Something Dangerous (Spoils of Time 02) (64 page)

‘You think she’d learn something?’

‘Of course. It’s a very good little school, I’m told.’ She sighed. ‘I had such a lovely time down at Ashingham during the last war. It was the first time I really felt truly happy.’

‘Well I may do it, then. I’m getting very worried about her being here.’

‘I think you should. Oh, Sebastian, I wish we knew something about Adele. The telephone lines are completely dead to Paris now, there’s no news of her at all. I do hope and pray she’s all right.’

‘Of course she is. Right as rain.’

‘But the Germans are almost at the gates of Paris.’

‘I know, I know. But she’ll be all right. Survivors they are, those twins, both of them. Like their mother. I’d back them against Hitler’s army any day.’

Adele woke up with a start; there was a sword, or was it a knife, sticking into her side. She sat bolt upright, pushing the cushion she had used as a pillow on to the floor of the car. What was it, who had got in? She had locked the door so carefully, only leaving a tiny crack of each window open to let in some air. She had even worried about that, afraid that the Germans, or more likely some predatory French, less well-equipped for this journey than she was, might force a window further down. But otherwise they would have suffocated.

Still, a sword, she hadn’t expected that – only it wasn’t a sword, of course, she realised gratefully as she eased herself out of her cramped position, it was simply an agonising stabbing pain, from lying cramped up all night. She felt terrible though: hot, sick, thirsty . . .

She turned round, looked at the children. They were still asleep. They hadn’t stirred once she had finally got them settled, some time after midnight. She wasn’t too sure what the time was now – it was obviously very early, dawn had hardly broken, but her watch had stopped. That was horrible: not knowing the time. She had heard somewhere that it was one of the ways in which tortured prisoners had their spirits broken: by having their watches taken away, so that they had no idea what time of day or night it was and became totally disorientated. She must find out the time, and remember to wind her watch every night until she got home.

Until she got home; she kept saying it to herself. Not if, but when. She had already learned a hard lesson in that.

The journey had begun fairly well; they had moved quite easily through the city streets, which were for the most part wonderfully empty and clear; she had decided to leave by the Porte d’Italie on to the main road south. Every time she passed a main railway station, they were held up by the milling crowds and queues trying to force their way into it, dreadful, shocking scenes, reminiscent of some medieval painting of hell she thought, people pushing and shouting at one another, tall men manhandling their way through the crowd, children held aloft, crying, often screaming, for the parents they had been separated from, old people literally panting in the heat, here a woman fainting, there a man collapsed, calling for a doctor, everyone ignoring him. And there were no trains; or almost no trains. It was the first time she had witnessed this particular horror; it increased her fear.

Her own children watched fascinated, staring out of the windows unmoved by the suffering, intrigued by such strange behaviour on the part of grown-up people.

‘That man is horrible,’ said Noni, pointing out a huge man at the back of a crowd, who was elbowing quite brutally two old women out of his way. ‘Why is he doing that?’

‘He wants to get a train,’ said Adele briefly.

‘Well, he should wait in the queue. Stupid man. I’m glad we’ve got the car.’

She was less glad later on: as they sat in the great crawling line of people leaving Paris for the south, lurching along in first gear, making so little speed the speedometer didn’t register it. The evening sun beat through the windows; first Lucas, then Noni began to grizzle and whine that they were hot, thirsty, they wanted to get out.

‘I can’t stop now,’ said Adele, struggling to keep her voice calm and good-natured.

‘Why not?’

‘Well because if we stop, we’ll get behind in the queue. Other cars will overtake us and—’

‘Doesn’t matter. It’s so slow anyway. Look, that old man is pushing the lady on the cart. Where do you think they’re going?’

‘Oh – to see some friends,’ said Adele, ‘like we are.’

