The Sea Garden

by Deborah Lawrenson

  With his innate sense of fair play, Colonel Tyndale could not comprehend why de Gaulle was so often hostile to his country of exile, so mistrustful. They were supposed to be working together for the greater good.

  It was a trying day, and apparently endless, too. It was after nine o’clock when Iris walked round the corner of Tavistock Square, feeling for her keys in the pocket of her handbag, and almost stumbled into him in the darkness. He was leaning against the wall of the entrance portico.

  “Iris?”

  “Who’s that?” she said, though there was only one person who spoke like that, who would have presumed like that.

  “Are you on your own?”

  “How did you know where to find me?”

  “I took you home in a taxi, remember?”

  “I remember. I thought it was you who couldn’t.”

  “Can I come in?”

  She left him waiting for a short while in silence before she opened the door and led the way up the winding stairs to the top floor.

  The flat was cold. Iris went over to the eaves window of the main room and checked the blackout curtain before clicking on a lamp. Xavier stood at the door.

  “Do you live here alone?” he asked.

  “No. My friend Nancy shares with me.”

  “Will she be back soon?”

  Nancy had taken leave to be with Phil in Lincolnshire, but she wasn’t sure he should know that. “She might.”

  Iris took a box of matches and knelt on the rug to ignite the gas fire. Xavier was so quiet that she thought for a desperate few seconds that he was not there—that he had slipped away from her again, or perhaps had never even been there at all. It was four days since he had blanked her at Bignor.

  “What can I do to help you?” she asked, trying to keep her tone neutral.

  He shook off his coat and dropped down at her side on the tatty rug.

  “You can forgive me . . . for the other night.”

  “Pretending we had never met? I’m sure you had your reasons.”

  “It would not have been wise to show it,” he said.

  In any other circumstances she would have asked him to explain himself. If he had been any man but Xavier Descours—if he had not been such a respected key player in the network, far senior to her. As it was, they sat and watched the sputter of the blue flames and listened to the hiss and murmur of the gas. Then, very slowly, he turned to her.

  “Would you rather I left?” he asked.

  “No.”

  He seemed nervous, which surprised her. She still had no idea what he was doing here, whether it was in contravention of some official rules, whether he was here because of her job or whether it was personal.

  “Is everything all right?” she asked.

  “Of course it is.”

  “It’s just—”

  “Qui s’excuse, s’accuse. Talk to me.”

  “What about?”

  “Anything. Anything that is not about the war.”

  The room warmed. She found a bottle of brandy. The first glass blunted their mutual nervousness, and the second made them laugh too readily and talk nonsense. They ignored the old armchairs and the divan draped in the Moroccan blanket and remained on the floor.

  “We ought to eat something,” said Iris. “Though Lord knows what.”

  “Mme Barbara is right,” he said. “We should allow ourselves to find enjoyment where we can. Pretend to ourselves that we live only in the present, where there is no war, no inhumanity, no terror.”

  Iris raised her glass. “To the present.”

  She began to talk about a play she had seen, but was disconcerted by the way he studied her, curious and alert to every movement. After a while they simply watched each other, taking in every detail. For the longest time nothing was said.

  “It’s the little things that give you away,” he said.

  “What do you mean by that?” she asked.

  “You are clearly a dedicated follower of the rules.”

  “Whereas you are not?”

  “Let’s say I don’t dwell on the rules, the possibility of failure, of disaster. I try to find the positive wherever I can.”

  His expression was serious, without a hint of a smile or the amused twist at the corner of his mouth.

  There was no contact between them, but her skin was tingling. It took her by surprise; she felt naked, even through the fabric of her clothes. She wondered whether she should stop this now.

  The rug seemed rougher under her hand as she shifted on its woollen ridges. “Where are you staying?” she asked.

  “I was hoping to stay here.”

  Still the silence between them pressed in. He was in no hurry to break it. The gas flame hissed. A door slammed below, and footsteps receded on the stairs. A vehicle passed on the road.

  She thought about the bar near the office where the men and women of F Section and other special employments mingled; the “bedtime stories” that were common currency. There was no reason for him not to presume she was the same as all the other young women who lived fast in these uncertain times.

  “I’ve never done this before,” she said.

  A small smile reached his eyes. Was he mocking her? Anxiety rose in a wave, and then fell back as he—finally—reached out. He touched the side of her cheek very lightly with a fingertip. The gesture was so tender that she assumed it was an apology.

  She pulled away. What had come over her? He was so different from other men; it was his difference and experience that she wanted.

  The shapes of the room seemed to shift. The tiles on the fireplace caught the change in the light as he moved to pull her closer. She felt his warm hand on her arm, then it moved to stroke her leg, her ankle. She shifted her position, more afraid now that he would stop than she was of doing the wrong thing. Gently, he reached for one shoe and eased it off, then the other.

  She felt no shame, only innocence.

