In Snappy’s Bar, she left a message for Raymond, who left word the next day that he would meet her on the quay. He turned up half an hour late. They embraced, laughing, and he bought her a drink. He had had a few glasses already. He was flush from black market business. The Marseillais being as they were, it was possible to abstract one of the American trucks if you paid enough. He complained about the expense of persuading an American driver to go AWOL, especially when you did not know what lay inside the sealed boxes. Still, the risk was worth taking and business was good.
“We’ll drink to the real heroes of the liberation,” he said, winking. “The cheminots who blew up so many railway lines. It was the genius of Arnaud. He sat down and planned it all. And I am proud to say that I played my small part.”
“Where is Arnaud?” He shrugged. “Is he alive?”
Raymond did not know; his stubby hands waved in the air. Ilse wondered what his real name was and whether she would ever find out. Barely six months had passed, and already the young heroes of the maquis seemed part of a great romanticised past.
“How is Paul? Does he know what happened to Madame Renée? And the girls?”
Raymond pulled an expressive face. “Paul is all right. The girls who came back are still in business. They deported so many, the ones who were let out from Fréjus, they filtered back within days,” he said. “You know, everything they had was stolen. And they had almost nothing. By us, by the French. What salauds, eh? Poor Renée. Not one of the ones sent to Paris came back—not yet,” he said, seeing her expression.
“They do come back. Raymond, I saw François with the maquis, and afterwards,” she said, suddenly bold. “He told them nothing. I know that. They hurt him very badly. I saw the scars. He’s gone into Germany, to fight the Germans.”
“Sure.”
“Don’t you believe me?” Raymond sighed and sucked his teeth. “I know he’s on the right side,” she said. Even as her words came out, Ilse wished them unsaid. She wished she had not mentioned him at all.
“Sure he is. His own,” and he drained his glass and put it down very firmly. “He’d better not come back to Marseilles.”
Soon Ilse got up to go. Head down, she scurried along the waterfront, to say a prayer for Renée in Saint-Ferréol.
On the last of her days off, the weather was better and Ilse went down to the harbour and took the boat across to the Château d’If. It was a whim, just to see if the dark romance the guidebook had promised still existed somewhere. But when the boat docked and the few soldier sight-seers left, she could not bring herself to get off. The book had recommended the spectacular view from the old chapel, but she did not care to see anything picturesque. She stared at the horizon where Africa was and felt tremulously sorry for herself. After a while she noticed someone watching her. Also leaning on the railing of the boat was a man in British battledress. Tall and gaunt, he seemed the shadow of a much bigger man. She thought of Arnaud. Though this man was much older, she detected a small likeness. It was something to do with the easy way he stood there and the curve of his mouth.
“Don’t you like castles? Or is something wrong with it?”
He spoke French like Tommies did, full of slang, but with rigorous grammar underneath. He had been taught it long ago, he said. His manner was gentle. She asked, Was he with the RAF? No. He had soft hazel eyes, a long face, dark hair, had come straight off a ship. From? Hong Kong. Ilse knew nothing about Hong Kong.
“Was the war bad there?”
“No worse than anywhere, I expect.”
She went back to staring at the sea.
He spoke slowly in English. “Do you speak English?”
“A little.”
In Meknès, other girls had struggled with English, but she had managed to learn a few phrases. Maths had been a very different matter. In maths, as in most subjects, her ignorance was as wide as this vast ocean.
“Mam’selle, excuse me.” He was still looking at her. “What are you doing here?” He waved a general hand at the scenery. He was easy to understand, not like the Americans, but Ilse could not think what to reply. It was too complicated. Her intention was to make herself thoroughly miserable, but she could not tell him that. She did not know how to be unhappy in English. The thought brought a smile. He smiled back. The smile improved him.
She reflected. “I do like to be beside the seaside,” she announced.
He laughed so much that he coughed violently. He recovered quite soon, but she dared not try her English again.
He was to report to a convalescent home along the coast in Cannes, on the fringes of La Californie. Did she by any chance know where that was? She explained that she lived in Cannes and was going back there the next day. She told him about the bus station and what way to go to find it and when the bus was going. Once he got to Cannes, she said, everyone would know where La Californie was. At the quayside, she said goodbye and walked away, feeling better for having made someone happy, even if it was just for a moment.
Leaving Madame Dumont at breakfast, neither of them caring for long goodbyes, Ilse was at the bus station early. The bus for Aix was half full when the Englishman got on, carrying his kitbag. She nodded and looked away. He sat a few rows behind her. Glancing round, she saw that he was immersed in a book. It made him laugh softly from time to time. At Aix-en-Provence they spoke briefly. Further along the road at lunchtime it seemed rude not to accept a glass of beer. He jingled coins in his pocket, said he was feeling rich. He said his name was Thomas Halladay. He would not have to fight again; apparently his condition, whatever it was, meant that he was being invalided out.
