The Girl Who Fell From the Sky (3 page)

Particular gifts seemed like particular friendships, those relationships that hovered on the boundaries of sin and awoke fear in the nuns’ minds. ‘In fact,’ Miss Atkins added, with an expression of faint disapproval, ‘some of the qualities we are looking for may not be entirely admirable ones.’

The hotel they found for her was in a narrow cul-de-sac tucked away behind Regent Street. Many of the guests appeared to be regulars and the hall porter seemed to know most of them by name. ‘Good evening, Miss,’ he greeted her as she went through the revolving door. ‘I do hope you have a pleasant stay here.’ And his expression suggested that, despite all the warnings about secrecy, he was well aware of exactly what this young woman with her shabby suitcase and her plain grey suit was all about.

She went up to her room, hung her clothes in the wardrobe and threw her new uniform onto the bed. It was an ugly creation in khaki barathea. F.A.N.Y., it said on the shoulder flashes. A ridiculous name, enough to make you blush. The uniform lay there lifeless on the bed, a corpse dragged into her life, something she would have to explain away when she next went home. It seemed daft. She was already in the WAAF and, for goodness’ sake, they also insisted that she be part of this peculiar corps with the embarrassing acronym. Whoever they were – the Inter Services Research Bureau, as they called themselves – they appeared to be able to do precisely what they pleased.

She looked round the room indecisively. What should she do? It was far too early to go to Ned’s. She’d rung him and told him she was at a loose end in London and he’d invited her to dinner. She’d have to explain why she was in London, which might be a bit awkward. Explain nothing, they’d told her.

They
. She had no other word for them, the strange Colonel Buckmaster and the impassive Miss Atkins and their various minions. Perhaps they were watching at this very moment to see how she behaved. The idea amused and frightened her. She contemplated the stuffy room with its ornate wardrobe and overstuffed armchair and expansive bed. Concealed microphones? Hidden cameras? She stood in front of the mirror on
the wardrobe door and examined herself. What would they see? Marian Sutro or
Marianne Sutrô
? Where did the stress and the accent lie? And what was now going to happen to this curious, hybrid being?

Standing before the mirror she undressed, tossing her clothes onto the bed and transforming herself from the confident young adult whom others might see into the timid child whom she alone knew, jejune, pallid, with awkward limbs and hips and small, pointed but pointless breasts. What to do with this creature who had never known a man, never stayed in a hotel alone before, never even been into a bar by herself? And yet here she was, on her own in the grey, battered city, about to begin some kind of training to prepare her for France. Was anything more unlikely?

She opened the wardrobe door and swept the young Marian aside. Taking out her cocktail dress, she held it against her. It had an elegance that you could no longer find in London; or maybe could never have found in London even before the war because she had bought it in Geneva from a couturier who always got the latest things direct from Paris. She had carefully nurtured it through the family’s precipitate escape from Switzerland through France, and then through the tiresome months of exile in England. Only once had she worn it, at a dance to which one of the officers at Stanmore had taken her. He’d told her how fond he was of her, and ended up attempting to take the dress off in the back seat of his car. The dress would be entirely wasted on Ned, of course; but at least there would be no repetition of
that
particular embarrassment.

She washed and dressed and put her hair up – Clément always told her that she looked older like that. Then she did her make-up – still unfamiliar, still quite daring – took her coat and made her way cautiously downstairs. The bar was a place of smoke and noise and the male shout of laughter, the loud braying sound of the Englishman in his element. One or two men glanced at her as she pushed past and found a corner seat, but
most ignored her. These days a woman alone in a bar was no longer a matter of note. She nursed a gin and tonic and watched. Men outnumbered the women by three or four to one. They were officers, all of them. But now, apparently, she was also an officer, and a FANY as well. Goodness knows what that meant in the complex world of British protocol.

‘May I sit beside you?’

She looked round. Everyone else in the bar seemed to have beer or gin, but he had a glass of red wine in his right hand and a stool in the other, and the accent was unmistakably French. A lighted cigarette bobbed up and down between his lips. ‘You are alone and you are the most beautiful lady here, I think …’

She shrugged and looked away towards the door, as though she was expecting someone. The Frenchman sat. He was young, no older than she was, and good-looking enough, with a casual, nervy manner, the kind of boy she recognised from Grenoble when she and her cousin had gone out in the evening, giggling and whispering to each other in the cafés, pretending they were older than they really were.

