The French Promise (37 page)

Dugas spat at him.

‘I am very sorry,’ Robert mumbled. ‘My father is … please leave.’

‘I came to see you, not your poisonous old man. Go back inside,’ Luc snarled at Dugas. ‘I have business with your son.’

‘Business?’ the man slurred, staggering as he turned to stare at Robert. ‘With him?
Are you mad?’

‘Go inside,’ Robert pleaded to his father. ‘I’ll get rid of them.’

‘You mind you do,’ Dugas said, waving a dirty-looking finger at his son. Luc wondered how long it had been since the man had bathed. He could smell the sour, stale tang from where he stood. Dugas began to cough, a deep, wracking hack that had him spitting again; this time it was speckled with blood. He finally shuffled
away, still coughing. He doubled over at the door, gasping for breath, before he finally disappeared inside.

Luc took a slow, deep breath, hating how Robert kept his gaze firmly fixed on Luc’s shoes.

‘Marie Dugas and her small, wonderful grandson called Robert once nursed a Maquisard who fought at Mont Mouchet. They took a terrible risk but they saved his life. He said one day he’d return.’

Now Robert’s lovely blue-grey eyes did lift and they met Luc’s gaze. ‘Monsieur Bonet?’ he whispered.

Luc nodded, feeling his chest constrict with sorrow that he’d left it this long. His eyes filled with tears.

‘You kept your promise,’ Robert continued in wonderment.

‘I gave you my word,’ he replied, filling with guilt, grateful for Jane’s suggestion that he take this opportunity.

Just the barest
hint of a smile glowed briefly in Robert’s expression and dissipated as fast as it had flared. ‘My grandmother died,’ he said bluntly. ‘Life changed from then.’

‘Robert, can you come with me for a ride? Please. I would like to talk to you somewhere warm.’

‘You have grown soft,
monsieur
?’

Luc smiled. ‘Yes, or maybe I’ve just grown older. But please, come with me. I’ve brought my daughter.
I’d be glad for her to meet you. I’ve told her all about your courage as a child. Just a few minutes.’

Robert looked around at the cottage.

‘He probably won’t even know you’ve gone,’ Luc urged.

‘He will. I won’t have long.’

‘Hop in,’ Luc said and wasted no more time. He opened the door. ‘Robert, this is my daughter, Jenny.’

‘Jennifer,’ she corrected brightly as she slid across the front seat to
turn and get a better look at the young man climbing into their car. Luc held his breath, wondering what she would
do when she saw Robert’s face. ‘Wow, that is an amazing scar,’ she said in French. ‘You look like a pirate.’

Incredibly, another tentative smile was won from Robert and Luc held his tongue. He started the car and headed back into the village, returning to the café where
the barman had been so secretive; now Luc understood why.

‘Have something to warm you. You look so thin,’ Luc said. ‘Can I get you something to eat?’

‘Just a coffee, please,’ Robert said. ‘Take a table, you two. Jen?’

She shook her head. He watched them sit opposite each other and returned his attention to the barman. ‘I see you found him,’ Louis said. ‘What’s the situation with the father?’

‘Let Robert tell you. It’s his business.’

‘Two coffees, then,’ Luc said.

The man poured out the coffees and then surprised Luc by adding a small nip of alcohol to each. ‘On the house,
monsieur
. You both look like you could use it.’ He moved away, humming to himself.

Luc took the coffees and sat down next to Jenny. ‘Are you sure you wouldn’t like something to eat?’ he said to their guest,
annoyed with himself that he was making small talk.

‘No … er, thank you.’

‘Well,’ Luc began, slightly lost for words again.

‘Does it hurt?’ Jenny asked, pointing at the scar.

Luc saw Robert shift and shrug.

‘Not anymore,’ he said. ‘It’s just numb now.’

Luc held his tongue. Perhaps Jenny’s way was best?

‘Was it a knife?’ she asked, fascinated. Luc’s gaze shifted carefully between the pair. The
age difference of a dozen or so years bridged the gap more easily than he could; he was
old enough to be Robert’s father. He suddenly wished he was.

‘Yes. A hunting knife that belonged to my father.’ Robert sipped the coffee and glanced, surprised, at Luc when he tasted the liquor. Robert didn’t quite achieve a smile but Luc felt it all the same.

‘So your father did that to you?’ Jenny
asked, clearly unable to let the subject go. It was a question he’d wanted to ask too. And he suspected that wherever Robert went the same question sprang to everyone’s mind.

