The Very Thought of You (36 page)

‘We will find him, after the war,' promised Catherine. ‘And he'll be buried in the churchyard with the other war heroes.'

They sat together on the bus and Catherine explained that they were going to a big house that was the company's base in France. ‘You'll like it,' she said. ‘The housekeeper, Madame Farcy, is very kind and cooks lovely food.'

‘Lovely food, eh?' Some of Béatrice's old spirit had returned. ‘We'll see about that.'

After a while, she closed her eyes and drifted off. Catherine got up and went to sit beside Della. She had changed out of her uniform skirt and was wearing a pair of green slacks.

‘D'you think that blood will sponge off?' she said miserably. ‘That bugger bled all over me.'

‘I'm sure it will,' Catherine smiled, and thinking back to her conversation with Béatrice, she said, ‘Just think, now you're a real war heroine. Bloodied in battle.'

‘I suppose I am,' said Della, looking more cheerful. ‘But what a thing to happen. I can't quite believe it. Me, holding a dead body.'

‘We don't know for sure that he was dead. I wonder what Robert will say when Guy tells him.'

‘If he tells him. He didn't seem too keen to me.'

No, he didn't, thought Catherine. He's another one playing a strange game.

‘The tarts are subdued today!' Captain Fortescue's fruity voice broke into Catherine's head. ‘What can have happened?'

She looked across the aisle and there, a couple of seats ahead, the doll's wooden eyes were staring at her. Baxter himself was looking to the front, but she could see his arm and shoulder move as he worked the levers on the doll.

‘Oh Christ,' groaned Della, and made to get up, but before she could, the lumbering figure of Godfrey hove into view.

‘Stop your bad manners, immediately, sir,' he roared, pointing his finger at Baxter. ‘Your behaviour is unforgivable. Beau' – he walked unsteadily up the bus until he was beside the leader – ‘sack him now or I'm finished. This cannot go on.'

How Frances kept the bus on the road Catherine didn't know, because she kept looking over her shoulder at Godfrey and Beau, and furiously nodding her agreement. Catherine looked back at Tommy and Colin, but they were asleep, having dosed themselves up with quantities of aspirin and whisky. Godfrey hadn't bothered with the aspirin but had made full use of the half-bottle of Teacher's that he had in his jacket pocket.

‘Oh God, is there no end?' said Beau angrily. ‘You're drunk, Godfrey. Sit down.'

‘Drunk possibly,' he agreed, desperately grasping on to the back of the seat to keep his balance. ‘But correct in all other aspects.' He sat down heavily in the seat opposite Beau and immediately went to sleep.

‘What a toper,' cackled Captain Fortescue, then turned his head back to Catherine and Della. ‘Off for a foursome with the handsome count, were we?'

Catherine stood up. That's enough, she thought. I won't put up with this for one more moment.

Beau walked down the aisle. ‘Sit down, Catherine,' he said softly. ‘Let me deal with this.' And he bent his head down to Baxter's and whispered in his ear. Whatever he said worked. The doll's head was lowered into its body and peace was restored. When Baxter and Beau were dropped off at the officers' club in Caen, everybody breathed a sigh of relief.

‘I'm glad we're going home soon,' said Della to Catherine. ‘I think I'll go up to Liverpool to stay with Ma and the kids. I need a bit of family. I want to tell them about Tim.'

‘Are you really serious about him? If you married him, it would mean a totally different lifestyle for you. And, Della, think. You hardly know him.'

‘I know all I need to know,' Della said. ‘I think I've been searching for him all my life. If he wants me, and I'm pretty sure he does, he can have me. I'll be the best doctor's wife in Ireland.' She was quiet for a while and then said, ‘There's just a few things I have to tell him first.'

‘What things?'

‘Just things.' Della wouldn't be drawn further.

Béatrice woke up as they were driving along the tree-lined approach to the chateau. ‘Where is this?' she asked, looking out of the window.

‘It's where we are going to stay,' smiled Catherine. ‘Look.' They turned the last bend and the chateau came into view.

‘Oh,' Béatrice gasped. ‘Not truly?'

‘Yes, truly.'

