Reaching the gates, Lucy looked up. It seemed her father had aged, but the lines through his skin were yielding, well drawn. He was like a man who’d been well treated by an indulgent parole board. Yes, they would recommend his release; but so many years of imprisonment had passed that the spout within for exhilaration had rusted, clogged. They all watched him in a line, waiting for the bursting forth. He could only smile, shake hands, bow … mutter thanks.
He faced Lucy and said plainly, ‘There’s still enough time left to make a difference, don’t you think?’
‘Yes.’
They walked out into Field Court and the gates of paradise politely closed. Her father kissed her goodbye. Strange, thought Lucy: it was only since she’d told her father about the death of Pascal that intimacy of the kind they each wanted, had been restored between them. Glancing up at a mute griffin, Lucy could have sworn she saw the little beast breathe.
2
Anselm left Salomon Lachaise to the solitude of Larkwood and took a train to Newcastle. From there he took the rattling Metro to the coast where Robert Brownlow lived.
Anselm had made the arrangement with Maggie, who opened the door before he could knock. She led him anxiously to the foot of the stairs. Anselm told her not to worry and went up to join Robert in the lounge.
They stood at the window, looking out on Cullercoats Bay Down below on the beach was little Stephen, heaping sand with his father, Francis.
‘Francis is my eldest,’ said Robert. ‘Over there is Caroline, his wife, with the recent addition, Ian. He’s eleven months.’ A woman, evidently not used to the rigours of a sunny North-East afternoon, sat wrapped in an overcoat by an outcrop of rocks. The round, covered head of an infant protruded between the raised lapels.
‘I’ve got four other children. Two are married, both of them have kids. Altogether we come to thirteen. And now we re in pieces.’
They watched two generations shivering on the sand.
‘Robert,’ said Anselm, ‘you told me when we first met that Victor had died after the war:
‘As far as I was concerned, he had. That man was not my father. Victor Brownlow was. At least, that is what I wanted to believe, for their sake,’ he nodded towards the beach, ‘and for mine. But now, after watching him in court defending that man, it’s the other way round. My father has died and I find myself the son of Victor Brionne.’
Unseen by his father, little Stephen had begun to undress, his face set towards the frozen sea. Stephen’s mother, permanently alert, shooed her husband away back to his charge.
Anselm chose his words carefully. ‘Part of what you have said is true. Your father is dead.’
Robert turned, his brown eyes puzzled, not quite meshing with the bite of the words.
Anselm continued, ‘As you say, Victor Brionne is not your father. Nor is he now. He never was.
‘What do you mean?’ asked Robert.
‘You are the son of Jacques Fougères.’
Robert’s mouth fell slightly apart; he roughly drew a hand across his short, neat hair. ‘The man mentioned in the trial?’
‘Yes.’
‘Who had a child by Agnes Aubret?’
‘Yes.’
‘I am that child?’
‘Yes, Robert, you are.
He moved away from the light of the window, unsteadily towards a chair. Sitting down cautiously, he said, ‘Agnes Aubret … my mother?’
‘Yes.’
‘Who died in Auschwitz?’ His eyes began to flicker. He coughed, lightly
‘No. Robert, she is alive. She survived. She lives in London. She is very ill and will soon die.’
‘My God.’
‘It is a long and involved story,’ said Anselm, moving to
Robert’s side, ‘and Victor will tell you everything. All I want to say is this. You are alive today because he saved you. The price he paid was horrendous and he’s been paying ever since.’
‘Tell me a little more, anything …
Anselm briefly gave the outline of Victor’s chosen path, with its unforeseen penalty, and his further choices.
Fearful, like one trapped in the sand, the tide approaching, Robert said, ‘I’ll have to relive my whole life, right from the beginning, find myself … seek out… my father … seek out Victor.’ He stumbled over the changing references within simple words .
Anselm replied quickly with gentle insistence, ‘Robert, begin that journey with your mother; she already knows … and let Victor be your guide.’
Robert walked to the door and called out faintly ‘Maggie, come here, please …’
She came running up the stairs. As she entered the room Robert weakly extended his arms. She clasped his neck, exclaiming, ‘What’s happened, Robert? Tell me, tell me.’
Anselm strode outside into a sudden blustering, the long exhalations of the sea. Beneath a cupola of unremitting light he passed through a gate and found a cliff trail skirting the bay. He walked, his face averted to the wind, until, at a midpoint, he turned, squinting, and looked back: there was the house, etched into hard, shapeless cloud, the windows punched small and black; and there, below, on the beach, was little Stephen with tousled blond hair, piling up the wet sand … the carefree, joyous great-grandson of Agnes Aubret and Jacques Fougères.
Chapter Forty-Eight
1
The day before Agnes’ first and last reunion with her family it rained: a bombarding, cruel inundation that bled the sky. Bloated cloud hung low, shrouding high-rise flats and sharp steeples. For once Lucy didn’t want to be on her own. She rang Cathy and asked if she could stay the night.
Lucy took the tube to Pimlico and dashed through the puddles, her head bent into her chest. By the time she got to Cathy’s flat she was drenched. After a bath, she wrapped herself in a large, warmed towel. When she padded into the sitting room she saw takeaway cartons lined up on a tray Cathy looked up and said, ‘Mongolian. Honestly’
Lucy noticed the absence of make-up. Cathy looked younger, like she’d been at Cambridge but without the confident aggression. Outside, the rain thumped upon dull, empty pavements; and, as the night fell, Lucy told Cathy what would happen the next day. Cathy listened, moving food around her plate with tiny flicks of a fork. It was in the telling that Lucy had another idea. While they were preparing for bed, she stuck her head around the bathroom door and said, ‘Would you like to meet someone?’
‘Who?’
‘A man.’
‘I need a bit more than that.’
‘He knows how to use a pallet knife.’
‘Set it up.’
Lucy lay awake, longing for the wind and rain to be reconciled, or at least to put off their fight for another day. The weather was going to wreck the plans for the morrow. While she worked out an alternative strategy sleep crept upon her by surprise. When Lucy woke the next morning, weak sunshine stole between a gap in the curtains and lit the wall with a shaft of subdued flame. Throwing open the window, she listened with gratitude to the silent work of heat upon water, a union that always recaptured the first freshness of things.
After breakfast, Lucy abandoned the trousers and top she’d bought the day before and dressed in one of Cathy’s smart conversation-stoppers: a navy blue dress with hand-painted enamel buttons. Standing on the doorstep Cathy warned, ‘If you stain that, I’ll weep.’
Lucy caught a glint of tears.
‘I hope everything goes fine,’ Cathy said.
2
Freddie had organised the reception at Agnes’ flat. A trellis table was set up in the back courtyard, covered with plates, laden trays, glasses, plastic cups, bottles of Bollinger, Manzanilla and ghastly fizzy drinks for children. It was lavish, and Wilma said he’d gone mad. The guests arrived for two o’clock: Salomon Lachaise; Victor Brionne; Robert and Maggie Brownlow, with their five children, and their children; Father Anselm; and Father Conroy who moved round the living room quietly spinning threads among them all.