Living with Strangers (3 page)

The sun had gone when we arrived back at home. Our rooms were cold; I turned on the small heater in the bedroom and gave Chloé her tea. Then I filled up the deep kitchen sink to bath her earlier than usual, hoping to catch some time with Marie-Claude before my shift at eight. She saved me the trouble, knocking on the door whilst I was drying Chloé.

‘Let me finish here,’ she took Chloé, still swathed in a large towel. ‘Go and fetch some wine and tell Antoine I’ve given you the night off.’

Antoine was standing at the bar, a glass and a small bottle of Badoit in front of him. In spite of his job, I had never seen him drink alcohol.

He greeted my announcement with the usual muted response. ‘Is that so?’ he said, manoeuvring a cigarette to the other side of his mouth. ‘You can see how busy I am.’ The bar was empty apart from two regulars playing cards at a table in the corner. ‘And I suppose you want some wine as well?’ He plonked a bottle of Chinon on the counter and pulled the cork.

‘Thank you.’ I said. ‘I’ll do a double shift tomorrow.’

Half an hour later Chloé was asleep; Marie Claude and I sat opposite one another in my kitchen, a supper of cheese, saucisson and the remnants of a salad on the table in front of us.

‘Well,’ she said, pouring two glasses of wine, ‘I’m listening.’

I dipped a radish into mayonnaise. Where to start? I had spent the previous night entombed with my childhood, my earlier self – those distant years that had surrounded Josef’s departure; the letters had revisited all of it with alarming clarity. Yet so much had happened since – so much since that last sad letter, when it seemed I had let him go – and all that went with it. I knew now that nothing had gone at all.

‘Fifteen years ago my brother Josef went to Canada. He stayed with my uncle, Papa’s brother, who had emigrated to Vancouver just before the war – that was when Papa and my grandmother decided to stay in England.’

Marie-Claude sipped her wine. ‘And you’ve no idea why Josef went? Why he didn’t contact you – or come back?’

‘None at all. It made no sense. One day he was there, the next he’d gone. No one would talk about it. My parents just refused to say what had happened. For a long time I wondered if he’d committed some dreadful crime and that he’d run away. But then the police would have come – there’d have been questions. I do remember there was a fuss at school around that time – something to do with an art teacher but I never found out what it was – I don’t know if it was connected to Josef or not.’

Marie-Claude cut some thin slices of saucisson and served them out. ‘What about the rest of the family – your other brothers and your sister? How did they react?’

‘The little ones, Paul and Sophie, it didn’t affect them much. They’ll scarcely remember him. And Adam, my eldest brother, he was always detached anyway – remote – did his own thing. But Molly and Papa – something tore at them. It all changed at home and no one spoke of it. No one mentioned his name apart from Paul and he soon learned to keep it to himself.’

‘So, it was as if he’d died but you were unable to grieve – denied the comfort of that?’

‘I suppose so. Writing helped. I could talk to him that way. Perhaps I could have phoned; it just wasn’t possible to ask. Does that sound odd? It all became taboo. Unspeakable – unexpressed.’

‘And what happened yesterday – what was in the parcel that came?’

‘My letters. Someone called Alex has sent them back to me. It seems that Josef has disappeared again. There was a note – here.’ I fished it out of my pocket, still crumpled from the day before, and handed it to Marie-Claude.

She looked at me patiently. ‘You’ll have to translate – it’s a long time since I read any English.’

I read out the gist of it in French.

‘This Alex was Josef’s partner? He had a life there with someone?’

‘It looks like it. But then, Josef’s over thirty now. Half his life has been lived away from me. I know nothing about him.’

‘And now he’s gone away again and no-one knows why.’

‘Something must have happened – or maybe they just split up, he and Alex. When I knew nothing – when I had no idea where he was or what he was doing – that became normal. Now it’s changed. I have to think about it all again and so much of me doesn’t want to. After fifteen years you’d think it wouldn’t matter, but it does. It really does. It all comes back – too painful, too close.’

Marie-Claude finished her glass of wine and poured another, then helped herself to cheese. ‘That I know, Chérie. It never goes away.’

‘You understand, don’t you?’ I said, sensing that she did, suspecting that she too was holding something at bay.

