by Mary Nichols
She cycled along Nayton’s country lanes savouring the warmth of the afternoon sun, her nostrils full of the scent of the cow parsley growing in the verges, half listening to a noisy blackbird calling from the hedgerow. It was so peaceful, it was difficult to believe that everyone was gearing themselves up to resist an invasion. Charles had been worrying the War Office to give him something useful to do but all that happened was that he was given command of the Nayton Local Defence Volunteers. With their armbands and tin hats, all the uniform they had so far, they drilled with brooms for rifles and listened to lectures. According to Charles, they were grittily determined to hold off any Jerry who had the temerity to invade their homeland. It was too amateurish for words.
She dismounted at the station and wheeled her cycle through the pedestrian gate and across the tracks, saying good afternoon to Mrs Storey who was on her knees weeding the patch of station garden. ‘It’s a beautiful afternoon, isn’t it?’
‘For them as hev time to enjoy it, mayhap.’
‘Yes, it must be hard work keeping the station tidy, but I must say you make a very good job of it. The flowers are lovely. Lucy used to keep it nice too. How is she getting on in her new job?’ Lucy’s sudden disappearance had been the gossip of the village for a while. Had she done something wrong and been dismissed? Had she got herself pregnant and gone away to have the baby in secret? Had she quarrelled with her new stepmother? Mr Storey had been unforthcoming but according to Mrs Storey she had left for a better job.
‘Don’ know. She don’ keep in touch.’
‘I’m sorry to hear that, but perhaps you’ll hear from her soon.’ She remounted and went on her way as a train drew into the station behind her. There was something strange about that girl’s disappearance, but it was none of her business and she put it from her mind.
Lucy left the doctor’s surgery and made for home. What he had told her had been no surprise; she knew what was wrong with her. No, not wrong, she corrected herself, she wasn’t ill and having Jack’s baby was not wrong; she didn’t care what anyone said. She hoped Jack would be pleased about it.
He had been as good as his word and found her a job in an engineering factory making aeroplane parts and a little two-up two-down terrace cottage in Waterloo Road. ‘Better than a miserable room with a landlady breathing down your neck all the time,’ he had told her. ‘You can please yourself what you do and I can visit you if I want.’
‘And will you want to?’
‘Of course. We can finish the portrait.’
‘But I don’t think I can afford the rent, it’s more than for one room, isn’t it?’
‘Don’t worry about that. I’ll take care of it.’
‘But you can’t do that. It’s not right.’
‘Of course it’s right. I’ve got plenty of money and nothing to spend it on but pleasure and if it is my pleasure to help you, what’s wrong with that?’
She had not continued to argue; it was nice to have someone who cared enough to want to look after her. She would find some way to repay him.
The house was supposed to be furnished but had only the bare necessities and he had taken her on a shopping spree to add a few things of her own to make it more homely. He had even bought her some clothes because, remembering how her father had said her mother’s clothes belonged to him, she had brought only the minimum with her. She liked to imagine it was like being married, except Jack was not there all the time. His family at Nayton Manor claimed him, but he had dropped in sometimes on a Saturday or a Sunday and had his tea with her. Then he had joined the Royal Air Force and disappeared for weeks to do his training. When he came on leave it was a joyful reunion, so joyful she had thrown herself into his arms, kissed him exuberantly and allowed him to stay the night.
He was a thoughtful and tender-hearted lover and she gave herself to him willingly and lovingly and if the result was a new, smaller edition of Jack de Lacey, well, that was all right by her. She had never been so happy in her life. The only drawback was the lack of a wedding ring, and though she told herself she didn’t care whether they were married or not, she did wonder what her neighbours and workmates might think, so she bought herself a cheap ring in Woolworths.
She’d have to keep working until the last minute, but as the factory needed every hand it could get with so many of the men leaving for the forces, she didn’t think they’d get rid of her until she was too big to sit comfortably at her workbench. One thing she had not done and never would do, was contact the man she had called Pa for so long. Nor would she write to Jack to tell him her news; she would wait until he came to her. She wanted to see his face when she told him.
He came a week after the news had broken about Dunkirk. He looked haggard and exhausted, too tired even to talk or eat. She didn’t bother him but let him sleep the clock round, and it was not until the following morning when she put a huge breakfast in front of him and he had demolished it, he came alive again. ‘Thanks for understanding, Lucy,’ he said, taking her hand and putting it against his cheek. ‘I needed to sleep. I couldn’t go home like that, they’d have quizzed me about what was wrong and I couldn’t tell them. They’d have been too upset.’
‘You don’t have to tell me either, if you don’t want to, but perhaps it’d be better out than in.’
