Enticing aromas of evening cooking drifted up from the village; spicy and delectable, a smell of red peppers, onions and potatoes fried in hot olive oil. I could imagine these vegetables as an accompaniment to some sort of baked fish, taken today from the Mediterranean and served on thick, brightly painted plates.
‘Are you hungry?’ I asked Charlie.
He shook his head. ‘No.’
‘Me neither.’ I surprised myself by realising this, but I suppose I was too weary to eat and too full of apprehension. Charlie’s head fell on to my shoulder and he slept while I fed Marisol. I had only half a can of milk left and nowhere to wash out the bottle, and I worried that I might be poisoning her with dirty milk but so far she’d appeared to be fine. The trouble was, I had no idea how a newborn baby should behave and whether I was looking after her properly.
‘This is a cosy scene.’ It was Amyas, strolling up the path, as relaxed and cheerful as though he’d been on a simple country walk. ‘You and Charlie are getting close, I see.’
‘Don’t tell me you’re jealous,’ I laughed.
‘Hardly,’ Amyas scoffed. But I thought he was and hugged that knowledge to me.
‘He’s not well,’ I said. ‘He’s feverish again and his wound looks horrible.’
Amyas squatted down and put his hand on Charlie’s forehead. ‘Mm. Not good, so it’s just as well that I’ve got a fishing boat to take you to France tonight. In about,’ he looked at his watch, ‘an hour and a half.’
I took in his words. ‘You didn’t say “us”,’ I whispered, a band of longing already tying itself around my heart. ‘Aren’t you coming?’
He stood up and turned his back to me, looking out to the darkening sea. ‘No. I’m not. I have . . . things to do.’
‘But you’re a deserter. It’s dangerous for you to stay,’ I cried. ‘You’ll be arrested.’
‘No. I don’t think so. I’ll be fine.’
I was bewildered. ‘Aren’t you a deserter, then?’ I asked.
He was silent for a moment, before saying, ‘Perhaps, not really. Not as the term is understood.’
I stared at his back. At his white shirt and sandy-coloured trousers, flapping now in the strengthening breeze. He could have been on holiday, a visitor who had no interest in a civil war. Had he been telling me the truth? Had he been telling anyone the truth? It was impossible to know and I didn’t question him further about it. All I asked was about Marisol.
‘You have a daughter. Who’s to look after her?’
He turned and came back to me. Squatting on the ground again, he took my free hand in his. ‘You will, Persephone. She’s yours. My gift to you. Bring her up to be as brave and forthright as you are and if she asks about her father, say he is . . .’ he shrugged. ‘A freedom fighter.’
I looked deep into his brown, fathomless eyes. You’re not a freedom fighter, I said in my mind, you’re a thief and a gigolo, just like my mother said you were, and I know you’re staying behind because you can see opportunities to be either, or even both. I should hate you. But when he bent and kissed me, I held my mouth up to his willingly and took strength from him.
‘What’s this?’ said Charlie, waking up, hot and shivery. ‘Can’t you two leave a man to have a bit of a peaceful snooze without canoodling over him?’
I giggled and Amyas laughed. ‘Canoodling? Is that what you call it?’ He looked at me and then back at Charlie with an almost sneering grin. ‘Well, why not? Persephone enjoys it and, Christ, so do I.’
It was an awkward moment, even a sudden cruel show of possession on Amyas’s part, after that earlier flash of jealousy. But then, just as suddenly, his normal, relaxed persona returned and he squatted down in front of Charlie.
‘You’re on a fishing boat in about an hour. It’ll take you around the coast to . . . well, I don’t know. Probably somewhere quiet. Anyway, it’ll be in France. I’ve paid the captain and told him that he’ll get the rest of the money when he comes back and when I’ve heard from you. That’s in case he takes it into his head to throw you overboard.’
‘What?’ I said, alarmed.
Amyas laughed. ‘Don’t worry. He won’t.’
‘But how do we get in touch with you?’ Charlie asked. ‘Where will you be?’
‘Well, that I don’t know, but then the captain doesn’t know it either. So he’ll stick to his word.’
‘And he won’t get the rest of his money.’ Charlie gave a sort of twisted smile.
