The Winter Ghosts (15 page)

I gathered her to me. This time I held her tight, though she felt insubstantial in my arms, like mist.

‘We could not bury him,’ she whispered. ‘The ground outside was too hard and the floor of the caves was rock. So he was laid with the others who had died: widow Azéma, the Bulot children. Later, many more.’

I caught my breath. For so long, my nights had been haunted by images of George dying in the mud and the blood and the barbed wire, dying with the stench of the charnel house in his nostrils, his men blasted to pieces by mines, by bullets, choked by gas. But to think of Fabrissa trapped in such a place, her beloved Jean dead beside her, this was horror of another dimension.

‘It was perhaps a week after he had died, about the time of the Espéraza winter fair, when we saw tendrils of smoke rising up above the tree-line. And we knew, then, that the village was burning. Angry they still had not captured us, even though they knew we were somewhere close by, they put everything to the torch. The church, the Ostal, our homes. Everything was destroyed.’

‘Fabrissa . . .’

There was nothing more I could say.

‘Later, when the thaw began and we had begun to think ourselves forgotten, we became careless. Two men were seen coming back into the caves by night. The soldiers followed and placed a sentinel. Then they found one of the entrances and it was only a matter of time before they found the others.’ She paused. ‘We heard them, piling up the stones, hammering as they braced the rubble with timbers. The light became more shallow, then darkness overcame us. What was a refuge became a tomb. Every opening was blocked. We could not get out.’

I felt Fabrissa slide from my arms. I was suddenly dizzy. The nausea I’d managed to keep at bay overwhelmed me.

‘No one came back,’ she said. ‘Not one.’

I feared I was going to pass out. My palms were clammy and my chest tight. I leaned forward, head down, my arms resting on my legs.

‘Freddie?’ said Fabrissa. I heard the concern in her voice and loved her for it.

‘I’m fine.’

‘Freddie,’ she whispered, ‘do not be afraid.’

‘Afraid? I’m not af—’

I jerked my head up, setting colours dancing before my eyes. Heard her lullaby voice saying my name. And this time, I knew without a shadow of a doubt that it had been Fabrissa’s voice I had heard through the storm. ‘But how?’ I murmured. ‘How?’

I glanced at her in mute confusion, seeing my own anguish reflected in her face. I was so tired now. I had worn myself out by talking and I realised I was deathly cold.

Fabrissa, too, seemed to be tiring. She did not move, but I sensed a restiveness in her, as if she had already lingered too long. I could feel her slipping away and, much as I wanted to keep her with me, I felt powerless to stop her.

‘It’s morning,’ I said, looking down at the village stirring beneath us. ‘I should take you home.’

Sweat was trickling down between my shoulder blades, though I was shaking, frozen right through. I tried to stand but found that I couldn’t. I raised a heavy hand to my forehead. My skin was hot to the touch.

‘Perhaps I could see you again?’ I tripped over my words. ‘Later today. I . . .’

Did I even speak out loud or only in my head?

Again, I tried to get up, but my knees buckled. I slumped back to our makeshift bench, feeling ridges of the bark jabbing into my skin.

‘Fabrissa . . .’

It was a struggle to hold my head up. I wanted to free myself, to escape from the prison of my memory.

‘I must . . . take you . . . home,’ I repeated, but it came out all wrong. I tried to focus on Fabrissa’s face, on her grey eyes, but there were two girls now, and the image floated in and out of focus. I tried to say her name again, but the word turned to ashes in my mouth.

‘Find me,’ she whispered. ‘Find us. Then you can bring me home.’

‘Fabr—’

Was she leaving me, or was I leaving her? My heart turned in on itself.

‘Don’t go,’ I murmured. ‘Please. Fabrissa!’

But she was already too far away. I could not reach her.

‘Come and find me,’ she whispered. ‘Find me, Freddie.’

Then nothing. Only the dreadful knowledge that I was alone once more.

