That Summer in Normandy

By Rosemary Rudland

’ Nelly Spencer, an English woman working for an animal welfare organisation in France, is sent to investigate an isolated farm in the northern region of Normandy. What she discovers, however, is something that will change her life forever: a dusty Allied Army jeep left from the D-Day invasion. An elderly farm lady named Louise claims it belonged to her husband Michel. As she gradually recounts the story of the jeep and the romance between an injured Canadian soldier and his nurse, Nelly is drawn into the sombre memory of war-torn France. At the same time confronted with the uncertainty surrounding her own childhood.
‘That Summer in Normandy’ is a poignant journey between historical reality and a romantic novel, woven back and forth like a cross-stitch tapestry against a backcloth of wartime heroism. From the stricken Landing Beaches to ebullient D-Day celebrations, the reader follows Nelly, in her quest of identity, through three interweaving stories of love and betrayal soaked in evocative details of life in rural Normandy. Will old Louise's revelations provide Nelly with the answers she’s looking for?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Rosemary Rudland
• Release date: Apr 15, 2014
• ISBN: 9782953376531

Rosemary Rudland

Rosemary Rudland was born and educated in England. She also studied French at the University of Grenoble and later settled in the south east of France where she became an investigative journalist writing in both French and English for international newspapers and magazines. Her passion for in-depth enquiries might be inherited from her grandfather, a former Director General of British Security Service. She was co-founder of several newspaper publications in the Rhône-Alpes region, and winner of a national award for a best social case study.Rosemary lives in Normandy with her husband Yvan Barbieri, a former photojournalist, surrounded by a motley crew of four-footed companions. The couple are authors of three non-fiction books, and are investigators for animal protection - Rosemary is an enquirer for the Brigitte Bardot Foundation.

Book preview

Prologue

The warm Indian summer was definitely over, heralding autumn. For weeks, all over Lower Normandy, farmers had rejoiced in days of clear blue skies and balmy evenings, but the orchards of the Pays d’Auge, richly clothed in fully ripened red and gold fruit, were tired of the heat wave. They urgently needed water. So did the thirsty livestock. True, the recent drought had provided a welcome second crop of hay, but from the port of Honfleur to the ancient town of Alençon, fields, ponds and drinking troughs were painfully sunburnt and crusty dry. Farmers were praying, and herds bellowing. Men and animals badly wanted rain.

Then early one morning it came, pelting down.

September 29th: the feast of the Archangels. Ignorant of the history of religious festivals, let alone which Christian soldier fought against pagan armies, Nelly Spencer felt anything but angelic as she headed to the bathroom to indulge. Like the herds she only wanted to soak and wallow. But different from neighbouring cattle she intended to float sensuously in amber perfumed bubbles from her partner’s gift bath set. And dream about the evening ahead with him.

Today was also her birthday, and she wanted to celebrate. Make it special for the first time in years. An definitely put aside her recent, and particularly nasty animal rescue investigation. But there was time enough to accompany a cruel horse owner to his private judgement. She wasn’t Saint Gabriel, Michael or Raphael, and had neither the ability nor the intention of defeating Lucifer to pave the culprit’s way to the entrance into Heaven.

Nelly watched the rain drumming against the bathroom window, and smiled. Her mother would have said that it was raining cats and dogs. She shut the door, and turned the taps full on. Bliss.

Two minutes later the phone rang.

Chapter 1

‘As the twig is bent so it will grow.’

The amplified telephone ring was deafening. Almost alarming.

‘Dammit!’ said Nelly. Perched on the side of the bath, she adjusted a towel round her relatively still slim figure and groped for the mobile placed inches away on the washbasin. It fell, switched off into a coma uttering discontented bleeps, then came back to life flashing a Parisian number that Nelly knew, but didn’t want to see.

‘Not now, please not now,’ she pleaded, irritated with herself for not leaving the intrusive object elsewhere. But the call refused to be ignored.

‘Okay, I’m here!’

She reluctantly turned off the bath taps, and glared at the flashing number. For a fraction of a second she longed to say, Pronto! the way Bruno’s Italian family always answered.

Bruno! Just to think of her partner somewhere downstairs made Nelly perk up, smile and utter a sweetly inquiring, ‘Hello? Nelly Spencer speaking...’

‘Nelly? I’m Martine at the animal rescue organisation in Paris. I hope I’m not disturbing you, and I’m sorry this is such short notice, but we’ve had several urgent calls about a badly treated farm dog. He’s apparently become dangerous, and neighbours want him removed by the police and put down. The animal is in your geographic sector. If you’re free to cope I’ll email the details.’

Free to cope? Nelly sighed and smothered herself in thick foam. Sure she was free. But not today, certainly not right here and now where she wanted to celebrate the heavens opening in her own fashion. Here, in a bath of scented water, to wallow and dream about spending a romantic evening with Bruno somewhere along the coast. The couple had shared heart and home for several years, but the subject of marriage had never really been discussed. They were just happy with being together.

