Nell and the Girls

by Jeanne Gask

  In the centre of the market, they watched the ‘Song Man’ for hours. He sang hits from the latest films, acting them out with lewd gestures and making his audience laugh. When he had finished the people in the crowd bought his song sheets. Jeanne and Irene knew the words to all the songs from the films and would sing and dance to them in the garden or the attic when they got home. Jeanne never had enough money for the song sheets but, when she could, she bought a shiny black-and-white postcard-sized photo of one of the film stars. She amassed a sizeable collection, twenty or twenty-five of them. The men were so handsome, cigarette held aloft in an elegant hand, and the aloof ladies wore long slinky dresses covered in sequins or beads and had shining lips and languorous eyes averted from the camera. Jeanne treasured her photos. She kept them in a shoebox under the bed and got them out frequently to look at.

  One Saturday while out on her own, she bumped into Madeleine, one of her school friends, who was out with her parents. She was arm-in-arm with a young man who was introduced as her fiancé. Jeanne was horrified: Madeleine was twelve years old – Jeanne’s age – yet the young man had been chosen as a suitor by her parents. Jeanne ran home in a panic and told Nell what had happened. She didn’t want to get married yet! ‘Please, please, don’t let me be married yet!’ Nell laughed and said it was very unlikely and told her to go away and finish her homework.

  Sometimes a squad of German soldiers marched down the middle of the street returning from the baths, the conquering heroes. Stripped to the waist, with towels round their necks, they marched and sang as they marched in perfect unison. It went something like:

  ‘I-ye, i-yo,

  ‘I-ye, i-yo,’

  French urchins followed, singing from the pavement and ready to dart down the nearest side street should they be chased.

  Du riz au lait

  Pour les Anglais.

  Du riz a l’eau

  Pour les salauds!

  Which translates roughly as:

  ‘Rice with milk

  For the English.

  Rice with water

  For the bastards!’

  In the summer, the youth of Cambrai flocked to the swimming pool. It was their social centre and meeting place. Within these walls they could run about and splash and misbehave to their heart’s content, forgetting the repression outside. Jeanne and her friends spent many happy hours there.

  It was on a calm Sunday morning, when there weren’t many people about, that Jeanne launched herself into the deep pool, four metres deep. She had spent a long time practising breaststroke in the shallow pool, one foot on the bottom, and now felt ready to literally take the plunge.

  She heard Marie scream, ‘Jeanne! My sister! She can’t swim!’ But Jeanne carried on swimming. One of Marie’s admirers obligingly dived in to the rescue, wanting to prove himself and be a hero in Marie’s eyes. He found that Jeanne was coping perfectly well and so swam by her side, encouraging her until she reached the other end where Marie was waiting to tell her off, more out of relief than anger. But Jeanne was happy. She could now call herself a swimmer.

  Coming home from school one day with Nicole, they came across a new poster down a side street. The authorities were always putting up posters telling the population how well off they were or for certain named men to give themselves up. This was a really lurid one, showing Allied planes flying over Joan of Arc on her burning pyre, houses blazing in the background, all in deepest red, yellow and black. Underneath was written, THE ASSASSINS HAVE RETURNED TO THE SCENE OF THEIR CRIME. Nicole and Jeanne were offended by this and felt that something must be done. People were often trying to tear down these posters. It made you feel a bit better if you were successful. Searching their school bags, one found a nail file, the other a metal ruler, and they set to work scraping at it and trying to remove it, keeping an eye out in case someone saw them. The glue proved far too strong and they had to reluctantly leave it to be admired or hated, depending on one’s point of view.

  At this time, Marie longed for her piano back in Calais. The trouble was that she had begun to prove that she was really talented and would have had a really successful future in front of her but Nell couldn’t afford expensive piano lessons. She was always on the look-out for a piano when visiting friends and, upon finding one, would exclaim, ‘Oh, a piano!’ She was delighted when given permission to play and was eventually allowed to practise regularly at a friend’s house. Her musical hero was Frederick Chopin and she took great delight in schooling her long, slim fingers in trying to play his Fantaisie Impromptu, her favourite. She was unable to fulfil her ultimate ambition though.

