Stars Across the Ocean

by Kimberley Freeman

  Professor Andrew Garr’s office is one floor below my mother’s at Locksley College. There are renovations going on in the waiting room, half of which is hidden from view behind a paint-splattered drop sheet. But I can hear men talking on the other side as they drill and hammer and plaster. Their accent is so different from the tradies back in Australia, and I have a momentary pang of homesickness for good old Aussie working-class voices. It is the first time since arriving that I miss anything from home.

  When Andrew emerges from his office and strides across the worn carpet to greet me, I recognise him immediately as the man from the water bubbler. I cannot put these two versions of him together: my mother’s account of a tyrant, and this open-faced and young man. Surely nobody my age (younger?) should be in such a position of power over my mother.

  ‘Oh, hello,’ he says. ‘You’re Margaret’s daughter? I wish I’d known that day I saw you. I assumed you were a student.’

  ‘I’m a little old to be a student.’

  ‘Never,’ he says. ‘I should have recognised you. You look like your mother.’

  Nobody has said this to me, ever, so I am a bit speechless as I follow him into a modest office, where we sit in armchairs shaped like buckets and he offers me tea.

  ‘No, thank you,’ I say, but his assistant comes in and puts a jug of iced water and two glasses on the coffee table between us.

  As he pours us a glass of water each, I look him over. He’s tall – perhaps six foot five – and has brown hair that is starting to thin at the front. He is dressed in a dark blue suit and gold tie, and his hands are big and ungainly. He passes me my glass of water and I take a polite sip and return it to the table.

  ‘So, Victoria. It’s a pleasure to meet you properly.’

  ‘It’s Tori,’ I say. ‘Only Mum calls me Victoria.’

  ‘Well, then. It’s a pleasure to meet you, Tori. Your mother has spoken about you often and fondly.’

  She has? I am stupidly blindsided by this. I have long harboured a suspicion that Mum is faintly embarrassed to have such an ordinary child. ‘She has spoken about you, too,’ I say. ‘Not much of it is complimentary.’

  He smiles ruefully. ‘We were not always at odds, your mother and I.’

  ‘I would be so grateful if you could give me your side of the story.’ I realise as I say this, that I will believe his side without question. He has a face and an aspect that I cannot imagine being untrue.

  He steeples his fingers and rests his chin on them. ‘Margaret is an incredible scholar. She has been an asset to Locksley for many, many years. Do you know, my interest in history comes from seeing her on the telly in my late teens?’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘She can make history come alive. I know it’s a terrible cliché, but …’ He trails off, seems to be choosing his words carefully. ‘In the past two or three years, Margaret has found it …’

  He pauses, and I realise he is worried about upsetting or offending me. ‘Go on,’ I say. ‘I need to know the whole truth so that I can make a decision about what to do next.’

  He nods, and there is such empathy in his eyes that I worry I’m going to cry when he starts to speak again. ‘It started with complaints from the students. She rambled off topic, lost exam papers, had angry outbursts in class. It escalated. It was clear to me what was happening, and I was … I was desperate to get her out of the classroom so she could preserve her reputation.’

  My tears prick. I nod. ‘I see.’

  ‘I put her on research leave. Nearly lost my job over it from the Chancellor. She hasn’t published in a very long time. I don’t know if you knew that.’

  ‘I knew she hadn’t written a book in a while. I thought she was working on one.’

  ‘She hasn’t written anything now for five or six years.’

  This fact floors me.

  ‘When I spoke to her about her research,’ he continues, ‘she … the ideas she had were beneath her. Rambling, unsupported … Margaret is a scholar from another age, but she had always been fiercely bright. She managed the transition to our new systems – which are unforgiving, I’m the first to admit that – with ease and good grace. To see her start to fall apart like this was difficult for me to watch.’ He leans back in his bucket chair and sighs. ‘By this stage she was two years past retirement age. She has a lovely package to retire on. I tried to encourage her to take it and go but … your mother’s sense of self, I think, is very tied up in her work.’

