Those in Peril (23 page)

Rennes station was crowded with demobilized French army conscripts, waiting for trains to take them onward to their homes. They were celebrating with large quantities of red wine. He approached one who seemed less drunk than the rest, and learned that they had been demobbed either because they were older men or because they had large numbers of children. The man, a happy and foolish grin on his face, was very certain that the whole war would be over soon in any case. He neither knew, nor cared, what sort of a peace would follow.

Duval's widowed aunt lived in the Rue St Michel in the old northern quarter, where half-timbered buildings had survived the great fire of two centuries ago. She had survived, like the buildings, so far as he knew. He walked there from the railway station, observing the German soldiers on the streets in their
feldgrau
uniforms – their presence as strong, if not stronger, as in Lorient. I'm getting used to seeing them around, he thought wryly. If this goes on, soon I won't even notice they are there.

Aunt Pauline, he discovered, was very much alive. Always of an acerbic disposition, she had grown increasingly so with advanced age. He was shown into her shaded salon by her faithful servant, Jeanne, almost as ancient and withered as his aunt. It was exactly as he had always remembered: window shutters closed against the offending daylight, wooden floors gleaming with linseed polish, the steady, sonorous ticking of the huge ormolu clock on the mantelpiece. The furniture and furnishings frozen in time, like his aunt, at the turn of the century.

‘So it's you, Louis. You've put on weight since I last saw you.'

He bent to kiss her cheek. She smelled, as she had always done, of the camphor that Jeanne employed so liberally to protect her old-fashioned garments from moths. He wondered if it had also somehow kept death at bay – mothballing not only her clothing but her carcass. She must, he reckoned, be very close to ninety. Perhaps even beyond it.

‘What are you after?'

‘Nothing whatever, dear aunt, except the pleasure of seeing you.'

‘You don't expect me to believe that, do you?'

‘It's partly true.' They had always got on well. If it was not exactly love, it was mutual respect. She had admired his painting and encouraged him to study in Paris against his parents' wishes. But she had not cared for Simone.

‘What is the other part? And no, you may
not
smoke, Louis. Not in here, you know that very well. I deplore the modern habit of men smoking wherever they please.'

He put away the cigarette and played the same card that he had played with Violette. ‘I'm curious to see how the Germans are treating my home town. How the family is surviving.'

She said caustically, ‘A very sudden interest and concern on your part, Louis. You haven't cared a jot about the family in years. The Germans are here again – what more can one say? It's quite like old times and one must get accustomed to it once more. As for your family, as you can see, I'm perfectly well. Your cousins are well, too, so far as I am aware. André visits occasionally and he gives me news of the rest. None of them live in Rennes now – he is the only one remaining here.'

‘What does he do?'

‘He's a teacher, at your old school. Nothing special, but at least it spared him conscription. He has become quite the Bolshevik, you know. Full of talk about how Stalin will crush Hitler in the end. Fortunately, he's not actually a Party member or he would certainly have been arrested by now.'

‘What is his view of Marshal Pétain?'

‘Naturally, he has nothing good to say of him. And nor have I. Marshal Pétain has betrayed France. Betrayed us all. But why this unaccustomed interest, Louis? Why do you care what André thinks, or doesn't think? What are you about?'

‘It's safer that you don't know.'

She snorted. ‘The Germans aren't going to bother me, if that's what you mean. I never leave these rooms. Jeanne runs all the errands.'

‘Safer for others, too.'

She drew herself up in her chair, black bombazine inflating indignantly. ‘You are not, I hope, suggesting that I would betray a confidence, Louis? I have yet to do so in my extremely long life. And I shall not do so now.'

He knew that he could trust her and he had always respected her opinion. He gave her the bare bones of it; she listened without comment until he had finished.

‘Ask your consin André, by all means. He knows many people here in Rennes – how they think and feel. But he won't care at all about the English. You will have to persuade him that anything that helps defeat Hitler will also help Stalin.'

‘I had also thought of Dr Duchez.'

