by Anne Bennett
‘We knew, Parisians all knew,’ Yvette said. ‘I don’t mean we knew about the butchery of the Jewish nation, but some Jews escaped to Paris before the war and I am ashamed to say that the tales they told us then were so shocking, so uncomfortable to hear, that we closed our ears to them. Well, I did anyway, and now I am so bitterly ashamed of myself.’
Bridgette knew what Yvette was saying though, and she also felt a sense of guilt. The words next to the gruesome newspaper pictures often danced in front of Bridgette’s eyes because they would be filled with tears as they heard of prisoners stripped of their hair and their clothes and herded into gas chambers they believed were showers.
Henri came upon Bridgette weeping one day with the paper showing the mounds of hundreds and hundreds of corpses, men, women and children, hastily buried, or in burned pyres. There was no sign of Yvette and so Henri put tentative arm around Bridgette.
‘Try not to upset yourself too much. Remember you have a baby to consider.’
Bridgette nodded. She struggled for control and said, ‘It’s not just what’s in the paper, or at least not totally that. I was remembering the Jews I saw at the station in St-Omer being herded into these airless, windowless railway trucks and probably en route to one of those hellholes. One old man panicked and tried to escape and they shot him. I felt so bad about that at the time, but now I think the old man was one of the lucky ones. At least he died quickly. But what made them do it, Uncle Henri?’
‘I have no answers,’ Henri said. ‘Surely you would need a peculiar state of mind to want to inflict such suffering on another person, and the numbers killed are almost past belief.’
‘Even the few survivors are often past saving,’ Bridgette said.
‘I know,’ Henri said. ‘It’s a savage example of man’s inhumanity to man.’
Shockingly, people became slightly inured to the news of the death camps. It wasn’t that they cared less, just that there was only so much that they could take in. Most people’s minds were fixed on Germany’s surrender, which everyone knew was only a matter of time.
Bridgette’s mind was also on the birth of her baby. By now she was so heavy and cumbersome that doing anything was an effort. Eventually, her pains began one early morning towards the end of April. She woke Yvette, who immediately took charge, and sent Henri for the doctor and made up the bed for Bridgette.
The doctor examined Bridgette and said she would be a while yet and he would be back later. It went like that all day, with the doctor popping in and out, but Yvette never left her side. The last time the doctor came in it was coming on to evening and Bridgette was having the urge to push. He immediately asked for hot water to wash his hands so that he could examine her. ‘You are doing very well,’ he said, when he had finished. ‘I can nearly see the head. Now I want you to push with all your might next time you get the urge.’
She did, and had a fleeting memory of the stillborn baby girl she had lost all those years ago, and she redoubled her efforts, Yvette and the doctor encouraging her to push harder with each contraction.
Just as she felt she could do no more and the baby was too big to be born, another push took her unawares and suddenly newborn wails filled the room.
‘Isn’t that the sweetest sound in the world?’ Yvette said, and she had tears in her eyes.
‘Is it all right, Doctor?’ Bridgette asked. ‘And is it a boy or a girl?’
‘You have a fine son, Bridgette,’ the doctor said with a smile on his face. ‘And he is absolutely perfect.’
Bridgette had thought she loved the baby before, but she wasn’t prepared for the power of it that struck her with such force when the child was laid in her arms so that she gasped aloud. She kissed the soft skin on his forehead and he opened his milky blue eyes and tried to focus on her.
‘Have you a name for him, Bridgette?’ Yvette asked, for she would never discuss it before.
‘Oh, yes,’ Bridgette said. ‘He will be called for my father and his father. This is Finbar James, but he will be called Finn, as his grandfather was.’
Just a few days after Finn’s birth the Red Army had entered Berlin and there they found Hitler’s body and that of his mistress, Eva Braun, hidden in an underground bunker. They had both committed suicide. Germany’s surrender was a foregone conclusion. It became official on 7 May. The war in Europe was over and the next day was declared a national holiday. Bridgette was officially lying in, but she encouraged Yvette and Henri to go and enjoy the celebrations taking place all around Paris. They could clearly hear the cheering and shouting in the streets, and over it all the church bells chimed. Excitement and expectation were in the very air.
