The French Promise (25 page)

‘No, you’re not. Listen to me. You’re not! Jenny! Please, listen to me. You have to float.’

‘What?’ She was weeping, sinking and then somehow clawing her way back to the surface, spitting out water.

Lisette was crying
openly now too, although it was salty tears pouring into a salty sea that held no compassion. She felt fatigued and couldn’t get to Jenny, so she knew she had to urge her child to fight for her life.

‘You’re tired. Float. Turn on your back.’

‘I’ll sink.’

‘No. You know how to float – you’re the best of all of us. Turn, Jenny. Please, darling. Don’t look at the beach, just stare at the
sky and float. For me. That’s it, be brave.’

‘Mum,’ Jenny wailed.

‘Onto your back. Don’t struggle. Well done. Now just think of the ice cream that Nel has on shore and float, Jenny. Harry’s probably already there. Phillip said the rip will take you back. It’s easy – there you go.’ Her words came in staccato rushes. She was cold and tired … and now her strength was failing her too.

‘And you, Mum!
Float with me.’

‘Don’t talk, Jenny—’ Something hit her. For one chilling moment she thought it was a shark but the realisation of what it was as she turned to confront it made her feel as though a splinter of ice had just pierced her heart. Harry’s surfboard! She gagged on the salt water and her own rising bile of fear and panic.

She wouldn’t tell her daughter. She looked back at Jenny – too far
away now to talk to anyway, and Lisette’s limbs felt as heavy as boulders. Tom often used the expression that he was ‘all out of gas’. That’s how she felt now. She watched her son’s surfboard move past her reach; she couldn’t even use it to help herself or his sister. Lisette looked frantically for him. Why had he cast the board aside? He had probably thought he could swim in faster.
No, Harry,
no!
She could see him flailing ahead, getting nowhere because the rip had him in its maw; she cast one final look at Jenny, who was miraculously heading towards the shore, unwittingly riding that invisible current, and Lisette bit her lip hard until it bled
to sharpen herself. She would love to follow her but her son was still out here.

Swim! Get Harry!

Once again, Lisette
struck out. She didn’t know whether she was in the rip, swimming around its edge, whether an undertow had her, or whether she’d found some superhuman strength that only a mother can muster when her baby is threatened. But she knew that if it was the last thing she would do with her life, she was going to hold her son again. And no stretch of water or its cunning ways was going to keep her from him.

The current obliged, surging her towards Harry as though in challenge to her ferocity.
Here
, she could almost hear it mocking.
I’ll drown you both
.

‘Harry!’ she screamed, her arms no longer numb but suddenly on fire, and impossible to lift. They flapped around uselessly but her legs instinctively kicked despite the fatigue and kept her afloat.

‘Mum,’ he croaked, treading water but looking
as though he might dip beneath the surface at any second. ‘Why—’

‘Just relax, son. Don’t fight it.’

‘We’re going to drown,’ he cried, resigned but breathless, eyes wide in fright and red from the sea’s sting.

‘No,’ she urged, reaching for him, using everything she had left in her just to be able to touch him once more. She found his fingers and grabbed them, pulling him to her. ‘No, darling. Jenny
will call help.’ She felt him slip beneath again, gulping and gagging, and knew she was just as likely to sink too in the next breath. She dragged him back. ‘Hold on, darling. Please.’ She was crying; hating herself for the weakness.

‘I’m sorry, Mum,’ he choked. ‘I’m so sorry.’

She knew instinctively that neither of them had enough strength to swim to the left or the right and float their way
back as Phillip had advised. Jenny had been drawn away to one side, lucky enough to catch that current back to the shore. Lisette could see that she and Harry were still in the rip and being tugged directly out in a straight line, even further.

‘Harry …’ He was struggling, too tired to do anything more than hold on to her, dragging her down. What were they doing back on shore? Didn’t
Jenny and Nel know they were drowning out here? Either way it was too late. And now it was time to let go. Lisette had no more gas in the tank and, besides, she didn’t want a life without her son; it was easier to be dead than to cope with the death of this vital, beautiful child.

She thought about Luc, fishing, laughing with Tom. She wanted him to come and rescue them; pluck them from the surging
ocean and carry them in his big strong arms, soothing them in French as he had soothed her once before when people had shaved her head, mocked her, wanted to hang her probably, and all the fight had gone out of her. He found her then in Paris. He could find her in the sea off Clifton Beach.

