The French Promise (18 page)

‘What?’

‘Koblenz.
It’s where the war records I need are kept.’

‘What are you hoping to find?’

‘Answers, of course. Plus I want to track down Lisette Forestier to ask her about my father and in the meantime I’m going to find out what the Gestapo wanted with him. I’m missing something. It has to do with this elusive Bonet fellow, because both Eichel and my father mention him and the Gestapo wanted him.’

‘Bonet is
a Jewish name,’ Nic said, shrugging.

‘How do you know?’

‘I study history, Max! Do you listen to me? Do you even know that I’m interested in the genealogy of names?’ He laughed at his friend but not unkindly. Nic took a sip of his coffee. ‘I’ve seen the name – it’s southern French from memory. Not exclusively, but the name is strong there.’

Max’s eyes widened remembering that Bonet – according
to Eichel – had been a Maquisard in Provence and was wanted by the Gestapo. ‘That’s really helpful.’

‘Good. That’s what they call me – Helpful Nic.’

They laughed as Gabrielle arrived with the bill.

‘Thanks for your meal suggestions,’ Max said, making an effort as he knew Nic’s stare was imploring him to be conversational.

‘You’re welcome,’ she said with a shy grin and pointed to the
bill. ‘I’m off my shift now. Anne-Marie will take your payment when you’re ready.’ She hesitated.

Max blinked, then shrugged. ‘Okay, thanks. See you round.’

Gabrielle left.

Nic shook his head. ‘You’re such a loser.’

‘Shut up.’

His friend gulped his coffee. ‘So you’re definitely going to Koblenz?’ Max nodded. Nic sighed. ‘My aunt once told me that learning the truth doesn’t always mean finding
contentment.’

Max expressed a look of soft irritation. ‘And how does your aunt arrive at this philosophical gem?’

Nic tore open the small biscuit packet that came with his coffee. ‘I suppose I should admit that she works there.’

‘What?’

He nodded, looking resigned to helping his friend. ‘Since the records went public.’

‘Can she help me?’

‘I suppose I can ask.’

‘Do it.’

‘On one condition.’

Max’s
gaze narrowed. ‘Go on.’

‘You ask Gabrielle out and join Mireille and me – and some of the others – for a couple of drinks, perhaps a
smoke or two. Mireille’s friend has some good Moroccan marijuana,’ he added, temptation in his voice. They both knew the answer. Nic gave him a friendly punch. ‘Well, just say yes to a few drinks, then.’

‘Yes,’ Max duly replied.

‘Deal,’ Nic said.

‘I’ll
call Tante Marie tonight.’

‘Okay, I’m going to pay and then head back to my place to write to this woman in Scotland.’

‘How old is she?’

Max shrugged. ‘It was her twenty-fifth birthday in 1944. So she’d be forty-ish.’

Nic whistled a small breath. ‘Old, then.’

Jane held a tea towel filled with ice to her eye and felt the frosty burn singe around the tender area that she knew was swelling fast. Her left ear was buzzing faintly but her lip, curiously enough, was the most painful of her injuries. She could barely move her mouth before the wound would open and bleed again.

How would
it ever heal
? She wondered absently. The sounds around her were comforting ones of Meggie bustling around the kitchen.

‘Here we are, dear,’ Meggie said, arriving at her side and carefully wrapping her hands around a cup. ‘Hot, sweet tea; it will help.’

‘I don’t think I can, Meggie.’

‘Just sip. Please.’

‘Where is he?’

‘With the police and his brothers in the sitting room.’ Jane winced
at the mention of the police. ‘I’m just going to take
them a pot of tea and I’ll be right back, dear. All right?’

Jane nodded.

‘You have to keep that on your eye, Jane, luv. The doctor’s on his way.’

‘Meggie, no doctor, I’ll be fine.’ She felt her lip split open again and the blood began running freely down her chin. Her eyes watered helplessly and she felt pathetic.

‘Jane, we have to.
The police have insisted. And Mr Cannelle’s brothers did too. They’re very worried for you. This can’t go on. If I hadn’t come back for my umbrella, you might be dead now.’

Jane gave a sound of disdain. ‘Don’t be ridiculous.’

The older woman folded her arms and gave her a pointed look. ‘This is not the first time.’ When Jane cut her a worried glance, Meggie’s expression softened. ‘Did you think
I didn’t know?’ Jane’s eyes misted as she nodded. ‘Well, he’s been weeping like a baby over what he’s done to you tonight – keeps begging to see you – but that doesn’t escape the fact that he did it.’ Jane swallowed hard and with it her sorrows. Meggie was right. Life couldn’t go on like this.