Guy was already there, his car parked by the front door, and was standing with Madame Farcy waiting to greet them. He had obviously explained Béatrice's situation, so that when Catherine helped her grandmother off the bus and went to introduce her, Madame Farcy fell upon the old lady and went into an excited greeting with many remarks about the horrors of the occupation and effusive praise for all those who'd worked for the Resistance.

‘Now, Madame Albert' – she'd taken Béatrice's arm – ‘I can show you to a room on your own on the ground floor. I think it will be easier for you,' and she and Béatrice had gone off together, chatting happily.

The girls flopped onto their beds in the big room on the first floor. ‘Isn't this heavenly?' said Frances, pushing off her shoes. ‘It's like coming home.'

‘It might be for you,' Della mumbled. She had stripped off her uniform jacket and was pulling on a green ribbed jumper. ‘You've seen my house. You could fit the whole of it into the kitchen here. Still, I do love this place.'

They were at the chateau for five days, enjoying being in the house and even the grounds, although the weather was freezing. Tommy and Colin got over their colds, but Tommy, although he said he was alright, seemed to have been left a little more breathless, and there was a pinched look about his cheeks.

‘I'm fine,' he insisted when Catherine expressed her concern. ‘Don't fuss.'

The card game had resumed, and in the evenings the girls found themselves joining in too.

‘I'm hopeless at this,' said Catherine, and turning to the other girls, said, ‘We shouldn't play. They're taking all our money.'

‘Speak for yourself,' Della answered. ‘I'm getting the hang of it now. I'll bankrupt the lot of you.'

‘You'll have to give up poker if you marry Dr Tim,' Frances warned.

‘No I won't,' Della shouted, slamming down her hand with a cry of joy. ‘The Irish love playing cards.'

Guy came and went, but never wanted to talk about the shooting at the farm.

‘Will the police catch up with us?' asked Frances one morning, when she encountered him on the corridor outside the big bedroom. He was sleeping in his old room, next door to theirs.

‘No,' he said. ‘They won't. They have no need.'

‘But,' she protested, ‘surely they have every need. A man was shot, and you were shot at.'

He twitched his shoulders. She could see that he didn't want this conversation. ‘They have understood the circumstances,' he muttered.

‘You mean,' Frances said, ‘that Robert or someone like him has leant on them.'

‘Precisely.'

‘Doesn't it mean anything to you?' As she said it, Frances noticed a tic at the side of his mouth where a muscle was involuntarily twitching, and knew that her question was foolish. This was a man who'd seen too many shootings, too much death.

‘It means something,' he said slowly. ‘Perhaps it means that I never want to do it again. That I just want to be a farmer, with an orchard and, perhaps, a wife and children.'

‘Yes,' she said, ‘I can see that.'

Robert turned up one morning, with a bundle of post. There was a letter for Béatrice from her daughter, which she read with much joy and many tears. Catherine had written to her mother on the day that they'd rescued her and already here was the reply. Honorine was so excited about seeing Grandmère after all these years.
I have told Lili that her great-grandmother is coming to live with us. Maybe she doesn't understand exactly, but it makes it more real for me.

Catherine was sitting with Robert in the large salon when Béatrice came in with her letter. ‘Today, I am happy,' she said. ‘I thought that feeling had gone forever, that never again would there be something to look forward to. But now,' she smiled, ‘perhaps my life will take a new turn.'

‘I'm glad for you, Grandmère,' said Catherine, and the old lady leant down and stroked her cheek.

‘It will happen for you too,
chérie
. Just wait. Now, you will excuse me. Madame Farcy and I have to make the lunch. Her soup is good, but' – she bustled to the door – ‘I can improve it.'

Robert laughed. ‘I'd love to be a fly on the wall when those two old biddies argue about recipes.'

‘I wonder who wins,' said Catherine.

‘Oh, your grandmother, I think. Every time.' He took her hand. ‘Can you get away for a night?' he asked. ‘I want to take you to my house again.'

Catherine lifted her face to stare at him. ‘Why?' she said.

‘You know why,' he answered. ‘We need to be alone together. We have to know if it means something.' He waited for her to speak, and when she didn't, he groaned and grasped her hand tighter. ‘Don't be naïve, Catherine,' he said. ‘You know how I feel about you.'

