'Funnily enough,' pursued Ormerod, 'the film was called
Ask A Policeman.
Quite strange that, wasn't it?'
'Fascinating,' said the Frenchwoman without a shred of enthusiasm. 'We danced here. On this courtyard. It seems so long ago. When everything seemed to be all right.'
'It did once,' he agreed moodily. 'We thought it was anyway. One minute you're in the one-and-sixes, laughing all the way. The next you're shooting and drowning Germans. It hardly seems possible.'
'It is possible,' she answered quietly. They were almost at the door now. It opened quite suddenly and quietly. A man stood there, holding back one of the largest and most fearsome dogs Ormerod had ever seen. Its eyes blazed in the dimness and its flailing red tongue seemed to glow.
'Come in,' said the man who held the monster's collar. 'He will not hurt you.'
He spoke in English for Ormerod's benefit. He smiled at the girl.
'Bonsoir,
Marie-Thérèse,' he said. 'You have come back to Mesnil-Bocage.'
She took his proffered hand and they kissed cheeks. Ormerod was introduced and he shook hands without taking his eyes off the dog. A growl was rattling in its throat. Ormerod sidled by, getting as close to the door jamb as possible. They walked into a dank, echoing hall, like a vault, the walls rising high to an indistinct ceiling. A wide staircase went up around the walls in a series of galleries. 'They call him Jacques-the-Odd,' whispered Marie-Thérèse. The man had gone ahead to put the howling dog into some confinement. 'He is a little strange.'
I don't wonder, living here,' muttered Ormerod, looking around. 'No wonder the Germans haven't bothered with the place.'
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'It used to be beautiful,' she said sadly, looking around her. They walked into a large room with a carved ceiling. A good fire was gnawing through some logs at the distant end. Jacques appeared silently behind them and turned on a single light. Ormerod felt Marie-Thérèse's nervous jump. His eyes took in the room. It was like a storehouse, crates and cases and piles of books, stacks of pictures, upturned furniture, crockery, garden tools, even a motorcycle leaning against the panelled wall. A collection of stuffed deer-heads was crowded into one corner, staring glassily into the room, curiously like animals in a pen.
'Everything is here, monsieur,' said Jacques, waving his hand at the amazing jumble. I guard it for the family with Honored the dog, and the ghosts.' He laughed. 'I think the German army is afraid of us. You would like some wine?'
He led them towards the great-mouthed fireplace and motioned them into two chairs. It was enjoyable to sit in a chair again. Ormerod felt the comfortable warmth on his face. The cheeks of Marie-Thérèse were shining in the firelight like those of a child. Jacques was a broad-shouldered man, about fifty, hair like a dish rag, and wearing the commonplace
bleu de travail
and large-toed shoes. He shuffled away to get the drink, returning with the glasses and an already opened bottle. 'It is just the
vin du pays,'
he said. 'The ordinary wine of this region, monsieur. There is some fine wine in the cellars here but I am not permitted to touch it. When the war is over some of it will be quite acceptable and some will be ruined.'
'Where is the family?' asked Ormerod.
Jacques shrugged, his shadow heaving on the wall. 'Who knows? They were going to Bordeaux, because they thought like many others that the French Government would go there from Paris and fight the Germans from the west. A lot of hope there was of that.'
'What news from Granville?' asked Marie-Thérèse more urgently.
'It is good,' replied Jacques. He sat down on an upturned flower tub. 'There was a curfew and house searches and notices posted on walls around the town, but no arrests, and so far no hostages or reprisals. It looks as though you got away with it.'
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'Good,' nodded the Frenchwoman. 'If Paul Le Fevre is still free, and the others, that means they are not looking for us. They do not realize we are here. Nobody has noticed Dubois is missing?'
'The Germans have not,' replied Jacques. 'The story is that he has gone to Rennes and has temporarily shut his business. Where did you put him ?'
'In the cemetery. In a vault,' put in Ormerod, understanding the sense.
'A nice touch,' nodded the man. 'The proper place for a dead man.' He rose. 'You are hungry I expect. We shall eat excellently. I have not touched the wines, but the larder is another thing. Also I have some good Normandy tripe.'
'Tripe!' The eyes of Marie-Thérèse lit. 'That's wonderful, Jacques.'
