Читать книгу Madame Barbara - Helen Forrester - Страница 11

For a while they sat in silence. As she smoked, Barbara’s sobs slowly decreased, became dryer and finally came to an end. Occasionally, she sighed shakily.

The persistent drizzle of the morning had stopped, though the sky was still overcast. Damp from the grassy bank on which they were sitting slowly seeped through their clothing. Neither of them, however, seemed inclined to move. A few trees, interspersed with huge hedges behind them, offered a protective canopy in the wrecked countryside.

Except for an occasional raindrop falling and the breeze rustling through the heavy foliage, it was very quiet. No traffic passed them. It was as if they were suspended in space, insulated for a few minutes from a world destroyed.

Barbara took out her handkerchief again and carefully dried her face, while Michel watched her through the tobacco smoke. She looked ruefully at her handkerchief, pink-stained with smudged makeup.

‘I must look awful,’ she said apologetically.

‘But no,’ he reassured her. He smiled slightly and continued to look at her gravely. His eyes, sad now, reminded her suddenly of her golden retriever at home, who, if anyone cried, would lay his head on the sufferer’s knee and gaze up at her in similar compassionate communion. Throughout the war, Simba had had to do a lot of comforting of both her mother and herself. He had done his best with Ada, George’s mam, too, when she came to sit in their kitchen and have a cup of tea and stare emptily into the fire.

Now, she had a stranger seated before her, trying to do the same thing, to comfort her and – she had a sudden flash of insight – to be himself comforted.

The persistence of his gaze compelled her to look back at him and smile a little. She wondered what else he had been through to cause the multitude of lines on his face, the patient resignation in his attitude, as if there were no reason to hurry back to the cold real world, plenty of time simply to sit and recover what one could of one’s sanity. Apparently impatient American morticians could wait.

At the remembrance of the Americans waiting for their taxi in the American cemetery, Barbara felt compelled to move.

‘Oh, dear me, I forgot. You have to collect your Americans.’

Michel leaned forward slightly and put his hand on her arm to restrain her. ‘There is much time, chére Madame. Rest a little longer. The Americans work as long as there is light – perhaps two more hours. And they are not far distant.’

He drew on his cigarette. ‘They stay in your hotel. I collect them en route. OK for Madame?’

‘Me? I don’t mind. They look like nice fellows. I saw them at breakfast this morning.’

She smiled at him, woebegone, her cigarette smouldering between her fingers, and he continued to sit quietly with her, to give her time to regain her equilibrium.

The Americans are generous, he thought. He had, however, grave doubts about how they might behave with an unescorted young woman; Americans seemed to have pockets full of nylons and piles of chocolate bars with which to seduce unwary females. It distressed him to think that his pretty passenger was herself wearing a pair of nylon stockings. That she might have bought them on the black market, which flourished as merrily in the port of Liverpool as it did in France, did not occur to him. Nevertheless, despite her obvious fall from grace, he would be in the taxi to protect her, and would see her safely into the hotel foyer.

He was not in the least afraid of three very tall, out-of-condition Yanks. Though he himself was so thin and had a hunched left shoulder, he had a long reach, which he found very useful when defending himself. Was he not a very effective kick-boxer, a master of old-fashioned savate, so quick on his feet as to be respected by all? The Americans did not seem to be aware of this particular art, and knowledge of it gave him considerable confidence when he met them in the streets of Bayeux, rather drunk – and where did they get enough to be drunk on, he’d like to know? The Boches had not left much worth drinking. Fortunately, Michel had never got into a real fight with them; sheer weight would very likely have overcome any skill he had.

While enduring the humiliation of the German occupation, it had been essential not to draw attention to oneself and to accept every obscenity without a word of response. It was a relief nowadays to feel that you did not have to salute or otherwise show respect to the Americans when some of them were drunk or abusive.

With regard to Barbara, such a respectable woman, he finally decided, could have come by her nylons legitimately; someone in the family might have brought them home as a gift. He hoped he was right.

He found her gentle, particularly now that she had lost her look of self-confidence and was crushed by grief. She appeared to have no pretensions and to treat him as an equal. The way she had given that choking, good-natured laugh at his remark about not being able to marry her suggested that a ready sense of humour might lie beneath her tear-soaked exterior; under other circumstances, he sensed she would be great fun.

He thought of her in her hotel bedroom, crying silently all night. He wanted to prevent this, if he could, by easing her into a better mood before he let her go. She was much too nice to be left to weep.

