Survivor

by Lesley Pearse

  ‘Mog’s right here, my love, she just came in to see me,’ she said. ‘I’ll put her on.’

  Mariette heard her tell Mog that something bad had happened.

  ‘Mari?’ Mog’s voice sounded weak and frightened. ‘Whatever is it?’

  Mari blurted it out, crying as she did so. ‘They’ve all gone, Noah, Lisette, Rose and her boyfriend, Peter. They took me to the club for my birthday. The bombs came right through the roof. I was in the powder room. They are all dead.’

  She heard Mog make a sound – an exclamation of rage rather than a sharp intake of breath – but, as always, when trouble struck, Mog rallied. ‘Now, where are you? And who is with you?’ she asked, her voice high with distress, but controlling it. ‘I’ll have to go home and tell Belle, so you must tell me as much as you can.’

  ‘I’m in Uncle Noah’s house. And Edwin, Peter’s friend, is here with me. He’s been very kind.’ Just speaking to Mog made her feel a little calmer. ‘I’m not hurt at all. Not a scratch. Edwin identified their bodies. It’s the middle of the night here, there’s no more bombing now. But it’s so awful, I can’t believe they’ve gone.’

  ‘Let me speak to the young man. Edwin, did you say his name was? You must go to bed with a hot-water bottle. It is a truly terrible thing,’ Mog said, ‘and you’ve had the worst kind of shock. Tomorrow you must contact Jean-Philippe. He’ll know what has to be done. If I could fly, I’d come straight there to hold you, but I can’t, and neither can your mum or dad. So you’ve got to stay strong, my darling. Now, let me talk to Edwin.’

  ‘What did she say to you?’ Mariette asked Edwin, after he’d put the phone down.

  ‘Just what my grandmother would’ve said in the same circumstances. That I wasn’t to take advantage of you, see that you were warm enough. And then she remembered I’d lost my best friend, and she offered her sympathy and said perhaps I needed my mother too, and some brandy.’ He half smiled. ‘She sounds quite a character. She said she would go straight home to tell your mother, but your father was out on a job and won’t be back till late. They will ring back in the morning, meaning tomorrow evening here, at six.’

  ‘I hadn’t thought about your loss at all,’ she admitted as he sat down beside her. ‘I’m so sorry.’

  ‘I understand. It’s different for me – most of us in the squadron have lost so many friends, we’re kind of used to it now. It’s still awful, but we learn to soldier on. This is strange and different because it was so unexpected. All of us pilots think we’ll die in our planes, not in a nightclub.’

  ‘I didn’t even ask you about your injuries,’ she said. ‘Is your arm broken?’

  ‘I don’t think so, though they did say I was to go to the hospital to get it checked. I was knocked off my feet and landed on it awkwardly. I think it’s only sprained. One of the Civil Defence men said there were thirty-four deaths, and about eighty injured. If you hadn’t gone off to the powder room, it would have been another two dead.’

  The brandy after all the champagne and wine earlier was making her feel woozy. She got up and wobbled, grabbing the sofa to steady herself.

  ‘Steady on! Sit down while I fill a hot-water bottle for you, then I’ll help you up to bed,’ he said.

  ‘You’d better sleep in Rose’s room,’ she said as she sat down again with a thump.

  A little later, clutching the hot-water bottle, Mariette let Edwin help her up the stairs. She pointed to the door of Rose’s room and lurched towards her own.

  ‘I think you might need help getting your dress undone,’ he said.

  She looked round at him, thinking for a moment he was intent on taking advantage. But all she saw in his face was concern.

  ‘I can see it’s got tiny hooks and eyes, you can’t reach those,’ he said. ‘It would be a shame to tear such a beautiful dress.’

  He was right, she couldn’t have done it alone; Lisette had fastened it for her when she put it on. She turned her back to him and felt his fingers fumbling a little.

  ‘There, all done,’ he said, putting his hand on her shoulder. ‘If you feel scared in the night, just call out. I’ll hear you.’

  She held her dress up over her breasts, turned to him and kissed his cheek. ‘Thank you for everything, Edwin. I don’t know what I would’ve done without you.’

