‘Hi,’ she managed to reply. After he’d gone she read her book for a bit as she ate, then went up to her room. A film she’d helped make was on one of the minor channels, a love story set in wartime France. She remembered how she’d been interested in the real-life episode on which it was based. After watching it for a while she took a shower and investigated the pile of neatly ironed washing that lay on the bed. When she shook out the clean nightdress, a fragrance of roses filled the air.
Beatrice opened the ancient photograph album as she and Lucy sat together at the dining-table the next morning. ‘There, that’s my father, Hugh Marlow,’ she said. The picture was of a young man in a suit and cravat, with a moustache and an intense expression. ‘And here’s my parents’ wedding in 1919.’ Hugh, still in military uniform, stood proudly beside a neat, dark girl dressed in white lace.
‘Your mother? What was her name?’ Lucy asked.
‘Delphine. She was French.’
‘She was pretty. Where was it taken?’
‘Near Etretat on the Normandy coast – do you know it?’
‘I’ve heard of it, that’s all.’
‘It’s famous for its white cliffs, like the ones at Dover. Monet painted them. When I was born in 1922, it was still a small village. My father, a Lieutentant with the Gloucestershire Rifles, was wounded in France near the end of the Great War and sent to a hospital near Etretat. The injury to his shoulder healed fairly easily. It was the lungful of mustard gas that affected him for the rest of his life.’
Beatrice smiled. ‘I often used to imagine their first meeting. My mother said he would sit in the hospital grounds when the weather was fine and she noticed how he perked up whenever he saw her delivering fruit and vegetables in a horse-drawn cart. She was the daughter of a local landowner, you see. It’s so strange to think about one’s parents being young and in love, isn’t it?’
‘My parents met when Mum’s boyfriend’s motorbike broke down on the way back from a rock festival. Dad was passing and gave her a lift in this really smart car,’ Lucy said. ‘He was quite a few years older than her, and wore a suit, and she thought he was pretty cool.’
Beatrice looked delighted at this idea and it was a moment before she returned to her story. ‘One January morning in 1919 my mother brought a bucket of early daffodils along with the fruit and veg, but while she was hefting the thing out of the cart, something spooked the pony, the cart jerked forward and flowers and water flew out everywhere. My father staggered over to rescue her. She said she didn’t know who must have looked worse – she soaked through and weeping, or he, in bandages and pyjamas, trying to steady the horse. Not a very romantic start, was it? Though I don’t know that they were a very romantic couple.’
‘That’s something my mum complained about – that Dad never did anything romantic. I don’t think it was the way he was. But that didn’t mean he didn’t care.’
‘Of course not,’ Beatrice said. ‘Anyway, they married a few months later. When my father relayed news of his engagement to his parents, there was quite a hoo-ha. Why? Well, for a start my mother was French and a Catholic, and that was bad enough in their eyes. Then, although his family were landowning farmers themselves, somehow Grandfather Marlow didn’t consider the fields of Normandy to be as superior as the Marlows’ rolling estates in the Cotswolds. My father wasn’t the firstborn son and heir, but my grandfather was a controlling sort of man, and the marriage created a rift between them.’
She reached for the fragile album and turned the page. Lucy found herself looking at a traditional French farmhouse with chickens and a dog in a muddy yard. ‘That’s my Normandy grandparents’ house. For a while my father was happy to stay and help out with the farmwork, but the damage to his lungs was significant, and he found it too much for him. As a small child I was carted to and fro across the Channel as my parents tried to find somewhere he could feel settled, with work he could do. I can’t imagine what stress it put on my poor mother, she always having to be the cheerful one and buck up my father.’
‘And these are your French relations?’ Lucy pointed to another photograph, of a family group.
‘Yes, these two here are Gran’mère and Pappi. Pappi looks a bit fierce with that beard, doesn’t he? He was a kind man, really. Gran’mère was one of those very capable people and she had a lot to be capable about, what with six children and the farm. These three men were my uncles, and the little girls my cousins, Thérèse and Irène. They were a few years older than me, so I was the baby.’