In Love and War (15 page)

On a bitterly cold February morning Elsie woke up and for a moment thought she was back in Cromwell Road, but she stretched and her feet touched the icy cold part of the bed bringing her back to reality with a jerk. She pulled the thin coverlet up to her chin. Although the room was in almost complete darkness the first grey light of dawn was seeping through the small windowpanes and gradually everything came into focus. The sound of soft breathing reminded her that she was sharing the sparsely furnished room with Marianne.

They had left the luxury of Felicia's flat and had travelled to France in an overcrowded troop ship, although they had been afforded the comparative luxury of a cabin below deck. It had not been the most comfortable journey, but luckily neither of them suffered from seasickness. They had landed under the cover of darkness and the official who had travelled with them had organised transport to take them to the station, which was seething with men in uniform. The smell of French cigarettes mingled with the stench of unwashed bodies, smoke and engine oil. The babel of voices raised to make themselves heard over the hissing eruptions of steam from the huge iron monsters only added to the din and confusion that surrounded them. Eventually they had managed to hail a fiacre, which took them to their lodgings close to the rue Saint-Roch. The concierge, who had introduced herself as Madame Chausse, had shown them to their apartment. She had been proud of the facilities offered at such a reasonable rate, but Elsie was not impressed.

She yawned and sat up, reaching for her dressing gown with a sigh. This is where they would be for the foreseeable future. She rose somewhat unwillingly from her bed, and taking care not to wake Marianne made her away across the cold oilcloth-covered floor to the tiny room which served as a kitchen. The furnishings were basic and the only method of heating food, or obtaining any warmth at all, was a single gas ring set on a rickety wooden table next to a chipped stone sink with a single tap. The bathroom and lavatory were situated at the far end of the landing and shared by all the occupants on the fifth floor.

Elsie washed her hands and face in ice-cold water and filled the kettle before placing it on the gas ring, which lit with a sputter, flamed and then dwindled to almost nothing. At this rate it would take an hour to make a pot of tea. She had had the forethought to pack a good supply of Lyons' tea and several packets of cocoa, but the small amount of luggage they had been allowed precluded very much more than the bare essentials. Marianne had been most annoyed to discover that she could only bring a limited amount of clothes, but eventually she had been dissuaded from packing an evening gown and several silk tea gowns. Elsie had managed to convince her that warm underwear and woollen jumpers would be far more useful in the bitter winter weather.

She hurried into the bedroom and dressed quickly, but she was still shivering. She added an extra jumper in an attempt to stop her teeth chattering and pulled on her fur-lined boots. They had been warned in advance that the Parisians were suffering severe privations, but she had not been prepared for the austerity they had come across in such a short space of time. Coal, the concierge had told them grimly, was unobtainable, as what supplies there were had gone to factories and the military. Domestic boilers could not be lit and paraffin was unobtainable. ‘You will turn your lights off at ten o'clock in the evening and if you want to use candles they will cost you forty centimes each.' Madame Chausse had left them to consider this as they settled into their new home.

Elsie glanced at the travelling clock that Marianne had placed on the small table between their beds. She went over and shook her gently. ‘Wake up. It's eight o'clock. We don't want to be late on our first day at work.'

Marianne opened one eye and groaned. ‘Go away. I want to sleep.'

‘Get up. I've put the kettle on but heaven only knows how long it will take to boil, and there's no milk.'

Marianne snapped into a sitting position. ‘It's freezing in here. We'll die of pneumonia.'

‘Nonsense,' Elsie said briskly. ‘I'm going to find the lavatory, and then I'll go out and get some milk and something for breakfast. I saw a shop a little further down the street.'

‘I refuse to share a lavatory with strangers,' Marianne said, reaching for her dressing gown.

‘I don't think we've got much choice.'

Marianne leaned over the edge of the bed and peered underneath. She righted herself with a grunt. ‘I thought there might have been a po, but there's only dust and fluff. I don't think much of the cleaners here.'

‘If you think I'm emptying a chamber pot for you, forget it,' Elsie said, giggling. ‘And the only cleaners here will be you and me, so we'll take it in turns.' She took her hat and coat from the row of hooks on the door and left the room before Marianne had a chance to grumble.

