‘Sorry,’ she said, ‘so sorry. Darling Jay, I’m a stupid old woman. Let’s go and dance while we wait for our lobster.’
They were both already quite tipsy on the champagne; and both emotional, with their heads filled with other people. And somehow, partly in search of comfort, partly because of the champagne, but also because they were extremely fond of one another, they found themselves dancing rather closely.
The big hit that summer was ‘A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square’.
‘How appropriate,’ said Jay, drawing her closer to him still as the band moved into it, and ‘yes,’ she said, thinking of that night, that last night there, in Berkeley Square with Boy, and resting her head against Jay, ‘terribly appropriate.’
Across the room, Mike Willoughby-Clarke, the fellow officer of Boy’s that Venetia had been so anxious to avoid, who was due to leave with his battalion the following day, pointed them out to his wife.
‘That’s Venetia Warwick. I was going to take you over, introduce you to her. But she’s obviously pretty occupied with that young chap. New boyfriend, I suppose. She and Boy are divorced, you know. Damn shame. Lovely girl. Still these things happen nowadays . . .’
It was on the third day, the Wednesday, that they ran out of petrol. Ten kilometres out of Tours. There were cars parked all along the road now, abandoned; petrol was becoming more precious than food. She had seen several fights at pumps; she had managed to get a few gallons the evening before. At a village, she had seen a petrol station just closing, an old man filling up a car, and then shaking his head at the next car behind, locking the tank, hanging a cardboard sign reading Fermé on it. The next driver and the next ran over to the old man, shouting at him, threatening, waving money; he spat on the ground, shook his head, pulled out a Gauloise and lit it. And then disappeared into the house.
She had waited: until everyone had lost interest, driven on. And then she got out of the car, brushed her hair, put on some lipstick, sprayed herself liberally with Joy, hoping rather vainly it would disguise the smell of sweat that she knew hung about her, taken one of the two bottles of Luc’s Lafite Rothschild from the suitcase in the boot, and walked slowly and as provocatively as she could, over to the door.
She never knew afterwards whether it was the provocative walk, the Joy or the Château Lafite Rothschild that did it; but she drove on with twenty litres of petrol in the tank and a sense of triumph as great as if she had won the war single-handed.
Absurdly, wasting time, risking losing the car, everything she had, she drove into Chartres, parked as near the cathedral as she could and led the children into its vast cavernous beauty; she went over to the candles, bought two, and lit them, gave them each one to hold.
‘Should we say prayers, Maman?’ asked Noni, accepting this new surprising scenario with placid sweetness.
‘Yes, we should. We should thank God for looking after us all this time and ask Him to help us the rest of the way.’
‘All right.’ She closed her eyes, put her hands together. ‘And say to bless Papa. Don’t forget that.’
‘Of course not.’
And then she took the children by the hand and walked them slowly round the cathedral and its velvety darkness, behind the high altar, pausing at each side chapel, lighting candles at another prie-dieu. And then panicked at the thought of what might be happening outside to the car, the precious car which had become at once their world and their refuge against it.
But it was quite safe.
She had been right to stay on the bigger roads; the villages were becoming dangerous, shuttered against the invader, and at the same time vulnerable to looting. She had heard talk in Chartres of tables and chairs in ransacked cafés hacked to pieces to make firewood, even of small churches being broken into and treasures taken.
But the greatest terror was of the German army, appearing from no one knew where . . .
She knew at once why the car had stopped: it had been overheating, in its slow progress, but she had managed to keep it ticking over. But it wasn’t that; the dial had been jammed on empty for over five miles, and now finally, it gave up its gallant struggle and spluttered to a halt.
Oddly calm, she got out. She had been prepared for this; it was why she had brought the pram. Thank God for it: thank God.
‘What are you doing, Mummy?’
‘Getting the pram down, darling. We have to walk for a while. No more petrol, I’m afraid.’
‘Goody. I’m so tired of the car.’
‘Me too.’