‘Then don't any longer. He's retired long since. The new one is a Pétainist. Whenever he visits, we argue. He tells me that the war will end with a victorious invasion of England before the summer is out. That the Germans will instil the order and discipline needed here in France. Last time he came, I told Jeanne to show him the door.'

‘So, who else do you think I should approach?'

The black bombazine reinflated itself. ‘Myself, of course. I'm greatly offended that you didn't ask me in the first place.'

He looked at the old woman with affection and amusement. ‘My dear aunt, you said yourself that you never leave these rooms.'

She regarded him coldly. ‘Don't mock, Louis.
I
may not, but Jeanne does.'

Mrs Lamprey's supply of
L'Heure Bleue
had finally dried up. She had tried writing to Harrods, Fortnum & Mason, Liberty's and Debenham & Freebody – all to no avail.

‘Monsieur Duval will know where I can find some. I shall ask him as soon as he comes back from London, Mrs Hillyard. He's a Frenchman. He'll know where to find it. It's in their blood. Perfume, wine, good food,
savoir-vivre
. All French people know instinctively about such things.'

‘I'm sure they do.'

‘What is for dinner tonight, Mrs Hillyard?'

‘It's cold, I'm afraid.'

‘
Cold?
'

‘I'm going to be out this evening. I'll leave it all on the sideboard so you can help yourselves, if you don't mind.'

It was clear that Mrs Lamprey did mind but she accepted it with good grace. ‘It must be something important, Mrs Hillyard. You never usually go out in the evenings.'

She couldn't, in fact, remember the last time. And Esme was just as put out as Mrs Lamprey.

‘What about my supper?'

‘I'll give it to you before I go. And you can read until later in bed, if you like. Miss Tindall has said she'll make sure you're all right. If there's anything the matter, then you can knock on her door.' Esme made a face. ‘I shan't be late, anyway, and I'll come and see you as soon as I'm back.'

‘Where are you going?'

‘Out to dinner.'

‘What for? You could have it here.'

‘I've been invited.'

‘Who by?'

‘Lieutenant Commander Powell.'

‘Who's he?'

‘You remember . . . he's been here to see Monsieur Duval. The tall man in naval uniform.'

‘Oh,
him
. But he's
old
.'

When he'd telephoned she could have declined politely, and he was not at all the sort of man to go on insisting. But the thought of going out had seemed appealing. Dressing up a little – putting on a frock that she hadn't worn for years. Not having, for once, to cook the food she ate. Escape for one evening from her role as cook, waitress, kitchen maid.

Alan Powell arrived early when she was still changing. By the time she went downstairs, Mrs Lamprey had him in her clutches in the sitting room and was entertaining him with her version of a scene from
Pygmalion
. He caught sight of her in the doorway and as Mrs Lamprey paused to draw breath, he interrupted quickly, ‘I wish I'd seen the performance myself. It must have been excellent.'

‘Oh it was, Lieutenant Commander. You have no idea. Of course Mrs Patrick Campbell made a perfect Eliza. One of our greatest actresses. Why, Mrs Hillyard, there you are at last! I have discovered your little secret, as you see. No wonder you are deserting us this evening.'

In the car, she apologized. ‘I'm sorry you had to be a captive audience.'

‘I deserved it for being early,' he said. ‘It's one of my bad habits. I can never seem to arrive at the correct time.'

She had imagined that he would take her to somewhere over in Dartmouth but instead he drove up the hill out of Kingswear.

‘I've been told there's a fairly good place to eat in Torquay. I hope you don't mind a bit of a drive.'

She sat in silence, wondering whether she had been wise to accept his invitation, and then told herself that she had nothing to fear from someone like him. Unlike the other men who had wanted to take her out after Noel's death, he would never become a pest. She was surprised that he wasn't married. Or perhaps he had been? A widower, then, in the same state as herself? Divorced, perhaps? An unhappy marriage that had ended in disaster?

