Chapter 22
One morning in the gap between that last conversation with Jack and Christmas, Florence faced up to the truth.
It was time to be pragmatic. Jack didn’t love her and although she pretended it was no big deal, she felt heartbroken because she did love him.
But Jack had built walls around his heart and there was absolutely nothing she could do about it.
That he had not been in love with Hélène either didn’t really make much difference to anything – her sister would still be devastated if she knew that Florence harboured such deep feelings for him.
A letter had arrived from Claudette, in which she described her sister Rosalie as fun-loving and affectionate.
Her mother explained that their parents never understood Rosalie, that she’d always been the odd one out, and that they tried to stifle her spirit because it had frightened them.
Rosalie must have felt so unloved, Florence realised, and felt such a surge of sympathy for the young girl.
No wonder she ran away. So now, having considered everything, Florence made the decision to go to Malta just as soon as the war ended, and she would go alone.
In the meantime, she would contact Bruce.
He might turn out to be a good friend for her and she already liked him.
She’d hesitated about calling, but knew she needed to spread her wings, get out more, and stop brooding about Jack.
So, standing in the phone box, she dialled the number in a rush before she could change her mind.
She hadn’t expected him to answer in person and was a bit taken aback to hear his voice.
‘Florence! It’s so good to hear from you,’ he said. Reassured by the warmth she could hear in his voice, it reminded her of how decent he had seemed.
‘Sorry it’s taken so long. I’ve been awfully busy. I’d love to go for a jaunt in your sidecar just as soon as the snow melts.’
‘Goodness. You’re game. The forecast is that it will hang around for a couple of days. So … how about Thursday? I know you’re not far from the farm, but where exactly do you live? I’ll pick you up at ten in the morning.’
‘I have to work in the evening.’
He laughed. ‘We’ll be back long before that. It’s freezing on the bike this time of year. Remember to wrap up.’
On Thursday she heard the motorbike from her bedroom window and ran downstairs in haste, hoping to grab her things before Jack had the chance to open the door.
She slipped into her coat and pulled down her woolly hat but couldn’t find her mittens.
While she was looking for them, she heard Jack open the door and then the sound of voices. She found her mittens and hurried out.
‘Sorry, Bruce, I couldn’t find—’
He smiled at her. ‘No problem, I’ve just been having a chat with Jack here.’
‘You know each other?’ She was surprised, hadn’t expected or prepared herself for that.
‘A little,’ Jack said rather gruffly and then stepped back into the house, closing the door behind him.
The ride didn’t last long. It really was too cold, but she enjoyed feeling the wind burning her cheeks and she had fun being with Bruce too.
He pulled up and parked on the edge of a forest and they walked for a while, kicking at the leaves on the frozen ground while talking effortlessly about the war, and about his job and hers.
She told him about her sisters and how much she missed them.
He listened carefully and said there was only him and his mother.
He’d wanted to join up, but as a doctor he was exempt from conscription, which had been a relief for his mother.
So instead, he’d worked in a military hospital in Plymouth for two years before returning to Exeter where he was now specialising in cardiology.
‘Have you always wanted to be a doctor?’ she asked.
‘I was born wanting to be a doctor. When I was young our cats and dogs used to hide when they saw me running towards them wielding strips of newspaper and glue which I claimed was ointment to make them better.’
She laughed. ‘It must be hard though at times, being a hospital doctor.’
‘Not as hard as it is for the soldiers who come back from the war. It’s not just broken bones or missing limbs.’
‘Yes, I know. My sister Hélène is a nurse in France.’
‘I’d like to meet her one day. Compare notes.’
Bruce was different from Jack, more direct, with fewer complications and contradictions. He knew what he was doing, had a clear purpose in life. She liked that. On their way back to the car she slipped on the icy ground, so he linked arms with her. She liked that too.
When he dropped her back home, he grasped her mittened hand and squeezed it.
‘I’d love to see you again,’ he said. ‘And maybe when the weather improves we might try another trip on the bike? Perhaps to the coast. Though any beach suitable for amphibious landing is likely to be mined so we’d need to choose carefully. ’
At the cottage Florence did her best to behave as normally as possible.