‘
Monsieur Watson, s’il vous plaît
.’

Someone was calling my name. There was a hand on my shoulder, shaking me. But I did not want to wake.

‘Fabrissa . . .’

‘
Monsieur Watson.
’

My whole body ached. I was stiff everywhere and unpleasantly conscious of the bones along my left side - ribs, hip-bone, knee-joint - pressing against the hard ground. I swept my right arm in an arc around me and felt dust and wooden floorboards beneath my hand.

I tried to raise my head, but the world spun away from me and I slumped back down. Where was I? Then the same voice, a little louder. Brisk, inviting no argument, like the nurses in the sanatorium.

‘
Monsieur, s’il vous plaît, vous devez vous lever
.’

‘Fabrissa?’ I murmured again.

Again, the hand on my shoulder, strong fingers pressing firmly through to the bone.

Why were they waking me? I didn’t need their pills. I didn’t want to be awake.

‘Leave me alone,’ I muttered, trying to turn over.

‘You must get up, monsieur. It is not good for you to lie here.’

The woman was not going to go away. I forced my eyes open once more. Instead of white starched uniforms and the black shoes of the ward nurses, I saw a pair of wooden clogs.

Madame Galy. Not the sanatorium, but the boarding house in Nulle. And for some reason I couldn’t immediately fathom, I was lying on the floor. I struggled to push myself into a sitting position, dragging my legs round from under me, then tried to stand.

‘Let me help you, monsieur.’ Madame Galy’s strong hand was under my elbow, guiding me to the chair. ‘Here.’

I slumped down and leaned forward, elbows on my knees, waiting for the spinning to stop.

‘Is she here?’

‘Is who here, monsieur?’

‘Fabrissa,’ I said, my voice rising a little. ‘Did she come back with me? Is she here?’

‘There is no one else here,’ she replied. I could detect confusion behind the kindness.

‘She’s not here?’ A wave of disappointment seeped into me, like ink through blotting paper, though I told myself it was only to be expected. She would be home in bed by now, of course she would. A glass of white liquid appeared under my nose.

‘Drink this.’

I’d only taken a couple of bitter sips before my fingers started to shake. Madame Galy’s firm, warm hands cupped around mine and helped me to finish. Then she gently removed the glass from me.

‘It will help you sleep.’

I nodded, having long ago lost the habit of asking what this pill did or what that medicine might achieve.

‘What time is it?’

‘Ten o’clock, monsieur.’

‘In the morning?’

‘Yes.’

I looked around the room. Clearly, it was morning. Everything was bathed in a flat, white light. The fire had burned out, leaving a pyramid of soft, grey ash in the grate. On the hearth, the bottle and glass, both empty.

‘We were concerned when you did not come down to breakfast, monsieur.’

‘I had no idea it was so late.’

I frowned, trying to get the sequence of events clear in my mind. I’d taken a bath, come back to the room to enjoy a cigarette and a drink while I got ready. I looked down at my clothes. I was wearing the tunic and my tweeds, but of the soft leather boots there was no sign. I could not remember taking them off. I shook my head and a kaleidoscope of colours exploded behind my eyes. I clutched at my temples to control the pain.

‘Shall I send for a doctor, monsieur?’ Madame Galy said quickly.

‘No, no. No doctors.’

The spinning in my head slowed and then finally stopped altogether. Why did I have no memory of leaving Fabrissa and making my way back to the boarding house? I had evidently removed my boots and started to undress, but then what? Had I fainted?

‘What time did I come back, do you know?’

‘Back, monsieur?’

‘From the Ostal? Someone must have heard me.’

There was some quality of caution in her silence, I could tell Madame Galy was struggling with something, perhaps something she wanted to say but dared not.

I wonder how much she knew then about everything that had happened. I was aware that the fever had already taken hold, but I didn’t care. All that mattered at that cold moment in the boarding house in Nulle was why Fabrissa was not with me.

