‘I’ll be back tomorrow at the same time,’ Walter murmured, and he could almost hear the officer in question sighing, doubtlessly thinking: infernal painters, what use were they when the battle was on, endlessly daubing and doubtless getting in everyone’s way too.
Walter felt the same himself. The truth was that in war an artist, a painter, was just what no one needed, hanging around the people that really mattered, getting in the way. Every day, and every night when he finally went to bed, the urge to put in for something else overwhelmed him. He had to find another role, before he lost all self-respect.
Katherine straightened up and paused by the dark alley, head bent, looking up and down the narrow street of small shops that ran from her cavern-like hiding place under the bridge.
No one was about, not that it would have mattered if they had been, because there was so much poverty on the Left Bank, one more tramp, one more drunken woman would arouse about as much curiosity as an empty bottle lying in the gutter.
Happily she knew Paris like the back of her hand, and she also knew the concierge of this particular block of flats, had known her long before the war, which was why she would not trust her as far as she could throw her. She knew her habits, her failings, her greed. For if madame the concierge was not greedy, if she did not worship a fresh baguette, and croissants, and filet mignon done to perfection, then Paris was not beautiful.
Katherine had planned to wait until the old woman left her little set of narrow rooms by the entrance to the courtyard, and went down the street to pick up her early morning bread, and then Katherine would cross from her dirty, smelly hiding place and make her way to the block of flats.
She had spent the night under the arches at the top of the street, where tramps and drunks were famous for sitting and drinking, sleeping and waking, only to fall asleep scratching and groaning. Her night had not been the best she had ever spent, but it had been more than useful for making her look as authentic as the rest of the company. She looked and smelled dreadful.
As soon as she saw the concierge leave, hardly after dawn, for there was currently a flour shortage in Paris, Katherine moved from the shadows of her filthy hiding place, and through the door cut into the large shuttered barrier that guarded the courtyard, then made her way up to the flat.
Marie-Christine opened her front door with the chain still on, and stared at Katherine, but such was the efficiency of the underground movement in France, she had long been expecting the Ladybird. Quickly she closed the door and reopened it to her.
‘Mon Dieu, vous sentez mal!’ She stepped backwards, putting one long-fingered elegant hand over her nose, and then forwards again to reattach the door chain behind Katherine. ‘Ma pauvre. You will excuse me if I do not kiss you, eh? The things you do for England I am surely not prepared to do for France.’
They both laughed, but Marie-Christine immediately stopped and stared in horror at Katherine’s teeth.
‘Mais – quelle horreur!’
‘C’est nécessaire,’ Katherine informed her in a low voice, before following her old friend down the narrow dark corridor to the sloping-floored kitchen, with its one tap and its food cages, and its window overlooking the Seine – and many other things too.
Once in the kitchen Marie-Christine raised her finger to her lips, and opened the door that should have led to a larder. Katherine stared in. Inside were no winter stores, precious pots of jam or bags of flour, but what seemed like half a dozen pairs of dark eyes staring back at her. She kneeled down in the doorway.
‘How long have they been here?’ she asked in French.
‘Many days, madame,’ one of the children said finally, after looking towards Marie-Christine to make sure that it was all right to answer.
‘They have to stay here. It would be impossible to move them now,’ Marie-Christine told Katherine in English. ‘Paris is so crowded, you understand, not just the Boche, but the Gestapo too. They make lightning visits everywhere. Last night it was Montmartre, today it is St-Germain-en-Laye. It is tedious not knowing, but then war is tedious.’ She shrugged her shoulders, and nodded towards the window. ‘We have a lookout on the Pont des Arts during the day. You see, there? That small boy standing by the bridge? He is very quick. As soon as they approach we will know. He is a cousin of mine. He knows nothing, only to watch for the Boche, or the Gestapo. Not even the concierge knows of the little ones’ presence here. We trust no one. We can’t.’ She put a cafetière on the stove and lit the gas under it. ‘Soon the war will be over, I know it, and soon we will see the back of these filthy Boche, but until then we make certain no one knows our secret, eh? This coffee is not the best, but it is all we have. Food is getting harder and harder to find here. I am hoping all the time to find a way to get these little ones to the countryside where it will be easier to hide them.’ She stopped, her eye caught by something beyond the window. Her face lost colour. ‘Mon Dieu, the little gosse is waving his handkerchief, and running off. Mon Dieu, the Gestapo.’ She turned to Katherine. ‘Where shall we hide them?’
