Some Day I'll Find You (21 page)

‘I trust
madame
is feeling quite recovered?’ he asked, looking shyly at Diana.

‘Yes, Armand, completely,’ Diana replied. She was surprised not to feel any embarrassment about her tears earlier. As she watched Armand nodding and bobbing in front of her, twirling
his waxed moustache nervously between finger and thumb, Diana realised how fond she had become of him in the few short weeks since arriving in France.

‘
Très bien
,’ he said now, and conjured a menu seemingly out of thin air. ‘Will
mesdames
be staying for
déjeuner,
peut-être
?’

Diana raised her eyebrows at her new friend. ‘Shall we?’

‘Why not?’ Hélène replied, standing up. ‘You order for us both,
chérie –
I must close my stall properly. It is the only one left open. Order
anything you like, everything is good here.’ Armand bowed at the compliment.

While Hélène sluiced down the pavement surrounding her pitch and brought the sun-bleached wooden shutters clattering down on her stall, Diana, with Armand’s assistance,
ordered their lunch.

‘
Salade niçoise
to start with,’ she told Hélène a few minutes later when she returned, ‘and then I was going to order us
sole
grillé
but Armand says it’s nicer cooked
meunière
and finished off so it’s golden-brown – how does one say that in French again?’

‘
Bien doré
,’ Hélène provided. ‘An excellent choice. And now, my dear, don’t you want to know what I make of your remarkable
story?’

‘Very much.’

‘I must warn you, Diana, I am going to be direct.’

Diana nodded. ‘Good.’

‘Very well. But I want you to . . . how did my husband used to say it? Ah, yes – “hear me out”. No interruptions, yes?’

Diana nodded again, and noted the past tense, concerning Hélène’s husband.

‘So,’ Hélène began. ‘I do not think for one moment, my dear, that your first husband is alive.’ She held up a hand as Diana drew breath to speak.
‘
Non! Silence, s’il vous plaît
. You promised.’

Diana subsided. ‘Sorry,’ she mumbled. ‘Go on.’

‘Yes . . . as I say, I am quite sure he is dead and that he died on the day of your wedding. That much is clear to me. Think about it, Diana. Let us assume, for a moment, that your husband
survived the terrible plane crash. Let us also assume he was not captured by the Germans. He would have needed help to survive, and only the
Maquis
– the Resistance – could
have given him that. But they would have sent a message to England,
non
? They would have explained that your husband was safe. But no such message was received, was it?’

Diana lips were tightly compressed. ‘No,’ she managed.

‘But let us continue to pretend. He survives, and somehow lives out the rest of the war here in France. That is five years, Diana. Five years! Why does he not manage to send any message to
you? But most important, why does he not come home to you as soon as the fighting is over?
Mmm?
Why have you never received a letter or message of any kind from this man? Why would he
abandon the love of his life like this? It makes not any sense to me. Does it to you?’

Miserably, Diana shook her head.

‘Now let me ask you a question,’ Hélène continued. ‘Until two weeks ago, did you have any doubt at all that this man is dead?’

‘No.’

‘
Non
,
absolument pas
. That is the correct reply,
chérie
. And did anyone else consider the possibility he was alive?’

Another shake of the head.

‘No. I thought this would be your answer.’

Hélène paused as Armand brought their starters.

‘Eat,’ she ordered Diana when the
patron
had gone. ‘That is something else that is changed about you, my dear. You are getting rather thin, I think.’

‘I’m not hungry.’

Diana jumped as Hélène rapped the table with her knuckles. ‘Eat!’

She obeyed, forking small amounts of tuna, boiled egg and anchovy to her mouth. The oil and vinegar and lemon juice dressing was delicious, and to her surprise, Diana felt her appetite
stirring.

‘Now, where were we . . . ah, yes. The morning of the taxi, here in the flower-market
.
Your father tells you he has similar moments concerning your brother. He thinks he sees him
alive once more, yes?’

‘Yes, but he didn’t
hear
him too, like I did James. He—’

Hélène raised her hand for silence again. ‘Yes. And now, my dear, I am going to tell you something about myself.’

She paused to eat some of her own salad and pour them both a little of the rosé wine from the
demi-carafe
Diana had ordered.

