The Child Left Behind (7 page)

‘Well, what if I have?’

‘You’re a bloody quick worker, that’s all I can say. For weeks you went round snapping the head
off everyone because of some devotion to Gabrielle Jobert.’

‘And you thought I was crazy and told me so.’

‘I did,’ Christy said. ‘I’m glad that you have come to your senses. I don’t suppose that this new woman of yours has got any sisters or friends that you could introduce me to?’

‘I’m not introducing you to anyone,’ Finn said. ‘Get your own woman, like I did.’

‘Well, that’s a mate for you,’ Christy said, slightly affronted. ‘Anyone decent would take pity on me and put in a word.’

‘Good job then that I don’t consider myself the decent sort.’

‘What’s her name then?’

‘That really is my business,’ Finn said, as they went up the steps of the Headquarters. ‘Anyway, we’re here now. See you tonight.’

Finn was glad that, without him having to say much, his friend had jumped to the wrong conclusion about the girl that he was seeing, as Captain Hamilton had.

The captain was glad to see a smile on Finn’s face for once. ‘Good God, man,’ he said, ‘I thought your face was set in that glum expression you’ve carried around for weeks now.’

Finn had a large grin on his face as he said, ‘Yes, sir. Sorry, sir.’

‘You don’t look in the slightest bit sorry,’ the captain said with a smile. ‘Did the constant rain get you down too?’

‘A bit, sir. Sometimes the clothes I put on each morning were not what you might call bone dry, and that sort of starts the day off all wrong.’

‘All well,’ the captain said, ‘the weather is the one thing that none of us can do the slightest thing about. Now, tonight I am going to a dinner with the top brass. Between you and me, something big is afoot. Anyway my dress uniform must be spotless.’

‘I’ll deal with that directly, sir,’ Finn said. ‘By the time I have finished you will be the best dressed man there, sir.’

Christy had lost no time in telling the whole camp that Finn Sullivan was seeing a girl from the town. Consequently, Finn came in for a fair bit of teasing, because he was one who had spurned the camp followers and now the dirty sod was having it away with some French piece.

‘What’s she like?’ one of Finn’s comrades asked. ‘I’ve heard these little French damsels like a little bit of the altogether.’

Finn could hardly blame him for thinking that way. He himself had thought the French girls ripe for sex. However, he had found that most of the ordinary girls in St-Omer seemed very like the ones in his home town, and just as hidebound by the Catholic Church. But he was not going to share details of his love life with his jeering fellow soldiers, though he did say, ‘You are altogether too anxious to get your leg over and the girls sense
that. No wonder few of them will give you the time of day.’

There were hoots and howls of derision at Finn’s words and another man called out, ‘Now he is going to try and have us believe that all he does with his little French number is hold hands.’

Finn hid his smile for he had done little else. He knew that holding a girl in his arms and kissing her luscious lips would be considered incredibly tame by his comrades. However, he wanted to spend the rest of his life with Gabrielle and so, whatever it cost him, he would respect her until he placed that very special ring on her finger. But he said none of this, and he bore the ribaldry directed his way.

Eventually, they tired of it, as he knew they would, and then he remarked quietly to Christy, ‘Do you fancy doing something together this evening?’

Christy eyed him speculatively. ‘Haven’t you got bigger fish to fry tonight?’

‘No.’

‘Had words, have you?’

‘No, we haven’t had words,’ Finn said. ‘Her parents don’t want her to go out at the weekends because there are too many marauding soldiers about.’

‘Funny then that they let her go out with you.’

‘Maybe they think that I am not the marauding type,’ Finn said.

Christy gave a wry chuckle. ‘If they really believe
that, then I think they must be truly stupid, for you’re as lusty as any other man.’

Finn laughed and he clapped Christy on the back. ‘No change there then. So do you want to go out with this lustful man this evening or don’t you?’

Christy put his head on one side as if considering the proposal, then said, ‘D’you know, I don’t mind if I do.’

Finn did, however, tell at least something of his relationship with Gabrielle in his letter to his brothers, which provoked much interest and speculation between Tom and Joe.