The echo of her words of just half an hour earlier haunted her:
If I died today, I could honestly say my
heart was full
…

She had been granted exquisite happiness – even though it was fleeting – and she was grateful for that and for her life of the last decade … for all of its love and laughter and lavender. She’d always known she would die brutally … like her parents before her and like everyone she’d loved, except Luc and the children. Luc had his lavender to keep him safe and their children
were free of her curse, she hoped – if only Harry could be made safe.

A wave rounded over their heads and she came up spluttering but her son didn’t. No! she screamed in her mind.
Harry … don’t leave me!

Lisette could no longer keep her head above the ocean that wanted to swallow her and she didn’t want to; she needed to find her boy. She slipped beneath the waters silently with an almost
tender sigh and was surprised how easy it was to let go.

And as she did so, she remembered with calm acceptance the fear that had haunted her dreams. So this was the loss that the recurring nightmare, which had no shape or image, was preparing her for all those years ago. Losing her parents, losing Markus, leaving her grandparents, even her love for Luc could never touch her intense love for her
children, especially Harry. He was the darkness of the dream. A mother’s love – the perfect love – and thus a loss so complete that surrender was more acceptable than fighting for survival. She hoped Luc would forgive her for taking their unborn child with her as she sank from summer’s warmth into the cold depths.

The day before had been a good day’s fishing with a plentiful catch and a dinner of fresh flathead. They’d all risen early to have another morning on the water. The haul had been even more generous and Luc looked forward to presenting his family with the dozen flathead he had personally caught for the meal that night at the shack overlooking Clifton Beach.

It was near 4 p.m. and he’d had a strange feeling of uneasiness on the rim of his mind for most of the afternoon. He had no idea why and when he’d shivered suddenly at not long past noon, Tom had joked that someone had just walked over his grave. It was an odd saying; not one Luc fully understood, but he grasped its sinister meaning. Luc became even more keen to be on his way but his companions
decided to have one last mug of billy tea while they finished cleaning and filleting the morning’s catch. It was a fair compromise that he would give Lisette beautifully pale and boned fillets rather than whole fish to deal with in return for perhaps
another half hour. So while his friends got on with the task, Luc’s job was to fetch wood for the fire to boil the billy. He had been carrying an
armload of kindling by the banks of the river when a yell went up.

Luc had frowned, looked down the slight incline where he stood and saw what appeared to be a police car rumbling up to Tom, and two officers getting out.

It had felt instantly terrifying to watch Tom look up, first pointing at him and then beckoning. Luc had dropped the kindling and half ran, half slid down the incline.
It was probably less than fifty frantic heartbeats but it felt like an eternity before he was close enough to know the sergeant’s eyes were a watery blue.

‘Luke Ravens?’

‘Yes.’

‘From Bonet’s Farm?’

‘Yes, what is this? What’s wrong?’

The two men had looked uncomfortable. ‘Son, I’m sorry but there’s some bad news. We’re from Clarence Plains. There’s been an accident over at Clifton Beach.’

Luc remembered
how he’d shaken his head. ‘Accident?’ A dozen thoughts had shot through his mind in that instant, from Harry going out on a lone spree in the DeSoto to Lisette slicing through a finger because she was always so clumsy with knives.

The older policeman’s face was heavy with sorrow and Luc had sensed this wasn’t the first and likely not the last time he would deliver bad news to an unsuspecting spouse
or parent. Tom was suddenly at his side and Luc didn’t want to hear whatever the newcomers had to say. He wanted to run.
No!
He would not hear anything bad about his family. No one had walked over his grave this afternoon!

‘Luke, son, we have to escort you to …’

The man’s voice was coming to him from a long way away. He was pronouncing his name incorrectly, but why was he worrying
about that when he could swear he’d heard something about ‘caught in the rip’? His mind had fled to Lisette and the children; how could he have left them? He was meant to keep them safe.

He felt strong arms around him. Tom.

It was Tom who spoke for him then. ‘But they’re all right, mate. Right?’

There had been an even more awkward pause. And Luc read into the terrible silence the worst news that
he could ever receive.

‘Harry,’ he had croaked. ‘Tell me he’s safe.’

‘Luke, son … I’m very sorry but I can’t tell you that. I don’t have all the details. I’ve been sent to fetch you home.’ The man had swallowed, throwing a look of appeal to Tom. ‘It doesn’t sound good, although it’s not my place to—’

‘Is Harry dead?’ Luc had growled, taking a step forward and towering over him. ‘Tell me!’

The
man had blinked, clearly considering his options. He chose honesty. ‘I’m very sorry but your son is missing, presumed drowned. And so is your wife.’