‘I do,’ she said, ‘but this isn’t about me. That’s… not the issue here.’

I didn’t press her. She would shut down sometimes, much as I did, when our conversations strayed.

‘You need to go home, Madeleine – you need to sort this out. At least talk to Sophie. You owe her that – she must miss you.’

Sophie had been the one constant link with home in the years since I left. She wrote, much as I had done to Josef, except Sophie’s letters bore no trace of the rambling angst that mine had done. As far as I could tell, she’d had no difficult years, had sailed through with an enviable lightness of touch. But Marie-Claude was right; Sophie should know about the note from Alex, if only to relay that information to Molly and Saul because I was too stubborn to do it myself.

I wondered how I must appear to Marie-Claude. I thought of our first meeting – Marie-Claude inscrutable, Antoine full of gruff reserve – and how those early weeks had brought us all into the open as the heat persisted and my size grew ever more cumbersome. When I was alone in the bar, Marie Claude would appear from the kitchen holding a casserole or shallow dish covered in foil. I’ll put these upstairs, shall I – for later? In no way could I protest or refuse; she asked nothing of me and there seemed no obvious way to repay her. So I did my job as thoroughly as I could and waited quietly until the summer was over and Chloé made her entrance and Marie-Claude held my hand throughout the whole painful, noisy, glorious business. Even after almost two years, I could not fathom why they had taken me on, but whatever purpose I served in Marie-Claude’s life, it was nothing compared with the debt I would forever owe to her.

I had dug my heels in here, in her house, in this foreign corner, and it was here that I now felt most at home, living with these strangers who had become as dear to me as my own family – if not more so. Marie-Claude had simply moved over and made this space for us in her home, in her life and I knew she welcomed it. Even Antoine, with his reticence, his dry humour, had shown acceptance in countless ways – the armchair to feed Chloé, the car he allowed me to drive, the wages he paid me though the bar scarcely took enough to pay for their own food. He had even changed the plumbing so that my English sensibilities would not be offended by having to squat.

Yet I saw how Marie-Claude would sometimes be short with him, snapping a response to simple requests. I saw too the way he looked at her across the room as she cleared tables or served supper. On lonely days, I wondered if I would ever elicit such poignant longing in another being.

‘I shouldn’t bother you with this,’ I said, ‘any of it.’

‘And why not?’

‘Because, it’s my problem – I have to deal with it.’

‘And how will you do that, up here on your own?’

‘I don’t know that I can. Reading the letters – it was like reading them for the first time.’

‘As if it’s all happening now – so you’ve been through it all again?’

‘In a way, yes.’

Marie-Claude watched me across the table, her dark eyes studying my discomfiture, nudging it out so that it sat lurking in the space between us and could not be ignored.

I finished my wine and went to fetch water from the fridge. ‘You must think me very strange.’

Marie-Claude stood up too and smiled, leaning on the back of her chair. ‘You’re English,’ she said, ‘that explains a lot. But no, not strange. A little lost maybe –
déracinée.
Would it have been too hard to go home? To see them again? Your mother must have wondered about you – worried even. Your father too.’

‘Molly wasn’t a worrier, but then she kept a lot hidden. I didn’t know how to reach her – I never learnt. Then I just stopped trying.’

‘Your parents, Madeleine – they’re good people. You couldn’t be who you are if they’d been anything else. In spite of how you feel now – how you’ve felt all this time – can you really go on blaming them for what happened to Josef?’

I knew then that she was right. What had they ever done except keep quiet? Over the years, I’d stopped wanting to know what had happened, had stopped myself from thinking about it, had cut it all out. So now, did I stay away just to spite them? Did this life here really amount to much for the future? What would happen when Chloé started to ask questions about her family? Did I also hang too much on Marie-Claude and Antoine, slotting them into roles that rightfully belonged to Molly and Saul?

Marie-Claude took the plates and stacked them in the sink. ‘Go home, Madeleine. Take Chloé. They need to see her.’ Then, as if reading my mind, she said, ‘She belongs to them too.’

