The Child Left Behind (27 page)

Devastated, Bridgette watched him go, his shoulders hunched as if to protect himself from the words he had to say, and she felt her heart plummet. The man she loved, whom she had given her heart to, was no more, though his body hadn’t been recovered and might never be. She felt despair flow all through her.

Though she was saddened at the loss of Charles, who had worked so hard to impede and harass the Germans at every opportunity, James’s death filled her with anguish too deep to even cry out against, though she gasped aloud. People turned to look at her, but they were blurred and fuzzy and seemed a long way off and, though she could see their lips forming words, she couldn’t hear what they said. There was a roaring in her ears and she saw the pavement coming up to meet her, seconds before blackness settled all around her as she fell to the ground.

When Bridgette came to, she was lying in her own bed. Sitting beside her on a chair was her Aunt Yvette. ‘What happened?’ she said, but even as she spoke the words she knew what had happened and the realisation that she would never ever see James Carmichael again swept over her.

Yvette told her that their car had been brought to a halt by a crowd of people thronging the pavement and the street. ‘We got out to see what had caused the commotion,’ she said, ‘and what a shock we both got to see you lying there in a heap on
the ground. The people told us a doctor had been summoned, and Henri told them to direct him to the bakery. He scooped you up, put you in the back seat of the car and brought you home.’

‘And has the doctor been?’

‘Yes,’ Yvette said. ‘He could shed no light on why you had fainted. He did say that you were very thin, but he said lots in the town are suffering from malnutrition at the moment.’

In fact, Yvette had been in the room while the doctor examined Bridgette, as Gabrielle had expressly asked her to be, and she had been totally stunned by Bridgette’s appearance. She was more than thin, her ribs stuck right out, the skin stretched tight across them, her shoulder blades were scrawny and her arms and legs positively skinny. Yvette had lost weight herself, most people in France had, but she looked nothing like as thin as Bridgette.

Yvette had thought she had looked a fright because, with the Parisian costume houses closed or converted to making military uniforms, and rationing and restrictions on clothes, style had to go out of the window. The lemon summer suit she wore was more than three years old but it was well cut, and though her legs were bare when once she would have worn fine silk stockings, her sandals showed off her slender feet. She’d had her old navy-blue hat revamped and adorned with a few feathers.

To Bridgette, though, she looked magnificent and
she said so. Her own dresses were threadbare and bedraggled, and had had the goodness and colour washed out of them, and her shoes were worn down nearly to the uppers.

‘Oh, this is just some old thing,’ Yvette said. ‘Most of my things are old now. You can get nothing decent at all, even in Paris, these days. But never mind about that. You are far too thin, Bridgette, and need a bit of feeding up, I feel. Was it just hunger that made you faint? The doctor said it could have been caused by some sort of shock.’

‘The doctor was right. I have had a shock,’ Bridgette said, drawing back the bedcovers. ‘But I must see if Maman is all right.’

‘She’s fine,’ Yvette said pushing her niece back on the bed. ‘Except that she is terribly worried about you. Henri is sitting with her now.’

‘Henri?’

‘Yes, and don’t look so surprised,’ Yvette said. ‘He is very good at things like this and if he can’t cope he’ll call us. What’s upsetting your mother at the moment is your collapse and the reason for it.’

‘As I said, I had a shock,’ Bridgette said.

‘D’you want to tell me about it?’ Yvette asked gently.

‘I may as well.’ Bridgette said. ‘I don’t suppose it matters now.’

She told her aunt first about joining the Resistance after Xavier’s death. She thought Yvette might be shocked at that but she wasn’t.

‘How could I be?’ Yvette said when Bridgette queried this. ‘My boys did the same thing. Not at first, though Henri and I both knew that they were restless on the farm. We had thought to protect them, but there was nowhere in France to ensure their safety. One day, the soldiers came to the farm to round up the men for the labour camps in Germany. Raoul and Gerard had been given jobs around the farmhouse that day and they hid in the hayloft until the soldiers left, taking with them Henri’s cousin’s husband and two sons. We went on a visit when we hadn’t heard from the boys for some time and were told they had packed their bags the very next day and set off to find what they termed the Freedom Fighters.’

‘I’m sorry. You must be worried.’

‘Every day,’ Yvette said. ‘Liberation cannot come too soon for me, but now you go on with your story.’

And so Bridgette told her aunt about her time in the Resistance, right up the point when she hid the secret agent, James Carmichael. She even told her that their fondness for each other had grown into love. In fact she explained everything, except the details of their last night.

‘And then today,’ she said, ‘I heard something that I hoped never to hear. She told her aunt what had transpired, not even aware when she began to cry.

