by Anne Bennett
She thanked them, but never took the offer up and instead attended the Mass that the priest said for her mother in the house on Wednesday. James stayed in Bridgette’s room when the priest was there and he was just as careful whenever Legrand and Georges were around, particularly when they were not down in the bakery, but he only really breathed easier when they were out of the house altogether, and he knew that Bridgette felt the same way.
As Gabrielle’s morphine was increased to deal with the pain she often felt dizzy and disoriented in the evening and too tired to want company. So Bridgette and James too would make her comfortable and check she had everything to hand before leaving her until the morning. And then, as her father and Georges would almost definitely have left the house, Bridgette usually went to the kitchen to wash the dishes and James would follow her.
She knew that James needed to make his way back to Britain, and as quickly as possible, and she had imagined that he would be with her for a week or ten days at the most, but one week followed another and when he had been there four weeks, she’d still had had no word from anyone.
‘It’s the not knowing anything that gets you in the end,’ Bridgette said as she plunged her hands into the soap suds that night. ‘I did think I would have heard about some system of getting you home by now.’
‘So did I,’ James said, picking up a drying cloth. ‘Why don’t you contact Charles and ask him?’
‘Because I can’t,’ Bridgette said. ‘I know nothing about Charles, but his first name. If I was lifted, whatever they did to me I could tell them nothing more than the name he gave me, and that might be false for all I know. He always contacts me. And,’ she added, ‘I thought that he would be as anxious as we are to get you home.’
‘I know, and I worry about it for your sakes.’
‘I worry about it for all our sakes,’ Bridgette said with a sigh. ‘But there is nothing that we can do about it, is there? We must, like you English say, “grin and bear it”, and at least the Germans have given up looking for you in this town anyway. They must think you have outfoxed them and are home and dry now.’
‘I wish I was,’ James said. ‘Yet I will never forget this bakery and the courage you had to hide me in the first place, and the kindess you have shown while I have been here.’
Bridgette turned to look at James and saw his eyes were alight with emotion and when he suddenly said, ‘Dry your hands,’ she did so hurriedly. Then James enfolded them with his own and his eyes held hers as he said, ‘If anything happened to you, I don’t think I could bear it. This is neither the time nor the place, and yet I must tell you that I think I have fallen in love with you.’
Bridgette’s heart quickened. ‘Oh, James,’ she said. ‘Please don’t be cross at what I am about to say. These are not natural times and we are not living normal lives and are under extreme pressure. In such an atmosphere emotions probably get intensified.’
James withdrew his hands and said, ‘I don’t expect you to think of me in the same light, Bridgette. I know that I have sprung it on you. I just needed to tell you that at the moment I am eaten up inside for you. I don’t know whether that is natural or normal, but at the moment that’s how I feel.’
‘And now, I must be as honest as you,’ Bridgette said. ‘You have engendered feelings in me that I thought were left with my husband’s body on the beaches of Dunkirk.’
‘You mean…?’
‘I mean I love you too, James. And yet I don’t know whether it’s the strange and confined way we are living that has caused us to become so close so soon.’
‘What does your heart say?’
‘My heart quickens every time you are near,’ Bridgette admitted. ‘But hearts are not always reliable indicators of sustainable love. I have tried to deny the way I feel about you, and the fact that we have now admitted our feelings changes nothing. If anything, I will worry even more about your safety.’
‘And I yours,’ James said. ‘We know that our future is uncertain. Any moment we could make a mistake, get careless and it would be over for both of us. In the meantime, can we not be a comfort to one another?’
Comfort, Bridgette thought. How good that word sounded.
James held out his arms. ‘Come,’ he said gently, and Bridgette went into them as if he had done it every day of her life. James’s arms enfolded her and it felt so right she sighed with contentment. Arm in arm they walked through to the living room and sat together on the sofa, and when James’s lips met hers she felt the beat of her heart increase.
It was the very start of a bittersweet romance, and as each day passed Bridgette wanted more. Another week went by and she knew that she would ask James to share her bed that night. Now, accepting how she felt about him, it was a torment to have him lie beside her bed the way he did, so close and yet not close enough. She was surprised at herself for even considering having sex with a man when there wasn’t even any sort of understanding between them, as there could never be in the circumstances.
She suddenly didn’t care how society would view their liaison, or even the Church, which she knew would regard what she intended to do as a grave and mortal sin. She yearned for James to make love to her and then to sleep in his arms all the night long.
However, when later that night she said this to James as she flung back the sheets, he shook his head.
‘It’s not that I wouldn’t love to,’ he said. ‘But we couldn’t risk you falling pregnant.’
‘I am almost infertile,’ Bridgette said. ‘I was married to Xavier for years with no sign.’
‘Even so.’
‘Please, James?’
‘Don’t do this to me,’ James pleaded. ‘I am only flesh and blood like everyone else. It’s because I love you so much that I don’t want to do this to you.’
Bridgette dampened down her ardour. She knew deep down that James was right but still she grumbled, ‘Why have you to be so wise and worthy?’
