The French Photographer

by Natasha Lester

  ‘He died.’ Amelia sniffed dramatically and without any real emotion. ‘Somewhere in the Mediterranean. Didn’t I write you that?’

  ‘No,’ Jess said, both exasperated by Amelia’s usual lack of sentiment and pleased to see a familiar face. ‘You didn’t. I think I’d remember that.’

  Jess saw Dan shifting with impatience in the jeep; he’d moved across to the driver’s side, obviously keen to go. ‘You take the jeep,’ Jess said to him, really wanting to keep to her plans with Dan but knowing she should catch up with Amelia while she had the chance. ‘I’ll get a ride back with someone later.’

  ‘Why doesn’t Amelia go back with you now to the press camp and you can talk there?’ he said. ‘Drop me at Prinzregentenplatz. I’ll come and get the jeep later. Then I don’t have to worry about who you’re hitching a ride with.’

  ‘How sweet of you,’ Amelia said, behaving as if his solicitude was all for her. She opened the door of the front passenger seat, waving her ATS companions off with a cheery, ‘Bye!’

  ‘Jess is navigating so she needs to sit there,’ Dan said to Amelia.

  ‘I’m sure I can navigate,’ Amelia protested.

  ‘You know what unexploded ordnance looks like?’ he asked.

  ‘I don’t think I want to,’ Amelia replied primly as Jess, trying not to smile, hopped in beside Dan, knowing he didn’t need her to navigate through the city streets but glad that he wanted her beside him and not Amelia, despite Amelia’s beauty and silk stockings and clean face.

  ‘Is he single?’ were Amelia’s first words when they arrived at the mess and Jess poured out the schnapps.

  Jess could feel her face burning. Amelia looked at her appraisingly.

  Lee Carson walked past at that moment and took a seat on the other side of Jess. ‘How’s your Lieutenant Colonel?’ Lee asked Jess, thankfully with teasing rather than malice, which perhaps meant that Warren hadn’t yet told the world about Dan and Jess.

  Amelia smirked and held out her hand. ‘I’m Amelia and I was just asking Jess the same question. Perhaps you’ll be more forthcoming with the details.’

  ‘Lee Carson, and it’s useless asking her anything.’ Lee tipped her head at Jess. ‘She and Lieutenant Colonel Hallworth are the tightest of buddies and they never gossip about each other. Believe me, I’ve tried more than once to prise info out of Jess about the oh so handsome Dan and I’ve tried even harder to prise something out of him but …’ She spread her hands out, palms up. ‘Empty handed, as you can see.’

  ‘Isn’t it your duty to keep our spirits up by sharing what you know?’ Amelia said to Jess.

  Jess knew they were teasing her, knew that if nothing had happened in Paris with Dan, she’d laugh and move the conversation on to something else, that she wouldn’t feel the horrible fist in her stomach as she lied. ‘Dan is my friend, and Lee’s right. I don’t gossip about him. In fact,’ she said to Amelia, although it hurt a little to say it, ‘You seem to know more about some parts of his life than I do. I had no idea he was Walter Hallworth’s son.’

  ‘He kept that one a closely guarded secret,’ Lee said, helping herself to the schnapps. ‘Wonder why he didn’t just join the press?’ She sighed. ‘So he’s rich and handsome. Guess I’ll have to try harder with the prising next time.’

  ‘You might have more competition now,’ Amelia said with a grin that clearly indicated her own interest.

  ‘Aren’t you in mourning for your husband?’ Jess asked.

  ‘Mourning,’ Amelia scoffed. ‘Nobody mourns anymore. We’d never do anything else given how often people die lately.’

  Jess flinched but it was true. Mourning had become an outdated custom when, every second of every day, there was a dead body to weep for.

  ‘I just have to work out when I can see him again,’ Amelia continued. ‘You won’t mind helping me, will you, Jess? Seeing’s how you and he are just friends.’

  Amelia eyed Jess as if daring her to contradict her words. And Jess knew she couldn’t, because what if to admit out loud that she and Dan were … She cut off the thought.

  Thankfully, Lee saved her by pointing to the doorway. ‘Your puppy dog’s here,’ she said.