Why had she left me?

I leaned back in the chair. What could I remember? The early part of the evening, yes, that was clear. Crossing the place de l’Église, down the alleyway beside the church in the frost. Stars, diamonds in the sky, my fingers cold in my pocket holding the hand-drawn map. Finding the Ostal, Guillaume Marty welcoming me and introducing me to other guests. The heat from the fire and the lilting melody of the troubadour’s voice, the ebb and flow of conversation.

And Fabrissa.

I caught my breath. Fabrissa, yes, talking and talking. Laying bare my soul and feeling awkward, but also knowing that my burden had been lightened. And then the trouble had started and the gathering had ended in a brawl. Yes, I remembered that. But we had left, Fabrissa and I, hadn’t we, because she told me it would be all right? The memory of the dust and the cobwebs in the tunnel, our hands tearing against splintered wood, then emerging blinking into the tail end of the night on the hillside to the west of the village. And how we sat beside the dewpond as dawn broke, her turn to confide in me. Telling stories of loss and remembrance.

Hadn’t we?

I launched myself out of the chair and across the room in a couple of strides. I pulled the windows open, sending the frame banging back against the wall, and thrust myself out as far as I dared. I needed to see the place on the hill where we had sat. Had to prove to myself it was there. Icy air rushed into the room and wrapped itself around me, though I do not believe I could feel it.

I felt Madame Galy’s hand on my arm. ‘Monsieur, please, come back inside. You will make yourself ill.’

‘Up there,’ I said, waving in the direction of the rising sun. ‘That’s where we were.’

I saw the concern in her kind face and was about to reassure her, when I suddenly became aware of the texture of the light in the room. The place de l’Église was covered in a thin dusting of snow.

‘When did it start snowing?’

‘In the early hours, monsieur. Three or four o’clock.’

I spun round to face her. ‘You must be mistaken. It was certainly not snowing when I came in and that was . . .’ I stopped, for in truth I could not remember. ‘I don’t know precisely,’ I admitted. ‘It was already light.’

It had not been cold enough to snow, I told myself, but my confidence was swiftly eroded. I looked down at my thin, bare arms. My skin was rough with goosebumps and my knuckles, braced tight on the sill, bulged blue.

‘It must have been later,’ I insisted, pointing down at the pristine snow beneath my window. ‘See, no marks. It must have begun to snow after I returned.’

‘You should rest, monsieur,’ she said gently. It was clear she did not believe me. Discouraged now, I stepped back from the window and allowed her to fasten the windows. The hinges squealed and a sliver of snow fell from the rim to the floor beneath the sill. Then she closed the shutters, too, barricading us against the world. The metal catch fell into place with a rattle.

‘You must have heard me come back,’ I insisted.

Madame Galy sighed. ‘It is not simply a matter of when the snow started,’ she said, obviously reluctant to be forced into admitting as much.

‘What are you saying?’

She paused, choosing her words with the greatest care. ‘Are you certain, monsieur, that you did go out at all? I did not see you at the Ostal last night. None of the other guests saw you. I was worried you had got lost.’

‘But that’s . . . ridiculous.’

‘I concluded that you must have thought better of coming out in the cold. It was only when you did not come down this morning that I began to worry you might be unwell.’

I became aware that I was swaying. Hoping to disguise my unsteadiness, I propped my shoulder against the wall. The paper was old, a repeated pattern of blue and pink meadow flowers, faded in strips where the sun had sucked the colour from it.

‘Monsieur, please,’ she said. ‘You should sit.’

I crossed my arms. ‘I quite clearly remember putting on the tunic,’ I glanced down, ‘
this
tunic, and the boots. I left the letter on the counter in reception downstairs, then headed out. Ten o’clock on the button. ’ I paused. ‘Did you find the letter?’

‘I did,’ she said carefully, ‘but I assumed you had left it there, then returned to your room, monsieur. Monsieur Galy says he did not hear you leave.’