When the Sky Fell Apart

by Caroline Lea

  ‘Joan, you know Claudine. The Duret girl?’

  ‘Of course.’ Her smile was all teeth; it didn’t touch her eyes.

  ‘Claudine has come for bullets. For this gun. For Edith. And I thought you might like a word or two?’

  They stared at each other for a moment, time stretching like elastic—the promise of stinging pain when it snapped back together.

  Finally Joan nodded, her smile stretching wider. ‘Of course.’

  Clement patted her on the shoulder and went through to the shop.

  ‘A cup of tea for you, dear?’ asked Joan.

  Claudine shook her head.

  ‘Come now, don’t be like that. Hasn’t your maman taught you your manners?’

  Claudine’s voice was faint, barely more than a breath. ‘All right. Yes, please.’

  ‘That’s better.’ Joan boiled the pan of water. Then she found the heel of cabbage loaf and a little pat of butter and set them down in front of Claudine.

  Hunger unfroze Claudine’s limbs and she grasped the piece of bread. She didn’t want to gobble her food because that was rude, but she couldn’t stop. She tore at it with her teeth. The bread felt warm in her stomach, even though it was days old and hard as a stone.

  Joan sat down next to Claudine. ‘Do you know,’ she said, ‘I remember when you were nothing but a babe in arms, such a good child. The sweetest, quietest baby a mother could wish for. I used to see your maman often.’

  Mouth crammed with bread, Claudine nodded again to show that she was listening.

  ‘We laughed a lot—we were great friends.’

  Claudine swallowed. ‘Did Maman laugh?’

  ‘Yes, your maman was quite the entertainer, back then. Quite the life and soul, she was. But children are hard work—don’t let anyone tell you different. Then, of course, there is rationing. It’s difficult to feed a hungry family, let me tell you that.’

  ‘Oh.’

  Claudine realised it must be true. Maman used to be happy, but the war and looking after children had stolen that. She laughed with Hans, but it was a tight laugh, like Madame Hacquoil’s smile.

  Claudine stopped chewing the bread, her vision suddenly blurred. She blinked.

  Joan put her hand on Claudine’s shoulder. ‘You mustn’t blame yourself: children can’t help but be burdensome. Come, wipe those eyes. But she’s taken up with that soldier now, your maman?’

  Claudine nodded. ‘Hans. I hate him.’

  ‘Of course you do. But you’ve heard what people say, haven’t you? About women who take up with soldiers?’

  Claudine wiped her eyes. More tears kept on coming, even when she dug her nails into her hands so hard that she broke the skin.

  ‘People talk, Claudine, I’m afraid. An important thing, your reputation. And once it’s ruined… Well, it’s like throwing blood over white sheets. You can scrub them as much as you like, but that stain won’t budge.’

  Claudine gulped. ‘So will people always think badly of Maman?’

  ‘I’m afraid they just might. Now, we know the truth, don’t we? We both know that your maman is keeping you and your brother safe and warm. Keeping your bellies full. But people can be cruel, and memories are long.’

  Claudine sobbed. ‘I don’t want them talking about her forever simply because…’ And then she realised it was all her fault that Maman had brought Hans into the house. If Claudine hadn’t been so hungry all the time. She ate far more than Francis. ‘I’ve tried…’

  ‘You’re a good girl, I know that. And you couldn’t help it; children never mean to be selfish. But you can make things better now. Do you think you might like to help your maman?’

  Claudine nodded.

  ‘I don’t think she’s bad,’ Joan said, with a sideways glance at Claudine. She placed her hand over her heart, as if the words she was speaking pained her. ‘I’m simply saying what others will think. But do you know, you can stop them? You can change what they’re saying.’

  Claudine sniffed. The handkerchief was sodden; she wiped her nose on the back of her hand.

  ‘How?’

  ‘Well, you must remember that I’m only trying to help people. You know that now, don’t you?’ She pressed her hand against her chest again. ‘Good. I want people to stop getting themselves in trouble, and I’ve a feeling you might know some more people who could be doing something silly. Something that could cause trouble. Yes?’

  Claudine sat with her hands in her lap, twisting the handkerchief around her fingers. There were four little bloody half-moons on her skin.

