Page 32 of The French Wife

Emma felt her scalp tingle. ‘Do you mean she might not be dead?’

The woman shrugged. ‘Nobody knew. All I can tell you is that if she was dead, she wouldn’t have been buried in the graveyard anyway. The townsfolk wouldn’t have permitted it.’

‘Why do you say that, madame? What do you mean?’ Emma was desperate to hear more, but she could feel Madame Garnier’s hand on her back, propelling her out of the front door.

‘I said I don’t like talking about it,’ the old woman said firmly. ‘There are a few others still living in the town who were around during the war. They might be prepared to tell you more. I was only a child. And as I said, I find it hard to remember.’

‘Thank you, madame,’ Emma said again. ‘Thank you for talking to me. I really do appreciate it.’

The door slammed behind Emma, and she stood alone in the cobbled street feeling a little foolish at the way Madame Garnier had bundled her out of her home. She eyed the customers at the café tables sipping their coffee with envy. How she would love to be sitting at one of those tables and ordering a café crème, to take away the bitter taste of Madame Brodin’s coffee. But she knew without turning round to glance back at the house that the old lady would be standing in her front window, just behind the curtain, watching to see where she went. She would probably be deeply offended if Emma went into the café.

Instead, she went past the café terrasse and, continuing under an ancient stone arch, carried on walking beside the river. It was a gorgeous day, and it was impossible not to be affected by the beauty of her surroundings. The sun was shining from a cloudless sky, there was a light breeze rippling the river and stirring the leaves in the plane trees that lined the banks. With the backdrop of the grey-green hills with their granite ridges, the sight of the mellow stone walls of the ancient abbaye in the foreground on the opposite bank, the fast-running shallow river running through vineyards, the little town seemed idyllic.

The lane took Emma towards a shingle beach on the river beside a deep section that had been dammed with a low walkway across it. She realised she would have to cross this walkway to get to the graveyard so she walked down to the water’s edge and watched the peaceful scene for a moment. People were swimming in the cool waters, families picnicking on blankets spread out on the pebbles, children splashing in the shallows, squealing with delight. Suddenly her breath caught in her throat at the sight of them and her eyes misted with tears. How Eliza would have loved it here. She’d been a fearless swimmer, happy to jump into the water and splash about from a very early age. Just like these little ones here. If Emma closed her eyes, those could have been Eliza’s squeals of delight.

A shudder went through her, and she forced herself to walk, past the beach and the families enjoying the sunshine, past the swimmers and the toddlers. With an effort, she put a foot onto the walkway that crossed the dam and propelled herself towards the opposite bank. She still wasn’t used to the way grief sometimes ambushed her like that. It would come at her out of the blue in unexpected ways. She guessed it might go on happening to her for ever.

She realised with a pang of guilt that she hadn’t been thinking about Eliza quite so much lately, not since she’d arrived at the farm, in fact. Organising the renovations and trying to find out about the history of Le Châtaignier had taken her mind off her loss. She didn’t want to forget Eliza – her daughter would always be right there in her heart – but she didn’t want to feel the grief she’d been experiencing for so many months either whenever she thought of her. She was beginning to understand that it was far better for her to remember Eliza with joy and love than with the pain associated with her loss. Her short, exuberant life needed celebrating, not mourning.

Emma stepped off the dam onto the other bank, and turned up an alleyway which ran uphill between the abbey on one side and a high stone wall on the other. As she approached the top of the lane, she could already see the wall that bordered the cemetery; behind it stood a row of tall cypress trees, and behind them she could see the tops of several tombstones. Her heart quickened. She was a few steps away from finding out something about Bruno Garnier. At the very least she would surely find out the date on which he had died.

She entered through a pair of tall, grey iron gates and looked at the confusing array of neat gravel paths in front of her. The graveyard occupied a narrow strip of gently sloping land between the lane and the steeper slopes of the hill behind, which started to climb sharply immediately behind the rear wall. The cemetery was crowded to overflowing with gravestones and tombs hewn out of the local, pale stone. Emma wondered which way to turn. She looked at the inscriptions on the graves around her. Families did seem to be buried near to each other, but they were dated randomly between 1856 and 2005. It was immediately clear to her that Bruno’s grave could be anywhere.

She walked slowly up one of the paths, reading the inscription on every gravestone as she went. Up ahead she became aware of some temporary, red barriers across the path and she quickly realised that part of the graveyard was cordoned off. A couple of men in high-vis jackets were working on what looked like a pile of stones on the far side.

‘Excusez-moi?’ she called.

One of them turned, put down his shovel and came to speak to her, wiping the sweat from his brow. She told him she was looking for a particular grave, that of Bruno Garnier, but he simply shook his head.

‘There has been a landslip,’ he told her. ‘A rockfall from the hill. It is because of the dry weather we’ve been having lately. This part of the cemetery is out of bounds, I’m afraid, madame, until we’ve made it safe.’

‘Could you just tell me if that particular grave – Bruno Garnier’s – is in that part of the graveyard that’s roped off.’

The man shrugged, laughed and shook his head. ‘I have no idea whose graves are here, madame. That’s not part of my job. We’ll be finished in a couple of days. Why don’t you come back then?’

Discouraged, she thanked the man, retraced her steps to the main gate, then, slowly and methodically worked her way up and down every accessible path, checking the graves on either side until she’d checked every one. Bruno Garnier’s grave wasn’t amongst them, neither had she come across any grave bearing the name Garnier either. That meant it was probably in the roped-off section along with any other members of the Garnier family that might be buried there.

As she was about to leave, her eyes strayed to a grave near the gate that someone had recently placed fresh roses on. They were blooming and luscious, giving off a sweet scent, but the reason she’d noticed this grave was because of the surname on the gravestone: Marchand. That was Gaston’s surname. Perhaps this was a relative? She looked more closely and read: Sophie Marchand, beloved daughter, sister, wife and mother, born 5 April 1970, died 20 October 2005.

How sad that this woman had died so young, Emma thought, as she went through the gates and headed back towards the river. About her own age. She must have had young children. She wondered what relation Sophie had been to Gaston, if she was related. Perhaps he would tell her one day, but she certainly didn’t know him well enough to ask yet.

TWELVE

AMÉLIE

November 1942

When Amélie returned to the kitchen from the herbergerie after having given the typewritten notes about German troop movements to Raoul, Bruno was sitting at the table drinking beer.

‘What the hell were you doing in there?’ he asked, fixing her with that malevolent look she knew so well. ‘I’ve told you before, the herbergerie is no place for you. It’s where the men sleep, for God’s sake. They could have been getting undressed. The men need their privacy.’

‘They were all fully dressed, I can assure you. And in any case, Lili was there too,’ Amélie said, with a sigh of resignation, making for the larder to find something to cook for supper.

‘So, tell me!’ he called after her, raising his voice. ‘Why did you go in there?’

She found half a ham in the meat safe and some eggs in a bowl on the shelf and brought them out to the kitchen. It would have to be omelette this evening – again.

‘I had something important to give to Raoul,’ she told him.