  Part of me is irritated with him for making such a pronouncement; I want to shout at him, You don’t know her! But of course he’s right.

  ‘I wanted her to go gracefully,’ he continues. ‘Unfortunately, she has stayed and … this is very hard to say, especially to you. She has become a bit of a …’

  ‘A joke?’ I offer.

  He sighs. ‘It sounds more cruel than it is, but yes I suppose that’s the word. Her colleagues say things about her. Fondly at the moment. But the longer she stays …’

  ‘She can’t stay,’ I say. ‘She has a diagnosis. There is no escaping that.’

  He nods. ‘I am sorry to hear that. It’s good you could come to be with her. She’s too proud to accept visitors from work.’

  The sadness is like lead in my heart, lead in my blood. I feel tired and heavy. We are silent for a few moments.

  ‘If I may,’ he says. ‘My own mother went through something similar. It was an acquired brain injury from a car accident. A young lad – one of our students at Locksley, as it happens, though he left afterwards – had had a few too many pints and backed his car into a bus stop where Mum was sitting.’ His voice is very even now, as though he is controlling his feelings carefully. ‘She couldn’t speak and I’m sure she barely recognised my sister and me, and she succumbed to pneumonia about eight months after the accident. In any case, I knew when we were with her – no matter that she didn’t know who we were – I could tell that something inside her relaxed. That whatever she was experiencing inside, our presence calmed her, on the level of her soul.’ He patted his pocket, rattling his keys, and glanced away, embarrassed. ‘I expect that sounds nothing like rigorous scholarship. But I knew it to be true. Mothers and their children bond through body and mind, but also through soul. When body and mind are gone, that still remains.’

  I drop my head and sniff back tears, then raise my eyes again and apply a smile. ‘Thank you very much, Andrew,’ I say.

  ‘My pleasure,’ he replies. ‘If there’s anything I can help you with while you are in town … How long are you staying?’

  I don’t answer. I can’t think about how long I’ll be ‘in town’ because I am not sure at all any more that Mum can be left here alone.

  CHAPTER 9

  Agnes

  ‘Mademoiselle? Mademoiselle?’

  Agnes’s eyes flickered open. Her neck hurt. A man in a crisp uniform was shaking her awake and speaking to her in long streams of incomprehensible language. Her heart started. She remembered where she was: on the train.

  ‘Gare du Nord?’ she croaked.

  ‘Oui, mademoiselle. Gare du Nord.’

  She blinked the sleep out of her eyes. The train was stationary, empty. She wondered how long she had been asleep here before the guard found her. He was speaking to her again, and when she managed to tell him that she didn’t speak much French he recoiled at her thick accent. She knew nothing about pronunciation: she had only read the words, never heard them.

  ‘Oui, mademoiselle,’ he said again, then in very broken English, ‘The train is terminate.’ Then he turned away and walked back down to the other end of the carriage. Agnes stood and retrieved her crate of belongings from the rack above her, relieved to find it all still there. She ached from her toes to her crown. She had been travelling since dawn: two trains from London to Folkestone, and then a two-hour wait for a crusty fisherman’s boat to take her across the Channel. The joy of seeing the sea, of breathing the fresh salty air, was soon ruined by the slow, unsteady passage, which le
ft her slightly damp and unable to banish the smell of fish guts from her nostrils. In Calais, she had used enough broken French to exchange her English money and board the first of two French trains, punctuated by an alarmingly long wait at a tiny rural station, where she saw no other soul the whole time until the train at last, mercifully, arrived.

  Sometime after settling in to the long, hard seat, she must have been exhausted enough to fall asleep. She felt groggy as she stepped out of the train and onto the platform, then walked the length of the concourse and out into Paris.

  The shadows were growing long, but the city was still all movement and colour. Agnes had learned the route from the station to her mother’s address by heart, but took a few moments outside the station to admire the mighty arch and the statues on the cornices. Then she turned and began her walk.

