A Gathering Storm (41 page)

Beatrice wheeled her bicycle out of the farmyard, mounted it, and wobbled off down the road. She knew where to go; she carried the map in her memory.

Some miles down the road, behind her in the distance, she heard a vehicle engine. Dismounting quickly, she wheeled the bike behind a wall and hid. It was a car, and as it passed she peeped out and saw Nazi soldiers, four of them. It was her first encounter with the enemy and it shook her somewhat. She leant back, closing her eyes, then, quickly recovering, set off down the road once more.

The country lane fed into a wider one, that eventually met a trunk road. She knew she must leave this quickly to follow a route where it was less likely she’d be seen. The sun climbed in the sky. Sometimes she passed signs of the Occupation. A burnt-out house, a dog shot dead in a ditch. Of the people she passed, some were friendly and wished her good day. Others avoided her eye. She never stopped to make conversation. It was her job not to be remembered. ‘You’re Juliette,’ she told herself. ‘It’s perfectly natural that you’re here, going to Paris for a few days to stay with your aunt.’ All she had to do was be Juliette. They’d have to tear the lining of her jacket to discover the precious piece of folded silk she’d brought from London, or the little pill she must take if she were captured and unable to endure it.

At the station she parked her bike, but when she went to the window to buy a ticket, she saw a young soldier lounging by the door to the platforms. ‘
Paris,
billet aller-retour, s’il vous plaît
,’ she said to the woman behind the window, trying to sound confident, but her fingers shook as she searched her purse for coins.

When she passed the soldier she thought,
He’ll see my fear
, but he gave her a bored look and let her through.

On the train, an old lady with a basket on her lap chattered about her daughter, whom she was going to visit because she’d had a baby, and Beatrice listened politely. Actually, the talking took the edge off her nervousness. The others around her remained quiet and watchful. When two Gestapo officers came along the corridor, looking into all the compartments, she understood why.

Leaving the Gare St-Lazare, she forced herself not to stare about her as though she didn’t know what she was doing. She bought a newspaper at a kiosk, then, since there was no hurry, set off on foot for the Luxembourg Gardens. She had visited Paris only once, as a girl of seven or eight, and remembered gay accordion music, and the pretty trees of the Champs Elysées, the groups of men sitting outside the cafés laughing and chatting over carafes of wine and games of draughts. Now the atmosphere was subdued, and there were men in Nazi uniform everywhere. She knew not to meet their eyes and was alarmed when one stopped her and tried to chat, offering her a cigarette. She refused politely, as Juliette Rameau would have done, smiled and hurried on.

She reached the gardens at a quarter to three, and visited a public convenience nearby where she locked herself into a cubicle. There she cut several threads in the hem of her jacket and wormed the precious silk out of its hiding place. As she was straightening her clothes, someone tried the door and she held her breath. ‘
Pardon
,’ said a woman’s voice and she relaxed.

In the park, she found the small fountain as she’d been directed. Nearby was the bench she wanted, but an old man was sitting there. She walked on for a while, pretending to enjoy the sun and the flowers, and when she returned was relieved to see that he’d gone. She sat down on the bench, peeled off her gloves, shook open her paper and tried to read.

After a few moments, a stranger sat down next to her: a quiet, serious-faced young woman whose severe black suit complemented her graceful figure.

‘
Un bel après-midi, n’est-ce pas?
’ the newcomer murmured. She had lovely creamy skin, Beatrice saw as she lowered the paper. It was beautiful against the black. She noticed too that the pulse at the woman’s collar beat too quickly; she, like Beatrice, was nervous.

‘
Bonjour
,’ Beatrice replied, as though making polite conversation. ‘
Vous avez lu le journal aujourd’hui?
’

‘
Non, j’étais trop occupée,
mais j’aimerais bien le lire.
’ Good, she was definitely the expected contact.

‘
Voilà, prenez-le. J’ai fini.
’ She folded the newspaper and offered it to the woman, who took it, and with it, the little piece of silk hidden inside. On the silk was a hand-drawn map that another agent had brought back to London. By this circuitous route, the Resistance could plan an act of sabotage.

