by Alex Gerlis
Nathalie lay on her back naked and staring at the ceiling. Owen rolled over onto his side and leaned over her. With his finger, he gently traced a pattern across her breasts. Her black eyes swivelled from the ceiling and locked into his and she smiled.
Carpe diem.
‘I want to know more about you, Nathalie.’ The question sounded awkward and even his speaking seemed to have broken a perfect mood. Her eyes frowned very slightly and the smile subsided.
‘What do you want to know, Owen? I’ve told you everything, I’m a boring person. Do you want me to be more exciting? Shall I tell you that I am secret agent who arrived here by parachute? That I am a descendant of Napoleon? Ask me whatever questions you want. Go on.’
There was a pause. Linwood’s observation that he seemed to know little about her had struck a chord; he knew very little about her. Try as he might, there were times when he felt that he had absolutely no idea of what she was really like. But he had no idea what questions to ask. He smiled and kissed her cheek and she took hold of that hand that had stopped tracing patterns on her breasts and started it again.
ooo000ooo
CHAPTER ELEVEN
London
July 1943
A fortnight after Archibald had told him about the secret invasion plans for the Pas de Calais, Owen Quinn and Nathalie were invited to dinner by Archibald.
‘Mrs Archibald is on one of her rare visits from Lincolnshire and I thought it would be a good idea: we’ve invited two other couples. Melrose is Army, but perfectly decent chap. Work with him at COSSAC though you don’t know that, of course. And Hardisty is at the Air Ministry. Wife’s French, so that ought to be jolly for your wife. Strictly nothing about work, of course.’
Nathalie, who had recently begun to complain that London was a boring city, was nonetheless not enthusiastic about the invitation.
‘My English will not be good enough,’ she said as they ate their supper the evening that her husband told her about the dinner.
‘Your English is almost fluent, darling.’
‘Almost?’ She sounded angry.
‘Well, yes. “Almost fluent” is not a criticism – it actually means that your English is excellent. You will have no problem in taking part in the conversation, I assure you.’
‘They will all talk about work.’
‘We are not allowed to talk about work.’
‘Why?’
‘I have explained that to you, darling. What I do is secret. I am just not allowed to discuss it. Same reason as I can never tell you anything. The same will apply to everyone else there.’
‘But what is that word you use to describe how you find your work? Sounds like “tea”?’
‘“Tedious” do you mean?’
‘Yes. So if your work is so tedious, how can it be so secret?
‘That is how it is.’
‘So it will be very boring. I suppose we will have to talk about the weather.’
‘Quite possibly. And cats.’
‘Why cats?’
‘It’s a joke, Nathalie. An English joke. You say that the English talk about the weather. Well, the other great English topic of conversation is their pets.’
‘But we do not have any pets. We can be sure we will not talk about food. No one is interested in food in this country. In France, there would be riots if we had to eat the kind of food you are happy to eat in England.’
Nathalie was toying with the remains of the casserole that she had cooked. Owen was finishing his second helping while she had hardly eaten at all. With his mouth full he gestured towards his plate and gave a thumbs-up sign. ‘But this is good!’
‘That is my point, Owen. You are satisfied with this. The meat is tough and you cannot buy the proper herbs anyway. You English think that pepper and salt is all you need. I am ashamed of this meal, even though I had to smile very sweetly at the butcher to persuade him to give me a tiny bit more of what you call meat here. Even then, it is not what I call a proper casserole. It’s mostly carrots.’
ooo000ooo
The dinner was taking place in Archibald’s club, which was round the corner from Lincoln House, in St James’s Street. Quinn had worn his best uniform to work and Nathalie met him outside there at seven, looking ravishing. She was not allowed beyond reception, but Quinn basked in the approving looks of the guards when he went down to meet her.
She linked her arm into his, her fingers squeezing the inside of his elbow and her shoulder nestling against him. They strolled into Jermyn Street where she promised to buy him a suit when they were rich and into St James’s Street, turning left, crossing the road and walking the twenty yards or so to Archibald’s club.
Quinn had to agree that the dinner was hard work. You could blame the food (Brown Windsor soup, an oddly greyish beef in a thick, dark sauce and apple pie) on wartime, but the conversation was somewhat stilted. And this was despite the wine, which was a very decent Côtes du Rhône.
Hardisty, it turned out, had met his wife in Paris before the war when he had been an air attaché at the Embassy, so he was fluent in French. For much of the meal they had to listen to Melrose’s wife, the extent of whose wartime deprivation seemed to be some minor problems with domestic staff. Captain Archibald and his wife talked about their life in Lincolnshire, while for much of the time Hardisty’s wife and Nathalie were speaking in French.
At first, Nathalie had been solicitous enough in finding out which part of Paris Madame Hardisty was from (‘the eighth arrondissement – off the Boulevard Haussmann). And you?’ ‘Oh, we moved around. Usually south of the fourteenth’ and Madame Hardisty smiled politely, clear now that it was most unlikely that their paths had ever crossed.