But recently Nelly had felt it was the right time to go a step further. She hankered after a cottage with sufficient land to house rescue ponies, and had recently seen one up for auction near Bayeux. It would make a dream come true for both of them and she longed to clinch the sale. True, their savings were limited but if they pooled their resources, and coaxed the bank manager with the right words, they stood a chance to get a loan. She had already met him on a couple of occasions. He was nice, pro-British, and liked animals. A blessing.

Yes, she decided, splashing her feet in receding water, this evening she would pop the question of marriage to Bruno. And make her proposal extra special with a candle-lit dinner for two on the coast, followed by a fun session at one of the casinos. Deauville or Trouville? Either, because they were out to win the jackpot on one of those reel-spinning slot machines that reward you with a celebratory noise.

Of course they would win. They had to win! Ten, twenty, one hundred, thousands of euros in the form of plastic coins pouring from identical fruits on the same line. Cherries, lemons, oranges, and apples comprising the combinations that project virtual bonus cash for the eager player. Envious onlookers would applaud, and the manager would offer complimentary drinks. After all, it was her birthday …

But first she had a farm dog to deal with. Nelly regretfully pulled up the bath plug with her toe, rinsed off the perfumed froth and headed for the bedroom.

Sitting at her dressing table by the window, she noticed one of her small-framed snapshots blown to the floor by a sudden chilly gust of rain-filled wind.

It was her favourite family photo displaying her mother wearing a flowery smocked dress, smiling happily as she wheels her daughter downhill in a pushchair. The child is also dressed in a pretty summer frock, holding onto the sides of the pram for support as she leans forward to the camera. Nelly tried to imagine herself aged about two years old, light brown hair parted in the middle, wispy locks held sensibly back by two matching bows.

Where were mother and daughter going? To a beach, judging by a basketful of buckets and spades. But which beach? Where and when?

She picked up the print and dusted it with her finger. Then, as she had already done so many times before, she gave her mother’s face a kiss, and gently touched her necklace, hardly visible over the smocked dress.

How strange that the photo should fall to the ground just at this precise moment, as though it was trying to catch her attention on this very special day. And how she longed to pick up the phone and say: ‘Hi, Mum… it’s my birthday, but this is your day as well as mine… thank you for bringing me into the world… thank you for being who you are… I wish you were here… so much to tell you. Love you lots...’

But she couldn’t because the beloved person who had given her baby girl life had been called away from her own when Nelly was only a toddler. Her father, a busy dentist, much appreciated by his patients for his gentle disposition, was stricken by the death of his young wife. Even the sound of her name remained too painful to mention, and he never remarried.

‘Called away by a bad illness,’ was the only explanation given to little Nelly when she asked mourning relatives where her mother had gone, and when she would be coming back.

So the child resolved to wait and hope.

The truth finally came following a handicraft lesson during her first term at primary school. Miss Jenkins, an understanding young teacher, had called Nelly to her desk to explain in hushed tones that, due to circumstances, she didn’t have to make a Mother’s Day card like the other pupils. Instead she could thread wool around a felt animal pattern, or fetch a reading book from the shelf.

The discussion between teacher and pupil went unnoticed by all except Rupert, a plump redheaded lad who lived down Nelly’s lane. A hefty boy for his age, and notorious for pulling girls’ pigtails on the school bus unless they gave him sweets. It so happened that during lunch break in the playground, he revealed to Nelly the sad truth so long kept secret. But only in return for three lemon sherbets.

‘Okay,’ he said, munching a full fizzing mouthful, ‘want to know where your Mum is? I know ‘cos my Dad told me, and your Dad knows my Dad ‘cos he does his teeth. Look!’

Grabbing a squirming insect from a grubby earth hole, he stamped on it gleefully.

‘Dead, she is, your Mum. Dead as a worm! Got any more sweets?’

Nelly gazed in horror at the squashed bloodied creature, then raced to hide behind some laurel bushes bordering the playground, where she screamed fist in mouth. The effort to suffocate her inward pain was so damaging that it made a milk tooth come loose and bleed, and she froze at the sight of her own blood dripping on her fingers.

The fact that the schoolboy had put words to a family secret plunged Nelly into an unfathomable abyss, and she collapsed to the ground gasping for air. The ghoulish scene made her want to vomit, and only the school bell summering pupils back to class rescued her. As the children queued to return to their lessons, plump Rupert inched over to pinch Nelly’s thin arm making her wince.

‘Cry baby,’ he sniggered, dribbling lemon fizz.

But Miss Jenkins’ eagle eye had witnessed the scene and she grabbed the lad by the collar, and told him to stop being a bully or she would summon his father.

‘You naughty boy,’ she admonished. ‘You’ve hurt Nelly, so now you can lend her your new crayons and help her with her card... or rather her felt donkey. You’ll like being nice for a change, won’t you?’

‘Dunno. Maybe,’ grumbled Rupert.

Home from school, and after teatime and compulsory reading, Nelly called to Rusty, the family spaniel, and slipped unnoticed into the garden where she climbed high up into her favourite beech tree. The dog turned round in circles and then lay down, on guard. And there, nestling among the strong arms of the branches, her body cradled by a thick backdrop of dark leaves, the child spoke to the flowers, and sang to the birds and the sky.