  ‘I thought we were talking about Maman.’

  ‘We are.’ Joan’s eyes were wide and sincere. ‘We’re talking about how you can help her, and also how you can help your friends. You don’t want your friends to be in danger, do you?’

  Claudine shook her head.

  ‘And we can help. Clement and I. We like to help people to stay safe. Your maman—we can look after her. We can look after your friends too. Anything they need.’

  Claudine kept staring at her hands. The wounds looked like broken little mouths now, dribbling blood. Right and wrong were like that: one minute the truth was one thing, the next minute it was something else. The Germans had done that when they arrived, turning everything upside down.

  Joan’s voice was soft, crooning. ‘Imagine it: bread and butter for your maman and your little brother. And your friends. But you must tell us everything.’

  ‘That’s all you want?’ Claudine asked, quietly. ‘So you can help? You won’t tell the Germans anything?’

  ‘Goodness, no, the very idea!’

  Claudine remembered how she had trusted Gregor. He had been good and honest, even though he was a German soldier. And they really needed the bullets. Claudine also needed to know Maman would be safe and her reputation wouldn’t be ruined. Madame Hacquoil was in charge of people’s reputations: Claudine knew that.

  So she told her everything.

  About Maurice’s boat and how Gregor was helping them to escape. How they were all going to escape to England and be happy. How she was scared to leave Maman with Hans and how she wanted her to have extra help because Claudine would miss her and Francis so.

  Joan listened. Sometimes she nodded. When Claudine had finished, Joan smiled her smile full of teeth and embraced Claudine, gripping her hard.

  ‘Thank you for telling me, Claudine. That’s very brave of you. You’re a very good girl, you really are.’

  ‘You won’t tell, will you?’

  ‘No! Of course not.’

  ‘You’ll look after Maman for me? So that she doesn’t have to do…bad things?’

  ‘Yes.’ Joan squeezed her arm. Her fingers were cold and bony. ‘You’ve done the right thing.’ Then she stood and clapped her hands. ‘Now, you must be off, sharpish, young lady, or you’ll miss the tide.’

  As Claudine stood, she pressed a small sack into her hands. But before the butcher’s wife could move away, Claudine gave her a quick kiss on her cheek, which held the bitter smell of blood.

  ‘Thank you. For looking after Maman. And for not telling.’

  Claudine ran all the way home, her heart rattling to the staccato clatter of five bullets in a tin.

  CLAUDINE was safe and they had bullets for the gun.

  Edith tried to keep her thoughts on that and pay no mind to the fist of fear compressing her chest. She fixed her eyes on the blue-black sky and its uncountable stars. Maurice had chosen a night when the moon was but a thin paring of silver, so they had to pick out their path from memory. But Edith could have walked the whole route blindfolded: she knew the shape of the land as she would have known her own child’s skin.

  Maurice had gone ahead, carrying Marthe. He would be the slowest, he’d said, and he didn’t want the others captured because of his noise.

  He’d taken a route that had only one patrol near it. At the tramp of German boots, they all crouched behind a bush. Edith glared for quiet. The patrol was too noisy to hear anything but their o
wn voices anyway: great lumbering louts, chattering and laughing. They trampled by without stopping and the group stood up again.

  Edith had only taken two steps when she heard Claudine’s voice, shrill with panic.

  ‘Edith! Something is wrong with Dr Carter!’

  And, impossible to credit as it was, the man was lying down, pressing his face into the soil, as though he’d been shot.

  What on earth is he doing, risking everything like this, and with the patrol still so near?

  ‘Come on now,’ she snapped. ‘Up you get.’

  ‘Oh Christ, I can’t do this,’ he groaned.

  Edith felt a stab of fury. ‘Oh for goodness sake, up! Of course you can do it, pull yourself together.’

  He didn’t shift a muscle. ‘I’m not moving, I tell you. It’s madness. They’ll catch us, and that’ll be it.’

  ‘Well, they will if you stay sat here.’

  ‘You don’t understand. The Commandant has informants everywhere. And it’s not only me he’ll punish. Good God, the hospital. He’ll incinerate the place. Or he’ll have Hacquoil shot. What was I thinking? Trying to save my own skin and putting everybody else in danger. It’ll be disaster for all of you too, if you’re caught with me. He’ll show no mercy. I must go back and turn myself in.’

