From what she’d confided, it seemed the voices that called the twenty-year-old Françoise to war had released her from a stifling bourgeois existence in a provincial town, from parents who expected her to marry a nice boring boy of the right class, and to have three knives, three forks, two spoons laid at dinner, and turned her into a brilliant, witty and deadly player of roles. Philip was pretty sure she’d killed at least one German, and with a knife, which was something he wasn’t sure he could do himself.
He hadn’t found her attractive at first; her green eyes slightly too close together, and underneath the loose clothes, a thinnish, flat-chested body. But the lifting of her shoulders in frequent ‘so whats?’ at first so irritating, so bloody French, gradually became entertaining, then endearing; her contradictions – so cross and controlling and then so childlike, chewing a strand of her fair hair as she worked out a solution to a problem – intriguing; her fearlessness, breathtaking.
She’d initiated sex on their fourth night together by telling him she wanted an English lesson and then producing a capote anglaise. ‘This would be a good time, no?’ She slid it deftly on to his penis and with a little gasp received him inside her. What a piece of luck, any man would say, a lovely girl, on our side, offering en passant sex, so why did he think, after every time they made love, that he mustn’t let it happen again?
The narrow lane, ashen with cold, wound relentlessly upward. For the first hour they saw no one except a distant, hunched figure herding brown-and-white cattle. The landscape was astonishingly empty of buildings, the roads of vehicles. Petrol shortages were obviously biting, because even down in the valley, on the larger roads glimpsed now and again, traffic seemed limited to the occasional truck.
In planning how long the journey would take, Françoise had underestimated the steepness of the climb. It warmed them up, but also exhausted them, and Françoise dismounted to walk. Philip pedalled on for a little while until she shouted him to wait. She claimed his bicycle was better than hers and they bickered like children as they pushed their bikes on up the slope. But the hill wound on apparently forever, every summit a false dawn, and Françoise became anxious. At last they reached the ridge and were able to make better speed, still seeing no one until a woman appeared pushing a pram containing two miserable-looking children. Philip wondered where on earth they could live. There was no sign of any habitation for miles.
They’d gone about twenty kilometres when Françoise stopped and pointed to the valley below, through which a larger road ran through fields towards the distant spire of a village. ‘If we go down, we will save time.’
‘Through the village?’ Philip asked. She nodded. ‘Do you know if it’s occupied?’
That maddening shrug.
‘Mais – si nous ne descendons pas, tous seront finis.’
Ah. All will be finished if we don’t go down. Usual apocalyptic pronouncement. No bloody choice, then. ‘All right.’
But his misgivings didn’t last long. The lane that ran diagonally to the lower road was a boy’s dream, the heavy bikes rocketing downhill so fast that Philip’s head emptied of everything except childish exhilaration.
Françoise’s ecstatic face briefly glanced over her shoulder at his; she leant back, taking her feet off the pedals and sticking them out straight in front of her. Only when he got to the bottom, did Philip remember the lethal jar. But they’d made it to the road by then, and within a few minutes entered the outskirts of the village.
There was no sign of life, and no sound except the whirring of bicycle wheels. Like a projector running behind a newsreel, Philip thought. He imagined the clipped English male commentary. Occupied France. It is the peculiarly quiet hour of lunch. A chill wind blows the last of the fallen leaves around the main square; the faded blue shutters of the boulangerie and boucher are firmly closed. Two cyclists bump across the cobbles and into a narrow side street; an old lady in black dress and bonnet sweeps the pavement in front of her door. A bony white dog – on some secret mission, no doubt – crosses the road. This is village life in rural France as it ever was…
The projector still ticking in the background, Philip followed Françoise into a smaller square. About fifty yards away, on the opposite side, he saw the Germans.
Everything stilled.
Five of them. Three soldiers. An officer half in, half out of the passenger seat of the car. His driver. They cycled on, Françoise’s knee-socked legs rotating in slow motion. The tick tick tick of the wheels. Three rifles and two pistols against one pistol and one grenade. Philip felt in the basket for the package containing the gun. They cycled on. Tick tick tick…
Then the thud of a car door slamming and a shout. The order to stop.