  He pulled her to him with his good arm. ‘This certainly wasn’t the way I imagined the evening turning out. I couldn’t believe my luck when I saw you. But I’ve got my orders from your granny. I will look after you.’

  17

  Mariette fell asleep as soon as she got into bed, but she was awake again within an hour and spent the rest of the night crying into her pillow. Never before had she wanted her parents and Mog so much. She was afraid, sickened by what had happened, and she didn’t know how she was going to deal with anything.

  By seven she couldn’t stand lying there any more with such terrible images running through her brain. When she got downstairs to make herself a cup of tea, she found Edwin sitting in the kitchen as red-eyed and troubled as she was.

  ‘I don’t know what I have to do,’ she admitted, sitting down at the kitchen table opposite him. ‘Will the police come here? What do they do with their bodies until the funeral?’

  ‘I don’t know either,’ he said. ‘I’ve never had to deal with anything like this. But I think the undertaker explains everything. But that isn’t for you to worry about, Mari. Jean-Philippe is the one to do it. Your gran, or aunt, said you had to contact him. I could do that for you, if you like?’

  ‘He’s in the navy, so I doubt he’ll be there,’ she said. ‘But Alice, his wife, will know how to contact him, I expect. I would be grateful if you could break the news to her, I’ll probably make a real hash of it.’

  She said she would get the number from Noah’s study. When she came back with it, the kettle was boiling and she made them both tea. ‘The thing is,’ she blurted out, ‘Jean-Philippe isn’t very easy to talk to. Even Rose used to say it was like trying to talk to a brick wall.’

  Edwin nodded. ‘Peter said something to that effect too. He said Jean-Philippe and Rose were like chalk and cheese. But then he is only her half-brother, so I suppose that makes a difference.’

  Mariette had often wondered who Jean-Philippe’s father was. She thought, if he had died, then Lisette would have talked about it, and Lisette didn’t strike her as the kind to get divorced. It was just another cloudy area in the shared past of her parents and Noah and Lisette, and one that hardly mattered now that her godfather and his wife, whom she’d come to love so much, had gone.

  But Jean-Philippe was still very much alive, and she was apprehensive about having to communicate with him because she had come to suspect there was bad feeling between him and Noah. Lisette had stood in the middle, keeping them apart.

  Looking back, this much had been evident at their first meeting. Jean-Philippe was polite but cold towards her, and it appeared to be a duty visit rather than any real desire to see his mother and meet the daughter of her old friend. The photograph of him in the drawing room flattered him, and made him look far more like Lisette than he really was. In the flesh he was strange-looking; his jet-black hair grew too low over his forehead, and his equally dark eyes were very small. His head could almost be described as triangular, with a very sharp chin.

  He hadn’t stayed that day for more than twenty minutes. At the time, Mariette didn’t think anything of it, but recently, after another equally brief visit, she had asked Lisette why he didn’t come more often and stay for longer. Lisette had looked embarrassed and said something about him being very busy.

  Over the two years Mariette had lived with Lisette and Noah she had only met Alice, Jean-Philippe’s wife, twice. Lisette said once that her daughter-in-law suffered from her nerves, and that was why they never entertained. Mariette thought privately that she’d have a problem with her nerves too if she was married to such a cold man.

  She wondered how such a warm, loving and giving woman
like Lisette could have produced a son so different from her. Was his father a brute, and was that why Lisette had left him?

  Edwin waited until nine o’clock in the morning to call Jean-Philippe. He said it wasn’t fair to wake someone up any earlier on a Sunday and then give them such terrible news.

  Mariette sat beside him on the sofa as he made the call. When a male voice answered, he hesitated for a moment or two because he hadn’t expected Jean-Philippe to be there.

  There was no easy or painless way to tell someone their family had all been killed, but Mariette thought Edwin did a very good job. He relayed the facts gently and tactfully. He stumbled over the words several times, and kept apologizing. But he gave an accurate account of what had happened, including Mariette’s shock and concern for him, and added his own deep sympathy for Jean-Philippe’s loss.

  When he put the phone down, he looked shaken. ‘He was so curt,’ he exclaimed, looking at Mariette in bewilderment. ‘It was almost as if he resented me telling him. He said he’d heard on this morning’s news about the Café de Paris but asked what possessed us all to go to a West End nightclub. You heard me say it was your twenty-first? Well, he gave a kind of disparaging snort at that. He even asked why you and I survived. Didn’t even ask if we were injured!’