‘
Merci, madame. C’est très gentille
,’ said the woman, glancing at the headlines in a casual fashion, before putting the paper in the shopping bag at her side.

‘
Je vous en prie
,’ Beatrice responded politely and stood, picking up her gloves.

She forced herself to walk away slowly, though she badly wanted to distance herself from the map and the woman. The job she’d come for was done, and she felt quite light-hearted, but knew she must still be vigilant. Tomorrow night, all being well, another plane from another hillside near Rouen would take her home, but anything could happen to prevent that.

It almost did. At the gates, on some strange impulse, she paused and looked back, only to be dazzled by the sun. Walking on again she collided with someone, a man. ‘Oh!’ The ‘
S
’ of
sorry
was on her lips, and she realized to her horror he was a German soldier. He gripped her arm to steady her.

‘
Excusez-moi, Fraulein
,’ he said, and smiled at her.

She smiled back shyly, then set off once more, her mouth dry, a pulse thudding in her ears.

‘
Fraulein!
’ he called and she made herself turn round. He was holding up one of her gloves and there was an expression of amusement in his eyes.

‘
Ah, merci
,’ she murmured, going to take it from him. He was a pleasant-looking youth of nineteen or twenty and had dealt with her kindly, but this made no difference to the strength of her revulsion.

She took a different route back to the station, as she’d been briefed. She passed along a side street by the rue de Rivoli, lingering by the shopfronts, fascinated by all the beautiful things for sale. It was a toy shop that caught her eye. There in the window was a wooden engine, painted bright red. She stopped and stared at it for a moment. Why not? She opened the shop door and went inside.

‘Presents! Oh, Bea!’ It was worth it to see their faces.

The little boy grabbed his train with both hands and put it to his mouth. ‘No, like this,’ Bea said, extricating it gently and showing him how to push it along the floor. ‘Woo woo!’

‘Oooo,’ he said, snatching it up and banging it on the ground, an expression of pure joy on his face.

Angie cried out as she unwrapped her gifts: an enamelled powder compact and a lipstick. Even Nanny had something: a warm scarf. There was soap for the household, too, and hairgrips.

‘Bea, where did you get these things?’ Angie asked, staring at her friend in wonder and suspicion. ‘They’re French.’

It’s easy if you know the right people,’ Bea said, enjoying herself. How easy it was to lie now, even to friends. But she couldn’t tell them the truth. It was her duty not to.

‘What is it you’re doing?’ Angie persisted. ‘Where have you been?’

‘Somewhere exotic, that’s all.’

‘Where?’

‘Miss Angie, how often have I told you not to look a gift horse in the mouth?’ Nanny said, stroking the soft wool of her scarf. ‘It’s not for us to know.’

‘I’ll take them back if you don’t want them,’ Bea said, smiling. She’d known that she risked being conspicuous by buying the gifts, but she hadn’t been able to resist.

‘You will not!’ was Angie’s indignant response. ‘But what have you got for yourself? You must have something.’

Beatrice brought out of her suitcase a tissue-paper package. She opened it and shook out a long silken dress, a lovely fragrance of Chanel wafting through the air.

‘Oh, how beautiful,’ Angie breathed, fingering the soft fabric. ‘It’s the wrong style for me, but it’ll look perfect on you.’

Beatrice had stared at the dress in the shop window for some time before plucking up the courage to go inside. It was a black and gold evening dress, made of some filmy material that folded up to nothing in her luggage. When she tried it on in the dressing room, it had fitted exactly, as though made for her. ‘I’ll take it,’ she’d told the unsmiling shop assistant. She paid for it in a cloud of elation, trying not to think that she was handing over half the money they’d given her for emergencies. She’d pay them back for it somehow, she’d told herself.

Later, she heard her mission had been important. As a result of her delivering the map, the Resistance had succeeded in blowing up a bridge over the Seine, thus destroying a vital route for the movement of German tanks.

She also learned that the shop where she’d bought the dress was frequented by Nazi officers buying gifts for their mistresses. No wonder Madame had looked at her so frostily.

