Aurore

by Graham Hurley

  Lying in the darkness, listening to Agnès, Hélène remembered the last time she’d seen Evangelina in the flesh. It was the morning Nathan was leaving Paris. He’d just seen his best pictures, securely crated, depart on the back of a lorry for Lisbon. He was to follow by train. Evangelina had come round to the apartment to say goodbye. Expecting more tears, Hélène was surprised to find her in the sunniest of moods. The Germans were a day away from Paris. Already Evangelina had made contact with what would soon become a sizeable resistance group. These people were young, like her. They despised the Fascists. They wanted to chase them out of France, out of Italy. They had faith in the working class. They wanted to use this terrible moment to start building a world you could be proud to live in.

  About the small print, she was vague. But it was Nathan, minutes away from the arrival of the taxi that was to take him to the Gare d’Austerlitz, who’d pressed a thick white envelope into her hands, enfolded her in a bear hug and wished her luck. The envelope contained a million francs: a down payment, he later wrote to Hélène, on the dream world Evangelina so desperately wanted to make happen.

  Since then, nothing. Until Agnès arrived, bumping up the road from the village with her single bag and her handwritten note. Agnès is one of the bravest women I know, Evangelina had written. Like Carlo, she carries a price on her head. Please look after her. Please treat her like a child of your own.

  Hélène swung out of bed and reached for her dressing gown. So far, she’d yet to warm to this latest houseguest. The girl seemed withdrawn and somehow resentful. She resisted any kind of conversation. And the moment she’d lifted her head from a book in the kitchen to see Oberst Klimt emerging from his Mercedes, she’d disappeared upstairs, never to reappear. Malin, who’d taken her food, reported a blizzard of questions. Who was this man? What was he doing at the chateau? Who’d invited him? And why?

  Now Hélène stood in the corridor, listening at the door to Agnès’ bedroom. Whatever she’d been up to with the radio appeared to have stopped. Hélène knocked twice and stepped inside. Agnès was in bed, carefully returning the transmitter to its wooden box. On her arrival, in the absence of any other house rules, Hélène had made one stipulation. No radio transmissions. Why? Because the Germans had detector vans that would bring armed troops to her door and, under those circumstances, with a fugitive as wanted as Agnès upstairs, not even Oberst Klimt would be able to offer protection.

  ‘I thought I told you not to use that thing?’ Hélène nodded at the box.

  ‘That’s right. You did.’

  ‘So why do it? Why put us all at risk?’

  Agnès wouldn’t answer. Just ducked her head and plaited her stubby fingers in her lap. Bitten nails, one of them varnished black.

  ‘Are you going to answer me? Or am I going to take it away?’ This was like talking to a child. Hopeless.

  Hélène waited for an answer. When none came she began to go through it all again. How she was welcome to stay. Why she must resist the temptation to use the transmitter. And what might happen if she did.

  At length, her head came up again, her face expressionless. She wasn’t angry. She wasn’t contrite. Not a word of apology.

  ‘That lovely old man…’ she said at last.

  ‘Malinowski?’

  ‘Yes. He said it’s your birthday tomorrow. Is he right?’

  Hélène hesitated. She had no idea where this conversation was leading. Finally she nodded.

  ‘Yes’, she said. ‘And I’ll be forty, if that’s your next question.’

  Agnès was studying her hands again. Then she nodded at the radio.

  ‘You want to know who I’ve been talking to?’

  ‘Not really.’

  ‘People in London.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘Don’t you want to know why?’

  ‘Tell me.’

  ‘Because one of them knows your husband. Evangelina gave me the contact. I thought you might like to talk to him. On your birthday.’ At last she looked Hélène in the eye. ‘Unless there’s someone else in your life.’