  Jess turned to see Jennings gesturing to her. ‘I’ve got to run,’ she said, leaping up gratefully.

  The note Jennings passed her was cryptic but she dashed off, showered and changed into her pinks. Then Jennings drove her to a house she wasn’t familiar with, near Prinzregentenplatz.

  ‘You’re needed in there,’ he said, indicating the house, the flush on his face betraying just who was inside.

  ‘Thank you,’ Jess said, squeezing his hand. ‘I know it’s not your job to escort your CO’s girlfriend to secret trysts.’

  ‘He deserves it,’ Jennings said shyly, hero worship for Dan as plain in his eyes as the freckles on his face.

  As Jennings drove off, Jess pulled open the door and drew in a breath. It was magical. Dan had somehow found old hurricane lamps to soften the air of abandonment in the house, and he looked up from lighting the last of them to smile at her. The minute he did, she leapt into his arms, kissing him, then tearing at his clothes, wanting to feel him beneath her palms, and he tugged at the buttons on her blouse too, undid her skirt, unhooked her bra and when at last they were naked, he placed both his hands on her breasts and began to circle his palms against her nipples, while her hands travelled down over his belly.

  ‘Jess,’ he said, moving his hands away and taking hold of hers, his breath ragged like hers, skin warm, eyes glittering with desire. ‘Stop for a moment.’

  ‘Why?’ she whispered, wanting to kiss him again but he placed a finger on her lips.

  ‘Because I want this night to last forever,’ he said. ‘The last couple of days have been quiet but my men are going out on patrol tomorrow and I don’t know when I’ll see you again. It feels so good every time I’m with you that I just want to lose myself in it but let’s make it feel that good for as long as we have.’

  Then he knelt down to kiss her belly, her whole body burning from both his words and his mouth.

  For the next hour, he concentrated on precise areas of her skin: first her stomach, then he lay her down and kissed her breasts, tongue relentless, until she was right at the brink. The moment she arched backwards, calling his name, he moved away and concentrated on her earlobes and then her neck, which almost drove her wild too. After a time, he played lightly between her legs, taking her almost to the precipice again before he rolled her onto her stomach and kissed the tops of her shoulders and the length of her spine.

  She did the same. For a while she paid careful attention to his glorious chest with her mouth. Eventually, her hands crept down to wrap around him until he said her name in a voice so bathed in hunger that she stopped and concentrated on the soft skin on the underside of his forearms. When his breathing had settled a little, she took her mouth to his thighs and worked her way up, stopping again when his fists clenched.

  At last she was lying on her back, arms stretched above her head, every inch of her skin flushed, eyes fixed to his, her whole body ready for him and this time when he touched her, she jolted and she cried out, ‘I can’t wait anymore.’

  He slid into her and whispered in her ear, ‘Thank God. Because nor can I.’

  As he rocked inside her, the strongest and most powerful feeling swept through her, as if she were truly inside him, inside his mind, seeing into his thoughts, feeling everything that he felt for her. The sensation was so visceral that she could do nothing other than look into his eyes as he looked into hers, joined by more than just flesh – souls entwined like those of lovers cast forever in marble, unable to be torn asunder.

  At the end, her whole body shook and his too, and it was a long time before she thought she could speak. ‘Did you feel that?’ she whispered against his cheek, because the way he’d looked at her made her believe that perhaps he had.

  He threaded his fingers through hers and clasped her hand tightly. ‘I did.’<
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  ‘What was that?’ she asked in wonder.

  ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘It felt like …’ He hesitated. ‘That word I’m not going to say because I never want to jinx this. It felt like I knew you from the inside out, more intensely than I thought possible.’ He rolled onto his side and drew her in, wrapping one leg over hers, arms around her, just as they had been in Paris before he’d had to leave, so close that even a feather couldn’t have slipped between them, both having given themselves to the other entirely in a way Jess had never experienced or thought she was capable of. What was the use in holding back when they knew how short and how precarious life could be?

  ‘I still can’t believe I’m lying here next to you, naked, having just done that,’ he murmured, kissing her softly, tongue still exploring her mouth as if he couldn’t possibly ever have enough of her, as if he still wasn’t sated.