The place that he had been recommended was the restaurant of a hotel. Its other patrons were elderly ladies who watched them with avid interest. The waiter was equally elderly but paid them nothing like the same attention. The soup was tinned and tepid, the beef almost too tough to chew. The apple pudding, when it finally arrived after a long delay, was so sour it set her teeth on edge.

‘I'm terribly sorry,' he said. ‘I had no idea it would be like this.'

‘Perhaps the chef was called up.'

‘Perhaps he was. Would you like some cheese? They can't go too far wrong with that.'

But they could and they had. A small dry piece that would have disgraced a mousetrap, and some stale biscuits. He apologized again and, in spite of her disappointment, she started to laugh. ‘There's a war on,' she said. ‘Didn't you know?'

He smiled ruefully. ‘So there is. I'd almost forgotten. Shall we risk coffee in the lounge?'

The lounge had dusty palms in pots, well-worn sofas and armchairs, a small dais with a grand piano – its lid firmly closed – and a large dance floor. Once upon a time, before the war, the hotel must have been rather a fine place. Elegantly dressed guests, good food and wine, faultless service, a three-piece orchestra playing for
thé dansants
and after dinner in the evenings. It was a smaller version of the Grand Hotel in Eastbourne where she had worked.

The old ladies were reassembling around them, each settling into her accustomed chair, getting out their knitting, adjusting their deaf aids, waiting for the entertainment to resume. Normal conversation was awkward since she knew they would be hanging on every word. She found that she was talking about the weather – what a good summer it had been, how warm for the time of year, though of course the garden really needed the rain.

‘My sister would agree with you,' he said. ‘She's a keen gardener like yourself.'

She had a vision of immaculately tended lawns, glorious herbaceous borders, topiary, marble statues. ‘Her garden must be beautiful.'

He shook his head. ‘Actually, it's chaotic – just like her house. But she enjoys pottering about.'

She said, grasping at suitable topics for their audience, ‘Did you always have an ambition to go into the Navy?'

‘Well, it's been rather a family tradition. My father was in the Navy and my grandfather, too. I was brought up to follow them. I suppose I might have resented it, but the fact is I love the sea.'

She could sense the inclining of ears towards them, like corn ears bending on their stalks with the wind; the knitting needles had clicked to a halt.

He went on, ‘I loved Dartmouth. Thoroughly enjoyed it – cold baths and all.'

‘So did Rear Admiral Foster. He says they were the happiest days of his life.'

‘Mine, too, I think. Or, at least, so far.'

She wondered again what else lay in his past, but with the old biddies listening, it was impossible to broach the subject. What to talk about? Whatever he did now in the Navy was forbidden ground.
Careless Talk Costs Lives
. But what exactly
did
he do? Whatever it was, Monsieur Duval was involved in some way.

She said, ‘Mrs Lamprey wants to know when Monsieur Duval will be back. She's run out of her favourite French perfume and she's convinced he'll know where to get some more.'

‘I'm afraid Mrs Lamprey might have to resign herself to doing without. I doubt if he'll be able to help.'

Against all the odds, the coffee, when it finally arrived, was good. They talked of inconsequential, everyday things – the weather, the shortages, the delays, a new film. Stilted, barren conversation. The disappointment of their audience was palpable. And then he spoke of her brother – just a comment, in passing, about him serving in the Navy, but she was curious.

‘How did you know about Freddie?'

He frowned. ‘Didn't you mention him?'

‘I don't think so. Only to Monsieur Duval. Perhaps he said something to you?'

‘Actually, no.'

She was still puzzled. ‘I can't remember talking about him.' She wanted to ask him where Freddie's ship might be now. When he might get some leave. What his chances of survival were. But, of course, even if he knew the answers to all those things, he couldn't tell her.

They left the old ladies to their knitting and he drove her back. With double summertime, there was still no need for headlights. As they came down the steep hill into Kingswear, he said, ‘I'm so sorry about this evening. I'm afraid it wasn't very enjoyable.'