The Girl Who Fell From the Sky (35 page)

‘Go? Where, in God’s name? You’re safe here, Squirrel.’

This time she laughs at the use of the childhood name. ‘Paris is a dangerous place at the moment, you know that. Much as I’d like to, I can’t hide in the flat for ten days. My being here is a risk. People notice things. People gossip. It’s as simple as that. If you keep moving, you’re safer. It’s staying in one place that’s dangerous. I’ll be back in good time, a week from now. And in the meantime you’d better make up your mind about what you are going to do. For my sake, if no one else’s.’

The return to Toulouse is like leaving one continent for another, crossing an ocean, making landfall in a different world. The morning is bright and warm, a southern morning ten degrees hotter than Paris with an autumnal sun embedded in enamel blue; and she feels no fear. Apart from the temperature, that is the other noticeable thing – the nagging, incessant fear that she felt in Paris; somehow the rose-red city is immune from that. There is danger here but it is a danger you can see, something you can measure and combat, like the danger of infection. The danger of Paris is a cancer within you, invisible, imponderable and probably incurable.

Feeling elevated, light-headed with lack of sleep, she takes the regional train northwards. The countryside is comforting in its familiarity and when the bus finally dumps her in the main square of Lussac, it is as though she has come home. Gabrielle is overjoyed to see her. How was Paris? Tell me all about Paris! What were the people like, what were the fashions like, how were the crowds and the sights? Oh, and she has heard that Roland is trying to contact her.

Roland?

Le Patron
. He came round a couple of times. They’ve been chatting quite a lot. Roland’s so hard-working, so
driven
. When
she mentions his name, Gabrielle blushes, just faintly, a small flush, not of embarrassment but of heightened awareness.

At Plasonne they greet her like a long-lost daughter, Sophie fussing round her, bringing her food, insisting she sit down and rest, asking how the city was, how people were dressed, how the fashions were. Paris seems a kind of Cockaigne, an earthly paradise beyond their ken, whereas in fact it is nothing more than a grim wartime city with less food and less freedom than here. That evening, they listen to the radio. The set is in the kitchen, a contraption in polished wood with Bakelite knobs and a semicircular tuning dial. Albert tunes it carefully, the volume turned down low, his ear close to the speaker. ‘There!’ he says with a smile of triumph, standing back to display his prowess. Through the rush of static that comes out of the speaker they — hear the familiar call sign that is like the beat of a distant drum:

And then a voice announcing, ‘
Ici Londres!
’ a voice from a world away, a sound that never fails to evoke a sting of emotion. ‘
Les Français parlent aux Français
.’

Sophie watches her, trying to decipher her expression.

The radio voice says, ‘Before we begin, here are some personal messages.’ And then the messages come, the absurd and the poetic, lines solemn and comic delivered with the precise phrasing of a man who wants to be heard despite distance and interference and deliberate jamming:
Grandmother has bought the artichokes. The clouds of autumn bring winter rains. All good things come to fruition
. And then:

‘
Paul s’en va en dix minutes. Nous le disons deux fois: Paul s’en va en dix minutes
.’

‘There,’ Alice says with a small stir of happiness, and Sophie smiles at her, knowing that Alice has scored some kind of triumph, that London has spoken, that somehow the end has been brought that little bit nearer.

On the radio the news has started. It’s mainly about Russia,
a land that Albert espouses but has never seen and can barely envisage. The announcer talks of tens of thousands killed, whole armies captured, so many people thrown on the waste heap that you cannot imagine such a number can be replaced. And yet the war goes on.

‘Now you need to sleep,’ Sophie says. ‘You’re exhausted.’

Le Patron
shouts. White-faced and angry, he’s standing in the kitchen of Gabrielle’s house, with the old mother in the corner knitting away, not hearing a word. ‘What the hell were you doing, gallivanting around in Paris? We’ve got work to do round here! I need you to be on call!’