‘Will you be all right on your own?’ Yvette asked anxiously as she hovered in the doorway of Bridgette’s bedroom.
‘Will you go?’ Bridgette said in exasperation, for Yvette had been fussing all morning. ‘I will be perfectly all right and I am not on my own. I have my little man for company.’
As soon as Yvette and Henri had left she peeled back the covers of the crib and lifted the baby out and held him close. She loved him so much it hurt, and she knew that she would willingly lay down her life for him. She was sorry that he would grow up without a father, but he didn’t lack for love, and Yvette and Henri seemed to dote on him more with each passing day.
Bridgette knew that she would have to ask them to be his godparents although they were really too old for the task. It saddened her that she was so lacking in family and also so friendless, for she knew few people in Paris and felt very alone in the world.
She thought of the charge her mother had laid on her, minutes before she died, to find her father’s people. She hadn’t had any desire then to travel to a new country to see relatives who knew nothing about her. That had changed, though, since she’d given birth to Finn. He too would be related to them through her, and she wondered if she should deny him the right to get to know his family.
She tossed and turned over this dilemma and as the months passed the feeling in her grew stronger and stronger. Christmas, the second without her mother, she found very hard, and then in January of the following year Yvette suddenly said, ‘Bridgette, is anything troubling you? You have not been yourself for weeks now.’
Bridgette looked at her aunt’s concerned face and the slight frown puckering her brow and she knew that she deserved to be told the truth. ‘Just before Maman died, she wanted to speak to me and I had to lean forward to hear her. Do you remember that?’
Yvette nodded and Bridgette went on, ‘You asked me what she had said and I replied something like it was of no consequence. That wasn’t absolutely true. Maman asked me something specific, which was that I should go and find my father’s family in Ireland. In fact, she made me promise that I would.’
‘You can’t let a deathbed promise like that dictate your life,’ Yvette said. ‘Remember your mother was doped up most of the time.’
‘I know that, and I also know that her mind was crystal clear when she asked me to do that,’ Bridgette said. ‘Until Finn was born, I had no inclination to do as Maman asked,’ she said. ‘But he is linked to them too, through me, and as I intend to tell him everything as soon as he is old enough, I think I owe it to him at least to try to contact them.’
‘Do you know where they live?’ Yvette asked
‘Not really,’ Bridgette said. ‘But, anyway, I thought the best thing to do is write to my father’s friend, Christy Byrne. Maman kept the couple of letters he sent to her so I have his address. He will know the whole set-up and may advise me how to go about things.’
‘I remember Gabrielle talking of a Christy Byrne,’ Yvette said. ‘And I saw the first letter he wrote to tell Gabrielle after Finn’s death. Fancy her keeping it all these years.’
‘She kept everything in that box I showed you, and she had that hidden in the wardrobe,’ Bridgette said.
‘That man Christy might be dead himself by now.’
‘He might,’ Bridgette agreed. ‘And if he is
then it is a sort of closure, but I think I will write anyway and see what happens.’
However, it was the March before Bridgette wrote telling Christy her name was Bridgette Laurent now, and she was the daughter of Gabrielle Jobert, who had married a British soldier called Finn Sullivan in 1916, and that she had been born in August of that same year.
She went on to say her mother had only told her about Finn Sullivan being her father as she lay terminally ill with TB and her dying wish was that she made contact with Finn’s family. Bridgette explained that she was more especially anxious to do this now that she had a son of her own, whom she had called Finn, after his grandfather, and she asked Christy’s advice on how best to introduce herself to the family.