The corridor was dark and the only source of light was a window at the far end. She made her way towards it, trying hard to remember which door Madame had indicated when briefly showing them round. It would be embarrassing to barge into the wrong room, but all the doors looked the same. She was getting desperate when a woman emerged from one of the rooms. Elsie hurried up to her. ‘Good morning,' she said in French. ‘I'm looking for the lavatory.'

‘You've found it, dear.' The woman, who was not much older than Elsie herself, indicated the place she had just left. ‘New here, aren't you?'

‘We arrived last night,' Elsie said, edging towards the doorway.

‘Jeanne-Marie.' The woman held out her hand. ‘I've lived in this midden for what seems forever.'

‘Denise Michaud.' Elsie shook hands. The alias still sounded strange to her ears, even though she had practised it hundreds of times during her weeks of training in London.

Jeanne-Marie brushed a strand of dark hair back from her forehead. ‘You're not from round here, are you?'

Elsie was suddenly afraid that her accent had let her down. Perhaps she had been influenced by her Belgian friends, or her English overtones had betrayed her. She shrugged her shoulders. ‘I'm from Provence,' she said casually. ‘Now if you'll excuse me, I really need the lavatory.'

Jeanne-Marie grinned. ‘Busting to go, are you? I know the feeling. I get like that on champagne, but it's in short supply these days. I like a good night out.'

‘Who doesn't?' Elsie said in an attempt to sound casual.

‘Aha, you are a girl after my own heart. You must come with me some time. Most of the best places have closed down, but I know where you can still have a good time.'

‘Thanks. I'll remember that, Jeanne-Marie.' Elsie darted into the small room and closed the door with a sigh of relief. The somewhat gaudily dressed Jeanne-Marie seemed like a nice friendly person, but Elsie had been warned about double agents and was only too well aware that she must be careful with whom she associated. She washed her hands in the small and grimy basin and only then realised that there was no towel. She waited for a few minutes, hoping that her new friend would have gone back to her room, before drawing back the bolt. She opened the door and came face to face with a huge bear of a man with a dark beard and moustache and bushy eyebrows. His hand was raised and she stifled a cry of fright.

‘IT'S ALL RIGHT,'
he said gruffly. ‘No need to look scared. I don't bite.' He chuckled, a deep throaty noise that sounded more like a growl. ‘Not often anyway. Have you finished in there?'

‘Yes, monsieur.' Elsie slipped past him.

‘Raoul Dubroc.' He held out a large paw of a hand. ‘You're new here, aren't you?'

‘Denise Michaud.' She shook his hand and found his touch surprisingly gentle. She managed a feeble smile.

‘This isn't a safe place for a young girl to be these days, Denise.' His bushy eyebrows drew together in a frown. ‘You need to be very careful where you go in Paris.'

‘Thank you,' she murmured. ‘I'll bear that in mind.' She hurried off, heading for the staircase, and ran down five flights to the ground floor. The grille over Madame Chausse's tiny office was closed and for a moment she was afraid that the outer door might be locked, but it opened easily and she let herself out into the chill of a frosty morning. A pale sun was attempting to squeeze its way through the clouds, but the cold air stung her cheeks and made her catch her breath. She walked briskly down the street to the bakery on the corner, but was disappointed to find that there were no croissants or pastries on sale, and only the coarsest bread was available. She purchased a loaf, thinking that it might be palatable if spread with butter and jam, but there did not seem to be a dairy in the vicinity, and she dared not draw attention to herself by asking for directions. She retraced her steps.

‘What? No milk? And you call that bread? I call it a doorstop.' Marianne drew her coat closer around her body and shuddered. ‘I can't eat that, Elsie, and I'm not drinking tea without milk. It's uncivilised.'

Elsie shrugged her shoulders. ‘That's all I could get, and I couldn't find anywhere to buy milk or butter. I suggest you go out and see if you can do better.' She strode into the tiny kitchen to see if the kettle had boiled and found that it was barely simmering. She turned off the gas. ‘This is hopeless.'