She could feel her cheeks going pink and looked to the door in case one of her friends burst in. ‘What excuse could I give?' she whispered. ‘To Grandmère and to the girls.'

‘I've thought of that,' he answered. ‘I could say that the military authorities want to quiz you more about your husband and you'll need to stay the night in Bayeux. Madame Albert will accept that, don't you think?'

‘I suppose so,' said Catherine slowly. ‘The girls will guess it's a lie, though.'

‘Do you mind that?'

She looked down at his hand clasped in hers and thought about what Grandmère had said about being learning to be happy again. ‘No, Robert. I don't mind at all.'

They left before lunch, driving away from the chateau in Robert's Jeep. It was raining and he'd put the canvas roof up so that sitting beside him, cut off from the outside, Catherine felt that she and Robert could be the only two people in the world. She was excited and nervous at the same time, and glancing at him out of the corner of her eye, she knew that he felt the same. He was tapping his fingers on the steering wheel in a familiar movement, and when they were held up at a road barrier outside Caen, he barked at the corporal manning it for not carrying his rifle and being sloppily dressed.

It wasn't like him, and once back on the road again, she said, ‘We could go back to the chateau if you're regretting this idea.'

He suddenly screeched the Jeep to a halt at the side of the road and she had to reach for the door handle to stop herself falling forward. Before she could draw breath, he shouted, ‘I'm scared, you stupid girl. Don't you realise?'

She was bewildered and then she peered through the windscreen and her heart skipped a beat. ‘Are we in danger here? Have the Germans broken through?'

‘No,' he groaned.

‘Then what? What are you scared of?'

‘Of you, Catherine. Of you.' And he grabbed her by the shoulders and kissed her hard on the mouth.

‘Of me?' she said, when they had broken away and stared at each other. ‘How could you be?'

‘Because you're beautiful and talented, and I'm neither,' he muttered. ‘I see you on stage, lifting an audience to the heights of emotion, and I am so in awe of you that I can barely breathe.'

‘But that's my job, Robert. It's only a job.'

‘No, I can't believe that.'

She smiled. ‘Well, maybe not, but it shouldn't make you scared.'

He shrugged, moving tense shoulders awkwardly. ‘Then, perhaps,' he said, ‘it's because of Christopher.'

Her smile disappeared and the suppressed anxiety of guilt started up again. ‘What about him?' she asked.

‘You loved him. Still do, I think. I suppose I'm jealous.' He had his face turned away, looking out of the windscreen at the raindrops trickling down the glass, and Catherine followed his eyes, watching the rain too.

‘I did love him,' she said, ‘and if he returned today, tomorrow, next month, next year, I would feel the same.' She took a deep breath. ‘But you know, Robert, the truth is, I'm beginning to forget what he looks like, how he sounds when he laughs, and' – she swallowed the nervous lump in her throat – ‘the feel of his hands on me.'

As she was saying it, the realisation of its meaning was washing over her. Was this admission, spoken out loud for the first time, the reason I've been feeling guilty? she wondered. Am I ready, like Grandmère, for life to take a new turn?

She turned to face him and found that he was looking at her with an expression that could only be called hope. ‘I think that you've been telling me the truth all along, Robert,' she said. ‘My husband is dead. I must move on.'

‘Oh, my sweet girl,' he said, taking her in his arms again, and they remained locked together for many more minutes until their embrace was disturbed by a short convoy of heavy trucks passing by, tooting their horns and making the Jeep rock in their wake.

‘Oh God,' laughed Robert. ‘Let's get away from here. Besides,' he added, starting up the engine, ‘I'm starving. We need something to keep our strength up for … well …' He grinned at her. ‘Well, I'll leave that. You're already blushing.'

An Atlantic storm had blown in, but the house on the headland was standing strong, bravely looking out to sea, while the wind and rain blasted sand from the beach below onto the veranda and sifted it through the closed shutters.

‘Will Agathe be there?' asked Catherine, as they approached along the stony lane. ‘The shutters are closed.'

‘But smoke is coming from the chimney,' Robert pointed out. ‘She will be in the kitchen or in her studio at the back. Those are her favourite places.'