*

The next day I went into town and parked in the square by the station. There was a small travel agency across the road and I went with every intention of booking some sort of passage. But flights were expensive, the airport not easy to get to; in and out of Paris on the train with luggage and a pushchair. Nor was Chloé used to travelling much beyond the confines of town and the forest, so reclusive had we been.

I hung around outside, walking up and down the pavement until a woman came out and asked if I needed any help. I excused myself hurriedly and headed back to the car.

‘Phone them,’ Marie-Claude offered later as we dried glasses at lunchtime –the most strenuous part of the double shift I had promised Antoine. ‘Speak to them, then you’ll know what to do. If it’s money you need…?’

‘It’s not that.’

‘Then what?’

I put down the teatowel. ‘It’s just been such a long time.’

‘Then don’t put it off any longer. There’s the phone – do it!’ Turning, she went into the kitchen and the swing door slammed behind her.

The room was empty now; the morning drinkers had left for lunch and a siesta. Chloé too was asleep; I had run out of excuses. The phone hung accusingly on the wall behind the bar. I tried to remember the last time I had spoken to them. Molly had phoned after Chloé was born, Sophie had given her the number, believing in good faith that she may want to know about her grandchild. Then, senseless with fatigue, I had vaguely hoped for some change in the impasse we had reached, but it had been a halting, stilted conversation. As now, I was tired and scratchy from lack of sleep and Molly, edgy and defensive, had offered little to encourage or support.

I left the phone and the bar, going back upstairs to see to the washing. Marie-Claude raised an eyebrow as I went down for my shift in the evening, treating me to an exasperated shrug when I shook my head. There was coolness in our talk that evening; Marie-Claude unimpressed by my tactics of avoidance.

‘Why not write?’ she said. ‘It might be easier. Besides, your mother may have heard from this Alex too. It could be good for you both – a way to open things up again.’

‘Maybe.’ I said, ‘We’ll see.’

I did write, though, after work, sitting at the kitchen table with the row of letters in front of me – the reminder, the stepping stones. I told them about the parcel; I wrote simply and with as much good grace as I could muster. I needed them to know that my life was fine, that I had everything I needed. At some level too, I didn’t want them to worry. The threshold I had crossed by having Chloé had shown me parenthood from the other side; it had slowly dawned that Molly and Saul, for all their apparent indifference, may just be concerned about me at some level.

To Marie-Claude’s relief I posted it in the morning, a mission accomplished, a duty performed. I expected nothing in reply.

But a reply did come, less than week later. Marie-Claude brought the letter up and handed it to me. Curiosity again tempered by faint rumblings of alarm, I looked at Marie-Claude.

‘Go on,’ she said. ‘I’ll be downstairs.’

Inside the envelope were two sheets of paper, Molly’s large, formal writing flowing across the pages. I scanned them briefly, then stopped and read them in detail as the paper began to shake. Again, silence in the room; somewhere a tap dripped. A sudden rush of blood to my ears that swished with my heartbeat.

Minutes later, I went down to find Marie-Claude clearing breakfast bowls from the table. She paused and looked up.

‘I have to go home now.’ I said, ‘I have to find Josef…’ but before I could say more she came and held me tightly while I cried a long moment, in the soft, familiar comfort of her shoulder.

With some trepidation, I phoned Molly that morning, outlining my plan to come home. At first, she hesitated, the other end of the line silent, until I heard a long outlet of breath – not impatience, but relief.

‘Let us know your flight,’ she said, ‘Paul can meet you.’

‘It’s fine, I’ll catch the bus. There is a bus, is there?’

‘There is but there’s no need. Paul will come.’ Molly paused, ‘We’ll see you soon then, ‘ she said, and hung up.

I stood in the bar with the receiver in one hand and the ear piece in the other, then put them away and went outside to the street, walking up and down the wide sandy pavement, trying to catch my breath.

‘You’ve done it then.’ Marie-Claude came out to join me, holding Chloé by the hand. ‘You’re going.’ It was not a question.

‘I’m going. As soon as I can book a flight.’

‘Marie-Claude bent down and picked up Chloé. ‘It’s the right thing,’ she said, ‘I know it’s the right thing, but…’ she looked past me to the horizon, to the long green strips of forest, ‘I shall miss you. So much.’