There were many such sights. The most fortunate were in cars; others were on bicycles, in carts, on motorbikes, in wheelbarrows, a great many were on foot, women carried babies, while children trailed behind them, crying. The men carrying suitcases, packed hastily with the few possessions they had felt they could not leave behind. All looking frightened, bleak, hopeless, a long, snaking line of human misery, stretching before her as far as she could see.

She felt horrified, shocked at the scale of the exodus; she had expected to see a lot of cars, buses, lorries, but not this desperate, frightened army. It must be so very much more dangerous than she had thought; why had they been told so little? And had Luc known and kept it from her? No, surely not, they had all been the victims of the same conspiracy, the same cowardly foolish deception; she was not to know that at that very moment the French Government was leaving Paris in a fleet of large comfortable cars . . .

‘We ought to help that old lady,’ said Noni suddenly looking at an old woman sitting weeping in the gutter, holding her head, ‘she’s upset, what do you think’s happened?’

What had happened was easy to see; the old woman’s husband had fainted in the heat, lying stretched out on the pavement, with a couple of old suitcases at his side. Possibly, Adele thought, he had had a heart attack; he would quite possibly die here. And no one could or would help him.

But ‘Darling, I’m sorry, we can’t,’ she said, and indeed she knew they couldn’t, she was going to need every resource at her disposal for her own small group of refugees. ‘Their friends will be here soon.’

‘How do you know?’

‘I just do.’

Lucas started crying again.

‘He’s thirsty,’ said Noni.

‘Well give him a bit of that apple Mme André gave us. Not all of it, Noni, he’ll choke. Bite a bit of it off and give it to him – that’s right.’

Lucas looked at the apple derisively, hurled it on the floor of the car and went on crying.

‘Don’t cry,’ said Noni, sweetly maternal. She took his hand, stroked it, ‘we’ll soon be there, won’t we, Mummy?’

‘Yes of course we will.’

By dusk they had only travelled a very few kilometres southwards; they were on the secondary road, it seemed slightly quieter and in any case the main ones were reserved for the army, and official vehicles. She had spent hours poring over the map late on Sunday night, after Luc had gone to sleep, plotting a route.

She had decided to go down via Chartres, it seemed the most direct way. Map reading was not one of her skills to put it mildly; she had never been able to work out which direction roads went in, how to relate the real one she was on to the winding line on a map. But desperation had driven her on; she had finally gone to sleep with her route fairly clear. Chartres, only about 100 kilometres from Paris, Tours, 240 kilometres. 150 miles. They should do that easily in twenty-four hours. And then on down to Bordeaux in another – well, she would worry about that when she got to Tours. She had not, however, reckoned on sharing the route with countless thousands of others . . .

It was a little easier to move now, they had even made second gear. The children had been squabbling and were now in a state of strange, dull tranquillity that would, she knew, presage a fresh storm of protests. Then she would have to stop; they were hungry, thirsty, Lucas needed his nappy changed, Noni said repeatedly she wanted
faire pipi
. She always used that phrase, whether she was speaking in French or English. Adele was beginning to wish she had brought the potty; but it had seemed just one thing she could manage without, an unnecessary demand on space in the overpacked car.

Finally, at half past eight, she pulled off the road on to the grass verge. It was heavily occupied.

‘Come on then, darling, out you get. Good girl. You too, Lucas. I’ll change you. And then we’ll have some supper—’

‘Out here on the grass?’

‘No, in the car.’

‘But Mummy, why, it’s so hot and it’s much nicer out here.’

She hesitated; reluctant to explain that spreading food out on the ground was clearly reckless, an invitation to loot. There were several people near them who looked already desperate, hungry, sharing one tin of beans, one glass of water. They might find her carefully prepared picnic irresistible.

‘Can we just go for a little walk? I’m tired of the car.’

‘Well – yes, all right. Just a tiny way. Come, take my hands.’