  Dressing the girls was a nightmare for Nell. Apart from the shortage of money, there were the dreaded clothing coupons. Each time a new allocation was made, Nell had to do a balancing act to decide which item of clothing was most needed. If she put the coupons towards a new pair of shoes for Irene, providing she could afford it, of course, she couldn’t buy warm winter underwear for Jeanne; and a new coat for one of them would take the whole allocation for all the family. It was unthinkable for Nell to buy anything on the expensive black market, so very few new clothes came their way.

  Marie became extremely adept at making do. From the age of fifteen she was always smartly dressed in the latest fashion. Her long, delicate, fingers were constantly busy, sewing a blouse maybe and adding a bit of lace – begged, borrowed or recycled – on the cuffs and at the neckline. Or she would take an old skirt apart and, lo and behold, an embroidered waistcoat would appear. She also became an expert knitter. Buying knitting wool would have meant using some of the already-spoken-for clothing coupons, so if she wanted a new jumper she had to unpick one or combine two old ones to get enough wool to knit a new one. First, she carefully unpicked the seams, revealing the back, the front and two sleeves, then she started unravelling the back. The wool ran free but crinkly, and it was at this stage that she had to get hold of a volunteer. ‘Jea-a-nne . . .!’

  Jeanne had her elbow on the sideboard and ear glued to the radio. ‘What?’

  Marie said sweetly, ‘Come and give me a hand, please. I need some help.’

  Jeanne said crossly, ‘Can’t, I’m busy.’

  ‘If you’re listening to the radio, we’ll move over closer. I only need you to hold your hands up while I wind the wool.’

  Jeanne snapped, ‘Yes, yes, I know what you want me for.’

  Irene, from the depths of the only armchair with her nose in a book, said, ‘Shut up, you two. I’ve got to learn this speech for French Lit by tomorrow. It’s two pages long!’

  Marie and Jeanne quoted in unison, ‘Albe, Mon cher pays, Mon premier amour . . .’ In the confined space, they knew the speech as well as Irene did.

  Marie whispered conspiratorially, ‘If you help me, I’ll let you come and sit with us at the pool tomorrow.’

  Now, that was really something. Sitting with Marie and her friends, who were always surrounded by hordes of boys, with all the banter, the mock fights and the throwings in. How envious Nicole and Jeanne’s other friends would be when they saw her with Marie’s friends. Jeanne agreed grudgingly. ‘Oh, all right then.’ She’d fallen for it again. It was more than likely that tomorrow, when Jeanne approached Marie and her friends sitting by the pool, Marie would have completely forgotten her promise and send Jeanne packing. She fell for it every time.

  Jeanne now sat opposite Marie with her hands up in front of her nose, a foot apart, while Marie wound the unpicked wool around Jeanne’s hands into skeins. Jeanne had to sit like this for hours until the whole jumper was unwound, and she got the sharp end of Marie’s tongue if her hands started to droop.

  Once the unwinding process was complete and the skeins made up, they were washed carefully and threaded through a broom handle, which was then rested between two chairs and left to drip overnight in a bowl. When dry, the wool was nice and straight and the kinks gone. Marie now needed a volunteer again and, yes, you’ve guessed it, Jeanne was enlisted. The skein was again put on Jeanne’
s outstretched hands and the whole process was repeated in reverse, only this time the wool was wound into balls ready for knitting. Using this method, the wool was recycled several times over, reappearing as a two-tone jumper or a scarf and glove set or a pair of thick winter socks until it was finally too old and matted to be of further use. Marie could also knit gloves and socks on four needles, turn heels and do the most complicated Fair Isle patterns. Nothing was too much of a challenge for her.

  Having a head full of lice was a social stigma. Children with lice were shunned.

  Jeanne had lice. There was no doubt about it. She scratched and scratched, the irritation driving her mad. Nell lathered her head with ‘Marie-Rose’, a pretty name for a disgusting concoction. What’s more, it didn’t do any good; it didn’t work at all.