He was silent for some moments, then went on. ‘It was awful. We were sent to Dunkirk to keep Jerry from bombing our troops on the beach. There were thousands and thousands of them in long lines waiting for anything afloat to come and take them off, and there wasn’t a scrap of cover except a few dunes. The Stukas came screaming in and mowed them down. And even the men who reached the ships weren’t safe. Many were sunk, even the hospital ship with its red cross. When I flew low, I could see the sea and beach were full of debris and dead bodies. I never learnt to hate before but seeing the merciless way the men were strafed, and not being able to do much but chase the buggers off, made me furious. I went after them and I might have downed one. One! That was all I could do. And I kept thinking of Max and wondering if he was down there in the middle of it all …’
‘I’m sorry, Jack.’ She put his head against her stomach and stood there holding him, looking over his tousled head at the portrait which took pride of place over the mantel. He had continued to work on it in fits and starts and had finished it on his last leave. She didn’t know anything about art or the value of pictures, but she valued it because he had painted it and it flattered her, or so she thought, though he said it was a good likeness. His shoulders began to shake and she realised he was sobbing. She said nothing and in a little while he lifted his head.
‘Let’s go to bed. I need you.’
It was afterwards, when they were lying side by side on their backs, happily satiated and he was almost asleep again, that she broached the subject uppermost in her mind. ‘Jack, I’ve got something to tell you.’
Alerted by her tone he opened his eyes and turned his head towards her. ‘Out with it, then.’
‘I’m pregnant.’
‘The devil you are!’
‘It’s what happens, you know, when you … you do what we just did.’
‘I do know that, Lucy.’
‘I hoped you’d be pleased.’
‘Pleased isn’t exactly the word I’d have used.’
She was disappointed by his reaction; his face hadn’t lit up with pleasure as she had hoped it would. Perhaps he was too tired to take it in. ‘You’re not angry, are you?’
‘Angry?’ He laughed. ‘What have I got to be angry about? It’s my own fault. What are you going to do about it?’
‘What am I going to do?’ she squeaked. ‘It isn’t up to me on my own, is it?’
‘No, of course not.’ He backtracked hurriedly. ‘So what are we going to do?’
‘I’m not going to some backstreet abortionist, if that’s what you’re thinking,’ she said. ‘I heard the girls at the factory talking about it. One of them had been. It was awful. In any case, I can’t kill my ba
by, not nohow. He’s yours too, part of you.’
He turned on his side to face her. ‘I know.’
‘You couldn’t kill him either, could you?’
‘No.’
‘Then you’re going to be a father.’
‘When?’
‘In the New Year, so they tell me. I’ll work as long as I can, but after that …’
‘Sweetheart,’ he said firmly. ‘You and our baby will not suffer because of my carelessness. You will be looked after, as long as you need it, I promise you.’
‘I hoped you’d say that. A girl on her own without a man—’
‘You’ve got me. But if someone should come along who wants to marry you and you want to marry him, we’ll think again.’
He couldn’t understand why she burst into tears and put it down to her condition making her weepy. He comforted her as best he could and a little later left for Nayton.
Lucy had certainly given him something to think about. Why he hadn’t been more careful, he couldn’t say, but it was done now and he was going to be a father of a little bastard. He knew what that was like, to grow up not knowing the man who had conceived you, knowing you were different in some way from all the other boys and that it was something to be ashamed of. Poor little beggar! At least he could make sure neither Lucy nor the child suffered materially. Should he give her a lump sum or a regular allowance? Should it be hers to do with as she liked or put in trust for the child? Should he stop seeing her? After all, why did he keep seeing her?
The original offer to help her after that brute of a father had as good as turned her out had been made on the spur of the moment and it had tickled his fancy to set her up as his mistress, though the word had never been mentioned by either of them. But he found himself looking forward to his visits, to the restful atmosphere she created, to her obvious adoration. Was he prepared to give that up?
He still hadn’t made up his mind about it when he left the train at Nayton Halt. Bert Storey was trundling a barrow loaded with punnets of strawberries down the platform and his wife was standing by the gates ready to open them when the train had gone. He wondered what they would say if they knew, but it wasn’t up to him to tell them and he didn’t think Lucy would. He bade them good-day and carried on his way. It was good to be home, and now he felt rested, he needn’t go into details of the horrors he had seen or the constant fear which every one of his pals felt but disguised with bonhomie and foolishness. No doubt his father would want to discuss the situation with him and ask him what he thought about Lizzie still being in France. And what could he say about that? It was up to Lizzie.
Grandpère had been right. France was defeated. On the day Italy entered the war as an ally of Germany, the French government had fled to Tours leaving Paris an open city. The Germans had marched in unopposed and now a Swastika was flying from the Eiffel Tower. The roads were clogged with refugees, trying to escape. They drove cars which had to be abandoned when they ran out of petrol; they harnessed horses to carts and loaded them with their possessions; they took bicycles and handcarts, anything which would carry what they considered essentials. Some, who had come from farms, were driving livestock, some of which died on the way and were abandoned on the roadside along with broken-down, petrol-less cars. Their presence prevented the remnants of the French army from regrouping. ‘Half the time, they don’t know where they are going,’ Pierre told Elizabeth and his parents one day when he arrived on a visit to the farm. The streets of Annecy and the railway station were clogged with refugees, hoping to get into Switzerland. ‘As for the trains …’ He shrugged. ‘Lisabette is better staying here.’
On 16th June Paul Reynaud resigned as prime minister and Philippe Pétain took over. Almost his first act was to broadcast to the French people to explain why an armistice was necessary to save the country more bloodshed, a sentiment which those who remembered the carnage of the Great War agreed with.
