Charlotte Gray (39 page)

They rarely surprise each other, because what is essential to each is never communicated.

Like language, art struggles with what is common, to disturb the individual habit of perception and, by disturbing it, to enable men to see what has been lived and seen by others. By upsetting, therefore, it tries to soothe, because it hopes to free each person from the tyranny of solitude.

No child born knows the world he is entering, and at the moment of his birth he is a stranger to his parents. When he dies, many years later, there may be regrets among those left behind that they never knew him better, but he is forgotten almost as soon as he dies because there is no time for others to puzzle out his life. After a few years he will be referred to once or twice by a grandchild, then by no one at all.

Unknown at the moment of birth, unknown after death. This weight of solitude! A being unknown.

And yet, if I believe in God, I am known. On the tombs of the English soldiers, the ones too fragmented to have a name, I remember that they wrote "Known unto God'. By this they meant that here was a man, who did once have arms and legs and a father and a mother, but they could not find all the parts of him least of all his name.

God will know me, even as I cannot know myself. If He created me, then He has lived with me. He knows the nature of my temptations and the manner of my failing. So I am not alone. I have for my companion the creator of the world. At the hour of my death I would wish to be 'known unto God'.

Charlotte had pushed the jagged grey pyramid of oyster shells to one side and was cutting into a plump Bresse chicken. She had ordered a whole one and was undaunted by its size, or by the steaming pot of fresh parsley sauce. From the mound of mashed potatoes on her plate a narrow trickle of butter ran into the margins of the oily vinaigrette that dressed the mountainous green salad. She tore off half a baguette, slit it lengthwise, plastered it with ripe camembert the waiter had slipped on to her side plate, and made a xxging sandwich. As she sucked the fat meniscus from a balloon of Burgundy, a remote jangling forced itself closer until the sound filled her, A - and the dinner vanished. She was, as usual, incredulous, and wished she had a watch against which to double-check the claim of the violent alarm clock. Seven o'clock? It was dark; it couldn't be more than four or five. Reluctantly, she remembered that this was what she always thought, and that every morning the hands of the sullen Louis XVI clock in the dining room, mendaciously . png in its absurd lacquered cabinet, pointed out her mistake.

The day proceeded as it had begun, cold and dispiriting, until noon, i) pounds there was a call from Julien. The wireless operator had heard a coded message on the BBC and Mirabel had confirmed the codes: there was to be a drop on Thursday. Mirabel would not himself be there, and had entrusted them to pick up and store what was landed. They were expecting supplies, ^)is and explosives. It was to be the biggest drop of the war so far, and jeered London's expectation that, with the Germans in the former Free the action would become increasingly open. Julien sounded almost frantic with excitement, and Charlotte wondered what Pauline Bobotte would make of the news as she worked away with her busy plugs and handset. Julien thought it a good idea for Dominique to come into Lavaurette for dinner that evening to discuss 'tactics'. Charlotte knew the ^de tactical refinement to determine would be whether she or Cesar rode her more decrepit bicycle, but was persuaded to accept, as Julien must have known she would be, by his use of the word 'dinner'.

Wearing both of Dominique's jumpers under her coat, her hair beneath her scarf, Charlotte set out on her bicycle, lowering her head against the flat J^jft of rain.

Good evening, Madame. Monsieur Levade told me he was expecting "(1. A horrible night to be out, isn't it?" Yes," said Charlotte, a little put out that she had got no further than two steps into the hall before Pauline Benoit's door opened.

"Though you look, though you're going out yourself."

Yes, indeed. I have no choice," said Madame Benoit.

"Duty calls."

Charlotte did not bother to think what she might mean; she was hungry, J the prospect of even Madame Gayral's cuisine in all its scorched uncertainty was enough to put other thoughts from her mind as she hurried up the stairs to Julien's apartment.

Julien sat her down in front of the fire and poured her a glass of wine. He seemed to find it hard to settle, but kept getting up and going off into different room on some urgent but undisclosed business. Charlotte ascribed this nervousness to his worry about the imminent drop. He re-entered the room for perhaps the fourth or fifth time and filled her glass again.