  Jeanne panicked. Her thoughts went back to the first day at the convent school at Marc-en-Bareuil. She had asked her classroom neighbour why there was a boy in the class. The girl had tittered and answered that this was not a boy, but a lice-ridden girl and, lice being contagious, her head had been shaved.

  Jeanne turned tearfully to Nell. ‘They won’t shave my head, Mummy, will they?’

  ‘Well Jeannot, I don’t know if they’d do it here. But you’ve got to be a very sensible girl and not scratch when you’re at school. It wouldn’t do to draw attention to yourself. I’m going to cut your hair short, as short as I dare, and I’m going to cut your finger nails very short too, then you’ll have nothing to scratch with, will you?’

  Since the ‘Marie-Rose’ didn’t work, there was only one alternative.

  Every evening, after they had eaten and the table had been cleared, Jeanne sat head bent over a white sheet of paper in front of her on the table and scraped a fine-tooth comb over her scalp over and over again. The lice fell on the paper and, as they ran in all directions, she squashed the nasty things flat with her thumbnail. Then she tapped the edge of the comb on the edge of the table, and the eggs and nits, being the discarded shells of hatched eggs, fell onto the paper. This performance was repeated each evening, and after about a fortnight or so there were no more lice. The scare was over.

  In these difficult days, Jeanne was a highly-strung, nervy child and an anxious Nell took her to see the local doctor, an elderly gentleman long past retirement age but the only doctor available in the district. Younger men were prisoners of war or forcibly working for the Germans, or exiled abroad waiting for better days.

  The old doctor gave Jeanne a thorough examination and declared, ‘There’s nothing wrong with the child. Try not to excite her too much . . . no coffee, tea or wine . . . and give her good food . . . thick soup . . . stews . . .’

  Nell came out of the surgery, snorting with anger. ‘No coffee, tea or wine, indeed! Where would I find such luxuries? Chance would be a fine thing! Stews and thick soups? Silly old fool . . . and as for not exciting you too much . . . what with the threat of bombs and worse . . . silly old fool . . .’

  When Jeanne had conjunctivitis, her eyes were glued together when she woke up in the mornings. She had to prise them open between her thumb and forefinger, first one, then the other. Nell wasn’t keen to take Jeanne to the expensive old doctor again and so, morning and evening, she bathed her infected eyes with warm water, to which a little salt had been added. The infection took a long time to go, but it cleared eventually.

  But worse was to come.

  Many schoolchildren caught impetigo in occupied France, probably due to the poor diet, though it was also attributed to a surfeit of casein biscuits. Impetigo was awful. It could strike at any time without warning and come up in nasty looking scabs. Jeanne had it on her chin and upper lip; Irene, poor girl, on her scalp. Since it was thought at the time to be highly infectious, the affected children had to attend a clinic on the outskirts of town. Irene and Jeanne would walk down together from school and there they were subjected to a form of treatment that was basic, to say the least.

  The awful scabs were removed with tweezers and the infected parts dabbed with stinging ether. Jeanne yelled, screamed and kicked – it was so painful. Then gentian violet was applied to the open wounds, and she was sent home with a purple chin and upper lip for all to see.

  Finding Irene’s infection difficult to deal with, her hair being in the way, the only possible course was taken: they shaved her hair off.

  Then they carried out the same treatment as they did on Jeanne, and sent Irene home hairless, her head covered in purple dye. Imagine a fourteen-year-old girl with a purple head and no hair. She wore a turban, factory-girl style, and consequently was known throughout the town as ‘l’Americaine. When she was cured, her hair grew again, fine and brown, prettier than before. But the mental and emotional scars remained long after the hair had grown back.

  7. Jean, and an Awful Evening

  Jean was in love. He adored Marie; he worshipped the ground she walked on.

  He lived just down the road with his parents in a large house with a beautiful garden, but he would spend hours at Nell’s, sprawled in the only armchair regaling them with amazing stories, tall stories, preposterous anecdotes. He was always looking to Marie for approval, hoping for a sign. But she only saw him as a brother, a good friend. She was the older woman. He was sixteen; she was seventeen.