I have to tell you both, I have met the most wonderful girl and her name is Gabrielle. She is the most beautiful girl in the whole world. She isn’t a camp follower, I don’t want you to think that, but a respectable girl from a decent Catholic family in the town. I saw her and her younger sister, Yvette, walking through the town with their father a few weeks ago. He hardly lets the two girls out of his sight and I can’t say I blame him, with the place teeming with soldiers, but I did manage to sneak a word with her and we are in love and I can’t tell you how happy I am.

‘Well, well, well,’ Joe said, folding up the letter and handing it back to Tom. ‘I thought that the
purpose of our young brother going to France was to fight the Hun, not try and bed every girl in the whole country.’

‘He has never said he loved anyone before.’

‘You know what?’ Joe said. ‘All that means is that this Gabrielle has held out longer than the others.’

‘You think that’s all it is?’

‘Don’t you?’ Joe said. ‘He’s a boy. What does he know of love?’

‘Huh! What do any of us?’

‘Well, that’s true, I suppose,’ Joe conceded. ‘I expect you know when it hits you. But you need to have more experience than Finn.’

Tom laughed. ‘To judge from his letters he has had more experience than both you and me together.’

‘I still don’t see where he has the time,’ Joe grumbled.

‘Well, they have free time sometimes.’

‘In the middle of a battle? It isn’t a matter of saying to the advancing German armies, “Hold your hand, chaps, while I have a quick dalliance with a French damsel.”’

‘Sure this isn’t just sour grapes?’ Tom asked.

Joe sighed. ‘You know. Tom, you could be right. Don’t get me wrong. I know war is a serious business and I do miss Finn and worry about him, and I know he can tell us very few details, but he does seem to be leading the life of Riley at the moment.’

Nuala knew that her brother was in love,
because in his letter to her he had poured out his heart, knowing that she wouldn’t laugh at him. She would be sixteen in the spring of 1916 and it thrilled her that her brother Finn, who she loved dearly, was beginning his very own love story.

She guessed he would not have said face to face what he committed to paper, for he spoke about his limbs trembling when he was near Gabrielle, the way his heart turned over when she smiled at him and the tingle that ran between them when they held hands. Her romantic soul drank it in eagerly and she wrote a supportive letter back to him.

Nuala would have liked to have discussed Finn’s letter and his declaration of love for Gabrielle with her brothers. She wouldn’t have divulged all the romantic things that she guessed were for her eyes only, but it was difficult to talk to them about anything without her mother hearing and it would never do for her to learn about Finn’s romance. That would be the very last thing Finn would want.

It wasn’t that they never talked of Finn; sometimes Nuala thought they talked of little else, for her mother would almost dissect every word he wrote to her and they would talk about him as a happy young child. They remembered that he usually went about the place with a smile on his face and his laughter often used to echo around the yard.

‘He would talk nonstop sometimes,’ Thomas John said one night. ‘And plague me to death with
questions wanting to know the whys and wherefores of every damned thing. I would often tell him to stop his blether and give me some peace, but what I’d give now to hear him chuntering away.’

They all knew what Thomas John meant. They missed Finn and when he had been gone some months Thomas John began to look forward to the end of the war and Finn coming home. He’d say things like, ‘When Finn is back where he belongs, I’ll look to getting a few more cows.’ Or, ‘When the lad’s back home, I’ve a mind to till that top field that’s lying fallow just now.’

The end of the war seemed as far away as ever as 1915 drew to a close. Finn and Gabrielle’s lovemaking grew more ardent as the days and then weeks passed. If they met in the park, they were as respectable as they had been in the beginning. It was different in the confines of the farmhouse though December was halfway through before Finn kissed Gabrielle properly.

She was astounded at first, and quite perturbed by the strange yearnings coursing through her body and the moan she let slip. When she felt Finn feeling her clothed body, it felt so right, so good that she let him continue.

Afterwards, in her bed, she remembered what Finn had done and how it had made her feel, and she grew hot with shame. Yet she knew she would do it all again, for when she was with him all form
of reason, even what was wrong or right, didn’t seem to matter any more. Further than this, though, Finn refused to go. He was more experienced than Gabrielle and knew just how easy it was to lose control, but he was aware that it got more difficult and frustrating every time he pulled away.

