The French Promise (12 page)

Now nervous anticipation pounded in tandem with Lisette’s pulse, which she could suddenly hear drumming behind her ears. ‘We won’t be long,’ she said to their companions, grateful
for the time alone, reaching for Luc’s hand. She felt him squeeze it with excitement.

‘I need to check some fencing down the way,’ Tom said. ‘Coming, Nel?’ He pinched her bottom and his wife slapped at his freckled arm.

Yes, Lisette liked this couple; would find it easy to call them friends, and be their neighbours. She gave Nel a small
wave of thanks as the couples headed in different directions.
The softest hint of a breeze had stirred since they’d first climbed into the car and she could feel its welcome touch, drying the dampness of her frock and carrying the perfume of lavender past her.

Luc gave a low gasp of pleasure to see lavender again.
‘Regardes, mon amour, il nous attendait depuis toutes ces années.’

‘These fields have been waiting for us for years?’ she
repeated, laughing gently. ‘Oh, Luc, I think
you’re
the hopeless romantic, but I do love you.’

He pulled her close and kissed the top of her head. ‘Come on.’

But Lisette held back. ‘No, you go. I’m already sold on the idea of having a home again and I don’t care where it is, so long as you and Harry are in it. But the lavender is yours. Take a moment to commune with your grandmother’s
spirit and make the decision.’ What she chose not to add was that she could feel the low escalation of dizziness beginning. She recognised it for exactly what it was, remembering an identical sensation from a few years ago. They called it morning sickness but Lisette had always experienced it of a late afternoon. She hadn’t mentioned it to anyone yet, but she knew she was pregnant and was convinced
that was another reason for her nightmares. Pregnancy did strange things.

She watched Luc stand alone above her in the late afternoon sun. English lavender had bent to allow his passage and then sprung back behind his legs to cover his tracks. She could smell its fragrance more distinctly as he disturbed the plants and watched him pluck a head of flowers, which he rubbed in his palms before absently
inhaling their scent.
She smiled as she shaded her eyes to watch him. He looked strong again – like the day she’d first met him on that cold November night in 1943. The world was at war, their lives were in the balance, and yet he was so assured of his place in life, so comfortable in his own skin and confident of his surrounds. Since they’d left France she hadn’t felt that same dash and fortitude
within him, but staring up at him now, as he squinted across the undulating landscape, he looked like he belonged.

At last he knew his place again.

Lisette watched her husband bend down and pick up a handful of the dark red soil, saw him weight it and consider it as he let it crumble away through his fingers. ‘Please,’ she begged inwardly. ‘Let it be right,’ she prayed. She watched him
touch his finger to his tongue and taste the soil, before he wiped his hand carelessly against the new suit pants she’d been so proud to see him in. The jacket was slung in their friends’ car equally carelessly; his sleeves were rolled, his tie and top button loosened. He stood straighter and shaded his eyes again as he looked into the distance. Lisette followed his sightline. She’d never seen
sky this shade of blue before. The skies of northern Europe were pretty, but more of a watery colour and even in summer did not achieve this depth or brilliance. Perhaps Luc would feel differently, given that he’d grown up in the hot summers of the Southern Alps.

This sky, which matched the colour of her husband’s eyes, seemed to stretch forever. Cloudless and studded by fierce sun, its perfection
was interrupted only once while Lisette admired it by a bird flying across her line of vision. She returned her gaze to Luc. Did he know he was absently touching the seed
pouch at his chest? She realised she was holding her breath and became aware of her heart pounding hard. She wanted this so badly because there was no other option left. They couldn’t go back to England or France and they would
have another child before Christmas.

He turned and her heart seemed to stop now in a moment of absolute stillness when even birdsong paused.

‘We’re going to plant the lavender,’ he said quietly and a sob fought its way through Lisette’s body, escaping as a soft gasp of relief.

She ran up the hill and threw herself into Luc’s arms, helpless tears belying how strong he always said she
was. But Luc was laughing and he was twirling her around so she could feel her feet lifting and swinging out behind her.

‘Promise?’ she demanded, her face buried in his neck.

‘Yes, we’re going to buy this land and the adjoining fields if we can and we’re going to turn it into a lavender farm,’ he promised. ‘And you shall name it.’

She kissed him a dozen times, both of them laughing.

‘I’d make
love to you right now, if I didn’t think they might be watching,’ he said. Lisette felt the same strong urge to commemorate their decision, to mark it in some meaningful way beyond words. She laughed. ‘Do we care?’