  ‘Remember when I first met you in Italy?’ she said, smiling at him. ‘And you yelled at me. Then when you came to London, Martha thought you were gorgeous and I said that I wasn’t ever going to think of you like that because you’d just proved yourself a friend.’

  ‘And now?’ he teased. ‘What do you think now?’

  ‘That you’re the most incredible man I’ve ever met,’ she answered honestly. ‘That I can’t bear the thought of stepping outside this house, away from you. That I would rather die myself than know you had.’

  Not long after, they both fell asleep, the fatigue of the long years of war finally dragging them down into a slumber so absolute that there was no space even to dream. Every time she woke, there was Dan, gathering her into his arms, cradling her back to sleep.

  Once they’d had a few restful hours, more tranquil than any other night either of them had spent in Europe, their lips touched once more and again their lovemaking was slow and gloriously prolonged, their hands speaking the promises that their mouths were too frightened to say. They made love as though they had all the time in the world and Jess even started to believe it. When they had finished and they lay drowsily spent, Dan stopped kissing her for just long enough to say, ‘I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about being …’ He stopped.

  ‘Walter Hallworth’s son?’ she asked. ‘I guess it doesn’t really matter, except I feel like an idiot for carrying on about my photos and my stories all the time when you probably know more about it than anyone.’

  ‘I didn’t want to be another man telling you that he was better or more experienced than you,’ Dan said. ‘Because I’m not. Definitely not at taking pictures like you do or at reporting a war. I worked at the New York Courier every summer since I was twelve, going out with the reporters on police beats, sitting in on news meetings, and finally writing my own stuff when I was at college. I’m supposed to take over the business when I get back but, over here, it’s nice not to be thought of as the boss’s son for once.’

  Jess smiled. ‘Dan, you’re a leader like I’ve hardly seen anywhere in Europe. Your men will do anything for you. Your battalion has one of the lowest mortality rates, not because you haven’t seen danger – you’ve seen more than most – but because of you. If the way you are here is the way you are in New York, then I doubt that anyone would ever think of you only as the boss’s son.’

  He kissed her and she sighed theatrically. ‘So you’ll be Editor in Chief of the New York Courier when we return to America and I’ll be … what? Vogue won’t need war reports once there isn’t a war.’

  ‘Jess, your photographs are famous. Anybody would want to work with you. I want to work with you. And be with you. Always. In fact …’ He paused and studied her, as if unsure whether to continue. ‘I don’t have a ring or an extravagant dinner or anything else to persuade you, and I need to let you know that as Victorine’s guardian, she’s my responsibility and it’s one I intend to honour, and it’s probably not the way you might want it to be but, Jessica May, when we get back to New York, will you marry me?’

  Jess froze, her body and her mind aching to just shout Yes, of course I’ll marry you! But her caution and her awareness that being so close to the end of the war was not the time to die made her pause. ‘What if, by saying yes …’ Her voice trailed off.

  ‘It won’t happen. Not now. We’re safe. I promise.’

  I promise. She believed him. There wasn’t a thing in the world he could say that she wouldn’t believe. So she smiled. ‘If you’re brave enough to ask, then I should be brave enough to say yes. A thousand times yes.’

  PART SIX

  D’Arcy

  Twenty-three

  For the entirety of the train ride back to Reims from Paris, D’Arcy felt herself sucking in air; her lungs wouldn’t function and a thing she’d done for years without thought – breathing – became suddenly impossible. She struggled off the train and onto the platform, barely able to comprehend how she might get a taxi, when she saw Josh waiting for her.

  All she wanted was to rush over to him and rest her head against his chest and have him hold her. But if she did that she would cry – again. The last thing he’d want was the art handler looking after his client’s most precious works falling to pieces.

  Which she was, like a negative never placed in a stop bath, overdeveloped, all the light blown out. Ever since she’d read the letter from the hospital, she had felt sobs rising from somewhere buried so deep inside her that she hadn’t really known it was there – a place she’d hidden from her own self because there was nothing, she’d thought, that could be done about it. Everyone else had families, hordes of people who loved them unconditionally. D’Arcy had only ever had Victorine.