In the back of his mind he considered that probably the most comforting thing he could do for her would be to accompany her to bed. But he did not want to offend a foreign lady; and there was, of course, the practicality of the fury of Monsieur le Patron, if Michel were found in one of his hotel bedrooms.

Also, Englishwomen were notoriously faithful; she might feel she must be faithful to her dead husband.

He was astonished that he cared enough that he wanted to be careful what he said or did. What did it matter? She would be gone in a few days’ time, and he would be driving other widows with the same polite indifference that he had driven previous ones. Except that this little lady was different.

He sensed that to a man like himself she could give real pleasure. He felt free to consider this point, since his own love life was, after all, absolutely nonexistent at present; so he could honestly let his thoughts stray.

Finally, as he regretfully stubbed out his cigarette, he had an inspiration about taking her mind off her sorrow. He asked her if she had seen any other parts of Normandy. ‘Not all of it is damage,’ he assured her.

She gave a shivery sigh. ‘Yesterday I walked down to Arromanches, to see where some of the British troops landed. I saw the remains of the floating harbour we built.’

He was astonished. ‘A long walk, Madame!’

‘Not really. I found a little café there and had an omelette, and rested – and then walked back. It was late by the time I returned, of course.’

‘Bravo!’ He was impressed.

She gave a little shrug; she had hiked before the war, and the hard toil she had endured during the war had made her muscles strong. Even the steady physical work she did in her mother’s bed-and-breakfast provided daily exercise.

‘I’ve still eleven full days here,’ she confided, ‘if I want to use them.’ She looked up at him suddenly, and said with more enthusiasm, ‘You know, I would really like to see Caen, because George died on a bridge across the river during the battle for Caen. His friend told me.’ She paused, and then said with bitterness, ‘I want to know what kind of a city was worth his death – and thousands of other English lads.’ Her face twisted in renewed pain.

He thought she was about to cry again, and did not answer her for a moment. Then he said reflectively, ‘Caen is still ruin, Madame. Streets are clear. A few people try to make new life.’

She replied absently, her mind deflected as she pictured narrow bridges choked with dead soldiers, ‘Is it very difficult for them to have to start again? Is it all destroyed?’

‘Yes, Madame, practically all of it is. They are without much help. You understand, the Government give plenty attention to the big ports – lots of votes. Very little thought to smaller cities like Caen – and nothing to small farmers like myself. Peasants’ votes are not in one place – we are spread out. So not much power.’

He was back to his earlier complaints. He shrugged, and sighed. Then he added more fairly, ‘Government must also repair all the roads, the railways, the airports of France – much bomb damage by Allies. But here we all wait – and hope. The railway train now come to us – that is something.’

Then, as a detail which might amuse her, he told her that the churches that William, King of England and Duke of Normandy, and his wife, Matilda, had built in Caen, in thanksgiving for the Norman conquest of Britain in 1066, were still there, practically undamaged. ‘The Duke and Duchess thank God for victory and they build good. Those churches last nearly a thousand years – through many wars, many invasions.’ He grinned suddenly at her, as if the churches’ survival of the recent conflict was something of a joke.

He had recaptured her interest. ‘Really? How strange.’ She appreciated the irony of the survival of the churches after such a huge British bombardment during a reverse invasion.

He grinned. ‘British miss good chance to revenge on William – bomb them!’

There was a slight movement on the other side of the empty road, and Michel glanced across. On the verge opposite sat a rabbit, its nose quivering. Suddenly it vanished into the hedge.

He was diverted. Wildlife is returning, he reflected with a gleam of hope.

He looked again at the young woman opposite him, and said impetuously, ‘I take you to Caen tomorrow. Americans go to Paris for the weekend. We go, yes? Take a little lunch? Look around.’

‘How much would it cost? I owe you already for this trip. I had thought I would walk round the countryside. I’m a good walker and the distances are not very great. I can do twenty miles in a day – easy.’

She would be safe enough walking, he considered, but Caen was a bit too far to do in one day. Worst of all, he would probably never see her again and, even though her stay in Calvados was to be very brief, he longed to talk with her again.

He responded quickly. ‘I take you. No charge. You pay me for this trip to the cemetery, and I do tomorrow free. OK?’ While she considered his offer, he went on, ‘I went there just after battle finish. And I take Americans once or twice. I believe most roads now clear.’

And when I went there the first time what a shock I had, he thought, fury surging through him once more.