‘You wish to smoke?’ He offered a cigarette from a battered pack. It wasn’t a Senior Service, or anything like that. It was a
caporal
. She shook her head. He shrugged. ‘My name is Benoît. May I know yours?’

She was uncertain how to answer. Anyway, if she were to give her name, what would it be? Was she Marian or
Marianne
? The question was a delicate one. People were pushing all round them, and somehow she seemed united with this unknown French boy. Where had he come from? Why was he here? What was his place in this loud, ruined, irrepressible city? Someone shoved against her, apologised, then blundered on into the crush. And she wondered whether this Frenchman had been sent to trap her into giving something away.

‘I’m Anne-Marie,’ she said, on a whim.

‘Ah, Anne-Marie. It is a beautiful name.’

‘It’s a name. Just a name.’

He sipped his wine and made a face. ‘
Pourquoi toutes ces gonzesses anglaises sont glaciales?
’ he asked himself.

‘I’m sorry?’

‘You understand French?’

She hesitated on the edge of confession. ‘Glacial, I understood glacial. What exactly is glacial?’

He grimaced. ‘The English summer is glacial.
L’été glacial
, that is what I say. My English is so-and-so. Look, you are here alone. I am here alone. We talk, maybe? Have a drink together? It is a good idea, isn’t it? I tell my life story.’

Marian considered. She liked the idea of being glacial. It gave her some kind of reassurance against the possibility of being thought a tart. Or a fanny, for God’s sake. She tried not to giggle. ‘There isn’t time for your whole life story. I have to meet someone for dinner. You can tell me what you are doing in London.’

He drew on his cigarette. ‘I escape from France.’

‘You escaped? How remarkable. Did you swim?’

He laughed. His laugh was appealing. His manner was arrogant, an insufferable arrogance, but his laugh was a young boy’s. ‘In January it is not so good for swimming. I am in Paris and so I go south – over
les Pyrénées
to Spain. With a friend. We climb through the snow, and then when we get over the border they put us in prison.’ He made a disparaging face. ‘This is not so good. But then they let us out because we make so much trouble. So we get to
Algérie
, and here we are.’ He smiled, as though it was a brilliant trick pulled off in front of an audience, an escape worthy of the great Houdini. ‘And now I return to fight the
Frisés
.’

‘Where is your friend?’

‘My friend?’

‘You said you were with your friend.’

‘Oh, him.’ He waved a vague hand. ‘He finds someone for dancing this evening and I leave him go. Do you wish to dance? We can go find him.’

‘I’m afraid not. I have to meet my brother for dinner.’

‘Your
brother
? You’ave no boyfriend?’

‘It’s nothing to do with you whether I have a boyfriend or not.’

The boy nodded, his face wreathed in the pungent smoke from his
caporal
. ‘You’ave no boyfriend. If you like, I can be your boyfriend.’

‘I don’t think that would be appropriate.’

‘Appropriate?’

‘It would not be a good idea.’

He looked glum, like a disappointed child. Surely his story of escape from France was pure fantasy. And yet he was here, a French boy in the noisy heart of the city, among the uniforms of a dozen nations. He must have got here somehow.

‘Look,’ he said, putting his cigarette down on the edge of the table. ‘I play you a game, right? If I win, you come with me dancing. If I lose, you go and see your brother.’

‘I have to see my brother whether I win or lose.’

‘It is a very simple game.’ He reached into his pocket and pulled out a box of matches. ‘I show you.’

‘I really don’t want—’

‘I show you all the same.’ He began to lay out the matches in rows on the table between them – a row of three, a row of four and a row of five. ‘Now you take as many as you like from any row. Then it is my chance. I take from one row like you do. Then it is your turn again, and so on. The person who has the last piece to take is loser.’

She shrugged and tried to look indifferent. ‘But I’m not playing for anything. I mean, if I lose that doesn’t mean to say that you’re taking me dancing.’