‘No.’ Amyas gave a short laugh. ‘Probably not.’
We were silent then, Charlie and I, each considering Amyas’s words and actions, but then Charlie said, ‘Thanks. We owe you.’
‘You don’t owe me anything, except . . .’ Amyas looked down at the sleeping baby. ‘Except to look after my daughter. That’ll do.’
‘I promise.’ Painfully, Charlie lifted his arm and the two men shook hands in what appeared to be a rather formal contract.
‘Anyway, once back in France, you can get to a hospital and have that wound looked at properly,’ said Amyas, as he watched Charlie bring his arm back to his side. Pain was etched on his face and beads of sweat clung to his forehead
‘I hate hospitals,’ Charlie grunted. ‘I make it a rule never to go near them.’
‘Me too,’ I added.
‘Come off it, Blake. You’d just been in hospital when I caught up with you again, last November. Remember? Before we went to Berlin.’ Charlie gave me a quizzical look. ‘You’d been under the sawbones. What was it? Appendix?’
As I nodded, I felt Amyas stiffen and look at me, but he said nothing.
We waited for about three-quarters of an hour, until Amyas said ‘Time to go’ and helped Charlie get into the front of the car. I put the baby on Charlie’s knee, then opened the back door ready to get in, but Amyas grabbed my arm.
‘Come over here,’ he said.
We walked a few steps away, on to the rocky headland. I knew what he was going to say. He put his hand on my cheek in a gesture of such tenderness that tears welled up. ‘Persephone Blake,’ he murmured. ‘I have explored every inch of your body. You have no appendix scar.’
‘No,’ I whispered, dreading what would come next.
‘So what operation did you have?’
I closed my eyes, remembering the hurry, the pain and the blood. ‘I lost our child,’ I said simply. There was no need to tell him more. ‘They told me it was a boy.’
He wrapped his arms around me and held me very close. ‘Will our little girl make up for that?’
‘More than,’ I whispered. ‘Oh, more than.’
‘Then I’m glad. You of all people, Persephone, don’t deserve to be unhappy. You are mine, my special girl, and will be, until death. Please believe me.’
He left us at the quay, where the rotting fishing boat and its half-drunk captain awaited us. ‘Remember,’ Amyas fixed him with a chilling stare, ‘I’ll be waiting. Deliver them, or else.’
‘When will I see you again?’ I asked, foolishly. Marisol was wailing and the wind made the fishing boat rock fiercely on the black water.
‘I don’t know, my darling,’ Amyas said. ‘But keep watching. One day, I’ll be with you.’ He kissed me and held his daughter as I climbed into the boat. Before lowering her into my arms he looked long into her face and, for the first time, kissed her little forehead. ‘Goodbye, my darling girls,’ he called as the boatman pulled away. And I sat, one arm around Charlie, who was struggling to stay upright, facing the shore to get my last glimpse of him.
A summer storm whipped up the sea, making the stinking fishing boat toss and roll so violently that for every minute of the five hours that it took to sail around the coast I was in fear for my life.
The captain had dismissed it as a ‘tramuntana, the wind of the north’ and vowed that the worst of these winds were always in the winter so this wouldn’t be bad. It felt bad to me where I sat, as instructed, in the small cabin behind the wheelhouse fighting wave after wave of nausea. Eventually, I
could no longer bear the claustrophobia and the acrid smell of oil and petrol that rose from the engine room beneath my seat, and struggled up the three steps to the deck. Charlie had refused to go in the cabin. He was sitting on the wet decking boards, with his back to the wooden wheelhouse and I crouched down beside him, letting the wind slap me in the face and take my breath away. Immediately I felt better.
‘How is she?’ he shouted through chattering teeth. Marisol was wrapped close to my body, under my jacket and, amazingly, asleep.
‘Fine,’ I answered. ‘She’s wonderful. She’s always wonderful.’ My little girl, who would be mine for ever. Amyas had said so.
Towards morning the storm abated, and as a watery dawn rose over the sea we were rowed ashore. ‘Francia,’ the captain grunted, and without another word rowed away.