No one had moved in that instant. It was as though even the water stopped lapping, the gulls stopped calling. Nothing surrounded Luc but a desperate, dark, silent stillness.

He shook off Tom’s hands to bend over and let out a guttural sound like an
animal in pain.

He felt the touch on his arm, recognised Nel’s voice, realised he’d been lost in his thoughts again.

‘Luc?’ Lisette had taught her how to say his name
properly … the French way. Funny how he noticed minutiae now: Nel’s pronunciation, ants marching along the kitchen counter just before rain, the picture he could form from a cloud. That had been a favourite game he played with Harry.
They’d lie in Harry’s bed on a miserable, cold day and look out of his window into the overcast sky of Eastbourne and make up images and stories of dragons or spaceships from the clouds.

But there’d be no more dragons for Harry. The monster had become too real and stolen his life; his son would be buried with his mother in a family plot Luc hadn’t imagined they’d need for decades. He’d
chosen a place in the white field because it was high and looked over all the Bonet lavender fields. It felt right, too. It was called Harry’s Field, after all. At night, when the flowers were in bloom, it took on an almost spiritual feel and he was sure that next summer he would feel their presence, especially his wife’s. The flowers from this field bore her name and it was where they had made
love beneath the stars and probably where they’d conceived the third child that had died with Lisette.

The pregnancy was a surprise she was saving for their anniversary next month, he’d guessed. Nel had not known apparently and the only reason he discovered Lisette’s secret was when he’d met with their family doctor after the drowning, needing help sleeping. The doctor had presumed Luc had known
of Lisette’s condition, letting slip his sorrows for the unborn child as much as for Lisette and Harry.
A son or another daughter?
he wondered now, senselessly torturing himself. He’d wanted a third child so much but they’d given up hope when it hadn’t happened and Jenny had slipped into double figures.

‘Luc?’ Nel repeated and hugged him.

He wanted no comfort. His pain was
too raw. The bodies of his wife and son had been recovered the day after they’d drowned, washed up and trapped in the shallows of surrounding rocks. A young local surfer called Phillip had found them. According to the police the teenager had been relentless in his search, getting into the water far earlier than even the rescue crew could the next morning after mother and son had disappeared. And now
it was already a week later.

‘Seven days without Lisette – torture. How will I get through the next seven?’

‘Just get through today. And then tomorrow tell yourself the same thing,’ Nel replied gently. ‘It’s time, Luc. Everyone’s gathered.’

‘I don’t want to.’

‘I know. But you must. I accept you’re in shock, but you’re a brave man. Find that courage now … for you, for Jenny, for them. Bury them.’

‘Look upon their coffins? Throw dirt onto them? Leave them in the hard ground to be covered by frost and snow next winter? Harry hates the cold.’

‘Harry can’t feel it now. He’s safe. He’s warm. He’s with his mother. And they will watch over you and Jenny for—’

‘Stop it, Nel. Stop trying to turn it into a fairytale. Do that for Jenny if you must but I’ve seen enough death in my life to know they’re
not anywhere. They’re just lifeless, already rotting, and it’s my fault. I left them alone. I should have been there. Harry should never have—’

‘No, he shouldn’t. He’d been warned. By you, by me, by his mother. And still he did, Luc, because he was a young
man, testing himself as all young men will. And he died. No one’s fault. Blame the sea, blame the weather, blame the heavens, but don’t be
so arrogant as to blame yourself that Harry and Lisette’s lives rested on your shoulders … on your whim.’ She pointed an accusing finger at him. ‘I loved them too and while you might lay a greater claim to them, I defy you to miss your wife any more than I’ll miss my best friend or your child, who was every inch a son to me.’ She was crying helpless tears. ‘We have to bury them, Luc, and we can’t
do it without you. Life will begin its slow and painful journey again, but first you have to do this … for all of us who loved them.’

He stared at her in anguish before finally nodding. ‘Go. I’ll be there shortly. Where’s Jenny?’

‘She’s waiting in the car. Tom and I will drive her up.’

‘I’ll walk.’

‘Reverend Pooley is already there.’ He nodded. ‘Just a minute alone, Nel.’

She left him
and he heard the back door wheeze shut but it didn’t bang; he missed the annoying sound that only Harry seemed capable of making, with Lisette’s voice yelling after him in her mock fury.