Yvette felt her own eyes prickling at the wretchedness in Bridgette’s face as she said, ‘I feel
as if I am some sort of jinx. I have loved two men in my life, Xavier Laurent and then James Carmichael, and now both of them are dead and gone.’

‘Oh my love,’ Yvette cried as she held her niece close. ‘That isn’t anything to do with you. It’s this dreadful war.’

‘Well, I’ll not risk it again,’ Bridgette said fiercely. ‘This heartbreak isn’t worth it.’

The following day, once Bridgette was properly on her feet again, she asked why Henri had driven from Paris in the black Citroën he had parked outside the bakery.

‘Well, the trains are not the safest route in or out of Paris at the moment,’ Yvette said. ‘The FFI keep blowing up the lines. It’s done to harass the Germans, but of course it affects everybody else as well.’

‘Who are the FFI?’

‘Resistance groups from in and around Paris under the one banner
“Forces Françaises de l’Intérieur”’
, Henri told her. ‘They are said to be more effective joined together in one mass.’

‘I can see that,’ Bridgette said. ‘And to be honest I have done my share of blowing up railway lines, but isn’t petrol for cars hard to get hold of?’

‘Dreadfully hard,’ Henri said. ‘Though if you have the money, they sell it on the black market.’

‘Is that where you bought the petrol to get here?’

‘In Paris I didn’t have to,’ Henri said. ‘I have
contacts. But how we will get home is another matter. And,’ he added, ‘not one that you have to fret about. I think you have got more than enough to worry over as it is.’

Henri was right because although the arrival of her sister had perked Gabrielle up initially, it was a false high that exhausted her and she went steadily downhill from that moment.

‘Does Robert not come in to see her?’ Henri asked. ‘He seemed not the least concerned when I told him how her condition had worsened.’

‘You shouldn’t be surprised,’ Bridgette commented wryly. ‘There are only two people that Robert Legrand cares about. One is himself and the other his son. He seldom looks in on Maman and he never comes into the room. He is afraid to.’

‘Are you not afraid?’

‘I take basic precautions,’ Bridgette said. ‘I keep her towels and flannels and plates and cups separate, but I don’t think about the risk. Maman needed care and I promised to provide it.’

‘Well, while we are here we shall help you,’ Henri said. ‘And there is no more dipping into your savings. Any food needed I will buy.’

Bridgette felt the weight eased from between her shoulder blades and she was glad to leave that problem in Henri’s capable hands.

Yvette and Henri had been at the bakery two weeks by the beginning of August, when Gabrielle had been given the Last Rites.

The next day cheering could be heard in the distance. They were all in the bedroom and Henri crossed to the window and looked out to see people running down the street.

‘I think the Allies are here at last,’ he said.

Gabrielle opened her weary eyes, her lips twisted into a smile, and she said in the husky whisper she had developed, ‘Good news!’

‘The best news in the world,’ Henri said, and Bridgette could have echoed that sentiment. In the streets below it was like carnival time. The smiling, marching American soldiers were welcomed and encouraged by the waving, cheering crowds. The noise was almost deafening, and Bridgette saw women lifting their babies to see those who had set them free from Germanic tyranny and children dodging about for the sweets some of the soldiers threw.

Gabrielle began to cough and Bridgette turned from the window and lifted her quickly in case she choked. Suddenly blood spurted from her mouth in a scarlet stream. Bridgette had a sense somehow that this was the end.

‘Fetch the doctor,’ she called to Henri, though she knew in her heart of hearts that the doctor could do nothing now.

Yvette swallowed her distaste and helped her hold Gabrielle up in the bed to prevent her choking to death on the blood that was still pumping from her.

‘And you’d better tell Legrand as you pass,’ Bridgette added. Henri nodded as he went out.

By the time the doctor came, the haemorrhage was over, the soiled bedding had been removed, and Gabrielle lay propped up on fresh pillows, every breath coming like a tortured gasp in her throat. Bridgette left the doctor examining her mother and crossed to the window to join Henri and Yvette, not wanting to be anywhere near Legrand, who had taken his usual stance in the doorway.

As the doctor finished, Bridgette turned from the joyful gaiety on the streets and she didn’t need to see the doctor’s grave voice or hear his words. She took her place by her mother’s side and lifted up her blue-veined hand, knowing that it was the last thing she would ever do for her.

Suddenly Gabrielle opened her eyes. Bridgette saw that they were glazed with pain, and she felt her stomach contract in sympathy for her mother’s suffering. ‘Lie easy, Maman,’ she said.

Gabrielle was agitated, as if she had something to say, and Bridgette leaned forward because she could hardly hear the words: ‘Go and find your father’s family.’