Finn often talked of his family and Gabrielle loved hearing of them all.

One night, as they snuggled together, Gabrielle said, ‘You told me all about your sister Aggie a while ago. You said everyone had a good time with the music and everything. Why did it stop?’

‘Well,’ said Finn, ‘that was a mystery and a half. You see, one day Aggie just disappeared.’

‘Disappeared?’

‘Aye,’ Finn said. ‘She was fifteen and they say she ran away with the gypsies. I was only five and I was scared of gypsies for some time after that. But as I grew up, I was less and less sure, because it would be such an odd thing for her to do. Tom never believed that story either, and he and Aggie were close. Not that we could talk about it openly, because our mother disowned her and we were forbidden to speak her name, but I would sometimes hear my brothers talking about her when they didn’t know I was there.’

‘So what do you think did happen to her?’

Finn shook his head. ‘I don’t know, and likely never will.’

‘That is awful,’ Gabrielle said. ‘She was only
two years younger than I am now, and to just disappear like that…’

‘I know,’ Finn said. ‘I remember the Guards coming and all, and no trace could be found of her. The point was she had nowhere to go. She had apparently taken clothes, not that any of us had many, but she had no money at all.’

‘What a terribly sad story.’

‘Aye,’ Finn said. ‘Aggie brought me up nearly as much as my mother did and was very much nicer and kinder altogether, and I remember crying for days. I kept getting into trouble because I kept forgetting we weren’t supposed to mention her name.’

‘But you were only a little boy.’

‘That didn’t matter to my mother,’ Finn said. ‘She used to fly into the most terrifying rages. I tell you, Gabrielle, they would scare the stoutest of hearts. We are all scared of her, Tom most of all, and she has a cane hanging up by the fire that we have felt the sting of. She beat me with it one day when I mentioned Aggies’s name by mistake, but my father put a stop to it when he found out.’

‘So he was kinder?’

Finn considered this. ‘I suppose,’ he said at last. ‘Fairer, maybe. He is the only one Mammy listens to, but except for Nuala, hugs and kisses were just never part of our growing up.’

‘No, they wouldn’t have been in mine if my father had had his way,’ Gabrielle said. ‘But in that at least my mother defied him. My life seems
so dull in comparison to yours, though. Is that the end of the story?’

‘Almost,’ Finn said. ‘In Ireland many people can make a story out of nothing and memories are kept alive by being spoken about from one to another, often for years. Aggie’s disappearance, though, and the speculation surrounding it was overshadowed, because only a few days afterwards, a man called McAllister, who taught the boys to play the tunes and the girls the dancing, was found dead.’

‘Was that a mystery too?’

‘No,’ Finn said. ‘He was apparently thrown from his horse. It was spoken about and discussed, and was quite the news for a while.’

‘What of your other sister?’ Gabrielle asked. ‘The one you said got all the hugs and kisses. Is there a story about her too?’

‘Not much of a one,’ said Finn, smiling at the thought of Nuala. ‘Maybe because she is the youngest my parents spoiled her terribly. She is four years younger than me and pretty as a picture and, despite my parents, she has a lovely nature. She is nursemaid to the children of the big Protestant family beside us and loving every minute of it.’ He looked at Gabrielle and smiled. ‘She knows all about you, for I write and tell her, and I would love you to meet her.’

‘I would like to meet them all,’ Gabrielle said.

‘And so you shall, my darling,’ Finn said. ‘Just as soon as the war is over, I am out of the army and the world is a safer place.’

Gabrielle’s Parisian relatives were coming to spend the festive season with the Joberts, as they had done many times before.

‘They are nice,’ Gabrielle told Finn. ‘Really nice. Uncle Raoul is a dear, and Aunt Bernadette is such fun. She’s always up to the minute with fashion though she is older than Maman.’

‘When are they due to arrive?’

‘Christmas Eve,’ Gabrielle said. ‘And they usually stay until New Year. The thing is, it will be almost impossible to see you while they are here.’