  The first thing that struck her about Paris was that it lacked the grime and grit of London. Everything seemed to be in good repair, shining and polished, even the street lamps. Coloured awnings were open above shops and cafes, and people drank and ate at tables on the footpaths. Many of the buildings had balconies, decorated with wrought iron. And everywhere there were trees: shady sycamores enclosed in iron grates. Agnes let the sounds of the city wash over her: chatter in French, dogs barking, children playing, hooves of horses, a distant street vendor. She followed the route she had learned, and if she had not been so exhausted perhaps she would have enjoyed more of the sights and sounds; but for now she put one foot in front of the other down wide boulevards, then further towards the river where the streets grew less ostentatiously wide and pretty, quieter and duller somehow, until more than two miles of walking were behind her and she had found Rue Cousineau.

  This street was narrow, with room for few trees and no awnings. Apartment buildings in varying states of good and poor repair loomed close on either side. Agnes walked along, concentrating hard on reading the numbers to take her mind off the fact that night was coming and the crate grew more awkward to carry and she spoke hardly any French and she had only forty-three francs and no idea of where she would sleep tonight. Because any moment now she would find number 22 Rue Cousineau, and Genevieve would answer the door, and then everything would be all right.

  Everything will be all right.

  As the building numbers dwindled from three figures to two, she hurried her steps. Here was 38. Here 30. Here 26. And here …

  Agnes stopped, staring. Number 22 Rue Cousineau was not an apartment building at all. It was a warehouse with large letters painted across the front: Valentine et Valois, and under that in smaller letters: Marchand de thé.

  Tea merchant? But where was Genevieve?

  The warehouse had two wooden doors, painted brown, and they were closed. Agnes glanced around. It had grown late, but perhaps somebody was still inside. She walked up and placed her crate at her feet, then thumped on the door three times and waited. The street was quiet. No lamps. She leaned her ear against the door and thought she could hear voices inside. She thumped again, and called out, ‘Hello? Hello? Open the door, please!’

  Footsteps and then one of the doors creaked open on a large, dim space lit feebly by oil lamps. A young man wearing a flat cap and rough, grey clothes peered out at her.

  ‘Excusez-moi,’ she said, a line rehearsed repeatedly, ‘où est Genevieve?’

  The man answered her with a curious cock of his head, and she didn’t know if she hadn’t made herself understood clearly or if the mention of Genevieve’s name had prompted it.

  ‘Genevieve Breckby,’ she said. ‘I need to see her.’

  The man turned and called over his shoulder in French. The only word Agnes could make out was ‘Genevieve’. From within, a plump woman rumbled out. She had hair pinned loosely, a stained apron over a grey dress, and was flushed and clearly irritable. She pulled the door open wide, and Agnes could see inside the warehouse more clearly. Shelves and barrels and crates, an unpolished wooden floor and counter, the strong smell of dried leaves.

  ‘What is it?’ the woman said, clearly a native English speaker.

  ‘Please, I’ve come all the way from London to find Genevieve Breckby.’

  ‘Then you’ve wasted your time,’ the woman said.

  ‘But she did live here?’

  ‘She worked here. She’s gone.’

  ‘Do you know where she’s gone? Is she still in Paris? Did she leave an address?’

  The woman shook her head all through Agnes’s questions, then finally said, ‘Don’t ask me. I know nothing.’

  ‘How long ago did she—’

  The woman held up her hand. ‘Don’t ask me. I do not know, and I do not care. Now, excuse us. We have a few small jobs to do before we can go home. I have nothing else to say about Genevieve.’

  The door closed in Agnes’s face, and she stood there for a moment with her heart thudding. Genevieve wasn’t here. But Agnes didn’t believe for a moment that the woman knew nothing, as she had said. She had seen the way her eyes flicked, the move of the liar’s gaze. Agnes knew because she had trained herself not to do it at Perdita Hall, and it had saved her many a time. But more than that, the woman had seemed angry at Genevieve. She had said she didn’t care, but everything about her tone and demeanour said the opposite.

  Agnes thumped on the wooden doors again, calling out, ‘Hoy! Please, let me in. Please. I need to find her!’ Banging and shouting, her voice echoing down the quiet street. But the doors did not open, and the street grew darker, and her crate with everything she owned was at her feet.

