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He blows his nose noisily into a tissue. “What do you think? The Germans happened. They made Hector sell them bread. And all the prisoners, slaves, starving. We didn’t want anyone stumblin’ on the old cottage by the pond... It was Helen’s idea to tell people her da will report anyone going near his land. She said if he got a reputation for bein’ a collaborator, the Germans wouldn’t suspect him and wouldn’t come searchin’. So, I told everyone on La Canette,Hector Hemingway is a traitor. Don’t go near him. He’s in with the Nazis. And it worked. For three years it worked, until they come to arrest him for the missin’ bread.”
I am too afraid to breathe because I don’t want to distract him. But he seems to be on a roll.
“We only took one loaf every two days, for them beaten and wounded prisoners. But they counted and they came for him at Low Catch and dragged him out with a gun to his head. Helen ran to stop them. She wanted to tell, but Hector shouted at her, ‘Be silent and go inside. Be silent. Stay and look after your mum an’ baby brother.’ Because he worked it out. He knew bein’ arrested for thieving was nothing to smuggling prisoners. If he’d let Helen speak, then they’d have taken his wife and Helen too.”
“So, Hector knew all along what you were doing with the bread?” The question breaks away from me despite trying not to interrupt Hedge.
“Nah. He’d have stopped us. He was a careful man, was Hector. Didn’t want no trouble.”
Several minutes pass with Hedge lost in thought. We drink our sweet tea in silence.
When I can’t wait any more, I ask, “What happened after he was arrested?”
He wipes at his eyes again. “We waited for him to come back. Not daring to speak a word in case the Germans took her and her mum, but after the war, he never came back and they tol’ Mrs Hemingway that he died in prison.”
“But why didn’t you tell the truth afterwards?”
“Because he died. It broke her.”
“Who?”
“Helen. She cracked like a twig. Said it was her fault, she killed him. I tried, I tried but she said no.What?” Hedge’s voice takes on a different tone as if imitating a girl. “Make myself look good when everyone hates my father?” He shakes his head sadly.
“I tried and tried but she could never forgive herself. She made me promise never to speak a word o’ what we done. Never to let anyone go near the hill to find the old cottage. Year after year she locked herself away.You want me to be happy when I killed my father?” Again, he speaks with that altered voice. “She made me promise to lock the cottage and never breathe a word of what we did as long as I lived. And every year she talked less and hid herself more. I waited for her. I waited and never looked at another girl. Twenty-four years. She died alone. She should never have been alone. But Helen was a true Hemingway, stubborn like rock. All of them Hemingways, proud and stubborn. She should’ve had love in her life. I waited for her…”
His words hit me like a rain of arrows.
The Hemingway pride, and stubborn refusal to let go of grief, of pain, of anger. All of us hating Hedge for spreading rumours about Hector, when it had been for a reason. It now makes sense, all of it. His drunken rant after Helen died. If Hector hadn’t sold bread to the Germans, they’d never have accused him of cheating them.
I look at the old man, wrapped in a grief he’s kept secret for nearly eighty years because he promised Helen, the girl he loved.
All the long years, while she turned her back on love. The rare gift that so few people get, and she turned her back on it. Because of the stubborn Hemingway pig-headed refusal to forgive herself.
My eyes blur with tears, forcing me to remove my glasses. I don’t know how long I stay here, at the kitchen table, staring with hazy vision into my tea until it has gone stone cold.
A noise at the door. Elodie walks in wearing short trousers and a thin cotton vest. Her hair hangs down over her shoulders, the setting sun is behind her catching her hair, making it glow like a halo of honey-coloured light. Or maybe it’s just my blurred vision, but she looks like an angel.
She sees me and freezes.
There’s a clatter, and I realise it’s my chair. The tea mug is knocked to the floor as I get up, slightly upsetting the table and spilling the cold tea all over it. I barely spare it a glance. I just turn and lock eyes on Elodie standing in the doorway. And then I close the gap between us, not even feeling if my legs move or if the floor just shrinks between us.
I pull her into my arms and keep pulling, until we are crushed together. “I’m sorry,” I rasp into her hair. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”
“I’m sorry too.” Her voice is muffled against my shoulder. “I know you felt like I betrayed you…”
“No, you didn’t. I was unfair to you from the start, I rushed you and didn’t give you time. Please forgive me.”
We are both talking over each other, apologising, explaining, asking for forgiveness. And still hugging hard.
After a while, a long while, she pulls away slightly. “I thought you were going home.”
“Yes. I’m going home.”
Her face falls and she tries to pull away, but I don’t let her.
“Then you should go,” she says, her voice shaky.
“Oh Elodie.” I breathe, threading my fingers into her hair. “Don’t you know? It’s you. You are my home.”