  She arrived at Baker Street the next morning with the warmth of his body still on her. In her bed under the eaves, he slept on. The way he felt had surprised her—so soft and yet strong, his muscles and ribs and the velvet touch of his skin; his sea and herbs scent. The gentle touches that had produced sensations she had never experienced before. The surprise that it was actually happening, the thrill of her own audacity, the impulsive wonder of it all.

  It was hard to concentrate. She was light-headed, raw but elated. Don’t think about what happens next, she thought, whether he will be there when I return. None of that mattered, only that she had acted on instinct and been rewarded.

  He was there when she returned. In the mirror, her reflection glowed and her eyes sparkled. He stayed for the next four nights.

  The only person Iris told was Nancy, when she returned from leave.

  “It was pretty obvious, as soon as I walked in,” said Nancy. “There’s a look that tells the world. You’re lit up from the inside.”

  They were toasting crumpets she had brought back from Lincolnshire, holding them out on forks to the fire.

  “Xavier Descours . . . my goodness, Iris, you are a dark horse.”

  “Nancy, you can’t breathe a word.”

  “I know. You know I won’t. Where is he now—am I going to meet him?”

  “He’s away for a few days. Tempsford, I think.”

  Long afterwards, when Iris came to question her own judgement, the one thing she never questioned was the extraordinary joy of her intimate relationship with Xavier. She had wanted it as much as he had.

  The troubling complexities of his character and their situation were still dormant. She did not know his real name, but she called him chéri—darling—rather than risk his safety by asking; it was of no importance. She knew he was capable of betrayal, though. He was married, for one thing, though he claimed it was unhappily, and there were no children. “The worst part of marriage is the compromising. Everyone says it doesn’t work without compromise, but what if that is the very death to the spirit?” She would
remember that, too, long afterwards when the words were given weight by her own experience.

  “Does your wife not love you?”

  “She cares for me all right. That is not the problem.”

  “Then what?”

  “Children—I always wanted children, a family. But it has never happened.”

  Even so, Iris arranged, on Nancy’s earnest advice, a consultation at the Marie Stopes clinic to be fitted with a diaphragm. He was right. There could be no disappointment in the present. Who knew what might happen next week? It was war. Different standards applied.

  They seized the moment, together. When he let down his guard, he was surprisingly vulnerable. “I live my life in disguise, yet all I want is for you to know me as I really am, love me as I am—and forgive me for it,” he told her.

  Love. She was amazed that he spoke so quickly of love; she had not expected that. Even in her new reckless, awakened state, she was not so lost as to be unaware that a man like Xavier Descours was used to having affairs, that he would give women only as much as he wanted. She would not press him to define his feelings; she was not even sure of her own. Was it love she felt, or exhilaration, or just plain lust?

  It was not a normal relationship, and never could be. Under the eaves of the attic flat it unfolded unseen, in another secret compartment of a secret life, yet always threatening to burst the confines of this small place of safety. What was it he saw in her? Iris wondered. She held on to remarks he made unprompted but did not ask outright, fearing to break the spell.

  “I have a restless spirit,” he said as they lay in bed during the second week. “But you give me calm. You are pure spring water on a day when the sun bites.”

  She took that to mean that she was uncomplicated, while he burned with nervous energy.

  “But you want me, don’t you?” he pressed.

  “I want you, chéri.” More than any man she had ever met.

  “I need to be wanted,” he said.

  “None of the other men managed to persuade me into bed. I’m not that sort of girl, did you know that?”

  “Rory told me.”

  “What? Well, he shouldn’t have.”

  “I made him very drunk.”

  “Some people would say you were not to be trusted,” she said idly, teasing.

  “People say the most disagreeable things about me.”

  “Do they—really?”

  “I trust no one,” he said, though the implication was that he trusted her. “Though the kindness of others touches me greatly.”

  “That first evening at the Coquille. You said you were going to ask me a favour—what was it?”

  “Did I?”

  “You know you did.”

  “I can’t remember. Probably something very silly. Like iron a shirt for me. Or give me a map of London with your flat marked in red.”

  It was hard to know when to take him seriously, sometimes.

  He went away for several days and returned, a pattern that was repeated throughout the month. Soon it was December, and she tried not to think that he would soon be leaving.

  One evening they joined a crowd at the Dorchester bar, a rumbustious mix of pilots, their girlfriends, and assorted faces from the Firm. Jack Wallace was there, and Iris recognized some of the men as Free French agents she had met at Tangmere.

  She spent most of her time chatting with Jack, flirting a little in the usual way, though she was uncomfortably aware that she was doing it only so no one would suspect she was with Xavier. For his part, he seemed to be exchanging terse words with one of the Free French.

  “You find something you can do, and it seems to work, so you do it again,” Xavier was saying as she went past to say hello to Denise, who had just arrived. Iris slowed her pace and let Denise approach.

  “I work hard. It was how I was brought up, to do my best, and in doing so to help others,” she heard Xavier say, shoulders squared, chin tilted upwards.

  “No question of money?”

  “Not in this case.”

  “You are the most cynical person I have ever met.”

  “I can assure you that I am not.”