Christy couldn’t ever remember having a letter for years. In fact, the last letter he had received was from Bridgette’s mother advising him to keep the marriage a secret from the family in case it was not legal. He believed Bridgette’s letter to be a genuine one, though, and he remembered Finn before he died asking him to help Gabrielle and the child if he could. This was the first thing he had ever been asked to do and he felt Finn’s daughter had a perfect right to meet her father’s family, especially as she had given a promise to her dying mother. It was a human need to know who you were and where you came from.
He had kept the secret of Finn’s marriage for years and only eventually confided in Tom. The others were probably unaware of her existence at all, so he thought Tom was the one Bridgette should contact first.
He didn’t have Tom’s actual address, though. Tom had surprised everyone when he said that he had decided to sell the farm. It had been a little overshadowed then, though, by the shocking news of Joe Sullivan’s wife, Gloria, who had left him—and for an American, no less—and had sailed to the States leaving her child behind with his father. That had outraged nearly all women in the town and their indignation meant that the story had been kept alive for a long time. Tom’s sale of the farm slipped well into second place as a topic of conversation.
Tom had told him that he had a flat in a place called Boldmere. He said it wasn’t a very big place and it was part of a market town called Sutton Coldfield, which was outside the city of Birmingham.
He supposed he was still there and so he sent a letter off to Bridgette telling her this and saying Tom’s actual address could probably be got if she wrote to the McEvoys at the post office in Buncrana, for they had been great friends of the Sullivan family.
Christy’s letter was a surprise to Bridgette. Her mother had told her that Finn had thought Tom a born farmer, so why had he left to live elsewhere and where were the others? In her mind’s eye she had seen them all living in that squat whitewashed cottage in rural Ireland and she had nothing to put in its place though the need to go and meet them was stronger than ever.
She toyed with the idea of writing to the people in the post office in Buncrana to get Tom’s address, but rejected it. She had written to Christy because he had met her mother and later communicated with her, but she balked at writing to complete strangers. They probably didn’t know even of her existence, so why would they send Tom’s address to her just because she asked them to?
The mention of Sutton Coldfield. had given her a bit of a jolt because James had told her that he came from there. She remembered the park that he had described. She would love to see it, she thought suddenly, to take his son there and show him where his father had spent much of his youth.
However, her priority had to be finding Finn’s family first. Boldmere appeared to be a district of some sort and if Sutton Coldfield was only a small town then Boldmere was bound to be smaller still. It was very possibly only the size of St-Omer, where everybody knew everyone else. Surely in such a place it would be relatively easy to find out where Tom Sullivan lived.
She didn’t tell her aunt and uncle that she had no actual address for Tom Sullivan because she knew how they would fuss. She just said that Christy Byrne had given her all the information she needed, but she agreed to stay in Paris for Finn’s first birthday.
The following day Yvette and Henri got a letter from Raoul. Neither he nor Gerard had been able to have any leave in the spring so far and Yvette had been very disappointed, so Bridgette hoped Raoul’s letter would give some indication of when he or his brother would be coming home for a break.
However, his letter did much more than that. Yvette’s face flooded with joy as she read it. She turned to her niece and her husband and her eyes danced with happiness as she cried, ‘He’s engaged. Raoul’s engaged. The girl, Monique, works for the same refuge project as Raoul and Gerard. The headquarters is going to be set up just outside Paris, and so the two of them will be working there, not that far away at all. In fact,’ she said, looking across the table to Henri, ‘Raoul asks if they might stay here while they are looking around for a place of their own. They plan to marry in the autumn.’
Bridgette was so pleased for Raoul. Yet she knew that though her aunt and uncle would never say or intimate that she might be in the way when Raoul and his fiancée arrived, she would feel it just the same. Yvette and Henri would want time with their elder son and the girl he had chosen to share his life with, and Bridgette intended to make arrangements to leave Paris before they arrived.
TWENTY-FOUR
Bridgette found that she was a good traveller and not even the ferry crossing the turbulent water of the Channel had made her feel the slightest bit queasy, though Yvette had fussed about that. But then, Bridgette thought, smiling fondly, Yvette fussed about anything. Yet even though she was upset at Bridgette leaving them, she had gone out and bought two beautiful leather suitcases that she had filled with clothes for both her and Finn, and a matching shoulder bag for Bridgette to carry for Finn’s immediate needs.