  *

  V-Victor crossed the Dutch coast at 400 feet. Still over Germany, Hammond had nursed the aircraft down to virtually ground level in a bid to raise the temperature and avoid the awaiting night fighters. A longish detour had taken them around the searchlights and flak batteries defending Wilhelmshaven and Billy had remained at Hammond’s side, lifting his goggles and sponging his eyes from time to time to maintain what vision he had left. He removed his gloves to be as accurate as he could with the dampened cotton wool and Hammond’s flesh was icy to the touch. Mercifully, expecting stragglers from the returning bomber stream at a far higher altitude, the night fighters had never found them.

  The Nav, who was clearly unhappy about their chances of surviving a landing, had twice suggested they bail out as close to the English coast as possible. Les Hammond wouldn’t hear of it. His job, he quietly insisted, was to get them all home in one piece and that remained his intention. The least he owed the Rear Gunner was a burial on British soil.

  Billy, when he stopped thinking about the cold, was deeply impressed. He had no interest in jumping into an early dawn and hoping to God that an air/sea rescue launch would turn up. Nor, he kept telling himself, would he ever get into an aircraft again. Survive this last op, feel the steel rungs of the exit ladder beneath his frozen fingers and he’d move heaven and earth to turn his back on flying of any description. Six long hours ago, he’d had real doubts about his skipper ever making it through. Instead it was he, Wireless Operator Billy Angell, whose nerve had finally gone.

  ‘Coast ahead, Skip. It has to be Mablethorpe.’

  The Nav was right. Mablethorpe on the nose. In the grey light of dawn, the beach and a line of houses on the low cliff were approaching fast. V-Victor swept over the thin white line of breaking surf and Billy glimpsed barbed wire and beach obstacles before the blur of rooftops filled what was left of the windscreen. Billy checked one last time with Hammond. They had twenty minutes to run. He needed to get back to his radio and request an emergency landing.

  Hammond shot him a glance. He’d long abandoned his oxygen mask and mouthed a thank-you. Then his gloved hands flexed on the control yolk and he pulled hard to gain the altitude he needed for a safe approach.

  Back at the radio desk, using the Morse key, Billy raised Control at Wickenby. One dead. Two wounded. When the WAAF asked about the state of the aircraft he tapped back and said it was serviceable.

  ‘No damage?’

  ‘Lots. A windscreen would have been useful.’

  Billy waited for a response but none came. V-Victor was at 2,000 feet now and dangerously low on fuel. Flying so low had been emptying the tanks at an alarming rate and Hammond knew he needed to get the aircraft down on the first attempt. Otherwise the last three hours would have been for nothing.

  Billy abandoned his desk and wedged himself in the cockpit behind Hammond. He felt an inexplicable pride at what this man had proved to himself and if it all went wrong on landing then he wanted to be able to be there with him before they piled in.

  He needn’t have worried. Hammond nursed V-Victor down the glide path, selecting full flap as they wallowed over the fields of wheat that led to the familiar triangle of runways. The Sonia lights offered a welcome-home tent over the airfield and the gooseneck flares receded into the misty dawn. Billy could just make out a couple of fire tenders and an ambulance parked at the far end of the runway and he was aware of other aircraft in the circuit, awaiting their turn to land.

  Half a mile to run. Juggling the throttles with his right hand, Hammond cheated the crosswind by crabbing the aircraft towards the perimeter fence, only kicking it straight with a bootful of rudder at the very last moment. Watching, Billy shut his eyes. Then he felt the first impact, absurdly gentle, as V-Victor settled on the racing tarmac.

  At the end of the runway was a dispersal point for emergencies like these. Hammond brought the aircraft to a halt and the
n shut down the engines one by one. The sudden silence was overwhelming. The Nav was the first to peel off his gloves and clap.

  ‘Outstanding,’ he said. ‘Thank Christ we didn’t jump.

  Part Two

  7

  It took several days to analyse the photographs from Operation Gomorrah. Bomber Command and the US Eighth Air Force revisited Hamburg and by the end of the week the consensus was clear. Whole areas of the city had been blown apart by high explosive and then drenched with incendiaries. The resulting firestorm had raged all night. Wireless intercepts described hundreds of yards of asphalted roads melting and then catching fire. The canals, coated with burning oil, proved death-traps. The surrounding countryside was full of refugees, leaving unknown numbers of incinerated bodies under millions of tons of still-smoking rubble. There was no certainty about the final death toll but it had to be close to 40,000. In short, thought Billy numbly, a real success.