James gave a chuckle. ‘Because one of us has to be,’ he said, getting to his feet and giving Bridgette a chaste kiss on the cheek. ‘Now lie down like a good girl. The men come in at this time of night, as a rule, and it would never do for them to hear us talking.’
Bridgette stayed silent, knowing James spoke sense, but she was too churned up to sleep for a long, long time.
TWENTY
When Bridgette saw Charles in town a few days later, her mind was teeming with questions but she knew she had to wait until they were in a much more private place. Suddenly Charles ducked into an alleyway and Bridgette, with a surreptitious look behind her, followed him.
Before she was able to utter a word, Charles, never a man to waste time on pleasantries said, ‘We have trouble getting your Englishman out.’
‘Why?’ Bridgette said. ‘He’s been with us now over four weeks.’
‘I know,’ Charles said. ‘We were arranging an escape route for him. But two weeks ago we heard something that made us stop. It’s too late now and he must stay where he is for the moment.’
‘How big a moment?’
‘How the hell should I know?’ Charles said. ‘Anyway, what’s scheduled to happen in the next week or month is bigger than both of us and Carmichael too. We have had news that the Allies are massing on the other side of the Channel.’
Bridgette stared at him. ‘Invasion?’
‘What else could it be?’
‘Oh God,’ she breathed. ‘Another Dunkirk?’
Charles shrugged. ‘Maybe, maybe not. But you can see that with all that activity on the British side it would be far too dangerous to try to move Carmichael anywhere just now.’
‘And you have no idea when this invasion will take place?’
‘They’re not going to let that information slip out, are they?’ Charles said. ‘And then have a welcoming committee waiting on this side. All we have to do is sit tight and hope the right side wins. Anything the Resistance can do to help that along a little we are ready and willing for.
‘Charles—
’
‘There’s nothing more to say, Bridgette,’ Charles said. ‘You’re doing a grand job just at the moment. Just keep on with it a little longer.’
‘Have I any choice?’ was on the tip of Bridgette’s tongue, but she never said the words for Charles had left the alley and was heading towards the town. She knew better than to follow him and draw attention to herself.
Later, as they sat together in Gabrielle’s room, she told her mother and James what Charles had said.
‘So, we’re in for a long wait perhaps?’ James said.
‘Maybe,’ Bridgette said. ‘I have been thinking about it since, though, and I would have thought it always better to invade in the spring or early summer.’
‘I would too,’ James said. ‘I have a feeling that this isn’t the relatively small Expeditionary Force they sent last time; this is make-or-break time.’
Bridgette felt icy fingers of fear trickle down her spine and when she shivered, James put his arm around her automatically.
Gabrielle’s eyes opened wider. So that’s how it was between them, she thought. She had seen a difference in Bridgette over the past couple of days. She had sort of bloomed with happiness and this now was the reason.
Left alone in her bed later that night she thought it a very silly time to fall in love but then love was no respecter of time, place or suitability. Look at her and Finn all those years before. Funny, he had often come to her mind just lately.
She wondered if there really was an afterlife. She had scandalised the priest the last time he had called, by expressing doubt. She hoped they were right because then she would see her beloved Finn again and her dear mother. She would know soon enough and she feared for James and Bridgette, for the tentative journey they were undertaking together. There was no way that things could ever run smoothly for them and her heart bled for her poor daughter and the heartbreak she was storing up for herself.
Marie and Lisette came the following Saturday afternoon and told them all about the almost expectant mood in the town.
‘And the Germans are really jumpy,’ Lisette said. ‘It’s as if they know that the writing is on the wall.’
‘They’re windy, all right,’ Marie said. ‘They gathered together all the remaining Jews in the town the other day and shipped them out in the cattle trucks they seemed to have reserved for them, and many of the Communists disappeared as well, people say.
‘And I’ll tell you who else is worried.’ Bridgette said. ‘Georges and my father. Let’s hope they have reason.’
‘Well, invasion is on everyone’s lips just now,’ Marie said.
James had followed the conversation, but replied in English, ‘It can’t come soon enough for me. And when it does, I will leave here as soon as I can.’
‘James, you can’t.’
‘Of course I can,’ James said. ‘It wouldn’t be right for me to sit here in comparative safety when I could be helping. I was, after all, a trained soldier before I volunteered to be dropped into France. I was brought here in the middle of April and now it’s June and I have done nothing in all that time but hide away. I want to be part of any planned invasion.’
Bridgette knew James’s mind was made up. Marie and Lisette only got a smattering of what James had said, but they understood his meaning, and Marie also noticed the way James’s eyes locked with Bridgette, and the stricken look on her face when he told her of his intentions. She knew with certainty that there was something between them and that they were aware of it too. She wasn’t upset that Bridgette might have found herself someone else—she was still a young woman with needs of her own—but she thought it was bad enough to lose one man to war, without going through all that worry and possible heartache again.
Three days later, the programme on the wireless that they had been listening to on the BBC was interrupted by an announcement from Reuters News Agency.
‘The official communiqué states that under the command of General Eisenhower, Allied naval forces began landing Allied armies this morning on the northern coast of France.’