‘Why?’ Finn cried.

‘Well, for one thing, my aunt thinks it’s quite monstrous that Yvette and I should be expected to go to bed at half-past eight in the evening. It doesn’t happen when she is here, because she always says she wants to see more of her nieces, and after the evening meal we all sit and talk or even play games. Anyway, I couldn’t risk my slipping out because the
guest bedroom is on the same side of the house as our room, and Aunt Bernadette is always saying what a light sleeper she is.’

Finn resigned himself to not seeing Gabrielle for the rest of the year, but he tried to keep any resentment out of his voice or his manner; it wasn’t Gabrielle’s fault.

He’d bought her a silver locket for Christmas. It had cost him a great deal of money, especially as he had had it engraved ‘F loves G Christmas 1915’. He had no photograph to put in it so instead enclosed a lock of his hair, and he gave it to Gabrielle as they sat on the sofa in front of the fire in the farmhouse the evening before Christmas Eve.

She was surprised and enchanted with her present. It was beautiful and she knew Finn must have had to save up for it because soldiers were not highly paid.

‘Don’t worry about the cost of it,’ Finn said when she expressed concern about him spending so much. ‘That’s not how to receive a present. You are worth more than fifty thousand lockets, and if I had the means I would shower you with jewellery.’

Gabrielle smiled. ‘I should not want that. I am content with this locket bought with such love. Thank you so much. I will wear it beneath my clothes always,’ she promised as Finn fastened the chain around her neck. ‘It will lie against my heart. I am only so sorry that I have nothing to give you in return.’

‘You don’t give a present to expect one back,’
Finn said. ‘Just thinking of you wearing the locket is present enough for me. It will remind you of me when I am gone from this place.’

‘I don’t like to think of that time,’ Gabrielle said, her voice forlorn. ‘I know one day it will come, but when it does I shall have no need of any locket to remind me of you. You are ingrained in my heart and you will take a sizeable piece of it when you leave. Have you any idea when it will be?’

‘Nothing official,’ Finn said. ‘They don’t tell soldiers useful things like that, but I am concerned for you because you told me that your father would want a good marriage for you and your sister because he has no sons.’

‘It is not my fault that my father has no sons,’ Gabrielle said. ‘And I told you already that I would only ever marry for love, and the only man I love is you.’

‘It might be ages before I am able to return for you,’ Finn told her. ‘Years even, because there’s no time limit on war.’

‘I will wait for you for however long it takes,’ Gabrielle said simply. ‘I love you with all my heart and soul, and that will never change.’

Finn felt a lump rise in his throat. He took Gabrielle into his arms and when she snuggled tight against him he felt that his heart would burst for love of this beautiful girl. When his tongue slid into her mouth between her opened lips, he heard her gasp of pleasure. He let his tongue dart backwards
and forwards until Gabrielle was unable to stop herself groaning in desire.

That night, maybe the thought they wouldn’t see each other for days, or the gift of the locket and their declaration of their love for one another, conspired to make Gabrielle ready for more. Finn could feel it in every line of her body. When he began stroking her clothed body she moaned with the sheer pleasure of his touch. He began to open the buttons on her blouse, thinking any moment that she would stop him, but instead she helped him. He slipped his trembling hands inside and when he cupped his hands around her plump, firm breasts for the first time she gave a sigh of contentment.

Finn felt as if he was on fire, and when Gabrielle arched her back to make it easier for him to reach every part of her, he knew that she was ready. He could take her here and she would do nothing to stop him.

But how could he do that to the woman he loved and then leave her unprotected and unsupported? The effort it took for Finn to pull back was immense, especially when Gabrielle clung on to him.

‘Stop, Gabrielle!’ he cried, disentangling himself with difficulty.

‘I don’t want to stop.’

Finn sighed. ‘Neither do I,’ he admitted.

‘Then…’

‘Gabrielle, you don’t know what you’re saying.’
Finn said. He pulled away from her slightly; to touch her again now would be madness. ‘I love you and desire you so much and yet I know I must show you respect because I can offer you nothing. But if we go on with this much longer, then there will come a point when I will be unable to stop. Do you understand what I am telling you, Gabrielle?’