  He was on the stopping train from Paddington to Bristol. He was wearing RAF uniform and carrying a standard-issue kitbag. Before him lay the unimaginable luxury of a bedroom of his own and two solid weeks of uninterrupted peace. No cities to lay waste to. No master beams and night fighters to dodge. None of the gut-wrenching terror he’d experienced over Hamburg.

  He got off the train at Bath. His mother, on the telephone, had told him to look out for a black Humber Super Snipe. It was, she said with a hint of pride, brand new. Billy joined the flood of passengers on the stairs down to street level. The whole world seemed to be in uniform. Emerging from the station entrance he spotted the Humber at once. There was someone behind the wheel he didn’t recognise but his mother was standing beside the gleaming bonnet, a slightly uncertain figure in a long mauve summer dress that came as another surprise. He waved to her as he crossed the car park and she answered with a tiny flutter of her hand.

  ‘Mum…’ He put his arms round her and then gave her a kiss. She’d never been this thin. She also smelled different. Someone else. Almost a stranger.

  Billy was looking beyond her, into the car. The man behind the wheel wouldn’t meet his gaze. He looked much older than his mother. He was thickset with heavy black glasses and Brilliantined hair and he must have been hot in the grey pin-stripe suit because he had the window wound down.

  Billy had been able to buy a bunch of flowers at Paddington Station. They looked a couple of days past their best – probably the heat – but he didn’t think that mattered. He took a tiny step backwards and then, with a stage curtsey, presented his mother with the flowers.

  Billy couldn’t remember a time when she didn’t love roses, especially red roses, but now she seemed embarrassed. She held them at arm’s length, as if they might be infectious.

  ‘You’re mad,’ she said, ‘spending all that money. They must have cost the earth.’

  ‘Everything costs the earth, Mum. I just thought….’

  ‘They’re lovely. There’s something I’ve got to tell you, something you need to know.’ She nodded back towards the car. ‘There’s been a bit of a change around. I’ve been meaning to tell you.’

  ‘Change around how?’

  ‘I got married again. Last week. I know it’s all a bit sudden but I’m really hoping you’re going to like him. His name’s Ralph. He’s very nice, very kind.’

  ‘And this is his car?’

  ‘Yes. And it doesn’t stop there. We’re living out in the country. It’s a lovely place. Wonderful views. It’s got chickens, too. You can have as many eggs as you want. There…’ she patted him on the arm and stepped aside, ‘… I knew you’d be pleased.’

  They drove out of the station. Billy knew at once that this son of his new bride was the last person Ralph wanted to see. Billy perched himself on the big back seat, trying to make conversation. His mother’s new world smelled of leather upholstery and cigar smoke. A bag from Jolly’s, the posh Bath department store, lay at his feet.

  The suburbs of the city sped by. Very little bomb damage, not at all like Chopburg. In fact, if you half closed your eyes, this wasn’t an England at war at all.

  Billy had always known his mum as Val. That’s what everyone had always called her. In six brief months, since he’d last seen her, she seemed to have become Valerie. No warning. No mention of anything new in her life in the two letters she’d managed to write. Did that mean she was in some way ashamed of what had happened? Or was there a simpler explanation?

  ‘You kept it very quiet, Mum. Any particular reason?’

  ‘My fault, I’m afraid.’ Ralph had a Midlands accent. ‘My previous wife finds it exceptionally easy to take offence. The divorce, to be frank, was extremely difficult. We thought it best to keep the wedding to ourselves.’

  Billy’s mother half turned in the front passenger seat. She was doing her best to jolly the conversation along, to make her only son feel welcome in the bosom of his new family.

  ‘We’ve got five spare bedrooms,’ she said. ‘You can take your pick.’

