Impulsively, he bent down and kissed her, tasting the wine, reacting to the fullness of her lips with the force of his own. Her lips parted and he sank inside them, darting his tongue across her teeth, over her tongue, along the roof of her mouth.
‘My God, Lucie.’
His eyes were wide open, watching her.
‘I want you more than I have ever wanted anyone in my life.’
His newly liberated gaze travelled down over her breasts, taking in her flushed throat, her moistened lips, the ridiculously youthful sheen of her skin.
‘I must come to you later. Will you let me?’
‘I said yes, didn’t I?’
‘But I’m not going to rest on the sofa. I want you to know that. I don’t want you to misunderstand.’
She watched him, her pupils swollen. For a fleeting moment her eyes seemed to hold the wisdom of the ages within their wells. ‘I don’t.’
* * *
Later, Lucie fell back against him on the stairwell, giggling. He caught her, his hands gripping her just above the elbows, and nuzzled her neck.
‘It’s the wine, I’m afraid. I’m not used to drinking so much.’
‘You’re not feeling sick?’ For a moment his heart lurched with anticipated loss.
‘I’m feeling wonderful. As if I could fly.’ She hesitated, turning towards him. ‘Do you know, I used to have dreams at night that we were flying together. That you were holding me and carrying me high above the trees.’
‘Didn’t I drop you?’
‘No. Never. You always carried me with perfect safety.’
He unlocked the door and lifted her up in his arms. One of her hands rested on his upper back, the other cupped his cheek.
‘What are you doing?’
‘This is what husbands do to their new brides. Fly them over the threshold.’
‘Is it? I never heard that one.’ She let her head fall back against his chest. ‘You’re not making it up, are you?’
‘Are you quite sure you want me to come in?’
She nodded, not looking at him. He could feel more than see the movement of her head beneath his chin.
He eased her through the door, kicking it shut behind him. He let her drop gently onto her feet. Something warned him not to guide her straight to the bed. It was too soon. Too coarse.
‘I shall go back downstairs now, while you freshen up, and fetch us both a digestif. I noticed that they had some cognac. It’s a weakness of mine. I’ll not be long.’
He took her face in his hands and kissed her, enjoying her surprise at his decision.
‘If you change your mind while I’m out, you can lock the door from the inside. I’ll try it once, then go away.’ He raised her hand to his mouth and kissed her fingers. ‘À bientôt.’
He closed the door before she could answer him.
Was he doing the right thing? What if she panicked and locked him out? That would serve him bloody well right. Was he putting too much of the burden on her? She was barely nineteen years old, for God’s sake, and she’d never even been away from home before. He’d snatched her from the only environment she had ever known, plied her with food and drink, and bewildered her with a world she had never even imagined. He was not such a fool that he didn’t realise the devastating effect his actions might have on her.
If they started now, they could make it to St Gervais by dusk. She could walk back across the fields to her grandfather’s farm and no one would be any the wiser. In a month or two, when the invasion finally came, he’d be snuffed from her life like a guttering candle.
‘The Delamain. It’s the real thing?’
‘Oh yes, Monsieur. We keep it only for special clients.’
‘Do I qualify?’
‘Assurément.’
The patronne’s expression indicated that she had already counted the sheaf of notes he had given her as a deposit, and that she was more than satisfied.
‘I’ll take a bottle, then, and two glasses.’
‘Of course, Monsieur. Is Monsieur still going to go for his walk?’
Max faltered for a moment, on the verge of taking umbrage. But then he saw the patronne’s eyes, and realised that she meant the comment benevolently, not archly. That she had watched him during the meal, and judged him in some way fitting.
‘Yes. I’m going to walk all the way back upstairs again.’
She smiled, cocking her head. ‘May I wish Monsieur and Madame, then, a most gratifying cinq à sept?’
The Room
Max opened the door to the bedroom and glanced cautiously inside. The bedclothes had been turned back, but Lucie was nowhere to be seen. For a split second he wondered whether she had run away, and he closed his eyes in tender resignation. Then he heard the bath water running.
He walked to the bed and placed the tray with the cognac bottle onto the bedside table. He reached one hand out towards the bottle, but then changed his mind. He took off his jacket and dropped it onto the chair. Then he unknotted his tie, undid the first two buttons of his shirt, and rolled up his sleeves.
The rumble of the bath water abruptly ceased. He walked to the door of the bathroom and listened. He could hear Lucie climbing into the bath. He knocked very lightly on the door. ‘I’ve come back. I just wanted to tell you.’
No answer.
He stood there, biting his lip, his body urgent with excitement. He reached forward and tried the handle. The door swung open on its hinges.
Lucie was lying in the bath, watching him. Her hands instinctively started for her nose, then dropped down to cover her breasts from his gaze. At the last possible moment she let them settle awkwardly onto the edge of the bath.
He stood and looked at her. Then he stepped into the bathroom and closed the door behind him. He walked across to the bath and knelt down beside it, close to her head. He could see her fingers tighten instinctively on the enamel sides. ‘Give me the soap.’
Still watching him, Lucie reached forwards. Her chest was heaving. Her hair, where it had already touched the water, was glistening with moisture.