He looked at her with a faint and infuriating smile. ‘We see. You go first.’

So they played among the spilled beer and the empty glasses, the youth with a strange concentration, as though his whole future depended on it, Marian with a distracted impatience that
told him, she hoped, that she didn’t care for either the game or his company. Of course he won. She knew he would. He grinned at her and said, ‘We play again,’ and the second time he won again, and the third time.

‘It’s stupid,’ she said. ‘It’s one of those games that you can’t lose.’

‘But
you
have lost.’

‘Because you have the trick.’

‘The
trique
?’ He spluttered with laughter.

She blushed, understanding the double entendre and angry that she couldn’t disguise her embarrassment. ‘The way of doing it.’

‘Ah, the
truc
! That is always the way, isn’t it? You win always if you know the
truc
.’ He gathered up the matches and returned them to their box as though they were valuable trophies. ‘And now we find somewhere to dance. In this city of
merde
you eat always badly, but at least you can find place to dance.’

‘I’m not going dancing with you. I told you.’

He looked at her with pale and erratic eyes. There was something unsteady about him, as though he had been drinking all afternoon and would continue all evening. ‘You know what
truc
I am making? I am returning to France, do you know that? I am going back to
la patrie
and cut German throats. And you will not even dance with me.’

‘You’re drunk,’ she said. ‘I don’t go dancing with men who are drunk.’

‘And you are
frigide
,’ he retorted. ‘And I do not dance with women who are
frigide
.’

She picked up her handbag and got up from her chair. ‘I must go.’

‘Why must you go?’

‘Because otherwise I will be late.’ He made a grab at her hand but she shook him off. ‘
Tu m’emmerdes!
’ she told him as she walked away. She didn’t look back, not even to see the shock in his expression. How to get away? If she went to her room he
would probably follow her, and she damn well wasn’t going to hide away like a frightened little girl. Pulling on her coat, she walked quickly through the foyer and out through the revolving doors. A taxi was delivering a fare to the hotel. She climbed into the empty seat.

‘Where to, Miss?’ the cabbie asked.

She gave Ned’s address. ‘Bloomsbury,’ she said. ‘Russell Square, more or less.’

‘More or less Russell Square it is, darling.’

The cab crept through the darkened streets. There were cinemas open in Piccadilly, their faint lights cast down on the pavement. Black shapes shifted in front of them like shades in Hades, queues of silhouettes lined up along the pavements and edging towards the box offices. But beyond the borderline of the Tottenham Court Road there was no one around, and Bloomsbury was a dark maze.

‘You all right here, Miss?’ the cabbie asked as he let her down.

‘Quite all right,’ she said, handing over the fare. She scrabbled in her respirator case for her torch. By its feeble light she made her way to the door where Ned lived. There was a panel of bell pushes, but as she was about to press the one labelled
Dr Edward Sutro
the door opened and someone came barging out.

‘I’m so sorry,’ he said. ‘Bloody blackout.’

She dodged past him into the hallway and the door slammed shut behind her. She felt for the switch, turned on a pale, watery light in the stairwell and climbed the narrow stairs to the third floor. It was a relief when Ned answered her knock.

‘My goodness, Squirrel,’ he said as he saw her standing on the landing. ‘You look dressed to kill.’ He hugged her to him. A
hug from Ned was like being jumped at by a Great Dane, entrancing but at the same time awkward and uncomfortable. His own clothes gave the impression they had been picked up at a jumble sale. His hair was awry, and his smile was the distracted grin of someone who is delighted to see her but whose mind is really on different, abstract things. ‘Come in, come in,’ he said. ‘Tell me all about it.’

‘About what?’

‘What on earth you are doing. I spoke to the parents on the phone the other day. They said you’d left the WAAF. Something about going abroad. Father thought Algiers …’

She followed him through into the sitting room. The place was typical of Ned. Books were crammed into every available shelf and piled on the floor. His desk was littered with papers. A couple of decrepit armchairs stood opposite each other across a Persian carpet that was old and worn but gave the impression that it might once have been a valuable piece. On the wall behind the desk was a framed print of the Collège de France.