As long as it didn’t rain; the second night it had poured. She unpacked her cases with great care; the pram couldn’t carry much. The gaz stove would have to be left; probably just as well. She had shuddered at the thought of what would happen if it caught a bit of flying shell. She’d need the nappies – running low now – the tins of food and the tin opener, the bottles of water – only two left – the last bottle of wine, the precious Gauloises. She had given away two packs, in exchange for water, they had proved excellent currency.
She slung her own rucksack containing her money and her passport over her shoulder, then lifted Lucas on to the pram.
‘I want to walk,’ said Noni.
‘You can. But you must hold on to the handle, I don’t want to lose you.’ Leaving the car was dreadful, like abandoning a stalwart friend. ‘Au revoir,’ she said aloud, patting it, ‘et merci.’
‘Who are you talking to, Mummy?’
‘The car.’
‘You’re silly,’ said Noni, a hint of slightly bossy reproof in her voice.
‘I know.’
It was much more frightening; they had no protection now against anyone or anything. And the crowd was becoming increasingly unpleasant, any early camaraderie lost in the desperate struggle for survival, for food, for water. It was slow, painfully slow. After a while Adele’s legs began to throb and her heels became sore. And they would have no shelter against the shells; but then there hadn’t been an attack for two days. The children were happier, Lucas sitting, beaming at her, Noni running alongside, asking for rides now and again.
‘This is much better,’ she said, ‘are we nearly there?’
‘Nearly.’
Four painful hours later, they arrived on the outskirts of Tours.
They spent two hours trying to find somewhere to stay. It seemed impossible. Every hotel, however tiny, was full, barred; no pleading, no indicating of her exhausted children, Noni crying bitterly, Lucas white-faced, lolling against her, silent with misery, no waving of her wad of money, helped her. There was simply no room. Anywhere. Finally, as they trudged through the streets, they found a schoolroom, its doors still open; the directeur had been about to lock up, but as she stood there, staring, almost hopeless by now, he suddenly nodded to her, gestured to her to come in. There was a mattress she and the children could share.
It was the first comfortable night they had spent; it was only a small mattress, but it was soft and they could stretch out. She pulled the blanket she had brought from the car over them, kissed them goodnight; Noni smiled, grateful for the sudden luxury, said sleepily, ‘This is nice.’
It wasn’t nice; she found a filthy lavatory, a cold tap hardly trickling, the air was fetid, and it was appallingly hot. But she fell asleep at once: only to wake after an hour or two, hearing children crying, women sobbing, men swearing; and in the terror of the solitary small hours, she looked her chances in the face and found them pitiful. She was still only halfway to Bordeaux. How could she ever get there, like this? It would take weeks. It was impossible. What could she do? What on earth could she do?
The Germans had arrived; after three days of eerie silence, of shuttered shops and closed doors and people talking in whispers, of appalling rumours of children’s hands being cut off and women raped, of waiting and waiting in the deserted city, they were there.
It had been a desperate week, each day more nightmarish than the one before; no buses, an occasional train in the metro. Gas and electric
ity supplies were fitful; the great hotels, the Ritz and the Crillon, were shuttered and barred and on the Wednesday morning a hideous acrid smell hung over the city; the French had set fire to the vast oil supplies outside the city, rather than let the Germans have them. The huge crowds outside the stations had finally disbanded; shops were being ransacked for food.
Afterwards, Luc always wondered why he had not fled along with the rest of Paris; at the time, in his emotional confusion and misery, it had seemed quite simply unthinkable. Besides, there was Suzette; he could not abandon her now.
It was eight o’clock that Friday morning; Luc heard them first: the awful sound of motorcycles and trucks, and most agonising of all, summing up as nothing else could the conquest of the beautiful city, the sound of caterpillar tanks on cobbled streets.
There was a sudden beating on the door; Luc started. Was it possible they had come already to find him, the Gestapo, the Nazis, apprised of his Jewish blood? He took a deep breath and went to open it; but it was not the Gestapo that stood there, but Henri Monnet, grinning cheerfully.