‘I think so,’ Gabrielle said, but really she was ignorant of the sexual act and only knew that she had thoroughly enjoyed what Finn had been doing to her and had wanted it to go on much longer.

Finn saw her confused face and suppressed a smile as he leaped to his feet and pulled her up with him. ‘Come on,’ he said, as he fastened her blouse. ‘Let’s get you home before I forget all about my principles and ravish you totally.’

Gabrielle wasn’t sure what ravish meant, but she was sure that she wouldn’t mind if it was Finn doing it, and so she smiled demurely and said, ‘Yes, please,’ and Finn’s laughter rang around the room.

Despite missing Finn, Gabrielle enjoyed her aunt and uncle’s visit. The minute they stepped over the threshold, the air in the house seemed lighter. She couldn’t remember having a happier Christmas Day. What really made an impression on Gabrielle that year was the laughter around the table as they all tucked into a truly sumptuous meal, and the silly party games they played afterwards.

She realised, possibly for the first time, that pleasure wasn’t a sin and that life didn’t always have to be the austere, sterile one demanded by her father and followed blindly by her downtrodden mother. Her life would not be like that, she resolved. When I marry Finn our life together will be full of happiness. I shall see to it that it is.

She got ready for Mass the first Sunday after Christmas, knowing that, surrounded as she would be by her aunt and uncle as well as her parents, she would dare not even sneak a look at Finn. It had been the same on Christmas Day, and so she felt rather than saw the melancholy surrounding him, but could do nothing to ease it.

The following morning Gabrielle dressed to go into the shop, because never before had her father allowed the visit of her aunt and uncle to upset her work at all. She had no idea that her aunt had decided to try to do something about this.

Bernadette went straight into the bakery kitchen where Pierre was working. He looked up in surprise, for she had never done such a thing before.

‘Is anything the matter, Bernadette? he asked. ‘Are you all right?’

Bernadette was a carbon copy of his wife, Mariette, though her features were firmer somehow. She and Pierre had always got on well, so she smiled as she said, ‘I am perfectly well, thank you, Pierre. But I feel I do need to speak to you about your daughters.’

‘What about them?’

‘Well, the girls should be allowed to go into town sometimes,’ Bernadette said. ‘What can happen to them in their own town in broad daylight?’

‘You don’t know the worry of trying to rear daughters decently these days,’ Pierre said morosely. ‘More especially now that the town is teeming with soldiers and some of the girls’ morals very lax because of it. Anyway, Gabrielle has her duties in the shop and Yvette is at school all day.’

‘Ah, that is something else I need to talk to you about,’ Bernadette said. ‘Surely Gabrielle deserves time off sometimes, and isn’t Yvette on holiday now?’

‘Gabrielle’s help is needed,’ Pierre said doggedly.

‘Surely not all day and every day,’ Bernadette said. ‘While we are here at least, Raoul can give you a hand, and if Mariette would take a turn in the shop it would free Gabrielle for a few hours. The girls, and especially Gabrielle, need some fun in their lives.’

‘Life is not one long entertainment, Bernadette, whatever you think,’ Pierre growled, and his eyebrows puckered in annoyance. ‘And did you not hear me tell you about the soldiers?’

‘Of course I heard you,’ Bernadette said. ‘I would have to be deaf not to hear you, but do you really think that some soldier is going to leap on them as soon as they leave the shop, especially as they will be in my charge?’

‘No,’ Pierre had to admit. ‘I suppose if you were with them it might be all right.’

‘I would like their company,’ Bernadette said. ‘You don’t know how I envy your two fine girls like that.’

Pierre thought daughters were all very well, but sons would have done him far better. Bernadette and Raoul, however, had neither a chick nor child to call their own and he acknowledged that that must be hard.

‘All right,’ he said with a sigh. ‘You win. While you are here, Bernadette, Gabrielle will have lighter duties and you may take her out now and again, and Yvette too.’

‘Thank you, Pierre,’ said Bernadette. She thought it was a start at least, and she scurried off to tell the girls the news.