He took the soap from her hand and began to work up a lather. ‘Lean forward. That’s it. Just like that.’
She bent forward, automatically pulling the mass of her hair over one shoulder and away from her back.
He began at her neck, letting his hands massage the soap across her shoulders and down the channel of her spine. Then he worked his way along her flanks, and down over the indentation of her hips.
‘Now lean backwards.’
She did as he asked, moving the twisted coil of her hair back behind her, revealing her breasts.
He lathered up the soap again and began on her stomach, just below her ribcage.
‘You have the most beautiful skin.’
He moved his hands up below her breasts, washing around them, and across her chest. The first time he touched one of her nipples she inhaled sharply, bringing her knees together beneath the water. He massaged gently around her aureolae. He was on his knees now, his head lowered, the soap slick in his hands. Beneath the water he could see the darker smudge of her pubic hair. He leaned forward and kissed her, measuring her response, and when she closed her eyes and allowed her mouth to fall open under the pressure of his tongue, he slid his hand down over her belly. He parted her legs and began to caress her. His eyes were shut, and he was only half aware, in the intensity of his passion, that she had thrown her head back from his kiss and was murmuring ‘Ah. Ah. Ah.’
Now he couldn’t stop. It was too late. He cradled her in his right arm and began to lick her neck, his left hand moving to and fro between her legs. The increasing intensity of her sighs inflamed him beyond all reason, and he sucked her neck and chin and ears, licking and laving her face with his tongue. Her legs abruptly stiffened and her body arched out of the bath, drenching him with water.
He let her gently down again, his right hand supporting her back, his left hand cupping her face. ‘I’m crazy with love for you.’
‘And I, too.’
This time their voices were an echo, and not a counterpoint. He had heard himself say the words, and she had answered him.
Goldengrove Unleaving
‘Was I gentle enough?’
Lucie nodded her head sleepily. She snuggled closer inside his arms.
Max reached across and pulled the counterpane up so that it covered her bare shoulders. He glanced up at the window. It was dark outside. He was surprised to realise that he no longer had any idea of the time. Instead he felt a great tiredness descend on him, as if he were nearing the end of a very long journey and was being afforded a token respite. He couldn’t leave the bed. Couldn’t possibly disturb Lucie now. He let his head fall back onto the pillow.
What if they just carried on? Didn’t go back to St Gervais, but made for the Spanish border? The car and his uniform would take him ninety-nine percent of the way – the other one percent would be down to money and to luck.
He stretched across for a cigarette and lit it, one-handed. The local French tobacco didn’t give him the same sickly buzz that the Makhorka did – as though it were both burning and feeding his lungs at the same time – but it sufficed.
He watched the glowing tip of his cigarette in the dark. Beside him, Lucie gave a small grunt as some air trapped itself inside her nostrils, and he murmured to her, turning her onto her side so that she could breathe more freely. The rhythm of her breathing and the random movements of her eyes beneath their lids informed him that she was dreaming.
No. He could never run away. He owed at least that much to the dead. And, short of dying, there was no possible way he could escape from his responsibilities without fatally compromising the people he loved. What a world. Who was it who had talked of the politics of free will? The Stoics? Marcus Aurelius? Well, they hadn’t factored in guilt. Perinde ac si cadaver essent, as he’d jested to Bettina in the summer house.
He reached across for his watch. So. It was ten o’clock. Best get some sleep then. There was no point in even trying to head back now. He would just have to hope that Lucie had laid her groundwork well, and that neither her grandmother nor her mother would ever suspect that she had spent the night away. If they left at two o’clock in the morning, using the same route they had used earlier that day, they should make back it in good time for Lucie to arrive at her mother’s restaurant at nine, as she normally did.
How he dreaded the walk back to the car, though – the changing back into his clammy uniform. How he dreaded the drive back home, and Berger’s arch looks when he found the bed unslept in, even though it would be an easy enough job for him to explain away his absence. Brigadeführer Lammerding had unexpectedly ordered him to stay over in Montauban. Bloody Berger could like it or lump it.
He stubbed out his cigarette and turned towards Lucie. Her back was to him and he slotted his body against hers, one hand across her pelvis, enjoying the feeling of her rump against his groin – her back and shoulders against his chest– the soles of her feet touching his insteps. Extraordinary how easily she had adapted to his demands. How elegantly she had responded to his lovemaking. He had expected a virgin’s shyness and prevarication, but she had clearly decided to give herself to him without reserve, and, her decision once taken, she had abandoned herself unstintingly to their joint passion.
At the thought of their lovemaking he could feel himself hardening once more against her, and he eased himself marginally away from her body so that he would not awaken her – but she instinctively followed his movement with her bottom, despite the fact that she was still half asleep.
He groaned and began to kiss the nape of her neck. He moved one hand across her flank and up to the tip of one of her breasts. She sighed and began a languid, sleepy turn towards him, but he stopped her.
‘No. No. Stay like that. Just like that.’
He moved his hand from her breast and down across her stomach. With his other hand he palmed the nape of her neck, easing her slightly forward, giving himself access.
‘You’re not too sore?’
She curled up in front of him.