  Edith crouched next to him and dug her fingers into his arm. Her voice was a rattle of rage.

  ‘You’ll do no such thing. Now, up!’

  ‘You don’t know what he’s capable of. He could torch the whole island and everyone on it and he’d think it a fine joke.’

  She stared at the others. Claudine’s face was pale; she looked set to cry, and Edith was about to tell her not to worry, they’d think of something, they’d move him somehow, even if they had to carry him down to the sea, when Gregor pushed past and pressed his gun against Carter’s skull.

  ‘You move. Now.’

  Edith gasped and tried to wrench his hand away. ‘Gregor! Stop!’

  ‘Gregor, no!’ Claudine said.

  Gregor didn’t shift his eyes from the point where the gleaming metal of the gun rested against Carter’s head. His hand didn’t tremble; his voice was cold, clear.

  ‘He must move or he will kill us.’

  Edith’s hands fluttered to pull Gregor’s arm away, but she knew he was right: Carter had to move or they would all die. And yet the poor man looked broken, his face twisted in pain and fear.

  The gun clicked as Gregor pulled back the hammer. His next movement would kill Carter.

  Carter groaned, heaved himself upright and stumbled onwards. The rest of them followed, shakily. Strange, the sensation of your heart hammering inside the roof of your mouth, Edith thought as she swallowed. A chill hush over everything, apart from their footsteps and Carter’s sobs.

  The sea was still. A thousand memories of the sand beneath her feet at night. The beach had swallowed the gnawing cold from the air and the sea. It took Edith’s breath away every time, the bite of it.

  She closed her eyes for a moment: every step was like trawling through mud, as though the land had tangled the fine thread of a fishing twine around her soul and was tugging her back. It set an ache in her insides, but she pushed on.

  The others crunched behind her. She held up a hand. The faint sound of something scraping over the sand over by the rocks.

  They followed the noise, tripping over sand and stones and stinking vraic until they found the cave where Maurice’s boat was hidden.

  Maurice had settled Marthe in the bottom of the boat. She was sleeping; her hair was frowzy and the poor love had sand on her cheek.

  Edith whispered, ‘Well, no sense in hanging about.’

  Maurice and Gregor pushed and heaved, but they couldn’t shift the boat over the hillock of sand made by the tide. They kept on shoving until Maurice fell, and before Edith could hush them, both men were sniggering like schoolboys.

  ‘Shhhhhh!’ she hissed. ‘Buffoons, the lot of you. Go on, Doctor, don’t just stand there! Help them, or we’ll be here until the morning patrols come.’

  Carter pushed, but he was as weak as a kitten and he tumbled over too. Giggled right along with them.

  ‘Oh, for heaven’s sake!’ Edith started pushing on the boat. ‘Lend a hand, Claudine, love.’

  The three men were holding on to each other, laughing: that silent laughter that makes no noise except the sucking of more air into the lungs. Edith couldn’t help smiling.

  But this wasn’t getting them anywhere. So she hurried them along to unload the boat and lay everything on the sand: Marthe, the engine, the petrol, the food and drink. They all pushed as hard as they could and then, like a cork from a bottle, the boat shot forwards and up over the little sand-hummock and splashed down into the sea, leaving Edith flat on her face with a mouthful of sand.

  The men lifted her to her feet, apologising, but now Edith couldn’t help it—the laughter pealed out of her in waves and the sound bounced out across the water. For a moment, the days and years stretched out ahead of her and she could see all of them in England, happy and safe and together. No hunger. No bloody soldiers. Except Gregor.

  Edith clutched his hand. He kissed her palm, her fingers, one by one, his mouth warm and alive.

  They waded out into the sea. The icy undertow tugged at their clothes like a greedy mouth. Edith clasped Claudine’s arm tight. There was no going back now and, for a moment, Edith feared that Claudine might try to stay, might sit on the sand, bawling for her maman and Francis.

  But the girl fairly flew into the boat. The glimmer of water on her back in the near dark; she put Edith in mind of a dolphin, leaping free for the joy of it. Then Gregor lifted the bags of food and water in.

  Maurice said, ‘Danke schön.’