'From Caen only today,' said the man, putting his finger in the side of his nose. I have a friend.'
'It is indeed a friend who brings you tripe from Caen,' she enthused. She laughed at Ormerod. 'The tripe in this region is the best anywhere,' she told him.
'We have tripe in England, you know,' he replied defensively. 'Big thing in the north. With onions.'
She made a face. I have seen it. It is inferior to Normandy tripe.'
'I'm not starting a war over it,' he shrugged. 'I'll surrender. Your tripe is superior to our tripe. Now are you happy?'
'Not happy. Satisfied,' she said. Jacques laughed in the deep shadows as he went from the room. The dog howled plaintively in its confinement.
'How long will we stay here?' asked Ormerod, putting his feet out towards the fire. I could get a liking for this.'
Marie-Thérèse did not reply. She was sitting in a wing-back chair, the shadows of the fire moving across her face. She looked weary and her eyes were closed. He thought, not for the first time, how strange it was they should be doing this thing. She appeared so small and vulnerable. It was difficult to realize that her ambition was to kill. Jacques returned through the thick gloom of the outer room bearing two more glasses of wine. It was a moment or two before Marie-Thérèse opened
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her eyes to take hers. She seemed to have been drifting to sleep. She smiled apologetically and took the glass. Ormerod took his and they raised them in silence. The ghostly dog appeared startlingly at Ormerod's elbow. The Englishman and the animal rolled eyes at each other. 'Ah, the Hound of the Baskervilles is back,' said Ormerod, not taking his eyes off the powerful face. The dog's jaw dropped open and its mouth glowed like a furnace.
'This estate had thirty like this once,' said Jacques, giving the hound a friendly push with his foot. 'The finest of the deer-hounds in Northern France. Now they are nothing. All gone except for Honore here.'
The animal, as if knowing what was being said, emitted a a mixture of whine and a yawn and eased itself onto the floor like a leggy pony. Its red eyes ascended to Ormerod but they were now as soft as if it had suddenly fallen in love. The expression was one of abrupt adoration. Ormerod grinned at it. He looked up at Marie-Thérèse. She had gone to sleep. The Englishman closed his eyes also, the domestic well-being of the fire touching him. For almost the first time since he had arrived in France he wondered what his wife was doing.
Jacques prepared a meal of pate, a casserole of tripe, with fruit and local Camembert. They ate almost in silence, enjoying the food and the rough Calvados. Eventually Ormerod asked about Bagnoles de l'Orne.
'The most peaceful place in the world,' said Jacques, wiping the tripe gravy from his mouth. 'And the safest place. If you want to hide from the war go to Bagnoles. It is a Red Cross town you understand, all the hotels and the thermal spa are in the hands of the hospitals. They have wounded from all the armies there, French, British and German, with German and French doctors to care for them. After the battles nobody is an enemy.'
'It is all very sporting, you see,' said Marie-Thérèse, opening her eyes and regarding Ormerod with her rough cynicism. 'AH helping each other.'
I suppose they've got to stop shooting at some time,' said Ormerod. 'And when you're getting short of arms and legs that's a good time to stop.'
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'I have a pacifist as a partner,' Marie-Thérèse shrugged at Jacques.
'In the end he will win,' nodded Jacques. 'Any fool can fire a gun.'
The woman said nothing more, seeming tired of the argument. There was no tension at the table, though, just weariness. Jacques opened a second bottle of wine but was left to drink most of it himself. Before that he showed them where they could sleep, rooms at the extreme ends of the low, ghostly corridor, close as a tunnel. Ormerod called goodnight from his door and his voice travelled strangely under the beams. She called back,
'Bonne nuit,'
and went to her room. Jacques returned to the fire, the hound and the Calvados.
Ormerod's room was large and dusty. The furniture, the enormous wooden bed apart, was draped with white sheets, giving it the appearance of a mortuary. He was too fatigued to care. He climbed into the bed in his shirt and slept quickly.
He was awakened by a movement at the foot of the bed and his hand went, instinctively by now, to the gun beneath the pillow. His eyes moved outwards and he saw a figure in white standing in the dusty gloom. It was Marie-Thérèse wearing a long nightgown. I cannot sleep,' she said quietly. 'The house is strange. It frightens me.'