She was answering all their questions politely enough, but did not sustain any conversation.
It was a balmy July evening, so they walked back to Pimlico.
‘Did you enjoy the evening?’
‘It was fine.’
‘Did you get on with Madame Hardisty.’
‘She was fine. But you know, we are from very different ... societies. She is a different kind of person to me. You have to learn to understand this, Owen. This kind of person, they live in a very different kind of France. The France they expect to find after the war is very different to mine.’
Quinn wanted to ask her just what she meant, but Nathalie had a way of shutting down a conversation when she wished it to go no further. By now they had turned into Alderney Street and he had more important things on his mind.
ooo000ooo
Two days after the dinner there was a minor disaster in Lincoln House. In response to Quinn’s demands for some help with translation, Archibald had found an elderly, retired French teacher with what he described as an admirably high level of security clearance. As far as Quinn could gather, the main criterion for her high level of security clearance was the fact that both of her brothers had fought in the Great War.
So two or three days a week Miss Lean would slowly make her way to the office where she would sit at a desk and with the aid of a large dictionary that she brought with her in a basket, laboriously translate.
The minor disaster came with a message one morning that Miss Lean had slipped on her way to work and broken both of her ankles. She would not be returning. Miss Lean was replaced by a Frenchwoman in her late thirties who was physically stronger than Miss Lean, it would have been difficult to be otherwise, but emotionally fragile.
She only had to look at a postcard from France, or a photograph or even a map, for her to burst into tears. After just one week, Archibald had to agree that her psychological state was not conducive with working in such a sensitive environment.
‘What are we meant to do?’ Quinn asked Archibald. ‘We need all these translations done and until then, it’s just holding us up.’
They were in Archibald’s office. Quinn was clutching a pile of papers that needed translating, which he had brought in for added impact. Archibald was thinking quietly, drumming his long fing
ers on the desk in front of him. After a while, Archibald nodded quietly to himself.
‘There is a possible solution, Quinn. Not one that I am terribly happy with, but one that may work. I know that this was mentioned a few weeks ago, but now it seems that your wife ...’ he had put his glasses on now and was looking at a sheet of paper ‘... did indeed have a higher level of clearance than we had at first realised when she moved to Calcotte Grange. What we’ve done is check her out a bit more and we can move her clearance up another notch or two so that she has the right level to help you out with some of this. Help you shift all this stuff. You’re going to be inundated with material, aren’t you?’
Quinn nodded in agreement.
‘No reason then for you not to take the odd low level stuff home, work over the weekend, peace and quiet, that kind of thing. And with so much in French, to be able to ask her will save a lot of time. Obviously, we keep it all hush-hush and she doesn’t need to see any more than she has to. Nothing top secret, you understand. She can’t know about the context of what you may ask her, but the odd word here and there – no harm in that. She doesn’t need to know what all this is about and I certainly don’t mean going telling her where landings are going to be, eh!’
Quinn was surprised, but agreed that it did indeed sound reasonable. It was certainly going make life that little bit easier. Recently Nathalie had been going on about how he told her nothing about what he did and she was wondering whether that meant he didn’t love her.
ooo000ooo
RAF Scampton
Lincolnshire
Dear Owen Quinn,
My name is Andy Wood and I was a close colleague and friend of Flying Officer Anthony (Tony) Linwood. It is with deep regret that I am writing to inform you that Tony is listed as missing, presumed dead, after his Lancaster was lost in action in an air raid over Hamburg last month. Tony was a loyal and brave member of 617 Squadron and is sorely missed by everyone here at RAF Scampton.
I gave Tony a lift back to Lincolnshire the same night that he bumped into you in St James’s Park and I know how thrilled he was to have met up with you again. He was in very good spirits that night and I am sure that is in large measure due to having met up with you. He was full of admiration for you and said what a lucky man you are. Sadly, the raid in which he was killed took place just the night after you and he met.
I am sorry for the delay in writing to you with this appalling news, but I only recently found your address among his papers.
Yours truly,
(Flight Lieutenant) Andy Wood
ooo000ooo
Owen’s parents arrived in London on the last Sunday in July for a much-heralded and long-planned visit. He and Nathalie had bickered all morning as they prepared for his parents’ arrival. Nathalie sat on the bed painting her nails: ‘It is not often that I have a Sunday off,’ she complained, ‘and when I do I’d rather not spend it with your mother. She reminds me of the sisters at the hospital – always critical, always checking on what I’m doing.’
But you’re not doing a lot, Owen thought as he moved the furniture round in the tiny lounge. He had somehow managed to shift one of the enormous armchairs into their bedroom, which meant that they could open out the table and squeeze the four of them around it, even if that did mean him having to sit on the arm of the remaining armchair. He had little doubt that his mother would strongly disapprove of that.
‘Shall I tell you how long I had to queue for the chicken?’ the voice in the bedroom asked.
‘You’ve already told me, Nathalie. Two hours.’
‘Two hours.’
‘Well, it does smell absolutely delicious, darling. I honestly can’t remember the last time I had chicken. Must have been in the New Year at my parents’. They’ll be thrilled. You can’t beat roast chicken.’