She is no longer afraid of him, that is the difference. When she first came he was a terrifying prospect, more terrifying than the Gestapo. But now she sees him for what he is, a small man in a fearful position, trying to balance forces that may crush him in an instant. And finding comfort in Gabrielle’s small and devoted attentions.

‘I didn’t go for my own amusement,’ she says when the storm has passed. ‘You know that as well as I do.’

He spits something, a shred of tobacco maybe. ‘If they want someone in Paris, why the hell don’t they drop someone into the city? They can land right on the bloody Eiffel Tower for all I care. Have it stuck up their arse.’

‘And I’m afraid I’ve got to go back.’

‘Go
back
? What the hell do you mean,
go back
?’

‘I’ve got to organise a pick-up.’

‘I thought it was just those bloody crystals.’

‘It wasn’t.
CINÉASTE
has been broken up and Marcelle needs to get out.’

‘But there are people in Paris who can arrange that.’

‘She’s in hiding. The place is a nightmare and she’s terrified
of being caught. Only I know where she is. Virtually all the Paris circuits have collapsed and there’ve been dozens of arrests.’

‘And you’ve arranged the pick-up already? How did you make contact?’

Why should he know that she was given instructions about contacting Gilbert? Why should he know anything? ‘I used Marcelle’s radio.’

He draws on his cigarette and eyes her suspiciously. ‘Since when were you a pianist?’

‘We all get basic training.’

‘Anyway, we’re due for a drop the next moon. You can’t be away.’

‘Gaillard can do it. He knows exactly what to do.’

‘He’ll bring in Marcel’s lot and they’ll steal half the stuff.’

She doesn’t care. Marcel’s men will do useful things with whatever they have. They’re communists and are therefore both organised and driven. Too many of the others have mixed motives.

‘You’ve barely been here two months and you’re spending most of your time in bloody Paris. I could order you to stay.’

‘You’d better ask London about that.’

‘What the fuck does London know?’ He frowns at her and takes another drag on his cigarette. ‘And you’ve got to go back to Toulouse. Immediately.’

‘What for?’

‘Another idea of London’s. Why don’t they keep their bloody noses out of it? This time it’s an argument with the RAF. We’ve got to prove our value by blowing something up, otherwise they’ll send Bomber Command to flatten half the bloody town. It’s politics. We’ve got enough politics here among the French. The last thing we need is politics at home. But there you are: our bosses believe that targeted destruction is more effective than area bombing, so they want us to do this as a demo. The idea is simple: we risk the life of a few saboteurs rather than a hundred
bomber crews, and at the same time they keep in with the French by not obliterating a few hundred civilians. Simple mathematics. Fine, unless you are one of the terms in the equation.’

She thinks of other equations, with values greater than any imagining. Equations solved by Clément and the big jovial Russian Lev Kowarski. Equations measuring life and death. Fifty-eight thousand. Is that the solution?

‘The target is the Ramier factory. César’s got to set something up, work out how to attack it and let me have a plan within the week.’

‘César?’

‘Who else?’

‘It sounds risky.’

‘Of course it’s risky.’ He eyes her suspiciously. ‘Is there anything going on between you two?’

‘César and me? What d’you mean?’

‘There’d better not be. We can’t have that kind of thing in this circuit. You see to it that he keeps his hands out of your knickers.’

She blushes. ‘What on earth are you suggesting?’

‘You know perfectly well what I mean, madam. It’s a bloody nuisance having a girl like you around. The men here can’t keep their eyes off you, and César’s practically gagging for it whenever you’re around.’

She manages to be angry. It’s difficult but she manages it. ‘That’s outrageous! I barely see him. It’s hardly my fault what people think.’ She glares at him, seeing him hideous and thwarted, a man who lives with his nerves exposed like something in a butcher’s shop, hanging from a hook. He’s the first to flinch, to look away from her fury. ‘Anyway, you tell him what I said. The Ramier factory. We need a report immediately. I reckon a commando of a dozen men, something like that, but he’s to make his own mind up.’ He drags on his cigarette and turns pointedly to look out of the window. ‘You’d better leave first. I’ll wait here until you’re well away.’