Bridgette, thinking it would ease her, said, ‘I will, Maman.’

Gabrielle’s hand tightened slightly in Bridgette’s as she said, ‘Promise me, Bridgette.’

Bridgette didn’t want to promise, but how could she deny her mother anything when she was so close to death? She had thought she had prepared herself for this moment when they would say
goodbye. She had known from the first she wouldn’t recover, but she found at the point of death none of that helped. ‘I promise, Maman,’ she said.

She heard Gabrielle’s sigh of relief, and then she suddenly went limp. The rasping breathing was stopped and the room was suddenly incredibly still.

The doctor moved to the other side of the bed and said gently, ‘She’s gone, Bridgette.’

‘I know,’ Bridgette said and she laid her mother’s hand across her chest and got to her feet.

‘What did she want?’ Yvette said, for none had been able to hear the whispered conversation between Bridgette and her mother.

‘Nothing of any consequence,’ Bridgette said.

Afterwards, she knew why she hadn’t told her aunt the truth, and that was because she didn’t know what she was going to do about the deathbed promise she had given to her mother. It was a promise that she definitely didn’t want to keep.

Yvette and Henri assumed that Bridgette would return with them to live in Paris permanently after the funeral, but when they first mentioned it she wasn’t sure she wanted to go. The Laurents were good dear friends, and her mother would also be buried here. She had lived in St-Omer all her life and knew most of the town through serving in the bakery and later in the ladies’ outfitters, and also attending Mass. She knew not a soul in Paris apart from Yvette and Henri, and because Legrand had cut off all contact she didn’t really know them that well.

And yet once Yvette and Henri returned, what would happen to her if she stayed? Legrand would not let her stay in the bakery and, indeed, she didn’t want to stay with him and Georges neither of whom could she trust one inch. So she would have to find somewhere to live and some way of supporting herself.

She wished she didn’t have to make a decision
so quickly, although she knew that Henri had a business to attend to, but she was so saddened she felt hollow and empty inside. Yvette understood this; she was missing her sister dreadfully, for all they seldom saw each other.

‘When you lose someone—or in your case two people—who were dear to you,’ she said gently, ‘it’s comforting to cling to the familiar, but I can see no future for you here. Come back with Henri and me, at least for a while, to get stronger emotionally, take stock and decide what you want to do with your life. You have looked after your mother so well, you must feel drained of all strength. Let us look after you for a change.’

Yvette’s words were like balm on Bridgette’s broken and bruised heart, and the thought of someone looking after her for a time was comforting. It needn’t be for ever, but for now she sensed that it was the wisest decision and she nodded.

‘You are as lovely and kind as I always remember you,’ she told her aunt in a voice husky with unshed tears, ‘and I will return with you to Paris.’

Yvette breathed a sigh of relief. She knew that Henri would feel the same because they had worried about leaving Bridgette behind in St-Omer when they went back to Paris.

Gabrielle’s funeral, on a beautiful morning three days later, was well attended, but Bridgette couldn’t help feeling that it might have been better if just
some of the people thronging the church had come to spend a little time with her mother before she died. She was so sorrow-laden she barely noticed Madame Pretin and her cronies gathered around her, all glaring.

Yvette noticed, though, and was determined to ask her niece about it at the first opportunity, but she would have to tread carefully for they had already had a difference of opinion about the mourners to be asked back to the house. Bridgette refused to invite any but the Laurents.

‘But they will expect—’

‘Well then, they will be disappointed,’ Bridgette snapped back. ‘How many times do you think Maman was disappointed that no neighbour but Marie and Lisette came to visit?’

‘TB is a frightening illness.’

‘Fear of that, or anything else, would not keep me from the bedside of a sick friend,’ Bridgette said fiercely. ‘They’re not coming and that’s that.’

‘It isn’t worth upsetting Bridgette over this,’ Henri told Yvette. ‘I mean,’ he added, as Yvette continued to chew her bottom lip in an agitated manner, ‘she hasn’t even got to live with these people afterwards now she has decided to go travel to Paris with us when we leave.’

And so it was a sad little party that gathered in the living room of the bakery later. Bridgette’s sorrowful mood affected the whole atmosphere. Legrand and Georges were worse than useless and kept complaining at the scarcity of drink offered,
and Yvette herself was filled with melancholy and already missing her sister.

Marie, Maurice and Lisette didn’t stay very long, and barely had the door closed on them when Bridgette turned to Legrand and said, ‘I heard you complain about the lack of drink more than once, but I didn’t see you put your hand in your pocket at all. If it hadn’t been for Henri’s generosity it would have been a poor send-off for Maman.’

