Page 20 of When We Were Friends
Mlle Vachon reached out and patted Emily’s arm. ‘But enough about me. What can I help you all with? Verb conjugation, adjective agreements, or something less interesting?’ She gave them a beady stare.
Their French teacher always did used to be one of the brightest. She pointed to the chairs and Paige turned a couple around so that the five of them could sit in a circle. Mlle Vachon rubbed her hip and Emily pulled a chair nearer, standing by until Mlle Vachon was safely settled.
‘My son. Olly. I need to find his dad,’ said Morgan. ‘Things were… complicated at the beginning. I had him the year after we left school.’
The pencilled eyebrows knotted together. ‘Ma pucette, that must have been so difficult. But you always were a determined girl. I’ve not had a pupil since who was so set on learning the gender of every new word.’
‘He dad was… is…. Hugo Black.’
Mlle Vachon looked as if someone had told her France had banned eating cheese. ‘Hugo?’ she exclaimed and shook her head. ‘But how? I mean, the prom…’ She placed her hand on her chest.
Emily pulled a tube of mints out of her bag and Mlle Vachon took one gratefully.
Morgan sighed. ‘Yes, you know what happened at the dance, but I was already pregnant by then, I just didn’t know it. By the time I found out and was ready to look him up, his family home was empty and he’d disappeared without a trace. I couldn’t face asking his friends at the time, I never wanted to see anyone from high school again. But lately… Olly… my son needs to know.’
‘You were friends with his mum, right?’ asked Paige.
Still that lack of enthusiasm, as if Paige were simply going through the motions, yet any contribution filled Morgan with gratitude.
Mlle Vachon leant back in her chair. ‘Ah,oui, Sylvie, such a beautiful soul. I’ve been lucky to have her in my life. Sadly for me, during your Year Eleven, Sylvie made plans to move back to France. Yet I understood. She’d grown up in a town on the outskirts of Fréjus and never got used to English weather. She and Hugo’s dad, Garth… well, it’s not my place to explain all the details, Sylvie was a very private person… In fact, perhaps I shouldn’t say any more.’
‘If I was her, I’d be so excited to meet my grandchild,’ said Tiff, encouragingly.
‘Oh yes, she would have been.’
‘Wouldhave?’ asked Morgan.
Emily gestured for Mlle Vachon to take another mint.
‘She and Hugo… left together. The marriage was broken.’
‘Hugo moved to the south of France?’ asked Tiff.
‘Oui. They had happy times. Sylvie and I would call each other often. He became close to his grandparents.’
Hugo didn’t live in England any more? Morgan didn’t blink for a few seconds.
‘But my darling Sylvie passed.’ Her voice broke. ‘Hugo was only twenty-five. A road traffic accident. A drunk tourist on a motorbike hit her. She never stood a chance.’
Oh. How sad. No one, not even Hugo, deserved that trauma. Poor Olly would never get to meet that gran. Poor Sylvie, a life cut short.
‘Hugo wrote me a brief letter explaining,’ continued Mlle Vachon. ‘I sent back a sympathy card asking him to tell me when the funeral was, but I never heard back. I wrote several more times, rang as well, but he never picked up.’ She turned her loose, gold watch around and around. ‘It’s hard, never having had the chance to say goodbye – especially as we hadn’t spoken for a while. Sylvie’s dad died and she was getting over that, trying to be there for her mum and Hugo as well. Everything went quiet. I didn’t like to keep bothering her. Grief can take its time in loosening its hold.’ She looked up. ‘Apologies that I can’t tell you more.’
‘No, that’s really useful,’ said Morgan. ‘I’m very sorry about Sylvie’s accident.’
‘I can text you the address they moved to if you want. Not sure what help that will be, though, a decade later. He might not still be there.’ She took out her phone. ‘If you give me your number, Morgan, I’ll message you when I get home.’
‘You won’t confiscate her mobile, will you?’ asked Emily.
‘Enough of your cheek, Jones,’ Mlle Vachon replied, looking more relaxed.
The conversation moved to lighter subjects once again, like Mlle Vachon’s boyfriend, a retired travel agent. She asked about Paige’s business, promised to look out for Tiff’s Netflix series, and like in the old days, dug out anything pupils were holding back, prodding Emily to reveal she’d been a nurse until recently.
‘Us staff used to sing your praises in private, Emily,’ she said, with the familiar French lilt. ‘Your grades only slipped a little, despite the care you were giving your mother. I was so sorry when she passed.’
The funeral had taken place two weeks before the prom. Morgan, Paige and Tiff told Emily they’d skip the dance and stay in with her, if she wasn’t up to it. To their surprise, she wanted to attend the end of year celebration. The funeral had come out of nowhere. The girls hadn’t seen much of each other for a few weeks, only going into school for exams, when Emily announced her mum had died. Her family had wanted the funeral to be a quiet, private affair. Morgan didn’t even know where it took place. The next day, the girls took Emily to their favourite café but she didn’t stay long, hardly spoke, made it clear she never wanted to discuss her mum’s death or the burial. Morgan and the other two had found it odd, but then none of them had ever suffered such a loss, so who were they to judge.
‘What about you, Morgan? Under-employed? Not a maths teacher, then?’