“Don’t you want to go straight home, to England?”
He shrugged. “They don’t send us back in poor condition. Don’t want to frighten people too much.”
“It’s good, isn’t it, not to have to fight?”
“Ah,” he said. “Anyway, I’m too old.”
She was too polite to ask.
“Thirty-three.” He grimaced. She thought that he looked older. “An old man to you.”
She could not deny it. Then she thought that Willy had to be well over forty. By the time they were on the last of many buses, rattling down from the hills into Cannes, it seemed ungenerous not to help him find the place.
“You didn’t tell me your name,” he said as they walked from the bus station.
“Ilse,” and she paused. Without thinking, she had used her real name for the first time. “But some people call me Laure.”
“Fair enough. I’m Thomas, but my friends call me Tom.”
She thought perhaps he was laughing at her, but he wasn’t.
He held out his hand. It was warm. “How do you do?” he said in English and was amused by her puzzled look. “You say the same thing back. I know, it doesn’t make sense.”
“How do you do?” she replied.
The convalescent home had been set up in a huge Belle Epoque house. It was dinnertime. Through a glass door, she saw rows of men sitting at long tables. All the heads turned as they entered. A pleasant woman greeted them, took them to a little office.
“Don’t leave me here,” he whispered, while the woman was finding his name on her list. When he smiled, she understood that it was a joke.
“Come back and have tea, whenever you like,” she said to Ilse. “There’s a café here and we need visitors. The men really appreciate it.”
“This man really would.”
Walking to the gate, Ilse passed tall windows lit up with the curtains drawn back and saw Tom joining the crowd, indistinguishable from the uniformed mass.
Three weeks later, not long before Christmas, Ilse came in to find Marie-France dressed in new high heels and applying lipstick.
“What happened?”
“I’ve been thinking,” she said. “I can’t be unhappy all the time. I’m going to marry a British conqueror in uniform. Or an American. So. Where can I meet someone?” She brushed her hair vigorously, turned and held it up in a different,
more sophisticated style, the glossy curls piled high on her head. “What do you think?” The style suited her.
“I know just the place,” said Ilse.
At the convalescent home, silent men sat in rows in the garden with their faces turned to the wintry sun. She looked at their RAF wings glinting. Tom jumped to his feet and came to greet them. “I’d given up hope,” he said. He seemed so pleased to see her that Ilse felt herself blushing. She introduced Marie-France.
“I shall talk to some of the others,” she announced, moving on. Excitement visibly fluttered along the row as she sauntered by in her high heels.
“It’s good of you to come,” said Tom. “Not to mention bringing Rita Hayworth along.” She noticed that his eyes had a twinkle to them.
“Who’s that?”
He laughed. “A film star.”
“Mm,” she said. Neither of them could take their eyes off Marie-France, working her way down the row, for all the world like a cattle merchant looking at hooves and teeth. Of course, no man could resist such glamour.
“Really,” she said, “I came because it’s good for my English. I have only a little English.”
“I’ll teach you,” he said. “Come and have tea. It’s cold out here.”
Tea was served in the cafeteria, and cakes. They fell easily into conversation. Tom lent her his book, by someone called Aldous Huxley, a writer he described as both very funny and very serious.
“Very good for your English,” he said. Again, she had the impression he was laughing at her, but he smiled so nicely that that hardly seemed possible.
Marie-France appeared in the doorway and waved.
“My friend says we have to go.”
“Oh dear,” he said. “She’s done already. Will you come again?”
She rose. “Of course. I have to return your book, don’t I?”
“Read fast,” he said.
Marie-France linked her arm through Ilse’s as they left. “I don’t like these British men. I’d prefer an American. Better looking. Not so sick.”
The book he had lent her was called Crome Yellow. With her smattering of English, this book was impossible. It was written in a style of such complexity that she looked up twenty-one words in the first three paragraphs and, reading the page again, felt no wiser as to what it actually meant.
On Christmas Eve, Marie-France announced that she was going to a nightclub frequented by the military. Ilse went with her. After all, she had five words of English to each one of Marie-France’s. She took a whisky bottle and filled it with cold tea. It was a trick from the brothel.
“We’ll have this when the barman fills the men’s glasses.”
Marie-France marvelled at her. The place was packed with soldiers. The band was good and all the girls were dancing; hardly anyone in the place was over twenty-five. The waiter ushered them to a table close to the dance floor. Right away, a man asked Marie-France to dance. With a wink to Ilse, she rose. She danced beautifully.
Ilse looked from face to face, trying to choose the right man for Marie-France from all those who were watching her. A young man suddenly appeared and asked her to dance; Ilse said she did not intend to. She had noticed a tall blond American staring at Marie-France; as if prompted, he stepped forward and cut in. He danced elegantly and they looked good together. Ilse smoked and watched them. Somebody waved. She ignored him; then saw that it was Tom. As the dance ended, he started to make his way to their table. Marie-France was making no move to sit down but stayed where she was, talking to the tall blond man who still held her loosely in his arms. “I’ve been watching you. You’re even more of a dark horse than I thought.”