‘I think we must. These are very polite people.’ The amusement softened in his expression to one of deep affection.

‘What shall we call your farm?’ she wondered, hugging him close.

‘
Our
farm,’ he corrected.

‘There is only one name.’

He looked at her quizzically.

‘Bonet’s Lavender Farm,’ she whispered. ‘You can bring the past back to life,’ she added, touching the seeds at his chest.

He nodded as it resonated within and she could feel a tremor pass through him.

‘Of course everyone here will pronounce it “Bonnetts”, you do realise that,’ she added dryly,
needing to prevent the emotion of this moment overtaking them.

Luc gave a gust of a laugh. ‘I don’t care. Welcome to Bonet’s Farm, Mrs Ravens, your new home.’

The doctor shook his head and spoke unbearably gently. ‘This is hard to hear, Max. You’ve been a very good son. No mother could have asked for more. But you need to accept it. She does.’

Dr Klein had been their family doctor since Max was born and while always a friend, had become more like family these last three years
during his mother’s illness. The malignancy, which had led to the radical double mastectomy, had been more aggressive than first assumed and had consumed her rapidly. The elegant, gorgeous blonde that photos of her youth attested to had vanished. However, even at fifty-seven, and before the cancer had been diagnosed, there’d been few peers who could match Ilse Vogel’s striking beauty. Max was often
embarrassed by his friends’ approving remarks and particularly that she’d made the ‘Most Desirable Mother’ list in high school.

But it was her sparkling personality that people loved most
about her, and despite being a spinster she was on every smart cocktail party and dinner guest list. Ilse’s glamour meant it was often overlooked that if the war hadn’t got in the way, she might have been one
of Europe’s leading female scientists. She never talked about the career she’d cut short but Max knew that she’d fled from her extended holiday in Germany in 1938 back to her family home in Lausanne, where her parents, Angelika – ‘Geli’, originally German – had lived with her Swiss husband, Emile Vogel, for nearly four decades.

Ilse had inherited Emile’s height and genial pale eyes,
while Geli’s once-bright golden hair and honey complexion were replicated in her daughter, together with an identical wide, laughing smile. Today, though, there was no sign of those qualities. Her body had been ravaged by the disease, which had stolen her fine looks and ready amusement, turning her into a gaunt echo of herself. Only her husky voice was instantly recognisable.

She and Max had lived
in Geneva for most of his young life, although he was now studying at the University of Strasbourg in France. After her major operation his mother had returned to Lausanne, to her childhood home overlooking Lake Leman. And from here Geli and Emile – now in their eighties – fussed over their daughter, easing her gently towards an early death.

Max was standing by the window of his mother’s top floor
suite, staring out from the Vogel mansion across the heads of the trees. It was a perfect summer’s day but he resented it; this was not the right sort of day to be confronting death – not when families were out picnicking and couples were sharing romantic excursions with ice creams and kisses. Cheerful birdsong and the squeals of childish fun from youngsters
cycling past punctured his thoughts,
and his mouth, normally generous with an easy smile, was set like a tight zip as his arctic grey-blue eyes focused on the stepped garden. He realised he was a traitor, too, unconsciously relishing the soothing warmth on his skin through the glass after the long winter. None of it suited him or the unwelcome visitor that he would soon usher into this room.

‘Come, Maximilian,’ Klein urged
from behind. ‘She’s waking. Enjoy her while she’s lucid.’

Max nodded, knowing he must turn away from all that was still beautiful and hope-filled to something that was no longer either.

‘Ilse,’ he heard Dr Klein call gently. Max turned to see the doctor take his mother’s hand and it struck him in that instant that Klein was probably in love with her. She’d had so many suitors – even in his lifetime
– and he was convinced she’d had marriage proposals long before he’d come along, too. The spinsterhood of Ilse Vogel remained a great mystery.

‘It’s you and me, Maxie,’ she’d say in explanation. ‘There’s no one else as important. You’re my number-one man.’

He’d liked it as a child but her one-eyed adoration had felt like a burden through his teenage years and he had longed for a man to sweep his
mother off her feet; to take the attention off him. But while brief flirtations and romances flared, they rarely lasted beyond weeks and Max had become certain as he’d matured that his mother deliberately distanced herself from attachment to any man other than Max or her father.

