you, honey. When I land in Europe I’ll be right up there in the danger zone with the other guys, taking care of them, being where I’m needed.’
‘I know all that.’ She trailed her fingers through his hair. She was affectionate and earnest. ‘I also know that you, like my family, think I’m not much more than a girl and I won’t be able to cope if I lost you. I can’t bear that thought, darling, but I’m strong enough to say it, and I’m strong enough to carry on alone with your child. I want your baby, Nate. Whatever happens, I want to always have part of you with me.’
‘It’s a wonderful thought but don’t you think a baby should have its father around to help raise it?’
‘It will because I’ll tell it all about you. How wonderful and beautiful you are.’
It made him smile. ‘You’re the one who’s beautiful. Well…’
‘Yes?’ She pushed her hand inside his unbuttoned shirt and lingeringly kissed his hot skin. ‘Let’s not waste any time. I’ve only seen you twice since our wedding.’
He let her carry on, enjoying her demanding touch. In her bed on their wedding night, after her initial shyness, Lottie had thrown off all inhibitions. She wasn’t slow at making the first move on him. ‘It’s because we’re soulmates,’ she’d said. ‘You make me whole.’ He was worried that without him she’d be frighteningly less of a person. If he went ahead with what she wanted, if she got a dreaded telegram, if she had his child, at least it would be a reason for her to go on and rebuild her life.
She was working her way all over him. ‘You were saying, darling? I know I might not get pregnant today but we can have a wonderful time trying. I’m determined to have my way.’
‘Little madam.’ He smiled provocatively.
‘What?’ She tossed her head, laughing.
‘It’s what the butcher called you at the reception.’ Expertly, Nate imitated the local nosy parker’s thick Cornish accent, the sideways glance and the working of his jaw he always gave before departing with something confidential. ‘You’ve taken on a lot for yourself there, you know. Young Lottie can be quite a little madam when she gets started.’
‘Well…’ Lottie moved about him, catlike. Her glorious wealth of coppery hair was in a mess. ‘Usually old Sidney talks a load of drivel but for once he’s perfectly right.’
‘Show me then.’
‘Is that an order, Corporal?’
He reached up and put his hand behind her head, pulling her face to his and kissing her mouth passionately. ‘Sometimes I like to give orders. Right now, Mrs Harmon, you’re completely in charge.’
* * *
Jill was bored, even though it was Sunday afternoon, which meant she had precious time off; only help with the milking required. When she lacked her closest friend she’d seek out the next. Tom. He was presently in a tiny secluded tumbledown house, at the bottom of a hill, in Church Lane. An old lady, a tenant of Ford Farm’s, had died there recently, leaving no one behind, and Tom was there sorting out her things. Miss Reynolds had been so reclusive Jill had never set eyes on her. She was curious to learn something about her and to see inside her home, which apparently she had rarely allowed anyone to set foot in. Even the oldest villagers knew little more about Miss Reynolds than that she had first rented the house off Tom’s great-grandfather as a young woman with a small private income.
One reason Miss Reynolds’s little dwelling had been hard to spot was the tall trees that grew out of the high hedge in front of the house. There was no gate. Jill squeezed through the impossibly narrow entrance almost blotted out by brambles, nettles and hawthorn, her bare legs getting scratched and stung and her cotton skirt snagged on the way. The minuscule plot of garden was wildly overgrown. It was said Miss Reynolds had stubbornly, sometimes with hostility, refused all offers of help, seeing it as interfering charity. Mrs Em had mentioned that when Tom had turned up back
-along with a saw and scythe, to make way for some daylight to her windows, she had chased him off with a horsewhip.
Jill found herself facing what could be charmingly described as an interesting and neglected doll’s house. A one-up-one- down affair, the cob walls were uneven and coated near the ground with moss. The planked front door came as a surprise. It measured no more than five foot high and the words ‘Lower Hill’ were quite newly painted on it in an exquisite hand. Perhaps Miss Reynolds had been one of the ‘small people’ who’d had artistic inclinations. She tried the knobbly iron latch, ready to call out Tom’s name. It wouldn’t budge – must be bolted on the inside. A wall ran round close to the side of the house, over which woody shrubbery loomed and drooped. She eased her way through, noting snapped twigs, no doubt made by Tom’s struggle to gain entry. The stable back door was thrown open. She went in, blinded for a moment after the bright sunlight.
Tom had been in the downstairs room since lunchtime, lounging in the one and only armchair, which barely supported his back, his long legs sprawled out almost to the other side of the room. He’d finished what he’d come to do but was in the mood to linger. It was he, prompted by a sixth sense that something was wrong while driving the tractor past this way, who had discovered Miss Reynolds’s stick-thin, eighty-nine-year-old body. The doctor said she had died of natural causes in her sleep. A good way to go. Just a glance around today had shown that the few ancient bits of furniture, there in place at her arrival, were riddled with woodworm, fit only for burning. There was no evidence of Miss Reynolds ever lighting a fire – just as well from the neglected state of the chimney. However had she survived in winter, the little scrap of flesh and bone? Sheer bloody-mindedness, he guessed. What had made her so belligerent, shunning all contact? A lost love? He could understand that. How had she got through all the loneliness? He belonged to a large, close family and had many friends, yet the loneliness since losing Louisa sometimes came down off the walls of his room at night to meet him. So cold and so bleak he could almost see it as a living entity.