‘Come and watch. It’s a tremendous spectacle.’
‘But – is it safe?’
He shrugged. ‘Probably not. But half Paris, or what is left of half Paris, is out there. Come along.’
They walked to the Champs-Élysées; they were not alone, groups of people stood all along the route, watching. And it was worth watching; he would not have missed it. It was a superb display, not only of military force but of theatrical know-how, Hitler’s greatest gift, passed on to his generals.
There were two formations; one heading towards the Eiffel Tower, the other the Arc de Triomphe, They goose-stepped their way in, this seemingly endless army, preceded and followed by a great motorised phalanx, in perfectly pressed uniforms, gleaming boots, shining helmets, dazzling in the brilliant sun.
Hour after hour it went on. Cars arrived, patrolling the small streets with loudspeakers, warning that ‘No demonstrations are permitted while our troops march in. Any hostile act will be punishable by death.’
The German flag went up over all the city, above Les Invalides, the Arc de Triomphe, the Hôtel de Ville, the place de la Concorde, even the Eiffel Tower; there had been a struggle there, the first had been too large, it had filled with wind like sails, and then begun to tear and the Germans had had to climb the tower again (the evacuating French troops had put the lift out of commission), with a smaller one.
The Hôtel Crillon bore one as well, and the Lutetia; the Ritz had already served breakfast to General Bock, Commander of the Army, the Crillon its finest vintage champagne to General von Studnitz, the General Officer Commanding.
But in the outer reaches of the city, nothing seemed as brutal; and when Luc finally reached Suzette’s apartment on foot towards the end of the day, he found her surprisingly calm and cheerful.
‘It’s not so bad,’ she said, pointing to one of the posters of a handsome smiling German serving out biscuits to a group of children, holding the smallest in his arms, and holding out the biscuits.
‘You can’t believe that rubbish,’ said Luc, but ‘I can,’ she said, ‘in the shop this afternoon, a convoy stopped and we were all so frightened, but you know, they bought chocolates and the charming young soldiers shared them among the children. They are saying now that we have made peace, the war is over. And they will settle the English very quickly.’
Luc was silent. Thinking of his own English, praying she was not yet ‘settled’.
‘And this is where we keep emergency rations. Chocolate, biscuits and so on. In case the Germans come. So if you get sent any by your father, you have to hand over half. All right? That way, if there’s a siege, it won’t be too bad. OK?’
Izzie nodded earnestly. ‘OK. But I don’t suppose Father will send me any, sweets aren’t the sort of thing he thinks about.’
‘Well, if he does. Thing is I’ve heard Great-grandpa talking about what rations they’ve got for the siege and they don’t sound much fun. Powdered egg, condensed milk, it’ll be awful.’
‘Does he think there will be a siege?’
‘Oh, yes. Any day now, apparently. The Germans are going to arrive by parachute. Oh, and that’s another rule. If you see one dropping into the garden or something you have to ring that bell, over there, see, by the terrace. And then Great-grandpa will get his gun and shoot him.’
‘What – straight away?’
‘Well of course,’ said Henry, ‘they’ve got to know we mean business. No use asking him in for a cup of tea or something. After that, someone has to leg it down to the village to get the church bells ringing. To say there’s an invasion.’
‘Oh, I see,’ said Izzie. She was beginning to feel a little nervous. No one had suggested the Germans would drop into the garden at Primrose Hill.
‘The other thing is, they might be in disguise. So you have to suspect everyone. Specially nuns, Great-grandpa says, it’s a very popular disguise. The thing in that case is to get them in conversation, see if they sound different. If they do, then ring the bell. But not till then.’
‘But surely an ordinary nun wouldn’t be dropping into the grounds by parachute?’ said Izzie. ‘You’d know that was a German, surely.’
