‘I’ll keep her at it.’
‘And do invite Jake for a day or two if he’ll come. I gather he is much better now.’
8
Jake had just completed a six-mile run when Marianne’s call came through. He had taken up running after the death of his twin sister, Fran. At first it had simply helped neutralise his anger and pain. Now he had to keep running; it had become a drug – one which came with its own thresholds of pain but without which his moods would swing between a brittle and sometimes alarming temper, and debilitating depression.
He did not have anything planned for the Easter week-end. Most of his friends seemed to be deserting London and his parents were away. Currently without a girlfriend, he had contemplated seeing if any of his old university mates were free to hang out with him. A call from his great-aunt was the last thing he had expected and at first he prevaricated. What the hell was he supposed to do, entertaining that wretched Australian girl? He was inclined to think that Marianne had gone senile and thought he was still a teenager but talking to her, she seemed sane enough; she also told him about some old family diaries which might interest him – as a historian, she said, a reference to his undergraduate degree.
Whilst neither the prospect of looking after his sixteen-year-old cousin, nor studying some ancient diaries, seemed particularly alluring, Jake paused before rejecting the invitation. When Fran had died it was Marianne – Auntie Manne as he had always known her – who had been with him in the house, who had tried to comfort him, sitting up most of the night, telling him about the sadness in her own life which he had barely understood. It was seven years since Fran’s death, and there was something he badly needed to say to Marianne, something he had never quite had the courage to say before. This might be his opportunity; he agreed to go.
The morning Jake was due to arrive, Marianne sat at her desk puzzling over a passage in her mother’s old notebooks while Anna busied herself with tidying the house. She sensed a tension in Anna and she suspected it was to do with her boyfriend.
‘How is Stefans?’
‘He’s OK.’
‘Just OK?’
‘Well, you know, he’s a bit… how you say it – grumpy.’
‘Is it his job?’
‘I don’t know… Anyway, it doesn’t matter. I must get everything ready for your visitors.’
Marianne sipped her tea. ‘Is Stefans talking again about going back to Latvia?’ she asked.
Anna looked uncomfortable. ‘No, no, not at all.’
Marianne raised her eyebrows.
‘Well, you know… I mean he doesn’t enjoy his job and sometimes he say that things are much better now in Latvia, he could start his own restaurant if he goes back to Riga – but of course we are not going to…’
‘Anna, you know, I’ve told you before…’
‘Please, Marianne, don’t say anything. I am not leaving you.’
‘Anna, I want you to stay, of course – but I’m eighty-six now. At my age…’
‘Marianne – don’t think bad things. Now I am going to make beds for Leah and for Mr Jake.’
Jake had been a child when he last visited Marianne at her home near Cambridge and as he parked his car in the driveway he saw an attractive nineteenth-century red-brick house. To the right of the front door the façade projected forward under a steeply pitched roof, suggesting a generous attic space. At the far corner the architect had allowed himself a signature flourish – familiar in that age, although an immense extravagance by the standard of modern buildings – creating a small round tower under a multi-sided roof so steep it was hard to imagine that the slates could stay in place.
Jake walked towards the front door, wondering who owned the rather scruffy-looking hatchback in the driveway. As there was no sign of a doorbell he rapped twice on the lion’s head brass doorknocker. The door was opened by a blonde girl in her late twenties with large grey-blue eyes and a welcoming smile. She put a finger to her lips. ‘You arrive early. Marianne is having a sleep. Come into the kitchen.’
The girl introduced herself as Anna, Marianne’s carer, and chatted to Jake as she busied herself in the kitchen. ‘So good for Marianne to have visitors – especially young one like you. And Leah is coming this evening – you will be collecting her from the station, I think?’
‘Will I?’ said Jake. ‘I mean, I can – of course. What time does she get in?’
‘About six, I think. We check with Marianne when she’s awake.’
Jake had barely had time to greet his Auntie Manne and enjoy an obligatory cup of tea before he was back in his car and heading to the station to pick up his cousin Leah – a girl he had not seen since she was a child of ten. He identified her immediately. She had been pretty when a ten-year-old and the same prettiness was present now as he watched a slim, tanned teenager in tight jeans, with streaked blonde hair and a rucksack on her back, wheeling a suitcase out of the station building.
Jake approached her. ‘Hey! I’m your cousin Jake – remember? Sent to pick you up.’ He kissed her on the cheek and took her case.
‘Sweet – Gran said someone would be here.’
‘Good ski trip?’ Jake enquired as they made their way to his car.
‘Awesome. There were, like, so many lifts – so many different trails – way better than skiing in Oz.’
When Anna had left for the evening, and Leah was upstairs showering, Jake decided that the moment had come to make his confession to Marianne before he lost his nerve.
Sitting down in a chair beside her, he said: ‘Auntie Manne – Marianne…’ Suddenly the familiar diminutive by which she had always been known to him seemed childish and not fitting for what he was about to say. ‘You were not to blame, you know. Not at all.’
Marianne studied his anxious gaze. Those large brown eyes like his mother, and that purposeful chin. A good-looking young man.
‘I mean, about Fran.’
‘Well, I should have been more on my guard. Your sister was always inclined to be reckless.’
‘No. I mean, perhaps she was, but in fact it was my fault.’
‘Nonsense, Jake, you mustn’t feel that. Death always makes the survivors feel guilty.’
‘But I should feel guilty, you see…’
‘Hey, Gran,’ said Leah, coming into the room with hair streaked wet against her face, ‘what’s the Wi-Fi password?’
Jake got up and walked to the other side of the room, trying not to show his irritation.
The next morning Jake sat with Marianne having breakfast. Anna sat at the table with them; as yet there was no sign of Leah. Marianne talked to Jake about the diaries. She explained how her mother’s family had been living near Reims in eastern France and – like millions of other families – had taken to the road to flee when the German army burst through the Ardennes in May 1940.
‘The famous exodus,’ said Jake.
‘Yes – well, the beginning, at least. They go to Paris and when Paris is threatened they take to the road again.’
‘It must be an important historical document,’ he said.
Marianne shrugged. ‘I don’t think there is any shortage of material on the subject.’
They talked about wartime France and Marianne was impressed by his knowledge. After breakfast, they looked at the notebooks together. Jake read a few sentences. His French is very good, she thought. Pity I can’t get him to help me on this.
‘What exactly are you doing with them?’
‘I’m making a typescript in French – doing notes on the acronyms and abbreviations – and at the same time preparing an English translation.’