Jack didn’t say much about her outing with Bruce but seemed more taciturn than usual and refused to meet her eyes.
But then, on Christmas Eve, he cut down a pine tree and dragged it into the house.
It was a surprise and she felt as if he’d done it as a kind of peace offering.
‘There are some tree decorations in the attic, I think. My grandmother was always so fond of her tree. I’ll look later.’ And then he went outside and brought back holly, ivy, and a cardboard box. ‘There are pinecones in there,’ he said.
She clapped her hands, pleased. ‘I’ll do the decorating while you look for the tree baubles.’
‘There may be carols on the wireless,’ he said. ‘Would that help?’
‘Nothing like carols to get us in the festive spirit.’
‘Talking of spirits,’ he added. ‘I’ve discovered an old bottle of Armagnac at the back of what remains of the booze store. Should still be good. Thought it would remind you of home.’
She nodded but kept her face turned away.
‘You all right, Florence?’ he asked.
She nodded again but still didn’t look at him, missing home so much but steeling herself not to cry in front of him.
As she sang along to all her favourite carols, she felt better, and draped the ivy over the mantelpiece adding pinecones and holly. It was a great year for the cheery red berries and before long she had the whole room looking festive. She noticed he hadn’t brought in any mistletoe.
Sometime later he came downstairs carrying a wooden box. ‘I think this is it,’ he said.
He placed it on the coffee table, then lifted the lid.
She carefully rummaged in the box and saw there were individual packages wrapped in silk.
Once he’d sorted out the tree and it was firmly held in place with broken bricks and a layer of pebbles on top, she lifted out one of the packages.
She unwrapped it to find a little white woodpecker with green wings and a hole in the top concealed by a metal cap with a little wire loop.
‘These blown ornaments of hers were all handmade and hand-painted,’ he said.
‘It’s so delicate. I’m scared I’ll break it.’
‘You won’t.’
He took out a package from the box, this time revealing a tiny glass gingerbread house, gold and covered in hearts. He held it up for her.
‘I’ll get some thread and scissors. These need to be safely tied onto the tree right away.’
Once she’d returned, they carried on opening the packages and hanging glass ornaments in the shape of hearts, more birds, stars and angels. All high enough up so the kitten couldn’t reach them.
‘There’s an invoice or something here,’ she said. ‘Handwritten from …’ and she peered at it. ‘Ah yes. Lauscha, Germany.’
‘Then some of those baubles probably date from well before the Great War.’
She unwrapped two heavy glass bunches of red grapes.
‘Heavens above,’ he said. ‘I remember those. Haven’t seen them for years. Those are original German kugels … I must have been only five or six years old when my grandmother let me hold one. She had bunches of grapes, but also apples, pears, pinecones, berries. Let’s see if there are more.’
They unwrapped more packages, finding several more kugel ornaments in cobalt blue, green, gold, and amethyst.
‘Lined with real silver,’ he said. She showed me when I broke one and she said they’d be valuable one day. I wonder how she got them.’
Florence shrugged. The German baubles had given her a funny feeling in her stomach.
So much information was missing from her life.
What might her German father, Friedrich, have passed on to her that she had no idea about?
There must be millions of little things, not just the love of gardening she and her half-brother Anton already knew they shared, but other unknown things.
What was Friedrich’s favourite colour? Did he like fish?
Anton had said he enjoyed fishing. Did Friedrich too?
And what about swimming? Florence loved to swim.
And there would be bigger things, too, that at present she couldn’t begin to fathom.
Since finding out about her father, she’d felt as if her psyche had altered.
She could still feel the music of her French life beating in her heart, but something about the rhythm was no longer the same.
She and Jack spent the rest of Christmas Eve peacefully enough, demolishing Gladys’s delicious Christmas cake, heavily doused with home-made cherry brandy, drinking Armagnac, which did remind Florence of home, and listening to the BBC Home Service on the wireless in front of the fire.
After the news they enjoyed an adaptation of Alice Through the Looking Glass, and later, at half past nine, there was Christmas Eve music from the BBC Symphony Orchestra.
They didn’t refer to their conversation about Hélène, or to her outing with Bruce, and went to bed at half past ten.
But Florence still felt a trace of tension hanging between them.