They both looked around at the sound of the doorbell.

‘I’ll get it. That will be Dr Jenkins. Finish your
tea, dear.’

Jane sipped obediently and waited, devastated. It had finally happened; the moment she’d dreaded and yet denied. The tea tasted as bitter as the scorn that twisted on her mouth.

Deep down, she’d known that John would never snap out of the hell that the four walls of his mind could create. Of his eight friends – all school chums who’d joined up together – only two of the nine had returned.
Phil Parsonage had arrived home as half the man, with both legs left behind in France, and John, who’d left his sanity in Italy. But that was only
the scar tissue. The real wound was yet to show itself, she’d discovered, and it did so in aching slowness as he revealed titbit by miniscule titbit the horror he’d witnessed. She learnt of the men whose hands he’d held while they died, whose half-blown-away
bodies he’d had to recover just so the army had something to bury … and this included the remains of his closest friend, Bertie. They began their firm friendship in nursery school and it ended when Bertie had pushed John away and taken the full brunt of a grenade. Only once had John visited that memory with her when, after gentle lovemaking, she’d enquired about a scar that ran down his
thigh. If she were honest, she hadn’t expected an answer and was surprised into silence as it had haltingly been delivered.

‘Shrapnel,’ he’d begun as he lit a cigarette, dragging back on it deeply. ‘They found me unconscious, concussed and covered in Bertie,’ he’d continued. John had remained dry-eyed but tears had run down Jane’s cheeks and onto his chest. When he’d come to, he’d begged
his fellow soldiers to find Bertie. ‘I’d meant his tags,’ he’d said, sucking back on his smoke. ‘They brought me his head; it was all that was left of him,’ he’d said, and had begun to tremble beneath her. ‘I carried him back with me in a ragged, bloodstained shirt.’ He’d barked a mirthless, horribly ragged laugh then. ‘We got to bury something of him, at least.’ And then he’d sobbed in her embrace
like a child.

Later that night she’d found him naked in the bathroom, his knuckles broken and bleeding from where he’d repeatedly punched the tiled wall. A few months later, once they’d healed, he’d taken to punching her. Actually, that wasn’t strictly true, she thought. It had begun with verbal intimidation and then pushing. Quickly it had escalated into slaps, hair
pulling … once even rape,
or at least that’s how she’d viewed it from beneath his angry, grunting coupling against her wishes.

But this evening was different. This time it had been sly. He’d been waiting for her, behaving himself all day for Meggie while the demons in his mind cunningly saved his wrath for his wife. She’d walked into his den, smoothing her hair and saying hello with a bright voice. His response
had begun with, ‘Where have you been?’ and ended with a third cowardly punch; the first had been a box around her ear, the second had split her mouth open, and the final one left her seeing stars and only barely conscious, slumped over a sofa.

The last thing she could remember before blacking out was hearing police sirens. Apparently Meggie had come home, heard his yells and her shrieks and had
wasted no time picking up the telephone and calling emergency. The local constabulary had arrived just before the fourth punch had been delivered but she’d been mercifully unaware of the rush of burly policeman upstairs and the man-handling of John downstairs. Meggie said they’d even cuffed him until his brothers had arrived. She hadn’t faced his family yet.

Meggie returned to the parlour with
Dr Jenkins, who went through the motions of checking that nothing was broken. It wasn’t.

‘Hmm, that lip looks nasty. I’d recommend we sew that.’

‘My ear is ringing too.’ He’d tutted. ‘Has this happened before?’ She’d started shaking her head, an excuse leaping to her damaged lip when Meggie had answered for her.

‘Yes, doctor. Not this bad but several times.’ Jenkins had cut Jane a reproachful
glance. ‘Jane …’

‘Don’t,’ she pleaded.

He held his tongue and continued his prodding, finally sighing. ‘Right, let’s fix this lip of yours. Your ear is going to ring for a while, I’d suggest, but it will pass. Your eye: no lasting damage, but you’re going to sport one hell of a shiner, Jane.’

‘Sunglasses in winter?’ she asked superfluously.

‘Either that or cope with the stares. I’d recommend
you go away, actually. Rest, heal … take a long, hard look at your life because I can’t see John coming back from this. It’s worsening, isn’t it?’

‘Yes,’ she admitted in a whisper.

With the studied care of a surgeon, he set about suturing her lip. It looked ugly, with its two black stitches, but they were neat, daubed in dark yellow antiseptic and numbed from the local anaesthetic.