James switched off the wireless and in the ensuing silence they could hear the sound of distant gunfire, the drone of planes in the air and they knew that war had been brought to France for the second time and this time the Allies had to succeed.
Although the sound of conflict was all around, essentially nothing had changed for the people of St-Omer. Then just a week after the invasion, which was being called D-Day, a German pilotless plane carrying a bomb in its nose landed in Kent. Though the newscaster said it had caused little damage and no loss of life, James was still flabbergasted. He’d felt sure that the bombing which had continued throughout May, had put the two constructions—Le Blockhaus and La Coupole—out of action.
The Allied bombing of both sites began again. The sirens screamed out in St-Omer once more, and though the people took shelter, some houses near to La Coupole were damaged or demolished altogether. Dispossessed and homeless people wandered into the town with all they had been able to retrieve from their damaged homes carried in any receptacle they could find. Bridgette had caught sight of a few of them as she was out shopping, and the despair and desperation on their faces tore at her heart strings. And yet the bombing had to continue because those harbingers of death were still being launched across the Channel.
It was Charles who told Bridgette why the rockets were still being launched. The Germans were using launchers hidden in the trees, well away from the two constructions sites in the forest.
The Resistance had located them and communicated the information to London, and most had been rendered unusable by Allied bombing.
‘So why are they still able to target London in particular?’ James said when Bridgette told him this.
‘Well,’ Bridgette said, ‘Charles doesn’t know, but people who have studied the direction they are coming from think they are being launched from various mobile sites across Europe.’
‘Oh well, that’s that then,’ James said morosely. ‘Unless someone can tell us where they are it will have to wait until we have overrun the countries concerned to stop them. I feel as if I came here for nothing. And now I seem to be playing a waiting game.’
‘For all of us now, it’s a waiting game,’ Bridgette said. ‘My mother is waiting too and I want to make that as easy as I can for her, but I have given her the last of her tablets. Will you sit with her while I go for the doctor? I think she wants her medication increased.’
‘Of course,’ James said. He took up position by Gabrielle’s bed and held her hand.
She was feeling woozy, but when she felt his hand holding hers, she opened heavy eyes and smiled at him and said, ‘I was dreaming.’
The words were indistinct, but James was able to understand them and he said. ‘I hope they were nice dreams.’
‘I was dreaming about letters,’ Gabrielle said, and James knew that she was battling to keep the slur out of her voice. ‘Everyone loves getting letters,’ she continued and a smile played around her mouth for a moment before she went on, ‘I had some wonderful letters from Bridgette’s father.’
‘Did you?’ James said in surprise. Somehow wonderful letters and Legrand didn’t go hand in hand. ‘When was this?’
‘In the Great War.’
James decided that Gabrielle was rambling, for Bridgette had told her that her father hadn’t served in the war. He didn’t know whether to say anything or not, but Gabrielle caught the doubt in his eyes. ‘You don’t believe me,’ she said.
‘It’s not that,’ James said. ‘It’s just that I understood your husband wasn’t in the forces in the Great War.’
‘Not this husband, no,’ Gabrielle said. ‘I am talking of Bridgette’s father.’
‘So, Legrand is not her father?’
‘No.’
‘Does she know?’
Gabrielle shook her head slowly.
‘But you must tell her,’ James said. ‘She has a right to know.’
‘I will tell her
,’ Gabrielle said. ‘But you mustn’t say a word to her about this. Promise me?’
‘I wouldn’t,’ James assured her. ‘It’s your story to tell, but she should hear it from someone and that someone should preferably be you.’
‘I will tell her,’ Gabrielle promised. ‘When I think the time is right.’
James hoped that she wouldn’t leave it too long, but he could say nothing just them because he heard Bridgette coming in the door. She had obviously brought the doctor back with her because she was talking to him and it was time for him to disappear.
He found himself watching Bridgette the rest of the day, wondering who her father really was. That was, of course, if Gabrielle had been telling him the truth and it wasn’t some figment of her imagination. If it should be true, though, he knew Bridgette would be pleased. When they were alone that evening he longed to tell her what Gabrielle had told him, but he had given his word to a dying woman and couldn’t go back on it.
Bridgette was aware that he had something on his mind, but she presumed that it was to do with the invasion and she didn’t want to talk about it that night. The doctor had told her that day that her mother could have as little as two weeks to live. That was enough for her to come to terms with and she also had the worry of breaking the news to her aunt Yvette, who the doctor said should be contacted immediately.
The next afternoon Bridgette came back from shopping full of excitement to find James standing looking out the window in her mother’s bedroom. ‘Get away from the window,’ she said. ‘You’ll be spotted.’
James didn’t move away, though he turned to face her. ‘Hardly,’ he said. ‘The streets are full of people, but they all look too agitated about something to notice me looking down on them. What’s going on?’
‘You can’t see it from here, but there are plumes of smoke rising up from the Gestapo Headquarters and someone was telling me they have cleared the cells of prisoners and packed them off on trains.’