It made his decision to study in France so much harder and when he’d finally found the courage to go ahead, his move
had put his mother into mourning initially. She’d got used it,
though – as his grandparents had promised she would – and in the early years his visits had been filled with fun and affection; he’d looked forward to them and had encouraged her to come to Strasbourg, which she did several times.

But then the cancer had announced itself. Nevertheless, his grandparents had insisted he continue
his studies. ‘Go, son,’ Emile had urged on that first trip back after the news of her illness. ‘This is
your
life. We will stay close and help get your mother back to good health.’

And in the initial year of her convalescence – his third year at university – and then through one period of remission, his regular trips home had worked well. However, since the closure of his fourth year,
she’d had to admit to no longer being able to live independently, and this made it far harder for him to leave her.

Max now accepted, though, as he was preparing to enter his last year of university, that on this occasion his mother would leave him. It’s certainly what Dr Klein was expressing, although the harshness was well disguised, layered beneath his tender counsel. Max couldn’t imagine a
life in which Ilse Vogel wasn’t there and the pain that had twisted itself into a convenient tight ball over his university years was suddenly threatening to unravel.

He could feel it: fluttering tendrils of pain, panic, anger, just beginning to creep up into his throat. He wanted to yell at the unfairness of it.
Why her? Why me? Why us?

His generous and loving grandparents aside, all
he and Ilse had ever had was each other; no extended family. Not even that many friends … not close ones, anyway. And his grandparents were fighting their own demons while they stoically watched their daughter wither.

Max had never complained about the lack of family, so where was the fairness in ripping away all he had?
And who is my father
? he wondered. The question had always hung between them
but now, more than ever, it felt less like a deep bruise and more like a freshly hacked wound. Max watched Ilse Vogel surface weakly from the enforced sleep of morphine for perhaps the last time and the wound bled.

‘Who am I?’ he murmured beneath his breath, refusing the tears that burnt in his misting eyes as he looked down at his mother’s pale, groggy form. He blinked them away.

‘Tears
are useless,’ his grandmother had said to him all through his life. ‘They’re a sign of regret. Give yourself no cause for regret and then you’ve no cause for tears.’

‘What about sad tears, though?’ he’d asked her as a boy.

‘Cry them inside. If others see them, you are weakened.’

He’d always thought Geli was tougher than Emile.

‘It’s the German stock,’ his mother had quipped, amused by his observation.
‘Strong, proud, chin-up, no matter what.’ He remembered not so many years ago how Ilse had touched his cheek. ‘The German blood runs thick in you, Max,’ she’d said, sounding uncharacteristically sentimental. He’d never believed she’d been referring to his maternal blood either.

Am I tough?
he wondered
. Am I German enough? Can I keep my chin up, my eyes dry when you die
? he heard himself ask silently
as he looked down on his mother’s frail form.

‘Max is back,’ Klein was saying, as he began to help sit his mother up. ‘He’s right here, Ilse. Now, if the pain is too great, you tell Max to tell me. All right?’

‘Thank you, Arne,’ she croaked.

He left with a nod to Max that spoke volumes. Max finally
approached, dry-eyed, a smile pasted on his face. ‘Hello,
Mutti
. He sat on the side of
her wide bed and leant in to kiss both her cheeks, lingering on each, hugging her gently. She felt like a trembling bird of so little substance.

‘Hello, my darling,’ she said. Her clearing gaze was still fierce and she looked at him with pride, squeezing both his hands. The pressure she could exert, he noticed, was minimal. ‘Did you get in this morning?’

‘Early. Dr Klein offered to pick
me up.’

‘He’s so sweet.’

‘He loves you, you do know that, don’t you?’

She grinned. ‘Even bald, apparently,’ she said, touching the beautiful Hermès scarf wrapped expertly around her head. Max had given it to her last Christmas. It had cost a fortune.

Even dying, Ilse Vogel managed to look elegant. They shared an affectionate smile.

‘Every time I see you, Max, you’re thinner.’

‘So are you.’

She
slapped him. It felt like a butterfly landing on his hand. ‘No, seriously, darling,’ she reproached.

‘I eat, I promise. I think you keep imagining me as a chubby ten-year-old.’

‘I probably do. So … another year of university? You’re not going to be one of those tiresome, dandruff-laden academics who never actually leave an institution, are you?’

He shook his head, grinning. ‘No. I’m just not sure
what to do with myself yet.’

‘And you think more letters after your name will help clarify this?’

‘I don’t know,
Mutti
. I’m a bit lost.’