The world turned faster. Françoise skidded to a halt, sending little pebbles flying from the front wheel. She was on the inside, nearest the German soldier now striding towards them. Philip had the package in his hand, his finger through the paper. He moved to come between her and the enemy, but she shifted her wheel, blocking him, ‘Non Auguste! Non!’ Standing astride her bicycle, she turned towards the soldier. ‘Monsieur?’ Philip heard the smile in her voice.
The soldier, his face fleshy beneath his helmet, stretched out his hand for her papers. Philip noted his bitten fingernails, his full, girly lips. Further off, the pale faces of the driver, the officer, and the two other soldiers watched.
Françoise handed over their identity documents. The soldier stared across at Philip. Françoise turned her head too, giggling. ‘Le Pauvre,’ she whispered, twisting her index finger into her temple, ‘Il est un peu d’idiot.’
She shouted, ‘Auguste! Montrez les cadeaux à ce monsieur!’ He held up the gaily wrapped parcel, but the German had switched his attention to Françoise unwrapping a jar.
The soldier took the jar from her, turned it over, held it up to the light, unscrewed the top, two, three turns… He sniffed the contents, scented brandy, and smiled. Françoise stretched over her handlebars, dipped thumb and finger into the jar and popped a cherry into his mouth.
Philip knew with cold certainty what Françoise planned to do with the parcel she now held balanced in her right hand. Smash it against the soldier’s helmet and clutch him to her in a four second, fatal embrace. He heard the breaking glass, imagined the moment of confusion, raised voices, shouts, the thud of running feet. The obliterating explosion. Françoise’s shattered, jerking body, her blood on the cobbles…
She leaned forward to whisper something in the soldier’s pink ear. Philip raised the package in his hand, his finger on the trigger. He had a clear shot at the soldier’s neck.
Guffaws of male laughter floated across the square. The soldier took a step back, flushed with embarrassment. He closed the jar and returned it, stiffly, at arm’s length. ‘Go now.’
They pedalled slowly out of the square. ‘Signe!’ ordered Françoise, turning back to wave herself. Beyond the village, Françoise left the main road. They pedalled harder, starting to climb once more, but hadn’t gone more than a couple of kilometres when she veered off through a narrow gateway into a field.
What now? Philip braked, got off, and realised he was shaking. The whole time in the square he’d been amazingly calm and clear headed, but now he felt tremors running up his arms. What was it? Fear? Rage, too. She’d wanted to smash the jar. She loved taking risks. She had a bloody death wish.
He walked through the gateway. Her bicycle was against the sparse hedge, the black cape thrown on the ground. She stood with her back to him, hugging herself.
He rested his bike against hers. His whole body shook, now. He tried holding his legs to stop them shaking but it didn’t work. ‘Françoise?’ His teeth chattered. ‘We have to keep going. It’s dangerous here.’ Under the woollen jumper, her thin body shook, too. He rested his hands on her jerking shoulders, ‘Françoise. It’s all right.’
‘I always tremble afterwards.’
He wanted to hold her to him, to steady them both, but she seized his hands and ran
them up underneath her clothes to her breasts, squirming her body back into his so that the juddering ran through them like electric shocks. The thought came, how could he be shaking like a leaf and still get an erection? Then all thoughts went. They fought their way through each other’s clothes and coupled like animals on the stony earth.
Françoise shared a knack for untroubled sleep with Tucker. Briefly wondering whether Tucker was sleeping soundly now, Philip lay under rough blankets at the safe house and marvelled at how out-of-control Françoise managed to douse herself so completely for hours at a stretch.
He pictured that last time, in the field. Completely mad… He’d probably be a lot safer in German hands than hers…and yet he didn’t wish himself anywhere else, because of that terrible thrill.
So how could it be possible to have sex in the middle of a mutual fit? There was bound to be some sort of chemical explanation. Françoise seemed to know all about explosive chemical combinations. They’d still been shaking afterwards… Even now he could feel tiny tremors running through his body.
Philip felt glad they were nearly at the border. He felt the danger of getting totally consumed – like having an addiction to absinthe – that gave you ecstacy but wasted your insides, too. It didn’t feel like being in love but like burning, a burning up of essentials you needed to survive.