‘I haven’t any money,’ Legrand said. ‘You know how we are placed.’

‘Yes, I know,’ Bridgette sneered. ‘I also know why. You are not the only baker in town, but if you were, there are plenty who would walk to the next, rather than buy bread from you.’

Bridgette was right, and Legrand knew it. There were few people seemingly wanting his bread and cakes now. He and Georges were increasingly not made welcome in the bars in the town either. That maddened him because, before liberation, they had been more than willing to take his money off him. However, he wasn’t going to admit that.

‘You should keep a civil tongue in your head and show me some respect,’ he said.

‘How could I respect a Nazi lover?’ Bridgette spat out. ‘Anyway, you have no jurisdiction over me because you are not my real father. And Maman made me one of the happiest people in the world when she gave me that news because I have none of your blood running through my veins.’

‘Why you…’

Legrand made a lunge towards Bridgette, his arm raised, but Henri stepped between the two of them, his eyes flashing with temper. ‘I shouldn’t do that if I were you,’ he said, and though he spoke calmly enough, his words were like steel.

Henri was a well-set-up man, while much of Legrand’s bulk had run to fat. He also spoke with an air of authority.

Legrand lowered his arm and growled, ‘I’m going out. Coming, Georges?’

When the door closed behind Legrand and his son, Yvette squeezed Bridgette’s hand and said, ‘I’m glad that Gabrielle told you about your father at last. I wanted to tell you years ago.’

‘She was too afraid of Legrand to go against anything he said,’ Bridgette said. ‘She explained all that. It was better than Christmas, though, when she told me that I was not related to him.’

‘Was it right what you said about him?’ Henri asked Bridgette. ‘Was he a Nazi sympathiser?’

‘He was worse than that,’ Bridgette said. ‘He also informed against his own people. And Georges was just as bad. The Resistance knew all about them.’

‘And those women today in the church, who looked as though they hated you—where do they come in?’

‘You noticed too?’ Yvette said.

‘Oh yes,’ said Henri, ‘I noticed. Well, Bridgette?’

Bridgette sighed and said, ‘It was because Legrand was so well in with the Germans that I
was asked to hide the British agent. They thought it unlikely that this house would be searched although the storm troopers were searching every other house. It was noted, of course, that ours wasn’t, and the following Sunday, Madame Pretin was waiting for me before Mass, together with her cronies, who are nearly as bad as she is, and she said that our house hadn’t been searched because I had been doing favours for the Germans. God,’ she said, and gave a shiver, ‘I would rather have dealings with a sabre-toothed tiger than have any sort of a relationship with a German. Some believed it too—I could see in their eyes—but I couldn’t tell them the truth, so I stopped going to church, using Maman’s illness as an excuse. I suppose I thought that they’d get over it.’

‘Madame Pretin never gets over anything,’ Yvette said. ‘I remember her well. I pointed her out to you, Henri.’

‘Yes, and I have met her sort before,’ Henri said grimly. He turned to Bridgette. ‘Is there any who could verify your time in the Resistance?’

‘Not now,’ Bridgette said sadly. ‘You see, because of security you only deal with one, or perhaps two people. I knew only one man, Charles, whose body was found in the wood the day you arrived. That might not even be his real name.’

‘Then, my dear Bridgette,’ Henri said gravely, ‘I fear your life is in great danger and the sooner we leave here and go back to Paris, the better I will like it.’

Bridgette stared at him. ‘What on earth are you talking about?’

‘Listen to me,’ Henri said earnestly. ‘Most of the Allies have moved on now, and the euphoria that this town is free again is dying down. Shortly this will turn to anger and they will be looking to blame and punish those who were friends in one way and another to the Germans.’

‘But I wasn’t, I didn’t,’ Bridgette protested.

‘Can you prove that?’

‘Well, no, but—’

‘Bridgette, those women staring at you today in the church mean business; they mean to harm you,’ Henri said. ‘You could almost feel their malevolence against you.’

‘Don’t you think that you are being a little dramatic?’

Henri shrugged. ‘Maybe I am,’ he said. ‘But you haven’t been out in the streets just lately as I have, sorting out the shopping for us all, and over the last few days the mood amongst the people has changed. You can almost feel it, and now they seem set on revenge against those they will see as the traitors of France.’

‘I am no traitor.’

‘That might not be the way that they look at it,’ Henri said. ‘You lived in the same house as two known informers. That alone might taint you.’

‘But it’s so silly.’

‘It’s not silly, Bridgette,’ Henri said. ‘It’s frightening. People like that woman that we saw today
in church thrive on inciting others. Never underestimate people like that. Up until now, you had been protected a little by the fact that your mother was so ill, but today we buried her and so any protection you had is now gone.’