Henry looked disconcerted; he clearly hadn’t thought of that. ‘Well – perhaps not. Anyway, use your common sense. They haven’t got much of that, being foreigners, Great-grandma says. It’s jolly good fun here, Izzie. The only thing is we still haven’t had an air raid. It’s so unfair. We keep thinking we’ve heard the siren, but it’s always a practice. It’s going to be so wizard, living down in the cellars. When they really start, we’ll have to sleep there. The other thing that’s fun is the dogfights. We’ve had a few of them over here, but not nearly enough.’
‘Dogfights? Are there a lot of dogs here?’
‘In the air, you dope. The planes, fighting, the Germans and our chaps. It’s really exciting. We keep hoping for one to be shot down in the grounds, but that hasn’t happened yet, either. If we were still in Kent, we’d be seeing them all the time, it’s so unfair. Still, fingers crossed. Don’t look so worried, Izzie, we’ll look after you.’
Izzie found this only slightly reassuring.
Celia appeared in the doorway of Venetia’s office.
‘Venetia, have you got those costings yet?’
‘What costings?’ said Venetia.
‘What costings! Sometimes I wonder if you’re with us at all at the moment. For the new crime series.’
‘No,’ said Venetia. She sounded sulky, the little girl she had once been caught out in some omission.
‘But why not? Venetia, this is important. We can’t afford to get behind, we’ll—’
‘I don’t care,’ said Venetia in a low voice.
‘What did you say?’
‘I said I don’t care.’ The voice was less low now, with a throb of latent tears in it; Celia stared at her.
‘Venetia, I know you’re under a lot of strain. But you can’t just let things go. When the war is over – and it will be – what happens to Lyttons will matter again. It matters anyway, we have a duty to supply people with books, the troops are ordering large numbers. Besides, I have always – ’ she corrected herself ‘ – usually found that distracting myself with work is extremely helpful.’
‘Well I don’t,’ said Venetia. She stared at Celia, her face flushed, her eyes brilliant. ‘I don’t find it at all helpful. I can’t even think about work at the moment. I’m so worried. About Boy and Adele and Kit, of course, and Giles and Jay, I know they’re all right at the moment, but it won’t last, Giles could have been so easily killed already. And – and the children, down there without me, suppose something happened—’ She stopped, dashed her hand across her eyes.
Celia sat down suddenly, looked at her across the desk. ‘And?’
‘And what?’
‘There’s something else, isn’t there?’
‘ No.’
‘Venetia, I think the
re is.’
‘Mummy, there isn’t.’ She looked wary suddenly, and surprisingly calm, as if she had been frightened out of her panic. ‘Now please leave me alone. Look, I’ll do the costings today. I promise. Sorry about that little outburst. I know everyone’s just as worried. You must be desperate about Kit.’
‘I am,’ said Celia, ‘absolutely desperate. This is far worse than the last war, then I only had your father to worry about. Now there’s half a dozen of you. I’m finding it horribly hard to work myself. What’s the latest from Boy?’
‘Oh – training still in Scotland. He says it’s huge fun.’
‘It is hideous, isn’t it?’ said Celia. ‘The fear. It’s always always there, like toothache, or some dreadful insistent noise grinding in your head. You can’t get away from it. And it’s going to go on and on I’m afraid, it’s not like some mercifully brief illness. And I have to tell you, I feel appalling about Adele. If we hadn’t had that quarrel, she’d quite possibly be safely home. So I have guilt to add to my worry.’
‘Oh Mummy, that’s—’
‘No, don’t say it, you know it’s true. Look, why don’t you and I go out to lunch, and work on those costings between us? We could go somewhere nice, Simpsons, perhaps—’
‘I’m sorry, Mummy, I really don’t feel remotely hungry.’
Celia looked surprised. ‘Hungry? When did that ever have anything to do with lunch? Lunch is an occasion, Venetia, not a meal. Still—’
‘Oh – yes, all right. Thank you.’
‘It must be lonely in that great house without the children,’ said Celia suddenly. ‘Why don’t you move into Cheyne Walk?’
Venetia considered this for a moment; then, ‘Do you know,’ she said, ‘I think I’d rather like that.’
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