Gateshead, 1936
Rosie is skipping, the rope wound round her hands so she has to jump really high, when she notices the boy staring at her. He’s one of those who hardly ever comes to school.
‘What you staring at?’ she says, but the boy doesn’t go away. Instead, he hitches up his baggy shorts and walks closer. ‘Your name Mullen?’ he asks, staring so hard she loses concentration and the rope catches, falls limp.
‘What if it is?’
‘You’re me cousin,’ he says, folding his arms and huffing a thick forelock of black hair out of his eyes. On one cheek, a purple stain of gentian violet covers an impetigo scab.
‘I am not your cousin,’ Rosie says, disgusted. But when the bell goes he follows her, and says softly, ‘You’re like my sisters, only better lookin’.’
Sister O’Malley comes, cuffs the boy on the side of the head, and yanks him out of the line. ‘What are you doing here, you stupid lout? Get over to the boys’ entrance.’
After school, he skips backwards in front of Rosie, Jean and John as they walk along the pavement. ‘Are these me other cousins then?’
‘Ignore him,’ Rosie instructs her younger brother and sister. Ahead, she sees Mam coming along the road to meet them, her belly big under a faded cotton dress.
The boy glances at Mam, hisses into Rosie’s ear, ‘Your da’s a right stoat, isn’t he?’ and runs off.
They walk home faster than usual because Mam says she’s expecting someone to call. ‘He’s not me cousin is he, Mam?’ Rosie says.
‘Of course not. No better than tatters, that lot.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘You’re not a tatter are you? Come on.’
‘Who’s coming round?’
‘The man from the advertisement, you know, the one I showed you.’
‘You’ve never asked for a demonstration, Mam?’
But of course she has, and soon after they get home, Rosie watches as a sad looking man carrying a huge suitcase crosses the yard and climbs the steps.
‘Answer the door, Rosie.’
It’s so embarrassing the way Mam fills in forms, acts as if they have the money to buy things. What do they need a demonstration for when all they have is four clippie mats?
‘Is Mrs Mullen there? Electrolux calling.’
Rosie can see from his face that he has no hope of a sale, but at least he is polite, and puts on a great show, emptying the huge suitcase of its strange secrets and screwing all the cylinders together like a magician setting up a breathtaking illusion. With a tremendous roar, the machine sucks up the dust with such power he has to ask Rosie and Jean to stand on either end of the mats to stop them disappearing down the pipes. He empties his pile on to a newspaper and they all marvel at how much dirt comes out. Mam says she’s quite ashamed. John pokes in his fingers and pulls out something shiny that proves to be the horse charm lost from Jean’s bracelet.
His magic completed, the Electrolux man sits in the chair, accepts a cup of tea and introduces himself as Mr James Maclaren. Rosie thinks his hair and moustache a very strange dark red colour. He says he’s found it very hard to get a job since he came back from India. Simply nothing going. That he can’t wait for the war to start.
‘You reckon they’ll be a war, mister?’ says John.
‘I’m sure of it, young man. You’ll get to see a bit of world then, perhaps. More than you want to probably. Plenty of jobs for everyone.’ The thought cheers him. He twiddles the tea out of his moustache and tells his audience the Germans have learned nothing from the Great War. He’s been to Munich, seen Herr Hitler speak.
He seems to fill the small shabby room and the moment feels important. John listens, his mouth slightly open; even Jean pays attention. Rosie looks at Mam’s contented expression. She loves it when her children get to talk to people who are in the world. By that she means out of the Romany world, Da’s buying and selling world, his getting-by-and-bugger-everyone-else world. If Da were here, Rosie knows he would not like Mr James Maclaren, but Mam has ambitions.
Mr Maclaren tells Mam what a pleasure it’s been to meet her and takes his suitcase back down the steps, past the nettie and into the street. Mam pushes the door shut with her back and announces, ‘That’s what I call a gentleman.’
When Da comes back, he sniffs the air and says ‘You’ve had some gadgie here, don’t deny it, Susan.’
Listening to her mother crying through the thin wall, Rosie lies in bed and wonders if James Maclaren was right. If there was a war, would that mean she could get away and see other places, mix with other people, like Mam wanted?