‘Where are you? Where are you?’ the voice called.
For a second Caro felt disinclined to reply.
‘I’m up here!’ she called down to Walter. ‘On the roof,’ she said in a fed-up voice.
Walter appeared. He looked worried.
‘I have been waiting downstairs for you for nearly an hour. Didn’t you get my message?’
‘No,’ Caro lied, because she didn’t want him to know that she had scrambled out of the ATS uniform, which was now obligatory, into her better cut, and altogether more flattering FANY uniform. She didn’t want Walter to know in case he teased her. And also, he might get a big head, feel flattered that she had rushed back to change in order to look nice for him.
Walter looked momentarily put out. ‘I gave the message to Robyn to pass on to you.’
‘Robyn has been driving non-stop this week, and dancing until dawn. She wouldn’t remember anything you told her.’
Walter looked at his watch.
‘Look, it’s Saturday, in case you hadn’t noticed, and it’s Bob’s watch tonight. Come to the Berkeley for dinner, and then on to the 400, if you like. Time we had ourselves some fun before the Yanks get here, and snatch all the girls from under our noses.’
‘Well, if they’re in it now with us, at least we have a better chance, don’t we?’ Caro stated.
‘Of course. It’s what the old man has wanted all along, we all know that. But you know how it is, once the Americans occupy a place, well, we Englishmen don’t get a look in. Their uniforms are so much better cut, and they’re not made of scratchy material.’
‘You’re not in uniform.’
‘I will be next week.’ Walter looked proud. ‘I’m off to do something that not even you can know about.’
He made a pretend moustache-twirling gesture. He had finally finished his painting, finally come to the end of the sweltering days spent in the gun turret, and was ready for action of a quite different kind.
Caro looked at him. She could never tell Walter how anxious his news made her feel.
‘Come on, my lucky charm. Let’s go to where the wine will flow, and then on to where the band will be playing tunes of today for the folk of tomorrow.’
‘You sound like Vera Lynn.’
No one in the services now changed to go to dinner. It was the rule. They kept their uniforms on at all times.
‘You’ve got great legs you know, Lucky,’ Walter announced to Caro and the rest of the street as he followed her into the taxi, even as the sirens started. ‘Great pins. As soon as this war is over I will paint you again. You will fill the canvas with your charm, Lucky, and I with my genius.’
Caro gave him an old-fashioned look and sat back in the taxi, holding on to the strap at the side, sighing.
‘Shorty? Lucky? I don’t know what it is about me, I seem to attract nicknames,’ she complained.
‘Who calls you Shorty? That is absolutely not on, Lucky. You are not s
hort – your legs are too long to be short – but you are let us say, petite, and that is something different. You are Shaw’s Cleopatra, that’s what you are,’ he finished meditatively, still staring at her as if she was on her way to sit to him instead of, Caro devoutly hoped and prayed, on her way to dinner. ‘Perhaps that is how I will paint you, as a petite Cleopatra. Will you sit to me as Cleopatra, Queen of the Nile, Lucky?’
‘I will sit on you if you go on talking such drivel,’ Caro told him, but before she could say any more she found herself sheltering in his arms, with her head against his chest, clinging to him for dear life.
A bomb had just dropped in front of the taxi.
‘Get out of my way, old woman!’ the Gestapo officer looked contemptuously at Katherine, who was seated at the bottom of the stairs. She did not move. He attempted to spit at her, but missed, and she merely smiled and waved the bottle of wine she was holding in her filthy fingers.