They walked slowly along the verge, keeping pace with Lucas’s toddling steps, but still only a little more slowly than the traffic. Normally, the three of them walking along together, the pretty mother and the small, enchanting children, would have attracted attention, smiles, friendliness; not now. They met only with sullen indifference, as families rested exhausted, or struggled back to their feet to continue their journey. There was no sense of camaraderie, of kindness even; it was horrible, a frighteningly unfamiliar experience. For the first time, Adele realised, that if they needed help for any reason, they would find none.

‘Come on. Let’s go back to the car,’ she said after a while, reluctant to leave it unattended, even though it was carefully locked up.

‘Don’t want to,’ said Noni sulkily.

It was unlike her to be difficult; Adele frowned at her.

‘Noni, we have to. We have to get on.’

‘But why? What for? Where are we going, when will Papa be here?’

And suddenly she couldn’t answer any of those questions, she had no idea why or what for, she had left Paris on an impulse, an impulse born of misery and humiliation, had thought it was the right thing to do. Now in this crawling, wretched mass of humanity, travelling to a destination that now seemed as distant and as unfamiliar as the moon, exhausted, with her head throbbing, hot and frightened, she suddenly panicked. They would never make it, never get there, it was impossible, so far to travel, such an unbelievable distance, hundreds of miles, she had been mad, mad to do this, to subject her children to this, this misery and danger, it was hopeless, wrong.

She sat down on the grass, holding Lucas, staring up at Noni, crying helplessly; Noni stared back at her, clearly frightened, and then Lucas picked up on her mood and started crying too.

People looked at them, not pityingly, but with a complete lack of interest; that made her cry more, at her sense of isolation and terror. She felt the panic growing, beginning to engulf her: and then Noni said, very gently, ‘Don’t cry, Mummy, it’ll be all right.’

Her words calmed Adele; not because she was able to believe them, but because of the sweet unselfishness of the child uttering them, and she realised in that moment that her only hope of getting through was to believe: no, not just to believe, but to know. She must not even consider the alternative: she must justify Noni’s faith in her.

She stood up, fished a handkerchief out of her pocket, wiped her eyes. ‘Of course it will, darling. Of course. I’m sorry. Mummy’s just a bit tired. We’ll be fine, we’ll get to this place by the sea, and then we’ll get a boat to England. And you’ll have such a lovely time there, I promise you.’

‘And – will Papa come too?’

‘I – yes, of course he will. When he’s finished his work in Paris. Come on now, back in the car, let’s have our picnic, and I tell you what, we’ll cook some eggs on our little stove’ – suddenly it seemed worth the risk to raise the children’s spirits – ‘and then I’m going to read you that story of Mme André’s. And after that, I’m going to drive a bit further and then we’ll stop for the night and we’ll all go to sleep.’

‘Where?’

‘Well – I had hoped we’d find a room somewhere. But we won’t. So – in the car, I’m afraid.’

‘In the car!’ Noni’s eyes shone. ‘All of us! How exciting.’

And now it was morning; God knew where they were. The last sign had read ‘Chartres 65 k’, but she couldn’t begin to work out how far back that had been. She only felt horror at how long this was taking. She had been so exhausted, she had fallen asleep twice at the wheel. And then, pulled off the road again, put some blankets over the children who were already asleep and slept herself.

God, she felt awful. She ached all over. She was stiff – and her mouth tasted horrible, sour and dry. What she would give for a coffee. Perhaps if she came off this road, tried for an even more minor one, they would do better. Make more progress And she might find a village, where she could buy, or beg, some coffee. And change Lucas again. He certainly needed it.

She pulled the atlas out, began to study it. It must be possible to do better than this . . .

In Paris, Luc woke up alone in the apartment. Alone with his misery and rage; he wasn’t sure which was the greater.

At first it had been rage: rage and outrage. That she should dare to do this, leave him, take his car, take his children, without even saying goodbye. He had seen her pulling away, seen the car move down the street, with the pram strapped to the top – making her intentions clear as nothing else could. He had run after it, all the way to the Boulevard St-Germain, shouting her name, baffled, furious, raging; but it was hopeless of course, he would never find her, never catch her.