‘Did it work?’ Bel asked with a trace of irony.
‘I won you over, didn’t I?’ Jess teased, facing her friend and pushing the past back down to where it belonged.
She ladled soup into bowls and pushed a pile of clippings across the table towards Bel. ‘Martha told me to read these. Ruth Cowan and Inez Robb got themselves assigned to the WACs – the Women’s Army Corp – in North Africa and they’ve been reporting from there. About what it’s like to have to wear trousers instead of skirts and the trials of only going to the hair salon every few months. In this one,’ Jess pointed to a page, ‘Cowan even says she’d prefer to have a bomb fall on her than share a ditch with a spider. I wonder if any of those things cross the minds of the soldiers out there? Every one of their by-lines carries the words “Girl Reporter”. If you put that on any of my pieces I’ll never speak to you again.’
‘What are they going to do with you if you do get yourself over there?’ Bel said, shaking her head and starting to laugh. ‘I’d hate to be the first man to try calling you a girl reporter. Don’t forget you’re probably subject to military law so you might have to eat your words occasionally. Although I can’t imagine how a woman who had her first kiss at age fifteen will tolerate censorship.’
‘My plan is not to kiss anybody while I’m away,’ Jess informed her primly. ‘If I do, then I just reinforce every suspicion they already have about me. I’m sure they’re itching for me to seduce an entire division of the US Army. I’m not planning to give them the satisfaction.’
‘Sounds like you won’t be having any satisfaction while you’re away, then.’ Bel grinned, and that did it.
Jess felt her eyes tear up and her throat tighten. ‘I think Emile has cured me of wanting that kind of satisfaction for a good while.’
‘I wanted to make you laugh,’ Bel said. ‘Don’t cry. The formidable Jessica May does not cry. Even when our art director excoriated you in front of a whole team of graphic designers for framing a picture with too much surrealist ambition, I never saw you cry.’
Jess gave a small laugh and wiped her eyes, hoping to wipe away all thoughts of Emile. ‘I’d forgotten about that,’ she said to Bel. ‘That was the day you told me you were going to run my first piece. We went and drank too much champagne at the Stork Club afterwards.’
‘And here you are now, waiting to take more photos and write a whole lot more pieces about a war.’
‘Perhaps it pays to be publicly excoriated and then to go out and get drunk.’
‘Sounds like a motto that might hold you in good stead for the next couple of years.’ Bel hugged Jess. ‘I’m going to miss you. When you go. Not if. When.’
ALSO BY NATASHA LESTER
Copyright
The quote on page 1 is reprinted with permission © Madeline Miller, 2018, Circe, Bloomsbury Publishing Plc. The quote from Giles Whittell’s book Spitfire Women of World War II on page 41 is reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd © 2007 Giles Whittell. The quote on page 323 from A God in Ruins by Kate Atkinson, published by Black Swan, reprinted by permission of The Random House Group Limited © 2015. The quote by Vera Atkins on page 395 from A Life in Secrets: The Story of Vera Atkins and the Lost Agents of SOE by Sarah Helm is reprinted by permission of Little, Brown Book Group Ltd © 2005.
Every effort has been made to contact copyright holders of materials reproduced in this book. If anyone has further information, please contact the publishers.
Published in Australia and New Zealand in 2020
by Hachette Australia
(an imprint of Hachette Australia Pty Limited)
Level 17, 207 Kent Street, Sydney NSW 2000
www.hachette.com.au
Copyright © Natasha Lester 2020
This book is copyright. Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of private study, research, criticism or review permitted under the Copyright Act 1968, no part may be stored or reproduced by any process without prior written permission. Enquiries should be made to the publisher.
978 0 7336 4188 6 (paperback)
978 0 7336 4189 3 (ebook edition)
Cover design by Christabella Designs
Cover photograph courtesy of Ilina Simenova/Trevillion Images
Author photograph courtesy of Stef King/stefking.com.au
Table of Contents
About the Author
Title Page
Contents
Dedication
Prologue
Part One: Skye One: Cornwall, August 1928
Two
Part Two: Kat Three: Cornwall, June 2012
Part Three: Skye Four: Paris, September 1939
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Part Four: Kat Nine: Sydney, 2012
Ten
Eleven
Part Five: Skye Twelve: England, November 1942
Thirteen
Fourteen
Fifteen
Sixteen
Seventeen
Part Six: Kat Eighteen: London, July 2012
Nineteen
Twenty
Part Seven: Skye Twenty-One: England, June 1943
Twenty-Two
Twenty-Three
Part Eight: Kat Twenty-Four: Cornwall, 2012
Twenty-Five
Twenty-Six
Part Nine: Margaux Twenty-Seven: Granville, France, July 1945
Part Ten: Skye Twenty-Eight: England, March 1944
Twenty-Nine
Thirty
Part Eleven: Kat Thirty-One: London, 2012
Part Twelve: Skye Thirty-Two: England, April 1944
Thirty-Three
Thirty-Four
Part Thirteen: Nicholas Thirty-Five: France, May 1944
Part Fourteen: Kat Thirty-Six: Cornwall, 2012
Part Fifteen: Margaux Thirty-Seven: Granville, 1946
Part Sixteen: Kat Thirty-Eight: Cornwall, 2012
Thirty-Nine
Forty
Author’s Note
Acknowledgements
An Extract of The French Photographer
Also by Natasha Lester
Copyright
The Paris Secret : A Novel (2020) Page 43