‘I'm sorry.' Marianne leaned against the doorpost. ‘I didn't mean to be bitchy. It's just that I like a cup of tea in the morning and I'm bloody starving. We haven't eaten a thing since that awful meal we had at the station last night, which wasn't fit to feed to pigs.'

Elsie lifted the kettle and held it out to her. ‘If you want to wash in warm water you'd better use this. It's a pity to waste it.'

‘Thanks, but I prefer to keep dry at the moment. I'm afraid that water might freeze on my body and I won't be able to speak.' Marianne smiled ruefully. ‘Some might say that's a good thing. Anyway, I really am sorry I was being difficult. Do you forgive me?'

‘There's nothing to forgive. This isn't going to be easy for either of us.'

‘I suppose we'd better set off for work. Perhaps we can get something to eat and a cup of something hot there.'

The rue Saint-Roch was lined with tall buildings facing each other across a narrow street off the fashionable rue de Rivoli. They had been thoroughly briefed before leaving London and made to study a map indicating important places such as the British Embassy, which was situated a few streets away. The official title of 41 rue Saint-Roch was the Inter-Ally Permit Office where French citizens went in order to apply for a permit to travel to Britain, but behind the rather gloomy and ordinary-looking façade the British secret service carried out its espionage in total secrecy.

Elsie found herself situated in an office crammed with filing cabinets and two large desks. She shared one with Marianne and the other with a bilingual French secretary, Andrée Dorgebray, who kept them busy all morning doing mundane filing and sorting out the pile of correspondence on her desk in order of urgency. She spoke little and only when absolutely necessary, but she did unbend slightly midmorning when she took them to the kitchen on the ground floor and showed them where the coffee and mugs were kept. There was a jug of fresh milk on a marble slab in the larder, although the temperature inside the building was only a degree or two above that outside, and close to freezing.

Clutching their mugs of hot, milky coffee they followed her back up the wooden staircase, their footsteps echoing on the bare treads. ‘You will be allowed an hour for lunch,' Miss Dorgebray said with a hint of a smile. ‘There is a café in the next street where you'll get good food at a reasonable price, even allowing for the fact that everything is scarce nowadays.'

‘Thank you, Miss Dorgebray,' Marianne said meekly.

‘Now get back to work. Lunch is from one o'clock, and I expect you both back in the office at two o'clock precisely. We finish work at five, unless there is something urgent that needs our attention and then we stay on until it is finished. I hardly need to remind you that this is wartime, ladies. I've no doubt that your lives in London were very different, but you will just have to adapt to our ways or you will be sent home. Do I make myself clear?'

‘Yes, ma'am,' Elsie said hastily. She could sense the resentment building up in Marianne and she sent her a warning look.

‘Yes, Miss Dorgebray,' Marianne muttered.

At exactly one o'clock Andrée Dorgebray rose from her desk and took her coat and hat from the stand behind the door. ‘Two o'clock sharp,' she said as she left the office.

Marianne leapt to her feet. ‘Let's get out of here and find somewhere to eat. I'm absolutely starving.'

‘So am I.' Elsie abandoned the filing. ‘Perhaps we'd better try that café that Miss Dorgebray told us about as it's near and we don't yet know our way around.'

‘Agreed.' Marianne rammed her fur hat on her head. ‘Let's go.'

They hurried from the office putting on their coats as they went. Outside it had started to snow. Large feathery flakes drifted from a leaden sky, coating the pavements and almost immediately turning to black slush beneath the feet of passers-by. The café was not far away and the smoky fug inside was laced with the sharp tang of wine and the heady aroma of garlic. They found a table by the window and sat down to study the handwritten menu.

‘It looks like onion soup or onion soup,' Marianne said, grinning.

‘I don't care. I'm so hungry that my stomach feels as though it's eating itself.' Elsie clutched her belly and groaned.

Marianne looked up as a young boy approached them with a towel looped over his arm and a serious expression on his youthful face. ‘What may I get for you, ladies?'

Marianne's lips twitched but she ordered the soup and coffee as if they had selected it from a vast menu. ‘He's just a kid,' she said when he was out of earshot. ‘It's terrible to think that boys not much older than him are being sent to the front line and are dying every day.'