  ‘You’re welcome,’ Gregor replied.

  Maurice lifted Marthe, ever so gently, from Gregor’s arms and Claudine laid one of the bags beneath her head. A kind child. She would survive; she would flourish, Edith was sure of it.

  Edith turned to Carter. ‘Well, what are you waiting for? A marching band?’

  ‘Well, I was rather hoping…’

  They shared a grin. Then Carter waded out and tried to pull himself up into the boat, but he kept slipping back into the water. It was too loud, the constant splashing and grunting, and Edith felt that cold, clutching dread from earlier. How long before a patrol heard them? She cringed at the memory of her loud laugh.

  ‘Hurry!’ she hissed.

  All around Edith, the land was inky black. The sea was black too, and breathless. No light, except for the pitiless, unblinking stars, but that didn’t mean there weren’t eyes out there, watching.

  ‘I find kicking helps,’ Maurice offered.

  Carter jumped and kicked. He almost managed it, but then he slipped and splashed back into the water. His head went under and he came up spluttering.

  Maurice and Edith hissed, ‘Shhhhh!’ at the same time.

  ‘Well, would you rather I choked to death?’ Carter’s voice was squeaky with trying not to cough. He flailed his legs and jumped, then Gregor gave him a good shove on his backside and he tumbled into the boat.

  Edith waded out and readied herself to leave.

  MAURICE rowed steadily. Claudine searched the blank face of the land and tried to imagine where Francis would be. Asleep in bed, she hoped. Was he crying for her? Edith had told her earlier that small children were tough little things. He won’t fret for long, she’d said. Claudine wanted to be reassured by that, but her own aching grief swelled like a sickness with every pull on the oars.

  She wished Maman was with her. The old Maman, before Hans. Before she started trying to make everything better by doing the wrong things. Then, perhaps Claudine could sleep, curled in her lap, and when she woke up time would have changed and healed everything.

  But Maman could never have come with them because Hans might have found out—and, of course, it would have been too dangerous to take Francis.

  Dr Carter’s voice cut across he
r reverie: ‘Do you need a hand with those oars then, Maurice? Must be hard work, rowing all of us. I’m happy to help—did a fair bit of rowing, you see, back in the day. London rowing club and all.’

  ‘No, thank you, Doctor. I’ll row until we’re out of earshot of the bay. Then I can set the motor up.’

  ‘Righty-oh. I’ll dig out the petrol canister for you.’

  ‘Under those blankets.’

  But Carter couldn’t find the canister. He looked everywhere. They all searched around their feet and under the rest of the bags. No petrol anywhere. Claudine could see the same terror and disbelief on all of their faces. She felt it too: a sinking sensation, like cold water draining out of a bottle.

  ‘I don’t believe it,’ Maurice said. ‘It was there, I put it in the boat yesterday—’

  ‘I don’t remember seeing it,’ Edith said. ‘We took everything out when we pushed the boat down to the sea and I didn’t see a canister.’

  ‘Someone must’ve taken it,’ Maurice said, savagely. ‘Some bastard wants to see us shot—’

  ‘That can’t be right.’ Edith laid a hand on Maurice’s arm. ‘No one knows we’re leaving.’

  ‘Someone has found out somehow and they’re setting us up, I tell you.’

  Claudine’s stomach jolted. Surely the Hacquoils wouldn’t have done this? They wouldn’t have had time, would they? Unless… She imagined a small, dark shape. A girl, only a little younger than Claudine, running barefoot through the night, heaving a petrol canister home to her waiting parents.

  Mary Hacquoil.

  Claudine closed her eyes and shook her head to dispel the image. The Hacquoils wouldn’t do such a thing. Maurice must have forgotten the petrol, somehow.

  ‘Can you row all the way?’ she whispered.

  Maurice laughed. Fierce and raw. ‘No.’

  The waves slapped against the boat, as if the sea itself were telling them hurry hurry hurry.

  ‘We’ll take turns to row,’ Edith said. ‘Give you a rest. We can do shifts. We’re in this together. Even Claudine can do a spot of rowing, can’t you, love?’

  Maurice shook his head. His mouth wobbled, as though he might cry, even though Claudine knew grown men didn’t cry.