Robert nodded at her uncomfortably.

‘Well, I know not to pry but I think you look very mysterious and far more interesting because of it,’ she said, her head cocked to one side, studying him.

Robert smiled properly for the
first time and his whole demeanour shifted from sullen and withdrawn to give Luc a brief glimpse of the laughing child he’d once known.

‘Robert,’ Luc began. ‘I’m sorry I took so long to visit. After the war I left France. I haven’t lived here for twenty years.’

‘We come from Australia,’ Jenny said. ‘Do you know where that is?’

Robert looked unsure. ‘Kangaroos?’

They both smiled at the obvious.
‘That’s right,’ Luc said.

‘And a big ocean,’ Jenny added in a more sombre tone. ‘The sea killed my mother and my brother not long ago.’

It felt like a punch to his belly when he didn’t know it was coming. Luc sipped his coffee to steady himself, grateful for the slug of alcohol that hummed alongside the caffeine.

Robert glanced at Luc. ‘Did you marry Lisette?’ he asked softly.

It really hurt,
like pressing a ripe bruise. Luc swallowed. ‘You remember?’ he croaked.

‘In your delirium you spoke her name repeatedly. I am sorry for you.’

‘But what about you? Tell me about your life.’

‘It is not a good life, Monsieur Bonet. I don’t like looking back on it.’

‘Then I want to help you,’ Luc said. It was out before he’d even had time to consider the offer. ‘What do you mean?’

Yes, what
did he mean? ‘You cannot be happy here.’

‘I don’t know what being happy is,’ Robert admitted. ‘Getting away from that abusive old man might be a start,’ Luc said.

‘He is dying and he’s not that old – he just looks it because of his alcoholism. He has cancer,
monsieur
. Blames it on his forced labour in Germany. He was working with toxic materials they didn’t understand. My grandmother was shot,
by the way.’

Another punch to the guts. Robert’s direct way was brutal.

‘What?’

‘The Germans intensified their raids and reprisals in this region after the battle of Mont Mouchet and she answered back once too often, probably. They scared her, but I could see she was more concerned for my safety. She wanted them to forget a small boy even lived with her. I was always at the ready to
hide.’ He sighed. ‘After you left, it became very intense; we were always on alert. And then one day they came – three men; one was particularly bitter, I think. She tried to give them eggs but they demanded to know where I was. She lied, told them I was with my mother in Marseille even though I was in the hayloft of the barn. They had words with her when she objected to them taking the only three
hens we had left. She begged them to leave one. They refused, pushed
her around a bit. I think she must have called them thieves or something because there was no further discussion. They put her against the outhouse wall and shot her – I saw everything. They raided our cottage, took the chickens, killed our goat then and there and slung it across a motorbike. They left my grandmother where she
fell.’

Luc noticed Jenny had begun to cry silently and wished he could have spared her this. She couldn’t possibly understand how bad the war had been for all of them, but now she was clearly beginning to.

‘I buried her with the help of a neighbour. I was six then. My aunt came to live for a while. Then my mother returned. They all fell out when my father came back. My mother died of
flu a year or so later. Juliette, my aunt, married my father.’ Luc couldn’t believe what he was hearing. ‘She wanted the house and she wasn’t unkind to me but he wasn’t the same man who’d left. He’d seen things and been treated so badly that I became the focus of his anger. Juliette did what she could to protect me, although it was never enough. We lived our horrible, angry life for ten years, and
then she talked of leaving when his drinking became bad enough that he turned his fists on her. Then he did this,’ he said, pointing to his face, ‘and she left the same day. I was in the nearby hospital and I thought she’d come to get me but she never did. It was my father who picked me up. Don’t ask me why there was no recrimination for his actions – I can’t really remember. I know the
gendarmes
interviewed him. He was once a very popular man. I don’t think anyone could believe him capable of such a thing, especially when he was sober. Who knows what he told them. I didn’t go back to hospital once he’d removed me. He took care of my injuries.’

‘Why are you still there?’ Jenny asked, intrigue and revulsion in her voice.

Robert’s face showed apology for upsetting her.
‘Where else can I go?’

Luc felt Jenny’s searing gaze fall upon him but he kept his eyes focused on Robert.

‘He is my father and is always full of apology afterwards. And I was too young to take control. I should see him through to his death. It won’t be long now, if the angels will finally smile on me.’

‘Why did he punish you like this?’ Luc asked.