‘So.’ Hélène dabbed her mouth with her napkin. ‘I told you I was married to an Englishman. His name was Gerald. We met in the war, the first one. Your own father
fought in it, you said?’

Diana nodded. ‘Yes, he was an infantry officer for almost the whole of the war in France.’

‘Then he was very lucky to survive and you were very lucky to have been born, my dear. I think he does not talk about his time in France much, yes?’

‘Hardly ever. He once told me it was more or less indescribable.’

‘Yes, well . . . that is certainly so. Diana, I was a nurse in that time. I worked in a field hospital just behind the lines, near Rouen. That is where I met my husband. He was brought in
with three machine-gun bullets in his shoulder. He was . . . how is it said . . . shocking.’

‘You mean in shock.’

‘Yes, he was in shock, and the doctors thought he was going to die, he had lost litres of blood. But I was determined not to let him die. I was not a very good nurse, Diana; I lost many of
my patients, although I am not certain now that any of them could really have been saved. Their wounds were so . . .’ Hélène fell silent for a few moments before continuing:
‘But with Gerald I had a feeling
here
’, she gestured to her heart with her fork, ‘that he was a man sent specially for me. It was my destiny to save him, you see. I
knew
this.’

Diana was intrigued. ‘What sort of man was he?’

Hélène laughed. ‘Was he a handsome officer, you mean? No. Well, he was an officer like your father, but Gerald looked like a little frog. I told him so, when he started to
get better and tried to flirt with me. “You are a little English frog,” I told him, so many times. But he just laughed. He told me he was a teacher and he would teach me English, and he
did. He was very patient with me and one afternoon, when he had fallen asleep in his bed, I looked at him and I discovered that I had fallen in love with him.’

Diana was absorbed in the story. ‘Where did you get married – in France or England?’

‘Oh, in England – in Manchester. Gerald’s parents lived there. My parents were
so
angry, first when they discover I was engaged to an Englishman, and then when I told
them I would be married in England!’ She smiled. ‘But at least they were happy he was a Catholic.

‘We were married in a beautiful little church in the heart of the city – the Hidden Gem, it is called. Next day, we caught the train back to London, Gerald transferred to a troop
train to the boats and I went back to Rouen on my own.’

Hélène sipped her wine. ‘I never saw him again. He was killed a few days later in a bombardment
.
All the men in Gerald’s trench were killed too, and they never
found their bodies. Not one. I received the news on the day that I discovered I was with child. My Marie. It was a little like you and your James, I think, Diana. We managed to make a new life
before . . . before . . .’

She fell silent. This time it was Diana who reached for Hélène’s hand. ‘I’m so sorry, Hélène . . . but why are you telling me this,
please?’

The other sighed. ‘Because I had
exactly
the same experience as you, my dear, and not just once. When I went to England to visit Gerald’s parents, I saw and heard him
everywhere . . . in trains, on buses, in cafés. I thought I was gone mad. Once in a restaurant I heard him laughing behind me in only the way Gerald could laugh, and then he said,
‘
There
you are!’ and I turned round and just for a moment I saw my little frog, but then he turned into a quite different man altogether. I cried and cried. Yet I had been
so certain
– just as you are, Diana. Just as you are.’

Diana finished her wine and filled the glass again from the carafe, thinking hard.

‘It’s because Gerald’s body was never found, isn’t it,’ she said at last. It was a statement, not a question.

‘Yes. You have quite taken the point, my dear. I believe that it is most important for one to see the body . . . or at least speak with someone who has. It makes the death a
realité
. . . one can accept it more easily, I think.’

Diana sat in silence for a long time. ‘Thank you, Hélène,’ she said eventually. ‘I feel as if you’ve woken me from a very strange dream. It hurts . . . it
hurts a lot . . . to let go of what I felt so
sure
was real, but everything you said about James never making any attempt to come back to me or send a message, and everything you say about
your experiences after your own husband was killed – well, of course, you’re right. I’ve been living in a fantasy.’

Hélène smiled at her. ‘Many women like us do, Diana, for a time at least. But we must help each other to accept the truth. I know I will never see my Gerald again; perhaps
you can accept the same about your James.’