Charlie sank on to the harbour wall, muttering incoherently. He was worse than I’d realised and I looked about me for help. I couldn’t let him die here after all we’d been through. A woman, brushing the dust from her cottage steps on the road opposite the harbour, spotted us and hurried over and soon we were on a donkey cart, on our way to the police station.
‘Where is this?’ I asked the gendarme. ‘What town?’
‘Collioure, mademoiselle,’ he answered, examining my passport.
‘I have to get my colleague to a hospital,’ I said. ‘He’s very sick.’
‘I can see that. He, like you, is a journalist?’
‘Yes,’ I said. I mentioned our newspaper and the name of the editor for him to check. ‘And the child?’
‘She is mine.’ My voice rose an octave. I was already protective. ‘She was born a few days ago.’
He raised his eyebrows and gave me a searching look. ‘You are well, mademoiselle?’
‘Yes, perfectly. But I must get Monsieur Bradford to hospital as soon as possible.’
We were taken in the police captain’s car to the hospital at Perpignan, where Charlie was urgently admitted. I found a doctor to examine Marisol, who was pronounced healthy and thriving. ‘And you, madame? How are you?’ he asked. ‘Was it an easy birth?’
‘No,’ I murmured. ‘It was dreadful.’ I closed my eyes, remembering that awful scene. Then I picked up my daughter and said, ‘The mother bled to death, but her father has entrusted the child to me.’ He and his nurse watched me, as I left his office.
My room was still waiting for me at the strange hotel in Cerbère. It was an inconvenient place to stay for visiting Charlie, but it felt comforting, somewhere to rest and get over the events of the past few days. Anyway, I’d left some of my belongings there: clothes, luggage and my beloved typewriter. To my delight they hadn’t been stolen.
‘You have returned, mademoiselle,’ said the manager, the one who had been on duty the night that Paul and I had left.
‘Yes,’ I answered, my voice cold.
‘And your friend, Monsieur Durban. He will return also?’
‘I’m not sure. His movements were reported to someone who wanted to kill him. He was dying when I last saw him.’
The man had the grace to blush. ‘How unfortunate. Is there anything I can do for you, mademoiselle? And . . .’ he stared with confusion at Marisol, ‘the infant?’
‘Yes. I need to hire a nurse for a few days. For my baby. Can you arrange someone suitable?’
The girl he got for me was probably a relative, but she was sweet and kind and had younger brothers and sisters so was well used to handling newborn babies. ‘Oh! She is très jolie,’ she exclaimed as we put Masisol in the bath for the first time. I had bought clothes and nappies and taken the doctor’s advice on the best feed to give her. She did well, putting on weight and waving her little fists in the air, as though she had been born into a privileged family in a private clinic or a grand-ducal mansion. And when I took her out, old women in the street stopped to coo over her.
Charlie was well enough to join me at the hotel after two weeks of hospital care. He was pale and terribly thin but the old Charlie was there inside. His wound was healing and the fever, which turned out to have been malaria, had gone.
‘Got your typewriter, Blake?’ he asked. I nodded. ‘Good, then we’ll get back to work.’
His wonderfully written report was filed within a week and apparently drew gasps of admiration from all who read it. I was thrilled to find that he credited me with rescuing him. ‘. . . a fellow journalist from this paper, Persephone Blake, assisted by another, made the dangerous mountain crossing to join me and two fellow deserters. She and another eventually got me to freedom and I am for ever in their debt. The details of our escape will be in my next report.’
‘You didn’t need to say that.’ I was blushing with pleasure.
‘Of course I did.’ He frowned. ‘I didn’t mention Amyas by name. It might be dangerous for him, wherever he is. Although,’ his frown ironed out and he gave one of his twinkly-eyed smiles, ‘it’ll be somewhere comfortable, I’ve no doubt about that.’
I had no doubt either.
We went to the English consul in Perpignan to arrange travel documents. I still had my passport, but of course Charlie had nothing. After many phone calls and telegrams, Charlie was furnished with papers which would allow him to board the plane that would take us home.
‘And the child, madame?’ asked the consul.
‘She is mine,’ I said. ‘Born in Spain.’ I gave her date of birth and my name as her mother.
‘The father’s name? We’ll need that.’
I bit my lip. Did I dare to give him Amyas’s name, which I knew to be false?