‘There,’ he
said gently. ‘Very kissable in a few weeks.’ She mustered a wan half-smile that showed in her eyes more than on her mouth. ‘But don’t look in a mirror for a while.’ She nodded her agreement just as Peter came into the room.

‘Oh, Jane,’ he said, scooping her up and squeezing her timidly as though she might break. ‘I’m so sorry.’

‘I’ll be on my way,’ Jenkins said. ‘Don’t get up. Meggie will see
me out.’ He squeezed her hand. ‘I’ll see you in a few days for a check-up.’ Meggie and the doctor left as James also entered.

He looked shocked at the state of her, kissed both her cheeks gently.

‘This can’t go on. Listen, Jane,’ Peter said, sounding awkward. ‘I’m organising for the cottage to be opened up in Devon. It would ease our hearts if you’d agree to go down there for a few weeks while
we sort things out here. I’ve
already spoken to Meggie. She said she’ll happily come with you while you convalesce. I know it’s not ideal, being winter, but …’ He trailed off, uncertain, it seemed, of what was best to say.

She made it easy for them. ‘Yes, of course. That’s very kind of the family.’

James took her hand. ‘You are family, dear Jane. And Peter and I are desperately sorry
and sad for both of you, but especially for you. We should have protected you from this.’

‘You couldn’t know …’

‘But we should have,’ Peter agreed.

‘It’s no one’s fault. I love him, but I realise now I can’t stay with him.’

James looked deep into her eyes. ‘We’ll help. Whatever you need, we’ll take care of, and we’ll take care of John too. He’ll get the right care, in the right place, with the
right people.’

Another pot of tea was made by a clucking Meggie and shared in virtual silence. Jane noticed additional mugs were carried through on a tray.

James had the courage to broach the subject first. ‘Listen, er, Jane … When I said we’ll help with everything, that includes, of course, the services of Badger and Bingley.’

Her eyes swept up from the untouched contents of her teacup. His gaze
was fierce.

‘It’s for the best. And in your interests,’ he added.

A tear leaked down her cheek. Divorce. She wiped her good eye. ‘Let me think about it.’

Peter nodded. ‘Of course. No rush. Whatever you want, we’ll abide by.’

‘What are you planning for John?’

‘Hospital first,’ James said. ‘We’ll have him assessed and then
listen to the experts. There’s a place that’s more like a country guest house
in Lincoln – just a couple of hours away – that’s been set up for ex-servicemen with his condition. It’s more common than most of us realise.’

‘How is John now?’ she asked, mangling the words because of the numb side of her mouth. She presumed he was still talking to the policemen.

‘Contrite, tearful, horrified,’ Peter confirmed.

‘And quite mad,’ James said, twisting away angrily.

Peter
sighed. ‘That’s not a helpful evaluation, or an accurate one. It’s not his fault, Jim.’

‘I know, but look at this,’ he said, pointing at her. ‘Jane, you’ve got to accept that our brother needs help. We can’t all keep pretending that he’s the man we once knew. I love him as much as anyone else but he needs professional medical care – round-the-clock attention.’

She nodded. ‘What about the police?’

‘Well, he’s out of handcuffs, thank heavens,’ Peter explained. ‘I presumed you wouldn’t want to press charges, although they were keen to drag him off to the local clink.’

She shook her head wanly. ‘Absolutely not. Can I see him?’

‘No,’ they both said together and then, embarrassed, Peter cleared his throat. ‘Er, Dr Jenkins thought it best that John not see you in this state. I agree. You’ve suffered
enough but so has he. He’s deeply upset. We had Jenkins sedate John slightly.’

Jane swallowed. ‘You mean he’s going tonight?’

They both nodded. ‘We’ve already rung ahead. We’ll travel with him, Jane,’ Peter assured her.

‘And Meggie will help you organise to go to Devon tomorrow evening. Catch the sleeper. Stay as long as you like.
When you’re healed, come back to London, visit John, make decisions
with a clear head.’

It made sense but their words were definitely sounding like the death knell of her marriage and her chance for a family. The salty tears stung her bloodshot eye and her head pounded from the hopelessness of it all.

‘I want to kiss him one more time.’ At their sounds of protest, she held up a hand. ‘Let’s not pretend this isn’t goodbye. I want him to know I don’t blame
him and that I’ve never stopped loving him.’

She rose before they could say any more. ‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘I’ll be fine alone with him. He’ll do me no more harm, I promise,’ and blinked away the last of the tears she would cry for John and their wreck of a marriage.