Safe in her treetop haven, young Nelly also made her first two vows, calling down softly to faithful Rusty for his opinion. First she told the spaniel that when she grew up she would never let anyone deliberately hurt a worm, or any other animal however great or small. And she promised to never again touch, let alone eat, a sherbet lemon.

But come suppertime, and a slowly wafting aroma of food into the garden, her four-footed companion showed signs of impatience. He sniffed the air, nose quivering, and his insisting barks finally made Nelly untwine her legs from the tree and jump to the ground.

Nurtured by the feel of nature, the comforted child made her way back to the warmth of the lighted house. She had survived being told the worst news of her life, and surfaced from the depths of the abyss where Rupert had plunged her. Something else had changed. If she wiggled her baby tooth really hard it would drop out. That meant a new tooth. A grown-up tooth.

Nelly ran quickly inside. She had so much to say to a small-framed photograph by her bedside.

‘Nelly’s a proper tomboy,’ a visiting aunt lamented, a few months later, at the sight of her niece’s torn skirt. ‘Such a pity she doesn’t take more care of her outfits, and this one in particular came from Harrods in London. Granted, it was a winter sale, but even so.’

Smoothing down her own impeccable Pringle of Scotland pink twinset, she added distastefully, ‘the girl’s seven years old now, and it’s time for her to stop all these rough activities, larking around climbing trees and bruising her knees. Her appearance is disorderly and her extraordinary passion for animals is quite unhealthy.’

She paused, inhaling a scented lace handkerchief.

‘Her only friends seem to be kittens, frogs, hamsters, worms, and even a sparrow with a broken wing… quite disgusting! Not to mention that hairy dog she shares food with. And her bedroom looks like a zoo, cramped full of strange creatures nestling in boxes. It stinks like a pet shop! Worse of all, the child speaks with her mouth full and giggles in church.’

The spaniel gave a low growl and slunk under the table. Just as well, as the aunt rose to inflict a final crushing blow.

‘Boarding school education and academics, that’s what she needs!’

‘Well, the vicar did break wind twice during the sermon, causing several members of the congregation to raise their eyebrows,’ said Nelly’s father in an effort to support his daughter who was beginning to look tearful.

‘He burped and farted,’ blurted out Nelly, feeling brighter.

‘Boarding school,’ repeated the relative, shaking a crooked finger at them both.

Nelly thought it looked like a parrot claw.

Twelve months later she was accompanied to a special London department store; was duly measured up for a certain type and colour of school uniform; donned her set of standardized clothes, including Celanese knickers, and left her family cocoon one early September day with a leather trunk bearing her initials for a totally different environment.

Living among dozens of strangers, recognised by their nametapes, often made her feel like crying, but it was nothing compared to the distress of being separated from her beloved spaniel Rusty. And her mother.

‘Nelly’s making good progress, and looks less like a jungle waif,’ said the aunt approvingly, a year later during half term. ‘She's not such a chatterbox, and now sits properly at table. We’re far from getting her to a debutante ball, but there is a definite improvement. One day she might behave sufficiently to accompany me to the tea-room at Fortnum and Mason.’

In her last year of junior school, Nelly managed to pass the entrance examination to another select all-girl boarding establishment, which required a new set of nametapes and even more school clothing. A staid imposing college employing highly qualified teachers to guide young ladies like herself from childish frivolity to effective learning frameworks.

In Nelly’s case it wasn’t an easy task. During the first terms she was hopelessly rebellious but, constantly reminded of the sacrifices made by her devoted father to cover school fees, she tried her utmost to please.

Month after month, year after year, she duly devoured stodgy puddings; chomped her way through indigestible Latin adverbs; played hockey and lacrosse in fog; declined being fielding captain in cricket matches - preferring to make daisy chains in deep mid-wicket, right out on the boundary; sang in cathedral choirs; cleaned her leather shoes daily with spit and polish; shared freezing dormitories with diplomats’ daughters from Aden and Timbuktu - and above all learnt that her mind and body formed a machine.

During the hour-long speech by Headmistress on the last day of her final term, Nelly was reminded that immersion in unequalled schooling, however harsh, had given her the backbone to prepare her for life and real world challenges.

Free of uniform and nametapes, she returned home to learn that Rusty had died. Buried among daffodils under her favourite beech tree. She walked around the garden calling his name, but didn’t cry. She couldn’t, because the volcanic lump erupting in her throat was too painful.

Childhood and tree climbing were forever over.

Chapter 2

‘Every question requireth not an answer.’

Nelly sighed. Drat a phone call from the rescue organisation on her birthday, but she had to admit that it prevented the heating appliance from running out of hot water. Nowadays a full bath was a luxury. With student sons to support on a shoestring, an overfilled tub was something of the past when water bills didn’t rise like a flood tide. When her former home was geared to a regular parental income, and resounded to the scampering feet of young children. Bygone days.

The strain of her wedding to a young Frenchman - coldly disapproved of by their families on both