  They left it there, with Xavier striding to the bar. But after that, Iris noticed, his natural vitality was held in check. He seemed remote when they got back to Tavistock Square at about ten o’clock. Nancy had taken to staying with another friend while Xavier was in town.

  Iris made a pot of tea, to which he raised none of his usual objections. He said little and smoked, each cigarette lit from the previous one.

  “My life has been ripped apart these past few years,” he said at last. He spoke angrily in French, as if he was thinking aloud. “I’ve always refused absolutely to admit defeat. But other people are not, as I always imagined, unanimously blessed with the same dedication—or quickness of mind.”

  Iris listened without comment.

  “How can you understand the effort of climbing a mountain if you yourself do not climb? The greater the number of people who know anything, the greater the danger.” He dragged on his cigarette. “Je suis entre deux feux.”

  Between a rock and a hard place.

  Iris lit a cigarette for herself, was shaking the match out, when Xavier sprang up like a cat. He was halfway to the bedroom door a second later when a key rattled in the latch of the door. Nancy walked in, full of apologies for startling them—it was no go for her at Eileen’s that night, as family had turned up unexpectedly.

  Xavier quickly recovered his calm, pouring Nancy a cup of tea and asking about her day. If he was tense, he worked hard not to show it. A door opening—such a simple act, but he had not been expecting it. It was an insight into his life in France. He was embarrassed afterwards, tried to make a joke of it, but Iris could tell he had been truly frightened. That was the only incident she could recall when he was not in total control of his emotions.

  Five days later, they were back at Tangmere.

  It was another double Lysander operation: Miss Acton and Iris were seeing off the capable Thérèse, seamstress and collector of magazines, for a second mission, along with another agent, Yves; Xavier and a Free French agent were also leaving.

  The BBC message had gone out, referencing Caroline, the goat at Bignor Manor: “Caroline’s milk is making very good cheese this year.” The weather was cold and cheerless, but the forecast was for a clear night.

  Over dinner Xavier was in blustering good form, though. He told stories that implied his eagerness to return to his people in France: about the farmer who was told to build a haystack in the middle of a field because the Germans had realised that it was long enough for a plane to land on—he did what they wanted, but he built it on a wooden platform with wheels so that it could be moved by the reception committee and then put back into place after the plane had left.

  Somewhere else, the reception committee for the incoming plane arrived to check out a landing field and discovered that a group of farm workers had been ordered to build a wall across a large field. The workers were persuaded to go very slowly, as an operation was imminent. That night they helped dismantle the wall, and build it up again the next morning as if nothing had happened.

  “The hardest part is finding these fields in the beginning,” said Xavier. “They have to be at least six hundred metres long, but you cannot go around the country pacing up and down fields to find out how long they are and how flat, and whether they flood in winter. That would surely draw attention. No, the best ones are found by our people who put on peasant clothes and go out pretending to be mushroom and truffle hunters. Or country people who know the land well, of course.”

  The Free French agent and Thérèse listened attentively but said little.

  Thérèse was ready. If knowing exactly what she faced on a second trip was worse than the blind optimism and courage of the first, she did not show it.

  “Don’t forget to send my Christmas cards next week,” she said to Iris.

  “They’re all in my desk drawer.”
>
  “And here’s a birthday card for Mother—January the twelfth. You do have a note, don’t you?”

  Iris took it. “Don’t worry. I’ll take care of everything.”

  “Thanks, Iris—you’re a pal.”

  Iris gave her a sympathetic squeeze of the hand.

  Away from the others, Xavier gathered Iris into his arms for the last time. She closed her eyes and imagined they were back once again on the rug in front of the gas fire at Tavistock Square. Was it only their special circumstances, or did other love affairs run the course from delightful surprise to infatuation to commitment and cold reality in the space of a month?

  “I will get a message to you,” he said.

  She nodded, kissing him again rather than wasting time on words.

  He released himself gently, then gathered her up again. “I want you to know, Iris, I have never loved as I have loved you. You have been my light in this darkness.”

  There was no good-bye. Minutes later the cars were taking them onto the airfield where the planes were ready. Iris watched as Jack climbed into the cockpit and gave a wave. The two F Section agents squashed themselves into the rear passenger seat, but both Yves and Thérèse were carrying two pieces of luggage, including a wireless transmitter set into the usual small suitcase for Thérèse. It was not going to work. Urgent decisions had to be made. With the weather closing in, and the missed opportunities of the previous month’s moon flight, there were no other options.

  “Thérèse will come with me to Châteaudun,” said Xavier. “I can easily make new arrangements when we get there.”

  She swapped with the Free French agent, and followed Xavier with her suitcases.

  The smoke of last cigarettes lingered in the night air as the plane rose. For the first time Iris felt she wanted to stop the operation, to bring the passengers back to the ground. A tear prickled and slid down her cheek as she returned to the Cottage and picked up the stray belongings: an English book and a magazine, a box of Swan Vestas matches, and a couple of theatre ticket stubs from a West End show she had seen with Xavier two nights before. She slipped the stubs into her pocket and put the rest in the hidden cupboard in the sitting room to await collection when the owners returned.