  Exhausted, overwhelmed, Agnes sat on the ground next to her crate, with her back against the doors of the warehouse, and she put her head on her knees and held her breath hard. She hardly ever cried, and was not about to start. She held that pose for a long time, and perhaps would have continued to hold it until she curled up and slept on the ground outside the warehouse, but a woman’s voice nearby startled her.

  Agnes looked up, her hand going out protectively to her crate. Across the road stood a petite woman who looked to be in her thirties with dark hair piled elaborately on her head, and a deep blue dress with a jangling belt around her hips. She was calling to her in French. Every word of the language Agnes knew – which wasn’t many – had now slid from her mind in her weariness and misery, so she simply called back, ‘I don’t speak French.’

  The woman crossed the road and bent in front of her. She was incredibly beautiful, with high prominent cheeks and huge blue eyes, skin as smooth and white as a porcelain doll’s. ‘You are English, yes?’

  ‘Aye.’

  ‘I said, do you need a room to stay?’

  Agnes nodded enthusiastically, even as doubt crept in.

  The woman held out her hand, Agnes thought to shake it. But when the woman’s fingers closed around hers, she hauled her to her feet, then brushed off Agnes’s skirt for her. ‘I hear you shouting for miles,’ the woman chuckled. ‘What is your name?’

  ‘Agnes, ma’am.’

  ‘I am Madame Beaulieu. Many girls stay with me when they are not welcome elsewhere. I have many rooms. You work a little for your keep, until you are ready to go. Follow.’

  Agnes thought about not following her, but right now it was dark, she was tired, she had no idea where else she might get accommodation in Paris with the meagre amount of money she had, and at the very least it seemed Madame Beaulieu’s rooms were near the warehouse, where Agnes intended to return tomorrow. So, she picked up her crate and walked up the street after Madame Beaulieu, who had an easy, languorous pace. The street was dark and quiet. They approached an apartment building that Agnes must have passed on her way to the warehouse. It was unremarkable except for the tall sycamore that stood at its side, and the shingle that hung over the door, which read Maison de Cygnes.

  Madame Beaulieu withdrew a key from the belt around her hips and unlocked the front door. The foyer was, again, unremarkable. Gloomy, modestly furnished, with a staircase curling around to upper floors. ‘Here we are. Your first night i
s free, and tomorrow we will discuss how you earn your keep.’ She closed the door behind them and walked to a bureau to light an oil lamp, which she brought to the bottom of the staircase leading up into the dark. ‘Many lovely girls here. You will like them.’

  ‘I think I’d rather pay a little money for the night,’ Agnes said. ‘I can afford two francs.’

  Madame Beaulieu waved her away with her free hand. ‘No. You keep your money. I have never seen anyone look so sad. Tomorrow, we will discuss the details.’

  Agnes followed Madame Beaulieu up the stairs with trepidation. ‘What kind of work do the girls here do?’ she asked.

  ‘Oh, many thing,’ she said airily. ‘Helping with cleaning and cooking and sewing. You can choose.’

  ‘I sew,’ Agnes said. ‘I am a seamstress.’

  ‘We have no trouble in finding you something tomorrow, but for tonight somewhere to put your head and forget your trouble.’ Another flight of stairs, and another. ‘You share a room with Molly. She is English too and she is here now for many month. She is very happy. Ask her.’

  They arrived at a landing with a low ceiling, and a pleasant smell of old perfume and fresh flowers. The corridor continued for a few yards, but Madame Beaulieu knocked on the first door at the top of the stairs, then opened it without waiting for an answer.

  Two beds sat side by side under a window with a thick blind drawn down. ‘Ah, Molly is not here. She will be along soon. This is your bed.’ She indicated the one on the left. ‘Bathroom is along the hall. I will see you in the morning.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Agnes said, dropping her crate on the bed.

  Madame Beaulieu smiled, but there was something hard about her smile. ‘The morning,’ she said. ‘Come downstairs when you wake.’