  Mariette put her hand on his arm comfortingly. ‘He is a cold fish,’ she admitted. ‘But I expect it was the shock that made him talk like that. Once he’s had time for it to sink in, he’ll probably ring back and be more human.’

  ‘He’ll have to be; it falls on him to arrange the funeral and settle all his parents’ affairs. I wish I could stay and help you, Mariette, but I have to get back to Biggin Hill and also report Peter’s death. I did ask the police to inform his parents last night, but I’ll have to speak to them too.’

  ‘You’ve done more than enough for me. I can’t imagine how I’d have coped last night if you hadn’t been there.’

  ‘I’ll ring you as often as I can, Mari,’ he said, and he put his good arm around her and drew her closer, kissing her forehead. ‘I hate to leave you here with no one to look after you. Is there a friend who could come and stay?’

  ‘Somehow I don’t think Jean-Philippe would approve of any of the friends I’ve made in the East End, if he found them here,’ she said ruefully. ‘But I will contact all the friends I made through Rose. That will keep me busy today, so don’t worry about me, Edwin. But how are you intending to fly or drive with that poorly arm?’

  He managed a weak smile. ‘I’m not. My car’s back at the airfield. I’ll get a lift from the station. I’ll see the MO and he’ll give me sick leave or ground duties. Telling the chaps about Peter will be tough, though, he was very popular with everyone.’

  She saw that his eyes were damp, and reached out to stroke his face in silent sympathy. ‘Should I contact Rose’s office, or leave that to her brother?’

  ‘It might be advisable to wait until he gets back to you. The way he was with me suggests he’s the kind to take umbrage at anything he feels is high-handed.’

  ‘I’m not expecting much comfort from him,’ she admitted. ‘I might be mistaken, but I think he’s got a huge chip on his shoulder.’

  Edwin pulled a pen and notepad out of his pocket. ‘This is the number at the airfield,’ he said, writing it down. ‘You can leave a message for me there, if you need help in any way. Even if it’s just that you want to talk. Don’t be afraid to contact me, Mari. If this hadn’t happened, I would’ve been beating a path to your door to see you again. I really like you, it’s not just because I feel bad about all this.’

  ‘I like you too,’ she admitted. ‘But you must go now, Edwin, or you’ll be in trouble.’

  He leaned forward and kissed her on the lips. Just a light touch, but enough for her to know he meant what he said.

  After Edwin left, Mariette went into Rose’s bedroom to make the bed and to find her address book. But the sight of her clothes strewn about, face powder spilt on the dressing table, the book The Grapes of Wrath left by her bedside, after they’d discussed it recently, brought on a huge swell of utter loss.

  There had been so many, many nights when they’d sat in this room chatting and laughing. In here, Rose had taught her to jitterbug to swing music, to drink alcohol, told her about film stars Mariette had never heard of before, and they’d talked about love too. She had admired Rose’s sophistication, deplored her naivety about sex, yet hoped that one day she herself would be as poised as her friend was.

  She felt bad now that she’d sometimes thought Rose was a snob, bossy and mean-spirited, because the good in her far outweighed the bad, and she had become as dear to Mariette as a sister. Rose had been so generous with her time, sharing her friends, never once making Mariette feel she was a poor relation or a burden. Only now that she was gone did Mariette realize it was Rose who had given her the confidence to be what she wanted to be. Rose would never have wanted to dole out clothes to bombed-out people, or listen to their problems, but she never scoffed at Mariette for doing it – in fact, she admired her for it.

  To lose Noah and Lisette, who had been so good to her, was terrible; they had loved and nurtured her, kept her, paid for college and so much else. But she had expected to have Rose in her life for ever, to be a bridesmaid at her wedding, godmother to her children, to share everything, friends until death parted them in old age.