'You've just put the wind up me,' he said, sitting up. I didn't think
anything
would frighten you.'
I am sorry. I would like to come into that bed with you.'
A wonderful silence filled him. His hand moved from the gun to the sheets and blankets. He opened them. 'Come on in,' he muttered. 'There's room. This bed's like a football pitch.'
He was amazed at her. Gone was the toughness, the cynicism. She hurried gladly in the white nightgown to the side of the bed and jumped in like a frightened child.
Remembering how they had occupied the bed in Granville and believing that it could only be like that again, Ormerod turned clumsily away from her and said gruffly: 'Goodnight.'
'Goodnight, Dodo,' she whispered. But within a minute she had touched him with her fingers. He felt her touch his hipbone and the breath seemed to rush from his body. For a moment he did not move, still thinking it might be a mistake,
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that she had brushed him with her fingers in her drowsiness, but then she moved her hand forward until the small, firm palm cradled his hip. Even then he only spoke.
'Are you all right, Marie-Thérèse?' he asked.
'Yes, I am all right.'
'Good. I just wondered.'
'Please turn to me.'
He turned ponderously. He had never been a sensual man, his passions were slow after a lifetime of witnessing the passions of others. Now he did not know what to do, how to act. She seemed so small, her face like a little cheese, her body fragile in the linen nightdress. Only inches separated them but it was like a chasm. Now they had no contact. Timidly he reached out for her with his clumsy hands and touched her ribs. She murmured something he did not understand and moved to him. The touch of that slender, small body was like a shock through his system. His arms completed the circle and he pulled her with extreme gentleness to his chest. Her hands went to his waist, around his shirt, and she held on to him as he held her.
'It is just that ... I need,' she said, as though she owed him an explanation.
'I thought I didn't,' he said.
His penis came sleepily from beneath his shirt as if wondering what was going on. Its warmth touched her stomach and she gave a dark little gasp. Her hands moved deliberately from his waist and she captured it and held on to it. Her delicate fingers ran along its skin. Ormerod eased his hands, with equal gentleness, down from her ribs to the backs of her knees, then rubbed them softly up the flanks of her thighs and then on to her buttocks.
'I'm a bit out of practice,' he said.
He felt her chuckle. Her face came up from the bedclothes and she worked her way up his chest until it was against his. He kissed her dumbly. He could manage gentleness but not finesse.
He attempted it again and this time it was better. The smell of her short hair got in his nostrils and made him want to sneeze. He took his hands from the tight mounds of her but-
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tocks and made to push them between the arch of her legs. She resisted with sleepy playfulness. 'I have other places, Dodo,' she whispered.
There were three pearly buttons at the neck of the old-fashioned nightdress. He felt her undo them and his hands went to the opening. The white linen slipped softly across the skin of her shoulders. It eased across her left breast and the nipple slid out. He felt sure it was glowing in the dark. He thought he would break his neck trying to reach it. He had to shift down in the bed and she wriggled up until his mouth was next
to it. He kissed it almost politely and then drew it to his mouth.
She groaned and returned her hands to caress him. He put his mouth from her breast to her neck and felt her smile. 'Is there another one?' he said.
'Somewhere,' she murmured. 'You must search.'
He put his rough lips against the outside of the linen nightdress and touched the little covered breast with his tongue. Then he sucked at it through the material. She gave a mouselike sound and rolled on to her back, opening the arch of her slim dark legs and pulling the part of him which she held towards her. She gasped at the contact. I won't hurt you, love,' he said. 'I'll try not to hurt.'
'Hurt me if it is right,' she mumbled. He looked down at her tight face in the dimness. Then to the one exquisite breast shining like a small dome. The veins in her neck were like
wire. Ormerod, conscious of his own natural clumsiness, stag
gered forward on his knees. The flats of his hands went under
her backside again and he encouraged her on to him, a fraction
at a time, before easing her down on to the sheet again. Then
he lay against her and into her and they were entirely together.
The face below him was so taut he thought she might scream.
Gradually, as he moved and she moved minutely with him, the cramped expression cleared and her skin settled. Her eyes
opened fractionally. He was gazing at her face. He moved still
with care, still with the fear of spoiling it.