‘He wanted to show me some of the cruelty he’d
witnessed and experienced in Germany, I suppose. He got terribly drunk and cut me because I wouldn’t fight back.’ Robert shrugged. ‘I was nearing fifteen. He was still a big strong man then. I lost the full use of my leg in a similar situation. I thought he was going to kill me last year. And I was happy for it. I wanted it to end. A knife, a bullet, I didn’t care how. But all he did was shoot me
in the leg.’

Jenny gasped.

‘I think he’s become demented and the liquor just fuels his nightmares, his sorrows, his madness.’

‘Robert, he must be hospitalised.’

The young man shrugged. ‘I’m all he’s got.’

‘Yes, but he could kill you next time.’

‘He’s not as strong as he used to be. So long as I keep him fed with his liquor and cigarettes, I can handle him and the abuse. I sleep with a knife, just
in case.’

Luc gave a soft groan of despair. ‘This is no way to live. Marie didn’t keep you safe through the war so you could fear for your life in peacetime from your own family.’

Robert looked down, knitted his fingers. ‘I didn’t really know my mother; I never really liked my aunt, but I do miss my grandmother. She always believed you’d come back one day.’

Luc felt his throat constricting
with emotion; he hadn’t been prepared for this. ‘Where is she buried?’

For the first time since they’d met, Luc saw his young friend animated. ‘Would you like to go to the grave?’

‘Yes, definitely.’

‘We can walk,’ Robert said, standing. ‘It’s close.’

Luc threw a glance at Jenny who nodded and they followed the young man out of the café. He led them to the village’s tiny chapel, grabbing some flowers
that spilt over the fence from a neighbour’s garden along the way, and into its expansive graveyard. ‘She’s over here,’ he said, pointing.

‘Wow, there’s a lot of graves here,’ Jenny remarked.

‘Many people from our surrounding villages are buried here too. This region lost so many families.’ He crouched by a misshapen rock. ‘I couldn’t afford a proper gravestone. I know it’s not very good but I
did this myself.’

Luc and Jenny read the clumsy inscription, clearly made by a child, and Jenny helped him place the flowers on Marie’s grave. And as Robert murmured something to his grandmother, Luc noticed his daughter take the young man’s hand. ‘What will you do when your father’s gone?’

It was as though Luc wasn’t there. But he didn’t feel offended. Jenny was doing all the hard yards for him.

‘The farm is useless,’ Robert said. ‘And I was raised a farmer. We get by on his war pension. I do odd jobs around the village. We scrape through.’

‘That doesn’t answer the question,’ Luc pressed.

Robert stood and Jenny let go of his hand.

‘I don’t know,’ he admitted. ‘I just want him to die. Then I will work it out.’

Luc didn’t allow himself to think it through. He spoke aloud the vague
notion that had been swinging wildly through his mind. ‘Come with us.’

Robert met his gaze. Jenny became still and she stared at her father.

‘At least come to Saignon with us, to my former home. If you like it, we’ll have your father hospitalised or put into a home or I’ll pay someone to look in on him while you’re absent. You can always come back in a few days if you don’t like it. But right
now it could be a bridge – a way to lead you to the other side; to find the courage to leave him. You owe him nothing more, Robert.’

There was a pause and no one filled the silence until Robert spoke again. ‘But what will I do?’

‘He didn’t say no, Dad,’ Jenny said softly.

Luc gave a small sad smile. ‘I’ll sort something out for you. You can work for me. We, er … we need a French connection, because
it seems that my rebellious daughter wants to live and school in France, so I have to think about spending a big chunk of my life back here.’ Jenny squealed and he saw her tears beginning to fall again – they were joyful ones this time – but he looked back to Robert. He gave a shrug. ‘I can’t be in two places at once. I trusted you with my life once. I think I can trust you with our house over
here. Forget your farm here. Let him have it. Let Juliette come and claim it if she wants.’

‘Say yes, Robert, please!’ Jenny pleaded. ‘We’ll be your family. And it means Dad will let me live in France,’ she
urged. ‘You hold my life in your hands!’ she added in a final twist of drama.

But the men were ignoring her, their gazes locked on each other. Standing either side of the grave of
Marie Dugas, they appeared like opposing sentries … one tall, broad and fair, the other much shorter, slight, with hair as dark as tar, an olive complexion and grey-green eyes. One wore his wounds for all to see, the other kept his buried. But between them lay the remains of a woman they both loved and it was as though she was momentarily alive again to link their hands and urge her grandson to take
this opportunity for deliverance.