He stepped back, and his companion nodded towards the ironwork grille in front of them.
‘Come on, let’s take the lift. My God, that old woman smells.’
They pressed the button for the old fashioned cage-like lift. It creaked and groaned its way to the ground floor, while Katherine drank on from the bottle of wine, grinning wildly at the officers between gulps.
‘Let’s start at the top and make our way down.’
‘The top flats are empty; have been for years. No, we’ll go to the first floor, that’s our tip-off.’
The lift stopped at the first floor, creaking and swaying as if just reaching that far up was asking too much of it.
Katherine prayed. In a way her prayers were answered almost immediately, for any extra sounds that might have been noticed, any scratchings or whisperings, were immediately covered by the Gestapo kicking and knocking at Marie-Christine’s door.
Katherine’s thoughts darted in every direction, as random and confused as the pigeons in the courtyard had been as the Gestapo passed them. She heard the door above her opening, the chains having first been removed. Who had betrayed them?
‘Gentlemen?’ Katherine could hear Marie-Christine’s cool, educated voice.
‘We have the authority to search these flats.’
‘Of course you have, and by all means, please go ahead, gentlemen. But first, would you like a cup of coffee, or une petite coupe, perhaps an eau-de-vie to warm the heart and soul?’
Katherine remained seated on her steps, her heart racing. God alone knew how long the wretched Gestapo would be, but worst of all, God alone knew, if they took their time, what would happen to the children.
‘You all right?’ The taxi driver turned round. His tin-hatted head appeared at the now open door of the cab, his eyes the only part of his face that was not covered in dust.
‘Yes, of course, quite all right, thank you. Carry on to the Berkeley, shall we?’ Walter asked coolly.
The driver nodded.
‘Right you are, governor, so long as you’re all right, then course I’ll take you on.’
He restarted his engine as Caro sat up, straightening her uniform jacket as she did so.
‘Sorry about that, Walter. I don’t usually fling myself on men.’
‘Don’t be sorry.’ Walter put his arm back around her shoulders, but not in his usual brotherly fashion.
‘It’s the bombing,’ Caro explained, staring ahead and then clearing her throat. ‘I dare say it’s succeeded in making us all look fast.’
‘No, Lucky, not fast, just human.’
Caro moved away from him so that she could open her gas mask case, out of which she then removed not the usual dreaded black mask, but a powder compact and lipstick.
Walter started to laugh as she repaired her lipstick and tidied herself.
‘You know what I love about girls?’
‘No?’
‘Everything, that’s all. Just everything.’
Caro smiled, and having put her compact and lipstick back in the case, she surprised herself by settling back into the comfort of Walter’s arm. After all, it was wartime, anything could happen. Seconds later there was another explosion, but this time they both flung themselves to the floor of the cab as part of a building collapsed ahead of them.
‘Will we never get to dinner?’ Caro moaned. ‘I’m so hungry I could eat my tie.’
‘We’ll get there in the end, Lucky,’ said Walter, ‘if it’s the last thing we do, which, judging from the aim of the Luftwaffe tonight, it might well turn out to be. But of course we will get there, because you are my lucky charm, and we will have ourselves a great time, you’ll see.’
The bar was packed with uniforms, both male and female. Walter bought the drinks, and Caro was ashamed to see that despite her best efforts, when she was at last able to find her lighter and light a much-needed cigarette, her hand was shaking.
Walter put his hand out to steady her.
‘Blast and damn – so embarrassing when that happens.’
‘It’s all right, Lucky,’ he told her. ‘My hand’s not too good either.’
He held it out to show her that it too was shaking. Caro looked rueful for a second or two, but nevertheless managed to blow a perfect smoke ring. It floated across the group of people behind her, still perfectly round.
‘I should be better at all this by now. God knows I’ve been in London long enough.’
‘What, smoking? You’re great at smoking. Look at that ring, kid, expert stuff!’