‘I can scarcely credit this,’ Bridgette said, shaking her head. But she knew that Henri, never given to flights of fancy, was really concerned. ‘All right,’ she said. ‘What d’you want me to do?’

Bridgette could see Henri gave a sigh of relief. ‘Pack up all your clothes,’ he said, ‘and anything else you want to take with you. I want to leave tomorrow and as early as possible.’

‘So soon?’

‘The earlier the better. I am off now to beg, borrow or steal enough petrol to get us back to Paris.’

When he had had gone, Bridgette said to Yvette, ‘Henri is not one to dither, is he? He makes a decision and that’s it.’

‘Yes,’ Yvette said. ‘But he usually is right about these things, and you were coming back with us anyway. You’re just making the journey a little earlier than expected.’

‘Mmm, I suppose,’ said Bridgette. ‘And I had better start packing up my things because I want to pop along and see the Laurents before I leave. They have been good friends of mine and I know that I will miss them sorely.’

Marie and Lisette commiserated with Bridgette over the loss of her mother. She had never really
had the chance before to tell them about James, but she told them that night and they were all full of sympathy and support. They were very upset too when Bridgette told them that she was leaving early the next morning, but even more concerned when she said why Henri thought the haste so necessary.

‘Couldn’t we verify the fact that you were a member of the Resistance?’ Lisette said. ‘I mean, we all knew. Papa even made you a special beret.’

‘You might not be believed,’ Bridgette said. ‘They know what friends we all were and, as well as that, I was married to Xavier so part of the family. If they didn’t believe what you said then you could become targets as well.’ She shook her head, ‘I couldn’t take that risk, and it might even affect the children,’

‘Do you think so?’

‘I don’t know,’ Bridgette said. ‘I can’t be sure of anything. It’s just that Henri seems to think that vindictive people are dangerous and Madame Pretin is about as vindictive as it is possible to be.’

‘Well, I agree with him there at any rate,’ Lisette said. ‘She’s a horrible person.

‘And if you speak for me, you will have to live in the town afterwards and cope with Madame Pretin and her ilk. I am leaving, getting away.’

‘But you wouldn’t have to go if we told people how it really was. That’s what we’re saying,’ Marie said.

‘But Henri seems to think that I might be in
danger in any case because I am related, or at least they assume I am related, to Legrand, and living in the same house as a known collaborator is not a healthy thing to do. It is really better that I go away for a while and that you don’t get involved.’

‘It’s just so sad when you’ve done nothing wrong at all,’ Lisette said. ‘We will all miss you so much.’

‘I will miss you too,’ Bridgette said. ‘But it may not be for ever.’

‘The children will be sorry that they were asleep and weren’t able to see you to say their goodbyes,’ Marie said.

Bridgette was sorry not to see the children too. She hadn’t seen them for weeks because of her mother’s illness, and when she stopped going to Mass on Sundays she didn’t see them there either. ‘Just give them my love in the morning,’ she told Lisette.

‘They will probably be much changed the next time that you see them,’ Lisette said. ‘And there must be a next time. You must come back and see us when everything has calmed down and the world is a more stable place.’ And then she added plaintively, ‘This can’t be the end of everything.’

‘Of course it can’t,’ Bridgette cried. ‘I will certainly come back.’

When she bid her dear friends goodbye, they were all crying—even Maurice’s eyes were glistening—and Bridgette had to compose herself and wipe her eyes before she went into the bakery.

The next morning she left the bakery with very mixed emotions. Legrand and Georges were still in bed. In the general way of things they would usually be up by then, but Legrand had said that he was closing the shop for three days as a mark of respect for Gabrielle.

Bridgette had snorted in disbelief when Henri told her that.

‘He never showed my mother an ounce of respect when she was alive,’ she said. ‘And after the way he behaved at her funeral I cannot see that changing now she is dead. The real reason they will not be opening the shop is because he has such few customers now it’s hardly worth starting the ovens up.’

‘Have you left him a note to say where you have gone?’ Yvette asked.

Bridgette shook her head. ‘He’ll know. Come on, Auntie, Henri is getting impatient.’

‘You ready then?’

‘Absolutely,’ Bridgette said. ‘My life has been packed neatly into two suitcases.’

‘Ah, but a new life is just beginning,’ Yvette said.

‘You’re right,’ said Bridgette, and she left her home without a backward glance, closing the door behind her with a definite thud. She climbed into the car beside Yvette and they drove through the mainly deserted streets of the town and started their journey to Paris through the pearly dawn of a summer’s day.