‘I have this evening approached the enemy to ask if he is ready to try to find, between soldiers, with the struggle over and in honour, the means to put an end to the hostilities,’ he said.
The little group around the wireless set in the farmhouse kitchen looked at each other in silence. Albert reached out with his good right hand and switched it off; they needed to save the accumulators and they had heard enough. They might not call a negotiated armistice a defeat, but in the days that followed and the terms made known, it became apparent that defeat it was.
The German army was to occupy three-fifths of the country, the remaining two-fifths in the south being ruled by Pétain’s government from the town of Vichy. They would be allowed to maintain a small force to keep law and order, but all French warships must be laid up. Any French nationals caught fighting for Britain would be shot and French soldiers who had been taken prisoner would remain in German camps. British nationals must report to their local police station every day.
Albert looked at Elizabeth and smiled wearily. ‘Do you still say you are staying here?’
‘Yes, but if anyone asks, I’m French. I don’t trust them not to round up all the British citizens and throw them in jail. I’ll be Uncle Pierre’s child, if he agrees.’
They laughed. ‘I don’t know what Jeanne will say to that,’ Grandmère said.
Elizabeth took the replacement van into Annecy the next day to ask Jeanne and found herself witnessing the exodus of refugees. There was no panic; they seemed dazed, and shuffled along one behind the other in a kind of torpor. Luckily she was not travelling in their direct line and was able to find a way through them to the road leading to the vineyard.
Pierre and Jeanne readily agreed to acquire a daughter and they spent a little time discussing when and where she had been born and decided she had been privately educated in Switzerland; it was too easy for those in authority to check French schools. ‘You’ll need an identity card,’ Pierre said. ‘How are we going to get that?’
‘I’ll say I’ve lost it and get issued with a new one in the name of Lisabette Clavier.’
The boys, who had pleaded the necessity of working in the vineyard to avoid national service, laughed when they were told. ‘We’ve got a grown-up sister, would you believe,’ Philippe said, hugging her. ‘We shall have to take good care of her.’
‘I can take care of myself,’ she said. ‘And I’d better be off or I won’t be back before dark.’
Two weeks later, she was sitting at the supper table with her grandparents eating a rabbit stew, when the back door opened and Justine came in. She was accompanied by a man in a heavy overcoat with a black hat pulled down over his eyes. He was bent and frail but he straightened up when he came into the kitchen.
‘Max!’ Elizabeth squealed, rushing to take his hand and pull him forward. ‘How did you get here?’
‘It’s a long story,’ he said. His voice and his whole demeanour betrayed immense weariness. He sank into a chair.
Elizabeth turned to Justine, who had been hugged by her mother and was being bombarded with questions. She, too, looked tired and not her usual chic self. ‘Maman, let me gather myself, then I’ll tell you everything.’
‘Are you hungry?’
‘Yes, but more thirsty than anything.’
Grandmère poured them coffee and heated up the stew again. ‘Eat and drink and go to bed. We’ll talk tomorrow. You aren’t in any trouble, are you?’
Justine laughed. ‘No, Maman. I have permission to visit my parents.’
‘And Captain Coburn?’
‘I don’t know anything about a Captain Coburn. This is my French soldier boyfriend, Antoine Descourt, who was wounded in the throat and cannot speak properly.’ She laughed. ‘His French accent is atrocious and I couldn’t risk it.’
That statement brought home to Elizabeth more than anything what had happened up to that point and what life in France was going to be like in the future. A small shudder of apprehension passed through her but was quickly suppressed.
Grandmère was as good as her word and
refrained from asking questions. She was just thankful to have her daughter safely under her roof. Justine did not say anything about staying or leaving, until she and Elizabeth were in bed. Max was occupying the spare room, so she took the second bed in Elizabeth’s room.
‘What’s it like in Paris now?’ Elizabeth asked.
‘Kind of peaceful if you discount the German flags flying from all the government buildings and their troops swaggering about, laughing and joking, filling the cafés and eating all our food. Half the population has fled and those that are left are going to work and trying to pretend everything is normal. How can it be normal? There are so many new regulations, it’s difficult to keep up with them, and everyone is fearful of what is going to happen next.’
‘How did you meet up with Max? He looks ghastly.’
‘He turned up on my doorstep early one morning before anyone was about. He was on the point of collapse, so I dragged him in and put him to bed and when he woke I fed him. I couldn’t let him go out again, he’d have been picked up straight away, so I had to think of something.’
‘How did he get to you? Where had he come from?’
‘No doubt he’ll tell you, though he might spare you the horror. I certainly don’t want it spoken of in front of Maman and Papa.’
‘Go on.’
‘He and the men he had with him were holed up in a barn on the Belgium border, trying to hold the Boche up so the evacuation could go ahead …’
‘You mean Dunkirk?’
‘Yes. They were overrun and had to surrender. He said they were marched for days without food or water, and when they complained about this they were all herded into a shed on someone’s farm and shot. He was saved because the man beside him fell against him and took him down with him. The bullet intended for him grazed his leg. He was afraid the officer would go round finishing everyone off with a pistol, but luckily he didn’t. Max played dead until they’d gone.