During March and April 1943, Beatrice flew through moonlight on two further missions to Normandy. The first time she posed as Juliette again. She was there for a month as courier for a British agent known as Henri and his wireless operator Georges, her job to carry messages between two local Resistance groups who, she finally worked out, were in the final stages of plans to destroy a Nazi arms depot.

Two Gestapo officers who noticed the regularity with which the pretty dark-haired girl cycled to Rouen from a town fifteen miles away and back again later in the day, stopped her once and examined her papers. They found no reason to doubt her story – that she was going to her place of work, teaching the children of a lawyer in a well-respected firm, and let her go. When, the night before the raid was to be carried out, she was flown back to England, she wondered whether, after the explosion, these policemen would notice that Juliette Rameau had vanished and visit the law firm she’d mentioned to find that Julien Defours, whose name was still over the door, had in fact died, a childless widower, the year before.

The second visit was much shorter. She had to meet the surviving members of a network that had been infiltrated, and collect a list of coded names. Radio contact was deemed unsafe, so the only way the list could be got out was by giving it to Beatrice, who this time carried false papers in the name of a farmer’s daughter, Elise Fontaine.

Between missions she stayed in Dinah’s apartment, paying snatched visits to Sussex, but since she was often expected to be in London for briefings or debriefings, or, once, was sent away for further training, she couldn’t stay long. It was a strange existence, completely without routine or any sense of past or future. Everything was about living for now.

In the evenings she’d socialize with some of the other agents, often wearing her Parisian dress to go dancing or dine out, not caring about other women’s jealous looks. They didn’t know how she was risking her life. She wasn’t going to dress dowdily just to please them.

These were occasions of fun and laughter. A group of them would start the evening at one of several favourite restaurants, then after dinner they’d go on to a nightclub or two, sometimes not returning home until the small hours. They were an ever-changing party, its members conversing usually in English, and known by whichever names they volunteered. Sometimes a face would be seen regularly for a couple of weeks, then simply vanish, sometimes without a goodbye. If they appeared again weeks later, they’d be greeted warmly, but no one asked where they’d been or what they’d been doing. She was always on the look-out for Rafe, but never saw him, and it was frowned upon to ask questions.

Geneviève, the sturdy-looking girl she’d met in Scotland, was a regular for a while. Beatrice knew little about her, except that her family were French refugees, but she was a pleasant companion who spoke fluent English and was an excellent mimic. She had them in stitches when she portrayed Hitler, Churchill or Lord Haw-Haw.

But there came an evening in early April when she took Beatrice aside and said, ‘It’s my turn again tomorrow. Wish me luck. I’m awfully nervous.’

‘Oh, Genny,’ Beatrice sighed, embracing her. ‘Keep yourself safe, dear.’

It was the last time she ever saw her.

Her friends talked very little about their personal lives, but sometimes she’d glean little bits of information. In turn, some seemed to know that she had a child, though she’d taken care not to tell anyone except, finally, Vera Atkins. Somebody asked after him once and she said, ‘He’s very well, thank you,’ in surprise, half-expecting him to raise the question she constantly asked herself: How could she bear to risk her life when she had a son? She had privately rehearsed an answer. It was for his future. She guessed each agent had their own reasons for being part of these special operations, each had their own private anguish, was making their own sacrifices in the fight against this great evil that lay like a poisonous cloud over the world.

There was always a majority of men in the party, and Beatrice was never short of dancing partners, but when invited to dine
à deux
she usually politely demurred, and, indeed, as the news spread that she had a child, the invitations became fewer. She supposed it put some of the men off or they made some assumption or other about her in order to placate their vanity. Respect or disdainfulness. Whichever it was she didn’t care. There was none who particularly appealed to her anyway. For the truth was that that part of her, the part that enjoyed flirting and being wooed, was in suspension. She was waiting for Rafe.

It was strange to her that they never met, if, indeed, he was definitely involved in this kind of work, which she still thought he might be. Gerald said that their mother received occasional notification that he was alive, but no more. Of course, he might have been sent anywhere in Europe – or the world, for that matter.