Henri, who assumed Bridgette had someone waiting for her at New Street Station in Birmingham and a family who knew about her arrival and were waiting to welcome her, could understand Bridgette’s need to find out where she had come from, for her own sake and that of the child. He found out the times of the ferry and the train, booked her tickets, and insisted on driving her to Calais. He had also bought her a beautiful Silver Cross pushchair that folded up, which he said would make the journey easier for her, and she had been very touched by his and Yvette’s thoughtfulness and generosity.
So here she was, in the afternoon of Saturday 4 May, with Finn in her arms and her luggage around her as the train pulled into New Street Station. Suddenly her heart sank and she wondered for a moment if she had done the right thing, especially when she didn’t even know where they were going to sleep that night.
She had a little money. Henri had been very generous and had given her an allowance from the moment she had arrived from St-Omer, but she had spent very little of it, especially as Yvette insisted on buying so much for the baby. Even so, she knew the money she had wouldn’t last if it took her a long time to find her family.
The train ground to a halt and Bridgette climbed out apprehensively. She lifted her cases out one by one, unfolded the pushchair and seated the compliant Finn into it before she could take stock of where she was. The station was thronged with people, more than she had ever seen in one place, many laughing and talking, children shouting.
Somewhere a woman was speaking through a loudspeaker, though Bridgette couldn’t understand a word she said, and the same could be said of the news-vendor who was advertising his wares in a thin nasal whine. Porters, careering about the platform with trolleys piled high with luggage, were warning people to get out of the way, but it was like double Dutch to Bridgette. People didn’t speak the same English as she did and sometimes it was hard to understand all that they said.
Over everything was the clattering of the trains with an occasional screech of the hooter as they thundered into the station to draw to a halt with squeals of brakes and hisses of steam. Even when they were stationary they continued panting puffs of grey smoke into the already soot-ladened air like a crazed beast who couldn�
�t wait to be off again.
The shouts of Finn, tired of being ignored, broke into Bridgette’s thoughts and she gathered up her courage, hung her bag on her shoulder, balanced the two suitcases on the hood of the puschair and followed the mass of people out of the station and into the street. A sour, acrid smell hit the back of her throat, so pungent she could even taste it on her tongue. The streets were teeming with people of all shapes and sizes. Most had serious expressions on their faces and determined strides, as if they were on a mission of some sort.
But, added to the press of people on the pavements, was the traffic on the roads: cars, buses, lorries and vans jostled with the carts and wagons pulled by huge horses with shaggy feet. And then, as Bridgette made her way to the taxi rank, a clanking swaying monster running on rails set into the ground came careering towards her, to turn the corner just in time.
‘It’s a tram,’ one of the taxi drivers said. He was leaning against the bonnet of his cab and had been watching Bridgette’s nervousness with slight amusement. ‘Ain’t you never seen one before?’
Bridgette got the general gist of what he was saying and said, ‘No, not like that.’ Although she knew Paris had its share of traffic, she had seldom gone into the city centre. The taxi driver, though, had caught the hint of Bridgette’s accent and he said, ‘You Foreign?’
Bridgette nodded. ‘I’m French.’
‘Well, what you doing in Brum?’
‘Brum?’
‘Here,’ the taxi driver said. ‘Birmingham, or Brum or Brummagem—whatever you call it.’
‘Oh,’ Bridgette said, ‘I have only recently found out that I have relatives here. Now the war is over I’ve come to seek them out.’
‘Right,’ the cabbie said, pulling himself upright, ‘you’ll be needing a taxi, no doubt. Where are you making for?’
‘A place called Boldmere.’
‘I know that well enough.’ The taxi driver lifted up the suitcases. ‘If you unstrap the little fellow I’ll have this lot stowed away in no time.’