‘We’ll be back soon. It’s only a visit, I need to see them.’

‘I know – of course I understand. Take no notice – I’m sorry,’ and she went back into the bar, taking Chloé with her.

But later, Antoine spoke to me as we waited for the evening drinkers to wander in. ‘Don’t mind her,’ he gestured towards the kitchen where pans and dishes clanged with more resonance than usual. ‘She’ll be fine. You know, she was like this all the time till you came.’

Antoine agreed to take us to the airport. Marie Claude insisted he tear himself from routine to accommodate us and he seldom refused her. Marie-Claude in any case, never drove beyond the immediate area. For some reason I had never understood, she rarely left the village. I knew only that I would miss her, that from the moment of leaving, all that was easy and familiar would be left far behind.

*

At the airport, I checked in and folded up the pushchair – a small lightweight one I’d bought for the trip. Recently opened, the airport was a celebration of French minimalist design. Facilities were minimal too and it was hard to find a seat while we waited. We wandered up and down the concourse until our flight was called, Chloé trotting next to me, stopping every few yards to examine the barrage of legs and luggage. This was only the second time I had ever flown; the return trip so long in the making, so long delayed.

Whatever awaited me at home, however events would play out now, this journey needed to be. After all the petulant indecision, the pile upon pile of excuses, Molly’s letter had found its mark. She had finally made me stop and listen, though her words had yet to sink in.

On the plane Chloé fell asleep, exhausted by sheer excitement. I lay her down on the empty seat next to me and fished around in my bag for the letter, reading it again for the hundredth time, in the vain hope that I had somehow misread its contents.

10th March 1978

The seatbelt sign lit up and I buckled Chloé, hot and sleepy, onto my lap. Her hair smelled faintly of our flat, a sweet reminder, in this transitional state circling Heathrow, of how far I had come – of how much had changed. Molly’s news hung suspended with me here between two countries, two worlds, and two homes.

After landing we sat until the crush subsided, then waited interminably for the steward to retrieve the pushchair. Insisting I could manage, I fumbled with the catch, trying to open it with one hand, but in the doorway of the plane my bag slipped off my shoulder and the contents spilled out onto the floor. I scrabbled around picking up cups and tissues and nappies while the steward calmly unfolded the pushchair and strapped Chloé into it.

By the time we reached the terminal, the queue for passports had subsided and my other bag, a case Antoine had lent me, rolled patiently alone round the carousel. I picked it off, found a trolley and headed for the exit, emerging into a wall of faces on the other side.

This moment, with many others in the past week or two, I had tried to envisage, turning it over and over in my mind, unsuccessfully. I saw Paul long before he realised we were there; he’d grown a foot taller but otherwise had altered little. A wide grin broke as he waved and came towards us – our father Saul, with the wrong colour hair. We stood in the way, thrown into clumsy contact by the crowd and the trolley and the passage of time.

‘How was the flight?’

‘Fine, very short – no time to settle really. Chloé slept though.’

‘Well, that’s good.’

‘Thanks for coming to meet me.’

‘No problem. No one else drives now, since Dad…’

Dad.
I remembered Paul and Sophie had favoured that – had refused the German
Papa
and stuck resolutely with Dad
.
Two families we had been, never quite a whole, separated even by the names we called our parents.

‘How is he?’

‘Not good. You need to see him – things have changed.’

I could have said
I know, that’s why I’m here
. But in truth, I hadn’t really known, hadn’t been there to bear the news, to watch the changes. Did Paul blame me for that? ‘I’m sorry Paul, I came as soon as I heard.’

‘We knew he was ill, just not how ill. You remember what he’s like – shuts himself away. Sophie and I – we didn’t even guess, though I think Mum did.’

‘And Molly –
Mum
– how is she?’

‘Unreadable as ever, she just carries on.’ Paul picked up my case. ‘It’s good to see you, Maddie. Really good.’

‘You too. You’ve grown up.’

He grinned again. ‘And that surprises you? Ok, let’s find the car – it’s over there I think.’ He set off at speed; the years had done little to dampen his energy.