‘Bradford,’ said Charlie, butting in. ‘Charles Bradford. Put me down as the father.’
He winked at me. ‘It’ll do until we get home and you get her properly registered. Then, later on, perhaps, I can be her godfather.’
I smiled. ‘Thank you, Charlie,’ I said and nodded my consent to the consul, before turning back and giving Charlie a kiss on his cheek. ‘Of course you’ll be her godfather. Who else could I possibly want?’
The consul said nothing. Like the doctor and the nurse at the hospital when I told them about Elena’s death, I don’t think he was particularly shocked.
We were just another war story.
Chapter Eighteen
I’D BEEN HOME for three days when Jacob, with Willi tucked under his arm, knocked at my door. ‘Seffy, my dear,’ he said, raising my hand to his lips. ‘How wonderful to see that you have returned home safely.’
‘A bad penny always turns up, Jacob,’ I smiled and patted Willi’s smooth little head. He thumped his tail, showing approval. ‘I have a surprise for you.’
‘And I for you,’ he laughed. He stood aside so that I could see who was standing in the corridor behind him. It was Kitty.
‘Kitty!’ I cried as she walked shyly into my flat, and without thinking twice, I grabbed her into my arms and gave her a hug. ‘How wonderful.’ I looked beyond her. ‘Your mother?’ I asked, but I already knew the answer and glanced over Kitty’s shoulder to Jacob. He shook his head and put a warning finger to his lips.
‘Mamma said she will come in a few weeks,’ said Kitty, her face falling. ‘Some of the girls at the school are on their own and she has stayed to care for them. Their parents have been taken.’
‘Taken?’ I asked.
Jacob intervened. ‘That, we will talk about later. But I am happy that, at last, Kitty is here. I’m a silly old man who went to Harwich to meet her off the ferry but, somehow, we missed each other and I waited for other boats to come in. She was three days with a rabbi and his wife before I found her.’
‘Well, I’m absolutely thrilled,’ I said. ‘Come in and have a cup of tea with me. I want to hear all about your journey, Kitty, and what you’ve been up to, Jacob, while I’ve been away.’
‘But we have called to hear about your adventures, dear Seffy. It was in the newspaper, a big article. We all read it at the synagogue and again I was proud to say that you are my friend.’
I smiled
and ushered them in. My flat was more untidy than usual. My travel bag was on the floor, half unpacked, and some of Marisol’s clothes were hanging over the back of the wooden chair beside the window. I was learning fast that looking after a baby was utterly time-consuming. So far I’d only been out once, to buy food and various bits and pieces of baby stuff. I’d ordered a pram from Harrods, which I’d arranged to leave in the caretaker’s storeroom. The cot had arrived yesterday and was installed next to my bed. Fortunately, this was a three-bedroomed apartment, so my little girl would be able to have her own room in a few months’ time and so would the nanny, for whom I’d already inserted an advert in The Lady. As much as I loved Marisol, I wanted to work.
‘You have visitors?’ asked Jacob, looking around my chaotic living room. ‘We should go.’ He nodded to Kitty, who turned back towards the door.
‘No,’ I cried. ‘Don’t go. That is my surprise. I do have a visitor, but she will be a permanent visitor. Wait, while I fetch her.’
She was waking up when I went to her cot. My girl, now nearly a month old and just beginning to focus on me as the most important person in her little life. She looked so like Amyas, with the same dark hair and smooth olive skin, and I knew that when she was older she would put her head on one side and give me that same amused glance. Oh, she was his all right, and as hard as I looked at her, I could see nothing that resembled her poor dead mother. Maybe I didn’t want to see it.
‘This is my visitor,’ I announced, carrying Marisol into the living room. Jacob’s mouth dropped open, while Kitty gave a delighted squeal.
‘So, this baby belongs to a friend?’ Jacob reached out his hand and touched Marisol’s finger. ‘You take care of it?’
I shook my head. ‘Jacob, Kitty. Let me introduce Marisol . . . my daughter.’
The explanation that followed was brief and Jacob and Kitty listened with evident astonishment. I didn’t want to go into all the dreadful events that had accompanied Marisol’s birth, but even so, as I told them that her mother had died, Jacob’s expression became more and more uneasy.
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