  ‘I thought we agreed on the room at the back, Valerie?’ Ralph shot her a look.

  ‘Yes, but…’ she shrugged, ‘… nothing, really.’

  *

  Blessington Manor lay among the rolling hills south of the city. The big wrought-iron gates on the road below the estate were already open and the drive wound up between stands of elm. The house itself was no more than a glimpse of pillars and white stucco in the distance. This was a long way from the terrace in the Bristol suburbs where Billy had grown up.

  Billy wondered where this new stepfather of his had found the money and saw no point in hiding his curiosity.

  ‘What line are you in, Ralph? You mind me asking?’

  ‘Not at all.’

  Billy caught the brief tightening of lips in the rear-view mirror. This was clearly a man who disliked direct questions. His new wife came to the rescue.

  ‘Ralph has factories in West Bromwich,’ she said.

  ‘Making what?’

  ‘Things for the war. Things we need to beat the Germans.’

  ‘Like?’

  ‘Military vehicles.’ This from Ralph. ‘Trucks. Ambulances. We’re not small.’

  ‘So how did you meet? You two?’

  ‘Meet? Us? I suspect that’s for your mother to explain.’

  *

  Billy cornered his mother an hour later in the kitchen. Val had domestic help, a fat old cook with narrow eyes and a double chin, someone she appeared to have inherited from Ralph’s previous life. Val hadn’t a clue how to cope with this situation and it showed. For the first time, Billy was starting to feel sorry for her.

  ‘So what happened, Mum?’ He’d taken her into a big panelled room that served as a library.

  Val shook her head. She didn’t want to talk about it. Not here. Not yet. Instead she wanted to know about Billy’s war, about his new friends, about all the adventures he must have had. Billy winced at the nervous torrent of questions. He might have stepped in from a day at school.

  ‘It was horrible, Mum. I was lucky to get out alive. That’s all you need to know.’

  ‘Horrible?’

  ‘Worse. Tell me about Ralph. Or I’ll ask him myself.’

  ‘You can’t. He’s got an office upstairs where he shuts himself away. He’s a man who works day and night, bless him. He tells me he’s doing it for the war effort, for all of us, and I believe him. Without men like Ralph we’d be on our knees.’

  ‘Who told you that?’

  She wouldn’t answer. Instead she just said that she wanted them all to be friends.

  ‘Does he have kids of his own?’

  ‘Three.’

  ‘Have you met them?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘She won’t let them near me, his ex-wife. Two boys and a girl. One’s nearly grown up. The others are still at school. She lives near Birmingham. She obviously hates me. She thinks what’s happened is all my fault.’

  ‘And is it?’

  ‘No. Not at al
l. It takes two, Billy. Always. We met through Uncle Albert. He made the running, believe it or not.’

  ‘You mean Uncle Bert?’

  ‘I meant Ralph. He was looking for a personal secretary. Someone with the right skills. Someone he could depend on. That someone was your old mum.’

  Billy nodded. It was slowly becoming clearer. Uncle Albert wasn’t a real uncle at all. He owned hundreds of acres of Somerset apple orchards and had interests in the cider business. He’d been a friend of the family since before Billy could remember, something to do with the father he’d never known, and he’d been happy to play pretend dad to Billy when the occasion demanded. Billy always suspected Uncle Albert, who was single, had more than a passing interest in his mum and he’d certainly given them money when times were tough.

  ‘So Uncle Bert knew Ralph already? Is that how it happened?’

  ‘Yes. They’re masons, Billy. I don’t know whether you knew that. The masons are behind everything.’

  ‘But you love him? Ralph?’

  ‘I do, yes. He’s much softer than he looks. I don’t think he had much love before. It’s hard to open men like that up. Your father was the same. I don’t know whether it’s shyness or maybe something terrible happened to them but they need a woman’s touch.’

  ‘Your touch.’

  ‘Yes, Billy.’ She looked him in the eye. ‘My touch.’

  Billy didn’t know what to say. Was he the trespasser in this new relationship? Was he some kind of threat?