When we reached the car I climbed into the back and held Chloé on my knee. It was a different car, one I hadn’t seen – another change. So many details to piece together and stitch up into a new whole. My family, my homeland – but not. Even the landscape, as we crawled through the West London traffic, seemed to have shrunk – the perspective crushed. Roads were narrower, towns smaller and the fields, lying in late winter emptiness, a reduced, neat patchwork.

Half-turned, Paul talked for most of the journey, Chloé looking puzzled between us. The language we spoke was not familiar, her background noise was French; she only ever heard English from me. Even for her, with no past, something was changing.

Not until we reached our road – a wide avenue lined with trees, the houses set back at the end of long stony driveways – did familiarity begin to return. And with it, the old issues, old contempt.

When we reached the house, Paul pulled up near the front door. ‘I leave it here now, Dad can’t walk too far.’

I got out of the car and stood on the drive. This was the house we had moved to the summer I turned six. Looking up at the gable window, the top half of the house covered in tiles like gingerbread, I suddenly recalled a hot August day, chasing round the empty rooms with Adam and Josef, under everyone’s feet, until we were told to sit on boxes in the front garden while they finished unloading. Then Oma had come to sit with us, breathing heavily, dabbing at her cheeks and forehead with a handkerchief. She took my hand and patted it gently. ‘Do you like it, Liebling – your new house?’

‘It’s big,’ I said, ‘and different. It doesn’t smell right.’

‘It will soon, you’ll see. This is a happy house. Good things will happen here. Your Papa, he’s earned this. It’s time for him now.’

I had little idea of what she meant, nor the extent to which her words would turn on themselves in the years to come, but at that time, she was right – and stayed right until long after her death. For a while at least the house had kept its promise.

*

Paul helped Chloé out of the car, setting her down on the drive, next to my case and the pushchair. She stood very close, hiding behind my legs. A moment later the front door opened and Molly stepped carefully out onto the gravel. She paused, then came towards us and finally smiled.

‘Madeleine.’ she said.

I took Chloé’s hand. ‘Hello, Molly.’

‘You’re early – you’ve made good time.’ Molly hesitated, then bent down and lightly touched Chloé’s head, her hand lingering on the dark curls; an older hand now, creased and marked with the years I had missed. Her hand, my child. Much had changed.

While Paul busied himself with the luggage, Molly led the way into the house. Another threshold crossed: floor polish, coffee and tobacco, though faint now, almost gone. I picked Chloé up and followed Molly into the kitchen.

‘Well,’ she turned to face us, ‘how about some tea – or coffee?’

‘Tea’s fine, thanks.’

‘And Chloé?’ she paused, trying out the word.

‘She’s alright. I have a drink for her.’

Through the kitchen window, the garden lay dull and damp as the day closed in. There was little sign of spring, except the forsythia in full bloom and a few crocuses poking up bravely between piles of dead leaves.

Molly took mugs from the dresser. ‘It’s a mess, I’m afraid. I’ve not had the time – not recently.’

‘It looks fine,’ I said pointlessly. Clearly nothing was fine at all. I sat down at the table and put Chloé on the floor. She stood by me for a while, then wandered off towards the cat lying stretched out beneath the radiator. Another change.

‘When did you get the cat?’

Molly poured water into the teapot – that forgotten ritual. ‘Some time ago, for Sophie, though she doesn’t bother with him much now. It was a distraction really, after you left.’

I let that fall. Sitting again in the kitchen, the heartland of this not-forgotten place, I was unable to process much at all; even the urgency that had propelled me here seemed to have gone.

‘And Papa?’

‘Sleeping. He sleeps a lot now. I’ll take him some tea shortly – tell him you’re here.’

‘How is he?’

Molly put a mug of thick tea on the table. ‘Don’t expect too much. Things are different, you’ll see. Yet in some ways he just carries on. He’s still working – but mainly from home. He can run the department, but he’s not strong enough to teach. The Head’s been very good.’

I dimly recalled a remote figure from my time there. ‘Is it still the same one?’

‘No, he retired a few years ago. This one’s young – the place has changed a lot. It’s a Comprehensive now.’

There were things I should say, subjects to broach, but as I sat and sipped my tea, watching Chloé stroke the cat’s fur the wrong way, I had no idea where to start. Seven years was a long time.