Her gaze hardened. ‘Don’t be pathetic, Maxi. Lost? You have everything to live for!’

‘So do you,’ he said. It slipped out; sounded like an accusation.

She didn’t flinch. ‘Yes, I do. But I don’t have a choice. The choice has been made for me
and it’s no good us getting deflated; won’t help any of us to be weak.’

‘You sound like my grandmother now.’

‘I am her daughter.’ She smiled. ‘My point, Maximilian, is that you do have a choice in life. Get out and live it. Do you have enough money?’

He sighed, gently exasperated. ‘You’re too generous. I live well … far better than a student traditionally does.’

She gave a small, birdlike shrug.
‘Who else can we spoil, except you, my darling? Keep living well, son.’ She gave a crooked smile. ‘As I’ve discovered, life’s too short.’

He hated that expression. ‘I’m not complaining.’

‘I want you to do something for me,’ she said, switching subjects suddenly as she reached for the glass of water at her bedside. He noticed how skeletally thin her arm was and how she shook as she sipped weakly
on the straw. She waved a hand, suddenly a claw of sunken flesh, in the direction of her wardrobe as he took the wobbling glass from her. Ilse fell back against the pillow, seemingly exhausted. ‘In the back is a Charles Jourdan shoebox. Can you fetch it for me, darling, please?’ Despite her fatigue he saw something had galvanised within her. Her pale eyes gleamed hungrily.

Max frowned and did
as she asked. After rummaging around amongst many shoeboxes, he held one up. ‘This one?’

‘That’s it,’ she smiled.

He brought it to her bed and handed the box to his mother, placing it on the sheet and quilt that covered her wretchedly thin frame. ‘I hope you’re not going to pull out thousands of francs you’ve been hoarding for me.’

She giggled and he liked the sound of that laugh; he
hadn’t heard her so amused for too long. ‘I’ve got plenty of those already hoarded in the bank for you, my boy. You will never have to worry. Just be careful whom you marry.
Mutti
won’t be around to advise.’

He felt a childlike sob hack its way up and into his throat but caught it in time, turning it into a clearing of his throat. It’s not as though he didn’t know this moment would have
to be faced. He’d been preparing for it for more than a year now. The knowledge that one of these days he would have to say farewell, look into those genial eyes and wish his mother a fearless onward journey had loomed over him for long enough that he shouldn’t now be inwardly collapsing.

He secretly envied those the shock of learning their parents had died in an accident, or had received a telegram
that their father had passed away suddenly from a heart attack. He even momentarily wished his mother were already dead, stolen from him while he’d travelled here to be with her so all that was left was to kiss the corpse. But shame glowed through him at the thought. If she had the courage to stare the beast in the face and still smile at it, he should have the nerve to look upon her with the
unwavering resilience his grandmother had earnestly drummed into him.

‘Let her last look upon you be one of your handsome face, child,’ she’d said only minutes earlier, stroking his unshaven cheek. ‘Go to her and hug her goodbye with love and laughter.’ And as he’d climbed the stairs, she’d
called to him. ‘No tears, Maxi. She won’t like it.’

And so from somewhere – the German part of
him, he liked to think – he dredged up a rascally grin.

‘I’ve been seeing an African girl,’ he said and laughed at his mother’s shocked expression. ‘I’m joking.’

‘But you are seeing someone?’

He nodded, lying. ‘Nothing serious,’ he said, doubling up on the lie. He had been deadly serious about Claire until he’d discovered she’d slept with someone else. He recalled her stricken look when he’d confronted
her. ‘It was a stupid mistake, Max. I don’t know why I agreed to that weekend with him. My friends were going. I just wanted some fun. You rush off to Lausanne and you never want me with you. I’m so often alone.’

The words echoed in his mind now. They say there’s a thin line between love and hate and it was true that Max had believed himself wholly in love with Claire, had imagined himself placing
a ring on her finger, and setting up home in Switzerland together; a holiday house in Provence would follow, and an apartment in Paris. But her betrayal had ground salt into an already wounded animal; she knew he was living through the slow, painful death of his parent and her treachery was enough to plunge him into a melancholy.

It wasn’t the split. He could see now that they were probably unsuited;
she was a party girl. He liked quiet times and conversation but he’d pretended that her spirited ways kept a bright light on him, didn’t allow him to become too moody. She knew he didn’t know who his father was and it was Claire who’d warned him not to become obsessive over it.