She found Gabrielle fully dressed, but still in the bedroom, sitting on the bed and staring fixedly out of the window. She was so preoccupied that Bernadette stood for a few moments on the threshold and Gabrielle was unaware of her. ‘Gabrielle,’ she said softly and then, as the girl turned towards her, she was staggered by the bleak look in her eyes before she recovered herself and replaced her sadness with a smile of welcome.

Bernadette told her what had transpired between her and Pierre. Even as she did so she wondered if Mariette or Pierre had ever really looked at their elder daughter. It was obvious to her aunt that the girl was burdened over something. Small wonder, Bernadette thought, when she was almost a prisoner in her own home.

Gabrielle wished that she could have confided in her aunt, but much as she loved her and her uncle Raoul, a large and jovial man, she knew she couldn’t. However, she was very pleased at the thought of time away from the shop and outings with her aunt, and she began to get ready while Bernadette went off to find Yvette.

Finn, of course, did not know this, so when the captain dispatched him for bread on Monday morning, he went eagerly. He thought if Gabrielle was alone he might manage a word or two with her at least. However, Gabrielle was nowhere to be seen, and though Finn hung about outside for as long as he dared, eventually he had to buy the captain’s loaves from her mother.

The next day was the same. But returning to the Headquarters, he spotted Gabrielle with her sister and a woman he presumed to be her aunt. They were ambling through the town, laughing and joking together, and looked as if they hadn’t a care in the world, while he felt as if his heart was breaking.

Captain Hamilton took one look at him when he returned and said, ‘Good God, man, what the hell’s the matter with you? You look as if you’ve lost a pound and found a penny.’

‘Yes, sir,’ Finn said. ‘Tell you the truth, sir, I feel a bit like that.’

‘Woman troubles again, I suppose?’

‘Yes, sir.’ Finn said. ‘Sort of, anyway.’

‘Ah, well, no doubt it will resolve itself,’ the captain said. ‘And if it doesn’t, well, you’re not going to be here much longer so it will hardly matter.’

Although Finn had known that the day would come when he would leave St-Omer, he suddenly felt sick to the pit of his stomach. He didn’t expect to be told anything, but he asked, ‘Have you any news of when, sir?’

‘Nothing definite,’ the captain said. ‘I know that some units are moving out by the end of January. You won’t be going then, because you won’t move until we go, but I reckon we will all be left here by the spring.’

He caught sight of the woebegone look on Finn’s face at his words and he laughed. ‘Now what’s up with you?’ he demanded. ‘You knew it was only a matter of time until it came to this. You are here to fight a war, and while a carnal liaison with a young French maid is a great attraction, it must be no more than that for a soldier going to war. You don’t need me to tell you this, do you?’

‘No, sir.’

‘Well then, let’s have no more long faces and heartfelt sighs,’ the captain said. ‘You get on with the job you came to do and in this instance that means brewing me up some tea.’

‘Right away, sir,’ Finn said.

Finn tried, but his heart felt heavy, and at the turn of the year he looked forward to 1916 with no enthusiasm whatsoever.

Bernadette and Raoul were to return to Paris on Monday 3 January.

The day before, as they tucked into their large Sunday dinner after Mass, Bernadette said to Gabrielle, ‘If your parents are agreeable, how would you like to return to Paris with me and your uncle? We would love to have your company for a while.’

‘We would indeed,’ Raoul put in. ‘A pretty young woman about the house is just the thing for chasing away the winter blues.’

‘And you would see all the sights of Paris. What do you say?’

Before she had given her heart to a soldier that she loved and longed to see again with every thread of her being, Gabrielle would have thought she had died and gone to Heaven to receive such an offer, but now it was too late. She couldn’t leave. She honestly thought if she didn’t see Finn soon she would die of a broken heart.

She could see by her father’s heavily furrowed brow and his eyes full of indignation that he was seriously displeased by the bombshell that Bernadette had dropped and before she was able to voice any sort of opinion her father snapped out, ‘I would have thought it good manners, Bernadette, to discuss this with me and ask my permission, before voicing it in front of Gabrielle.’