‘Yes, I think I can.’ Diana stood up. ‘I’m not going to stay for the rest of the meal, Hélène. I want to get home to my daughter. Will you tell Armand to
put this on my account
?
I settle up with him at the end of each week.’

‘
Bien sûr
. Thank you.
’
Hélène rose too. She cupped Diana’s face in her hands and kissed her on each cheek. ‘I hope I was not too
hard.’

Diana smiled. ‘No, Hélène. On the contrary, you’ve saved me, that’s what you’ve done.’ She began to walk back to the Promenade des Anglais.

‘Will you come back here, Diana?’ the older woman called after her.

‘Of course,’ Diana said, turning around. ‘This is where I come to improve my French, isn’t it?’ She waved, and walked on.

Hélène was late to market the following morning. She hated that; it meant that most of the day’s business would be lost – if, indeed, there were any
suppliers left to buy stock from. They’d probably all gone home by now.

As she hurried through the back streets leading to the Cours Saleya, Hélène ran her tongue over her newly filled tooth. She’d woken in the night with a raging toothache. As a
former nurse, she had no fear of dentists and was waiting outside the surgery when the practitioner arrived to open up.

Hélène’s friends sometimes teased her that she ‘looked’ like a nurse. It was true. There was something very capable about her; Hélène wore her
competence like sensible clothes. As Diana had discovered, it was easy to place one’s trust in those grey eyes that looked out kindly from beneath a wide, smooth brow. Auburn hair, now
streaked with grey, was habitually tied back in a neat chignon. Even Hélène’s work-clothes had something of the hospital ward about them; she favoured green or pink striped
cotton dresses with formal white lace collars. She had never been seen in high heels of any description; Hélène always chose sensible flat, lace-up brogues.

She didn’t know why she was hurrying now. It was past ten o’clock and she might as well use what remained of the morning to do the repairs to her stall that she had been putting off
all spring. Both hinges on the wooden fold-down display top needed replacing, and the iron handle on the roll-up shutters was a disgrace, bent completely out of shape by a carelessly driven
delivery van last autumn.

Hélène opened her purse. Yes, she had enough francs to buy what she needed; there was no necessity to go to the bank. Hélène was not in any way well-off, but she was
not poor. She still had Gerald’s small British Army pension – Hélène had never remarried – and her daughter, conceived on their wedding night in a Manchester hotel,
was doing well in Paris, where she worked at one of the new fashion magazines that had sprung up after the war. Marie sometimes sent her mother cheques ‘just to help things along,
Maman
’ and Hélène was perfectly happy to accept them.

All in all, there was enough money for her to keep her long lease on a two-bedroom apartment just off the Rue de France, which ran parallel to the Promenade. It wasn’t as fashionable as
the residences along the seafront, but it was respectable, and one of the bedrooms had a partial view of the Mediterranean, if one stood in the right place.

Hélène headed for a
quincaillerie
she knew of just behind the Rue de la Préfecture. It was one of the oldest ironmongers in Nice; people joked that if you wanted
replacement handles for a sedan chair, they’d have a choice of styles and sizes.

It was while she was rummaging through a loose box of hinges ten minutes later that Hélène felt it. It had been a long time since that unmistakable sensation had troubled her.

She froze. There was no mistaking it: this feeling of deep lassitude, as if she were about to succumb to a fever. A nameless dread stealthily began to envelop her, like a dark cloak wrapping her
in its folds.

She managed to find a chair and sat down heavily. The shopkeeper, who had been selecting some new shutter handles for her to look at, returned with them at that moment and regarded her with
concern.

‘Is
madame
quite well?’

‘I’ll be all right in a minute. A glass of water would be very kind, if you could manage . . .’

‘Of course.’ He hurried away to fetch it.

Hélène’s friends teased her about something other than her nurse-like appearance. Sometimes they called her a witch. They were only half-joking.

Hélène had what her grandmother had called ‘
la talente
’ – the gift of second sight. It ran in her mother’s side of the family, although by no means
everyone inherited it. Her mother and grandmother certainly didn’t, but the old lady said that her own grandmother had, and that she had spoken of earlier generations of women in the family
who had possessed the gift, too.