  Jean was a hothead. The great sorrow of his life, apart from his unrequited love for Marie, was that he could not take part in the war. He knew it would all be over by the time he was old enough to fight and he was just dying to have a go. But he could still find many small ways to annoy the Germans, and got up to all sorts of tricks just to get rid of his frustration.

  Late at night, Nell would hear an urgent knock on the front door.

  ‘Open up, open up . . .’

  Standing behind the door, she would say fearfully, ‘Who’s that?’

  ‘It’s me! Jean. Open up, quick, quick . . .’

  She would unlock and open the door and Jean would thrust a stolen pair of German army boots into her hands, or a can of petrol off an army lorry.

  ‘Here,’ he would say, breathless. ‘Look after this for me. I’ll be back later.’

  ‘Oh no, Jean! Not at this house! Not here of all places.’

  Jean would simply look over his shoulder before disappearing into the night. ‘I’ll see you later!’ He’d done his daily bit for the war effort.

  One afternoon, Jean and Marie returned from an outing, eyes sparkling. They were laughing and had a tale to tell. They had gone out in Jean’s father’s car to the nearby airfield and had parked by the fence. There, arms round each other pretending to kiss, they had counted the German machine-gun emplacements. Jean would report his findings to the underground movement later and feel useful in his small way.

  Nell was furious. She turned on Marie. ‘Don’t you ever, ever do anything like that again! You know very well your father’s in German hands, and should you ever get into trouble, there could be reprisals against him.’

  Nell had been approached time and time again by the Resistance. With her knowledge of English, she could have been very useful to them. But she felt strongly that she had been given a job to do, and that was to get her family through this wretched war unharmed and she refused to get involved. She also suspected at times that she didn’t know whether people were on her side or against her. Many of the French were resentful that their country had been invaded twice in twenty-five years and some were apt to blame the Allies as much as the Germans, and so Nell tried not to draw attention to herself too much.

  But some were very friendly and she knew she could trust them.

  One evening, Nell was visiting Monsieur and Madame Begue. Their son Roger was in Marie’s class and they were very happy to invite her over for a chat. Nell sensed there was an atmosphere in the Begue’s kitchen that night, a feeling of excitement that Nell could not fathom out at all. They talked of this and that and, as she left, she still felt puzzled; it had been a very odd evening indeed.

  When Nell bumped into Madame Be
gue the following week, all was made clear. Nell had been sitting with her back to an R.A.F. airman sitting in the next room, waiting to be rescued! Madame Begue continued, ‘We know you don’t want to get involved with the Resistance and we respect your wishes.’ But Nell was slightly disappointed. She would have loved to have had a chat with one of ‘Our boys’.

  One Sunday evening, returning in the blackest of blackouts from their weekly visit to the flea-pit, Marie fell and twisted her ankle. She just could not walk on it.

  It was an awful end to an awful evening.

  They had seen a costume drama, a real weepy. Marie-Antoinette was being prepared for her walk to the guillotine. A nasty, leering man had cut off her beautiful long hair with a sword and her weeping attendants had gently removed the lace collar from her neck so that the blade would cut cleanly.

  Jeanne had been vaguely aware of movement in the cinema, of people walking heavily down the aisles. But she was much too engrossed in the film to take any real notice. The queen’s walk to the scaffold, her head held erect, had her undivided attention. The film ended, the lights went up. Women were dabbing their eyes.

  ‘Nobody move! Stay right where you are!’ a voice shouted.

  The cinema was full of German troops blocking every exit, their guns at the ready.

  The audience panicked. Everyone was screaming. Women clung to their husbands or sons, really crying now.

  ‘No, no!’ they shouted. Some men tried to hide under the tip-up seats, others looked towards the toilets, but it was too late. The doors were already blocked by more armed guards.

  Jeanne’s hand sought Nell’s and held on to it. They were herded towards the exit.

  ‘Papieren! Papieren!’ The soldiers were checking identity papers. Once this was established to their satisfaction, they let the women go, but the men were detained for further questioning. These events occurred frequently. Able-bodied Frenchmen were forcibly sent to Germany to help with the war effort, or to work on the Atlantic wall running along the west coast of France, built to repel any Allied invasion. Many carried forged identity papers that stated they were ill or disabled and unable to work.