‘Actually I can do better than that,’ she nodded at the disappearing ring, ‘but what with one thing and another my puff’s not so good after that taxi ride.’
Walter leaned forward and kissed her lightly on the lips, the merest brush.
‘We’ll bolt our dinner and then go dancing. Come to think of it, I have a half-finished bottle of something delicious I left at the 400 a week or so ago. Maybe there then?’
Caro gave him a brilliant smile. ‘You bet.’
Then she frowned. Hang on, what had just happened? Oh, yes. Walter had just kissed her.
‘Table’s ready.’
He took her by the hand, and she quickly followed him. Whatever happened tonight there was a war on, and when there was a war on anything could happen; and then whatever did happen could always be blamed on the war, couldn’t it?
Marie-Christine had succeeded in giving the Gestapo everything that they wanted – drinks, coffee and even a little something to take back to their headquarters. Now Katherine was determined to delay them on the stairs.
‘Out of my way, old woman!’
They lunged at her and snatched her bottle of wine away. She moaned in a drunken manner, which was not difficult since by now, given the hour, she was actually feeling more than a little tipsy.
‘Get her out of here.’
‘You get her out of here – phew!’
They walked off laughing, slamming the doors to the courtyard after them. Katherine sprang up, went to the half-glassed porch doors and watched them crossing the paved area, the pigeons once more flying up and circling about them. Finally they stopped by the concierge’s door and called to her. Judging from their shoulder shrugging and gestures they were telling her that they had found nothing, that her so-called tip-off had been a mistake. Katherine did not hear her reply. She did not need to. So that was who had betrayed them.
‘You’ll regret that, Madame Defarge,’ she muttered before turning away and haring up the stairs to the first floor to help Marie-Christine unload the children.
‘Wait, wait! We must wait at least twenty minutes. They could be back. Sometimes they do that, you know? They comb a place through minutely, and then they come back almost immediately, counting on the fact that you will think the coast is clear. It happened down the way at the old bookshop near the church. They were hiding an old gentleman in the cellar. They thought the coast was clear, but then twenty minutes later …’ For a second Marie-Christine’s eyes were heavy with regret, and then Katherine could see she turned away from the
memory, whatever it was, because pursuing it was a waste of time. ‘It is very cruel, but it is very effective.’
In the end they let several hours go by, all the time calling softly to the children to be brave, to keep still, and then, very eventually, they lifted them from the top of the lift to which they had been clinging, and hurried them back to their hiding place off the kitchen.
They made coffee, twice used, three times used – it didn’t matter, it calmed the nerves.
‘We’ll have to get them out of here, but how?’
‘It was the concierge who betrayed us, and she will do so again. Probably she is doing it in return for some relative being allowed to escape, or for money or rations, or for all three. Whatever happens, the children must be moved on.’
The two young women stared at each other. Of course the children must be moved on, but how?
‘There is no time when that woman is not in her cabinet.’
Katherine shook her head, and lit half a cigarette, passing the other half she had cut to Marie-Christine.
‘Yes, there is, when she goes for black market bread. Not long, but enough time for us to smuggle the children out – about ten minutes, at dawn, when it is still dark. She likes to gossip with the baker, pass on details that she knows or has seen, and in return the baker smuggles her a baguette or two.’
‘Very well, we could move them on in the dark of dawn, but after that, what do we do? You can’t hide six children in the suburbs of Paris, can you? That is where my mother lives, but they would be noticed. They look too foreign, they would be too obvious in the suburbs.’
‘If we use the river and one of the older barges, the ones they are all so afraid of now in case they sink, we could move them on without anyone noticing.’
‘One of them sank only last week, and with God knows who or what on board.’
‘Yes, but the authorities care less at the moment. Most of the pleasure boats have been abandoned down the waterways, and they are so rat-ridden no one minds if they sink. I will go and buy one, or steal one. Whichever, we will find a way to escape by river. It is truly our only chance.’
Goodnight Sweetheart Page 26