She liked the expression. The music started up, so she did not have to say anything. She noticed how Tom drank his whisky, throwing it back and placing the glass on the table with exaggerated precision. All the RAF men drank like fish.
He leant over, spoke near her ear. “Will you dance with me?”
She shook her head. When she saw how disappointed he looked, she stood. He held her carefully and respectfully, as though she were very fragile. Drink made him more, not less, gentle. She closed her eyes, remembered how she had felt in François’s arms, waited. With Tom, she felt a sort of ease at moving, at being held by a man. When she opened her eyes again he was looking at her intently. The song ended. She would not dance with him again. Instead, they sat together and she drank the cold tea and they watched the American sergeant teaching Marie-France to jitterbug.
“You’re not like your friend,” he said. “You take your time.”
She pretended not to know what he meant.
They were very late home. Annie, who had sat with Maman, grumbled. Marie-France got into bed. They smoked a last companionable cigarette.
“Do you like your American?”
“Gene? He’s nice. Yes. I like lots of people.”
“No you don’t,” said Ilse. “What do you really think?”
“Attach yourself to someone who climbs and he’ll take you with him.” She inhaled deeply. She had a new pack, courtesy of the sergeant. “He’s going to take me out on Friday.”
“You can’t fool me, you know.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“You’re not a vine that climbs and has no feelings.”
Marie-France exhaled. “I dream sometimes about the baby I would have had with Jean-Baptiste. He’ll never be born. Then I wake up crying. I don’t want to feel like that my whole life.”
Ilse could not imagine a baby. Instead, she thought with longing about the book she would have typed for Albert.
“I really so much wish I’d had a book with someone I know,” she burst out.
Marie-France laughed until she got hiccups.
Gene, stationed in the quartermaster’s office, could get a pass in the evenings and as often as he could, he took Marie-France dancing. If he could get an afternoon off and the atelier was closed, they went sightseeing along the coast. It began to look like a courtship.
“He’s mad about me,” she said. “Sex mad, too. Hands everywhere.”
Ilse could understand that.
“But do you really, really like him?”
“Of course I do.”
On these too-quiet afternoons Ilse took to calling at the cafeteria of the convalescent home. She always found people there to chat to. It was not romance, she told Marie-France. It was to learn English, which would always be useful. Tom, who was generally reading, put his book down at once when she appeared, was always pleased to see her. She got very little further in understanding the book, though a story in it about a dwarf named Hercules and his anguish at producing a monstrous, but normal, son upset her. While quite unlike what she knew of Albert’s work, it had the same brutal but beautiful candour.
“What are you thinking about?” he asked.
“Nothing.” She thought of something. “What did you do in Hong Kong?”
“I was in a prisoner of war camp,” he said. “Until one day I decided to leave.”
“The camps here were terrible,” she said. “Filthy, people were starving. Awful.”
“They weren’t too good there either.”
She pushed the bad memories away.
“Tom, what did you do before the war?”
“Ah. I went to Hong Kong to make my fortune,” he said.
“And did you?”
He shook his head. “I’m afraid not. I buried one there. I’ll have to go back and find it one day.” She had learnt to smile at his jokes.
In civilian life, Tom had worked in a bank. He had a good head for figures, he said. She could see that he was an intelligent, pleasant person, if a little on the quiet side.
“Will you take tea?” She brandished the pot.
“Sugar and milk, please. Say when.”
RAF tea was premixed with sugar. It tasted much too sweet.
“Do you know why?”
Ilse thought. “Because tea taken on its own attracts ants,” she said.
“Eighteen.”
“That’s awful,” he said. “I could be your father.”
She said nothing. She could not speak about her parents. The thought that she would never see her mother’s face again brought the familiar wave of undiluted helplessness and grief. She had suppressed her pain for so long; now she was training herself never to think about them at all.
One teatime Tom did not turn up. She went up to the ward, found him in bed, shaking with hot sweats. It was malaria.
“I’m all right,” he said. “I just need bed and quinine.”
The condition was brought on by the winter, he said, and the bitter cold.
“What can you do to cure it?”
“Nothing. It’s just a hangover from the East. It’ll go.”
His whole body jittered helplessly on the bed and yet he smiled at her, his teeth knocking together. His hazel eyes had lost their shine, but they still looked at her with the same intensity. She noticed for the first time what long eyelashes he had. In profile, he was actually quite attractive; he had an elegant nose and a very high forehead. She decided that his was the face of an intellectual.
He recovered slowly; he put on a little weight. He taught her many words, swearwords and then more serious ones. It turned out that they were both orphans. He had been married, but his wife had died in Hong Kong. She wanted to ask about his wife, but he deflected the question easily.
“So what was Hong Kong like? I mean, in the war.”
The Children's War Page 43