  She lay down on Rose’s bed and cried. Not tears of shock like last night, but tears for a loss she felt she could never come to terms with. Never before had she felt so alone. She would never again hear Rose singing ‘Puttin’ on the Ritz’. Never hear her peals of laughter, or see her wrinkle up her nose when she told Mariette of some hideous sight in the East End. Never smile at the way she used to raise one eyebrow when she didn’t really believe something she was being told, or how she always checked her stocking seams were straight before she walked out of the door. All such little, inconsequential things, but they made up what Rose was – a warm, vibrant person with so much lust for life.

  Mariette was still crying an hour later when the front door bell rang. She got up, ran to the bathroom to dab a face flannel on her swollen eyes and went to answer it.

  It was Jean-Philippe.

  ‘I am so sorry,’ she gasped out. ‘I still can’t believe it. It must have been such a huge shock to you?’

  ‘Yes,’ he said, walking in and placing his trilby hat on the hall table. ‘If Mother had told me she was planning to go to such a place I would have advised her against it. The West End is not the place to go when bombs are dropping. Buckingham Palace was hit too last night.’

  He was in civilian clothes, wearing a dark well-cut suit under a navy-blue overcoat. She waited for him to say how awful it must have been for her, to ask for some details about the tragedy. But he said nothing further, just walked into the drawing room and poured himself a Scotch.

  Mariette followed him. ‘Edwin left a note for you explaining who you have to get in touch with about their bodies,’ she said, feeling very awkward with him. ‘I have Rose’s work number too. I could notify them for you, if you like.’

  ‘I will see to that and everything else,’ he said curtly, gulping down the Scotch.

  ‘How much leave do you have?’ she asked tentatively. ‘Though, under the circumstances, I’m sure they will extend it.’

  ‘I was due back on Tuesday,’ he said. ‘But I have arranged another week.’

  ‘Can I get you something to eat?’ she asked. She knew he lived in Hampstead, which was no distance at all, but she felt she had to offer something.

  ‘No, I have eaten already, and I don’t have much time now. So if you will run along, I’ll sort out the papers and the other things I need.’

  She was shocked at being dismissed as if she was a servant.

  ‘Is there anything I can help you with?’ she asked.

  ‘No, but in the next day or two I would expect you to find alternative accommodation. After the funeral, I will be securing the h
ouse until such time as I move into it.’

  For a moment, she thought she had misheard. ‘You want me to leave?’

  ‘That’s what I said. Is there something wrong with your hearing?’

  ‘No, of course not. I just can’t believe you’d say such a thing,’ she retorted. ‘Uncle Noah and Aunt Lisette would be horrified.’

  ‘They were not your aunt and uncle,’ he said crisply. ‘You are merely the daughter of someone my mother nursed in France. You are an adult now, and you’ve sponged off them long enough.’

  That floored her.

  ‘Why are you being so nasty to me?’ she asked with indignation. ‘You know I couldn’t go home once war broke out. And if your parents hadn’t wanted me here, they would’ve said so.’

  ‘That’s as maybe, but they are gone now. So run along, I have things to do.’

  ‘Just a minute.’ She took a step closer to him. ‘I don’t understand your hostility towards me. I loved your parents and Rose as if they were my own family. Whatever you plan to do with this house and everything in it is up to you, I understand that. But if you think you are going to throw me out of here before their funeral, and not allow me to try to comfort the people who will come to it, or prepare the food for the wake here afterwards, then you are mistaken. Try to do it and I will inform the editors of the newspapers Uncle Noah wrote for. He was known as a compassionate man, and people would be horrified to read that his stepson shared none of his beliefs.’

  ‘Oh yes, he was compassionate towards whores alright. Your mother was one of them!’

  Mariette reeled back in shock.

  ‘You didn’t know then?’ he sneered at her. ‘He wrote his book about women sold into prostitution because he helped rescue your mother from that life.’

  ‘I don’t believe you,’ she said weakly, although she had a nasty feeling there might be a grain of truth in it.

  ‘Belle was brought up in a Seven Dials brothel, she witnessed a murder there and that’s why she was taken, to shut her up and to sell her on into prostitution in France,’ he snapped out. Then he paused, his face breaking into a smug grin. ‘Later,’ he went on, ‘the murderer was caught and hanged for it, and your precious mother was the chief witness. So don’t tell me you’re going to speak to any editors. You wouldn’t want that little lot coming out, would you?’