He completed his entry of her, and began the slowest, gentlest, least invasive series of movements he could contrive.
She inhaled sharply once, and then he felt her body relax to accommodate him, the swell of her back loosening, the muscles softening, no longer fighting him. The rhythm consumed him, and his eyes turned back on themselves so that he could no longer see even her outline in the fractured dark of the bedroom.
Someone was groaning, murmuring, moaning, and he realised with a sudden unexpected shock of self-awareness, that this new language, this visceral, animal, transcendent series of inchoate sounds, was coming from him.
PART SIX
St Gervais Du Mont-Boisé, Aveyron, France.
Friday 2nd June to Monday 5th June 1944
La Petite Mort
‘Where shall I drop you? Here at Canteloube, or outside the village?’
Lucie had her head in Max’s lap, her knees drawn up, the car blanket pulled across her. She raised her head sleepily, brushing back her hair. ‘Are we there already? I must have dozed a bit.’
‘Dozed a bit? You’ve slept for the past three hours. You’re very talkative in your sleep, though. You’ve kept me well entertained.’
Lucie sat up. ‘I don’t talk in my sleep!’ She hesitated in the act of straightening her clothes. ‘Do I?’
‘You sing, too. I’m sorry now I didn’t bring the piano.’
She punched him playfully on the arm, enjoying the experience of making free with him and with his person now that they were on more intimate terms. ‘I don’t believe a word of it. You forget I was brought up with three brothers.’
‘You haven’t answered my question.’
She pretended to ignore him. ‘I suppose I look terrible.’
‘Stop digging for compliments. Even though you deserve them.’ He reached across and drew her to him, kissing her cheek, and ear, and forehead. ‘Anyway, you suppose wrong. You look beautiful. I’ve been watching you by the rising light of the sun. If you were made of marzipan I’d eat you.’
A shadow flitted across her face as Max slowed down for the farm track leading towards Canteloube. ‘You’d better let me off nearer the town. It wouldn’t look right for me to return home at this time in the morning. I’ll wash at the pump, and then go on to my mother’s as normal – she’ll think I’ve slept here.’
‘I’d rather we could stay together.’
‘So would I.’ Lucie’s mind was elsewhere, though, as she reached down and took off her new shoes. ‘You’re going to have to keep these for me. Perhaps I could wear them when I sing?’
‘The stockings, too, perhaps?’
‘Concentrate on your driving, you.’ Lucie ducked her head as they passed a farmer’s cart, pressing her cheek with more emphasis than was strictly necessary against the firmness of his thigh. To her surprise she found herself enjoying the heightened feeling of power her newly acquired sexuality afforded her – of choosing how and when best to respond to him. This sudden extra sensitivity meant that she instinctively recognised the burgeoning sexual tension in him even before he did.
He placed a hand on her ribcage, near to her breast; she could feel him tracing out the swell with his fingers. Could sense the direction of his thoughts almost as if she were thinking them herself.
‘I’ll pull in here. We’ll be too close to the village otherwise.’ He got out of the car and held the door open for her. He noticed her glance anxiously up the deserted road. ‘Will you be warm enough, Lucie?’
‘It’s not cold.’ She allowed him to draw her towards him. She could feel his hand slide down her back and over the curve of her buttocks, pressing her against him.
‘I would like to make love to you here. Now. Against the car.’
‘We couldn’t. Someone might see us.’
‘There’s no one about.’
‘How could we do it?’
‘Lean ba
ck against the bonnet. Like this. Yes. Now raise one leg and put it around my hip.’
‘But I’ve got underwear on.’
‘I can push it aside. Quickly. Let me put it in. I don’t think I can last very long.’
She cried out as he began to move inside her. The sun was rising over his right shoulder, and she could feel its warmth drumming on her eyelids – a horse whinnied nearby, and she heard the single harsh cry of a buzzard in the far distance. She placed one hand around his neck and drew him towards her when she sensed his climax, pushing down with her hips and pelvis, grinding against him as if they were both animals coupling in a wayside field.
When he finally pulled away from her she felt a sudden acute tristesse, as if a significant part of herself had somehow come adrift, never to be recovered.
Le Retour
Lucie stood in her mother’s hallway, her fists curled at her sides, the warm glow from Max’s tender farewell at the roadside, twenty minutes before, ossifying like pyroclastic dust around her heart.
She studied the sparse pile of her belongings as if they were the impedimenta left behind by a barbarically waylaid crowd of refugees.
‘The boys brought all your possessions over in the wagon first thing yesterday morning.’ There was an edge of triumph to her mother’s voice – the merest suggestion of self-vindication. ‘According to Gilbert, your sainted grandmother dragged every last item you own out of the farmhouse and dumped it unceremoniously into the basse-cour. Her first thought was to set fire to it all, but your grandfather managed to persuade her out of that one, thank God. Gilbert was most apologetic. It seems – as far as the old sow is concerned anyway, and that’s all that counts, as we both know – that you are no longer welcome at Canteloube.’ Jeanne Léré snorted. ‘Well, that makes two of us. Two whores in one household, at least as far as your grandmother is concerned.’
The Occupation Secret Page 23