Luc stared at the envelope on the table with Jenny’s large writing that had scrawled ‘Dad’ on its front. He opened it and took out the contents. It was a pair of photos. He could see it was snapped on the day
of the drowning. In the first Lisette had her arms linked through those of their children; all were beaming bright, happy grins. Luc stared at Lisette, her face a study in happiness, with her smile reaching right into her eyes and straight into his heart. Jenny had thrown her head back to laugh, and Harry had turned to regard his sister and
was no doubt the reason for her explosive amusement.
Only Lisette stared straight at him. He had to admit that he had never seen a prettier or happier photograph of his wife.

It lifted his spirits to see it and infused some warmth into what had been a numb heart and mind.

The second photo did the opposite to him, unfortunately. It was Lisette and Harry, hugging. They were both looking directly into the lens, eyes wide and haunting; Harry
kneeling, his mother behind him with her hands slung carelessly around his neck. They weren’t laughing, and at any other time someone might consider it an utterly beautiful photograph that captured a moment of poignancy between mother and son. Jenny was proud of it, had even signed it for him on the back. But its haunting quality of the two pairs of eyes watching him seemed to be full of accusation
–
Why weren’t you there to save us?

Special permission had been sought and granted for Lisette and Harry to be buried on the isolated hill briefly perfumed each summer by white lavender. It was the perfect resting place for Luc’s beloved pair, beneath the field of the ghostly wild white flowers that had come from Provence and was Harry’s special ingredient in their most successful
extraction. There would be no trip to London this July. Suddenly Luc couldn’t care less about the grand harvest, the superb oil, the potential for the future. He wanted no future. He wanted his wife and son back.

He wanted to yell this as he strode up the hill alone, knowing dozens of pairs of eyes watched him with pity. His dark suit itched and nausea was lurking relentlessly.

Nevertheless, Luc
was stoic and Jenny’s hand slipped out of Nel’s and clung tightly to his. He was aware of her presence
and stroked her cheek, but he had no room in his broken heart to bear her grief as well. Jenny had Nel and Luc believed she’d be a far better source of comfort right now to his little girl. She needed a woman’s affection, not an angry man’s.

At the edge of his mind Luc was aware and
dimly shocked by the immense crowd of country folk that had gathered to see his wife and son buried. It was obvious this was not just people being respectful; they were in genuine mourning for an enormously popular pair. He picked out Harry’s closest mates, both white-lipped and pale in disbelief that their friend was in that wooden box next to the grave.

By the time burly men took up the ropes
that would gently descend the coffins, all the women were weeping, but Luc – in a familiar mindset of dislocation – felt he had no more tears to give. Instead he fixated on the grain of the timber that made up the coffins, noticed the individual pebbles and layers in the rich red of the soil that greeted them, and could smell the high notes of lavender from the fallen flower heads that didn’t make
it into the harvest sacks and were being crushed underfoot by those gathered. That last observation felt wholly appropriate.

Distantly, Luc registered people who’d travelled down from the city, even the surfer boy and his father up the long distance from Hobart. All there, solemn and grieving for his family, but none of them truly capable of knowing how he felt this day.

If not for Jenny, he would
gladly follow Lisette and Harry into the earth because it felt like there was now no reason to keep breathing. His grandmother had promised him that the lavender would always keep him safe, but the lavender hadn’t kept anyone that he loved secure. Not his parents, his sisters, his friends … And now the only woman he had ever loved,
who had survived not just a war but the intrigues of the German
High Command, was dead from a summer seaside holiday that went so horribly wrong. And his son … his beautiful child who had brightened everyone’s life with his presence, and who had so much yet to contribute to the world, had sunk beneath a heartless ocean. And what was life without people in it that you love?

Luc squeezed Jenny’s hand. She had uttered only a few words since the drownings
but also refused to cry, which troubled him at a distant level. He hadn’t paid enough attention to her needs; he knew it. But she had Nel fussing over her day and night. He felt clumsy, too broken to offer the right words of comfort that seemed to fall from Nel in a constant stream of support accompanied by embraces, little strokes and glances that he simply couldn’t find the capacity for. When
he’d arrived at the gravesite his little girl’s resemblance to her mother – normally so charming – now seemed to mock his loss. Her eyes looked bruised and hollow from no sleep and her complexion was a ghost of the healthy summer glow of just a week ago. Her hand felt tiny in his; even her normally straight stance appeared broken.

He watched the vicar’s mouth murmur a prayer and heard people respond
with a sombre ‘Amen.’

Why? What rhyme or reason did the heavens have for constantly battering his life with loss? How much more could be taken from him?

Then pay your debts,
whispered a voice in his mind.
And then we will be done with you.