A few weeks later, Rosie’s in General Science and they’re all copying a picture of the digestive system off the board. A lad has brought in a stoat he found dead in the allotments. Killed by a late frost, says Mr Fraser. He thaws it out on the boiler and takes it back to his desk. A little while later, Rosie goes up to show Mr Fraser her drawing. She likes him so much, his bent bald head, the crinkles on his red neck.
The stoat is lying on its back on a piece of newspaper, its abdomen sliced open. There is a smell; not foul, but butchery. ‘Look, Rosie,’ Mr Fraser says. Tiny bodies fill the womb sac. Pink, with sharp faces and little hands. Rosie remembers Mam’s dead baby lying in an enamel bowl beside the sink. ‘Look, aren’t they wonderful? Your eyesight’s better than mine. Count them for me.’
She peers at the minute, blind faces. ‘I can see ten, Sir.’
‘Can you, by Jove?’
‘What’s it mean, Sir, when you call a man a stoat?’
He nods his head up and down. Enthusiastic. ‘Very appropriate question, Rosie,’ he says. ‘The male stoat has a particularly strong urge to procreate.’ He looks at her puzzled face and smiles. ‘This lady stoat, Rosie, would no sooner give birth to these ten youngsters, than her husband stoat would mate with her again. A very demanding sort of chap, the male stoat.’
21
Southern France, December 1942
She’d said she’d be back at five. What time was it now? Philip sat on the bed in the blackness of the tiny basement room and wondered if moles suffered from depression. Nothing to do. No. Françoise wouldn’t be d’accord with that. He recalled her soft voice issuing his instructions for the day. Exercises, his boots, his fingernails…
He felt for the blanket and spread it on the floor; then lay down – carefully – because the room was only just over six feet in length. As for its breadth, he could touch both sides easily with his arms outstretched. Pretty claustrophobic, especially in complete, pitch darkness. The blackest hole yet. A 1942 priest hole. Or the sort of slot behind staircases in old castles where skeletons were fou
nd. Walled-up bodies. Quite an appropriate thought really, considering where he was.
Sit-ups. A hundred. Then press-ups. Soundlessly he got through them, and sat recovering, feeling the sweat trickle down his face and neck. What time would it be now? Françoise had told him the place above closed at twelve for lunch. He’d hear the door close and a key turning in the lock. So, not yet midday.
Philip groped on the floor for his pack, dug a hand into a side pocket to extract a pair of scissors and started to trim his fingernails. Ouch. Wasn’t so easy in the dark. He sucked on a finger. According to Françoise, fingernails had to be short or they would tear on the rock during the climb. And footwear had to be waterproofed, she’d said, handing over a small pack of lard. Up there in daylight she’d be seeking out more equipment, no doubt, though he had enough, plenty. Over the last few days, she’d found him a padded jacket, wool socks, a small coil of rope and best of all, excellent boots. He’d begged her to please not bother, not put herself in danger for anything else. But when had she ever listened to him?
Knowing her delight in danger, he feared terribly for her, pictured grotesque things being done to her slim, pliant body with cigarettes, blades; imagined terror replacing that oblivious, alluring confidence. Would he feel like this if he wasn’t her lover? It was hell to feel all the protective male impulses so strongly without the capacity to protect. Better to do without the sex, however good it was…
Whatever would Tucker say to that? Tucker would’ve done a lot better at this escaping lark altogether. If there was nothing to eat and nothing to do, he’d just curl up and go to sleep. For the umpteenth time, Philip thought about the last time he’d seen his friend. He recalled Tucker’s footsteps slowing behind, a panted ‘it’s no use’ suggesting his friend had surrendered, so could well be a prisoner, hopefully in some place daylight penetrated. And the others? Jimmy? No idea, but no bad idea, which was something to be thankful for. Ross? Take more than a few hundred Nazis to kill Ross, surely? ‘Now’s your chance! Jump!’ He tried to focus on the idea of fearless, buccaneering Ross, somehow getting his crippled launch back to Falmouth, but the names continued relentlessly to come.
The War Before Mine Page 18