She opens the door and goes out into the hall. Gabrielle is peering down from the banisters at the top of the stairs. Although it’s nine o’clock in the morning, she’s still wearing her nightdress. ‘Are you going already, Alice?’ she calls. ‘Is Roland still there?’

Looking up, Alice can see her white legs and awkward knees. ‘Don’t worry,’ she calls up. ‘I’m sure he won’t leave without saying goodbye.’

She emerges from Toulouse station in the early evening and makes her way to an address she has nearby, a safe house she has used before. The owners are a railwayman and his wife who greet her with enthusiasm, eager to do something, anything to contribute. The flat was intended for their son who was planning to get married, but was sent to Germany under the STO. So now the flat lies empty awaiting his return. ‘César was asking about you,’ the wife says.

Alice finds herself blushing faintly. ‘Tell him I’m here.’

The flat is barely furnished – a bed and chest of drawers in one room, a broken-backed sofa and some upright chairs and a table in another, a kitchen with a sink and some cupboards and an ancient gas cooker that doesn’t have a cylinder attached and so is entirely useless. As she falls asleep on the bare mattress, the thought of Benoît is a comfort. Benoît is normality, Benoît is comprehensible. Is it easier to love something that you understand?

He comes the next day, letting himself into the house as though it belongs to him. It’s not meant to be like this. Meetings are intended to be fleeting, casual, contingent encounters; not the two of them together in an empty apartment with no constraint of time. But this is what she wants. She’s smarting from
le Patron
’s words and confused by her three days with Clément. She feels an elevation of mood, as though she has drunk too much, and a depression of spirit, as though she has lost a friend. And Benoît is his usual self – laughing, careless, his clothes awry, his self-confidence complete.

‘I’ve got to go back,’ she tells him when he asks about Paris.

‘Go
back
, Minou? Why the hell? I’ll bet that makes
le Patron
happy. He was calling you all manner of names when I last saw him. That bloody Parisienne, he said, and that was only the mildest. A
garce
, he called you, putting on her airs and graces. Doesn’t she know there’s a war on?’

They laugh together. She no longer dislikes his calling her Minou. In fact she discovers she enjoys the comfort and the familiarity. He has been part of her life ever since that very first encounter in London when she was a young and fearful girl called Marian Sutro, and now he’s a constant when so much is confused and random. And he is not Clément, he doesn’t possess that awful potency of childhood memory. When she delivers
le Patron
’s message his expression transforms into one of pure delight – ‘The Ramier factory? Wow!’ – like a child given a new toy, his face lighting up with excitement. ‘Don’t you know the Ramier factory? It’s explosives. One of the biggest in the country. Do you want to have a look at the place?’

‘A look at it?’

‘Why not? It’s on an island in the river, upstream from the city centre. Come on, it’ll be fun.’

Fun seems something alien, something that belongs to other people. ‘Why not?’ she agrees.

They take bikes, a boy and a girl together, down through the city to the Garonne. The banks of the river are deserted, almost rural. She thinks of the Thames, and the Seine, and now this river, quiet and empty, strewn with islands and brushed with willows, and Benoît cycling beside her, joking
with her, bringing sanity to a life that is essentially insane. They cross the bridge to the Ramier island and stroll hand in hand, pushing their bikes past the main gate of the factory while guards watch them incuriously.

‘Perhaps we should kiss,’ Benoît says. ‘Reinforce our cover.’

‘You’re taking advantage.’

‘Of course I am.’ He laughs and pulls her towards him while the guards cheer. His smile, that smile of insouciance, is quite unlike Clément’s, which is knowing and cynical. ‘I miss you so much, Minou. You don’t understand.’