She appeared in the doorway of the bedroom to inspect the rearrangement of the lounge. She was wearing his dressing gown; tantalisingly part-open at the front, revealing that she was wearing nothing underneath. Her hands were held out in front of her, the fingers spread-eagled and slowly waving as she tried to dry her nails.
‘It’s only just a chicken. In France it would have been living on a farm for very old chickens. Even French foxes would have the sense to ignore it. And where are you going to sit?’
‘For heaven’s sake, just stop it!’ he shouted.
‘Pardon?’ She looked genuinely taken aback.
‘Just leave it will you. Please stop complaining at everything. I am entitled to have my parents round and for them to have something decent to eat. I know this country is not France but I think it has been pretty decent to you. How would you like to be back in France now, with all those bloody Nazis around?’ He stepped back, shocked at his own outburst.
‘Owen,’ she said, smiling sweetly and allowing the dressing gown to slip from her shoulders and to the floor. ‘You’ve never spoken to me like that before. Come here ...’
‘Hang on, you do realise that the curtains are open and ...’
She stepped back into the bedroom, where the curtains were drawn.
‘And what?’
He put down the cutlery. He could lay the table later, after he had peeled the potatoes. He was inside the bedroom, his shirt already off when the doorbell rang.
ooo000ooo
‘So we had to stick to the A3 even though ...’
‘William, I am sure Owen and Nathalie do not want to hear all about our journey today. It is not as if we had to fight our way past the Germans!’
Marjorie Quinn shrieked at her own joke and her husband and son laughed politely, while her daughter-in-law looked confused.
‘Well I must say, Nathalie, that it is a real treat to have chicken. Delicious. Cordon what is it you call it in France?’ asked her father-in-law.
‘They call it cordon bleu, William, though I would not have thought that this is cordon bleu. Personally, I prefer my chicken to be roasted for rather longer, but then you probably have not had much experience recently, have you, Nathalie? Owen dear, do you really need to be sitting at the dining table on the edge of an armchair?’
‘Mother, please!’
‘Please what, Owen?’
His mother, father and wife had all stopped eating and were looking at him.
‘Mother ... this is my home and my wife ... please do stop going on.’
The ensuing silence was broken ten minutes later by Marjorie Quinn’s much diminished voice.
‘I was only saying ...’ she said softly .
Her husband patted her on the wrist. ‘Probably best not to say anything dear ...’
They left soon after lunch: their journey that morning having been so difficult they didn’t want to leave it too late.
Once they had returned to the flat after seeing his parents off, Nathalie led him straight into the bedroom.
An hour later she planted an arm firmly across his chest as he tried to get up from the bed.
‘But we need to clear up.’
‘You’re reward hasn’t finished, Owen. Why are you looking so puzzled?’
‘Reward for what?’
‘That you’re not a boy any longer, are you?’ She was brushing the long fair hair away from his damp brow, combing it back with her long fingers. ‘The way you spoke to me this morning, the way you spoke to your mother ... you are learning to stand up for yourself. I think I like it.’
An hour later, Owen was to be found happily tidying up the flat and merrily whistling as he washed up the dishes.
Nathalie soaked in a tepid bath for longer than she normally would have done. Life is so confusing, she thought. Everything starts off by being confused. And then you realise what you have to do and you go and do it and everything becomes clearer. And then, things get in the way. Events. People. Places. Emotions become involved, even if you don’t intend them to or even want them to. So you end up being confused again.
ooo000ooo
CHAPTER TWELVE
London
&
nbsp; November 1943
‘Well, all I can say is that this is most irregular. Most irregular.’
‘But Leigh, everything you chaps do is most irregular!’
‘I simply cannot imagine what Selbourne thought he was playing at, agreeing to this nonsense.’
Major Edgar stood up, his tall frame blocking out some of the sunlight as he did so. He was not averse to using his considerable height to help bring his influence to bear on a situation and he needed to use all of his influence now in what was a very tense situation. His recent promotion had added to his sense of confidence.
There was silence in the room. They were in the Baker Street headquarters of the Special Operations Executive, the SOE. Outside, there was a steady hum of traffic. Inside, a small ornate clock on Leigh’s desk was ticking in what appeared to be an erratic manner. The clock reminded Edgar of Leigh, ornate and erratic, from an earlier era.
Edgar was becoming exasperated. The small man he was now towering over reminded him of an ineffectual country vicar, with a high-pitched, whiny voice to match. Edgar did not understand why they picked these academics from the Oxbridge colleges where they had spent most of their lives and assume that because they were an authority on a medieval French poet no one had heard of, they would therefore fit naturally into the upper echelons of British Intelligence.
‘The 3rd Earl of Selbourne is the Minister for Economic Warfare, Dr Leigh. He is responsible for your organisation. He has agreed to this operation.’
‘I am quite aware of who Selbourne is, Edgar. No doubt Churchill twisted his arm. But it does not stop this being most irregular.’