  Which meant she had so little experience of the kind of love that came with family that she’d never wanted to push Victorine, to hurt Victorine, to question Victorine – D’Arcy couldn’t afford to lose the only family she had. That uncertainty had carried over into every other kind of human connection D’Arcy had formed; she’d been quick to look towards the end, wanting only the momentary balm of lust misconstrued as affection. And now, suddenly and swiftly, D’Arcy realised she’d never wanted to fall in love because she was afraid that her illiteracy in that emotion meant she’d ruin any such relationship.

  But here was Josh, the kind of man who’d wait at a station – for how long? All morning, watching trains pass through until hers arrived? – so he could drive her home, the kind of man who just wanted to kiss her, to know her, the kind of man she wanted to hold her when she was hurting, the kind of man she didn’t want to let herself love because she had no idea how to. Not when she’d be gone next week and would never see him again.

  ‘Why are you here?’ she asked tiredly, trying to hide every confronting and wretched thought that had just swept through her mind. ‘I’m the kind of person who was going to do what you used to do: sleep with you and forget about you.’ It was meant to show him the negative of D’Arcy, the darkness that lay beneath the smile and the bright dresses, meant to rend whatever fragile connection they’d forged at the picnic.

  But he already knew. ‘That’s why I said no,’ he said. He paused but she couldn’t reply; opening her mouth was too great a risk when she could still feel the desolation pressing against the back of her throat.

  ‘Thank you for coming to get me,’ she managed.

  ‘Do you want to talk about it?’

  ‘No.’ Then she added, inexplicably, because she’d made up her mind not to tell him anything, ‘Not yet.’

  ‘Let’s go home,’ he said, holding out his hand.

  Home. Where was home? Not with Victorine, the woman who couldn’t be D’Arcy’s mother. Not in France, a country to which she’d thought she was linked by blood. Nowhere. Home had been mercilessly taken from her.

  Still, she took Josh’s hand, the feel of it so warm and gentle that it was difficult to relinquish it when they reached the car. They rode back to the chateau in silence, Josh glancing at her every now and again but she stared out the window and pretended not to notice.

  Even though she wa
s exhausted, D’Arcy spent the morning organising the transport to the airport for the crates, speaking in furious French to the company she normally trusted with the job who’d seen fit to tell her, in a jocular manner, that a forklift had punched a hole through a crate from the Musée D’Orsay just last week. After five minutes of her wrath, they became suitably contrite for her to believe that none of the inherent dangers of moving artworks – forklifts, fire sprinklers or simply being dropped – would be permitted to happen to her consignment.

  She double-checked the booking on the cargo plane from Hong Kong, then finished the time-consuming insurance papers. Josh remained mysteriously and thankfully absent, or perhaps her silence in the car had told him she preferred to be alone. Célie quietly came and went with food, appearing just as D’Arcy’s stomach began to growl, and D’Arcy ate as she worked. In the afternoon, D’Arcy collected her cameras, the mics, the LED light kit and the light-stand that she’d bought in Paris and knocked on the door of Jessica May’s room.

  Jess sat in a chair on the balcony with a pot of tea and two cups. ‘I’ve been expecting you,’ she said.

  ‘I’ll get set up,’ D’Arcy said, assembling one camera on a tripod, positioned to fit both chairs into the frame, and one camera ready for close-up shots. She studied the scene through the lens, saw that the light was good, that there was no distracting ambient noise, and leaned down to pin a lapel mic to Jess’s shirt. Jess smiled at her as she did so.

  ‘I can see why you were a model,’ D’Arcy said as she straightened.

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘Your smile.’ D’Arcy searched for the right way to express herself. ‘It makes a person feel as if they’re the only one ever to have been smiled upon, that the gesture has just been invented by Jessica May, exclusively for them.’

  ‘That’s a lovely thing to say. You have a way with words.’

  Beyond, D’Arcy could see all the way down to the crazy trees and she tried not to be ensnared by them again. But one caught her eye; it stood apart from the rest, boughs curled back in on themselves like the arms of a mother empty of child. D’Arcy was reminded of the panels in the salon downstairs, of the child depicted there: was it as lost as D’Arcy or was it found?