"So, Dominique. You all set for Thursday?"

"Yes, Octave. Quite ready, thank you."

"For God's sake call me Julien when we're alone. I can't bear this stupid Octave thing."

"I apologise. I thought... All right. Julien."

"Does my father know you're going?"

Charlotte crossed her legs and settled back a little further into the armchair.

"I imagine so. He's given me the whole day off. Your father seems to know a good deal about me."

"Well, I can assure you it wasn't me who told him. I've been absolutely ' " Relax, Julien. I wasn't accusing you. Your father seems interested in certain aspects of my life, though not what I might be doing tomorrow.

For instance, he's guessed that I'm Scottish, or English as he calls it, but I don't think he has any curiosity about why I'm staying in Lavaurette. Or perhaps he was just too tactful to ask."

"So what are these " aspects"?" said Julien.

"Personal things. He knows my name, for instance."

"Your real name?" A look of intense anxiety passed over Julien's face, which Charlotte presumed to spring from a worry about security.

"Yes."

"And why did you tell him?"

"I was lonely." She was glad Mr. Jackson could not hear this abject excuse. Julien nodded and made to speak, then stopped as though on reflection he considered this a reasonable explanation. He sighed and stood up.

Charlotte watched as he walked across the floor to the dresser to collect the wine bottle. In the tall, echoing room, with its austere furniture and pale colours, he looked for a moment vulnerable, a solitary man set against the background of his imagination.

"You drink too much," said Charlotte, meaning to break his introspection.

"Probably." He rolled his eyes as though she was always nagging him and smiled; it seemed to work.

"Have you booked a table?" said Charlotte.

"No. We're having dinner here. Hadn't you noticed the smell?"

"I did notice something," said Charlotte.

"I thought it kinder not to mention it."

Julien drank more and more wine and Charlotte had to hold her hand over her own glass when he tried to refill it. He talked about the weather and how it could affect the operation; he muttered about Gastinel, whom he no longer bothered to refer to as "Auguste', and cursed him for losing interest.

"Typical little shopkeeper just worried about filling his own till," he said as he cleared the soup plates and brought in a china dish with slices of pink meat in gravy which he claimed were veal he had acquired from a friend of a friend. He had hardly begun to eat before he lit a cigarette.

"How do you manage to look so clean always?" he said abruptly.

"It's a wonder if I do. The stove that heats the wood takes about three days to warm up the tank. I only have one bath a week.

Otherwise I wash in cold water."

"You could use the public baths," said Julien.

"That's what I do."

"I didn't know there were any."

"Behind the Place de 1" Eglise. They're in an old school building. They're very popular these days because fuel's so short."

"I'll bear it in mind."

"You don't look as though you need it. You look like the kind of woman who's always fresh and sweet-smelling, a little dab of scent behind the ears.. Let me smell."

He went over to where Charlotte sat and nuzzled his face into her neck, inhaling deeply.

"I knew it," he said, 'delicious."

Charlotte pushed him away.

"You're drunk, Julien."

"Not really." It was true; the dramatic amount of alcohol he swallowed seemed to have almost no effect on him except perhaps to make him slightly more affectionate: Charlotte sometimes wondered why he bothered.

Julien pulled up a loose chair next to Charlotte and reached out to her. He looked down at where his hands had imprisoned hers, then up into her face.

His dark eyes were, Charlotte conceded, undeniably beautiful.

"We've been through some things, haven't we, Dominique? Whatever happens to us now, I think we'll remember."

"Yes," said Charlotte, 'though sometimes I feel guilty about having enjoyed it so much."

"Exactly," said Julien.

"As though we can't be taking it seriously. I think that's the point I'm trying to make. You think I'm your friend, and I am. You think that because we laugh together and work together then that limits the kind of friendship we can have. I don't think so. I don't think romance needs to be solemn.

You can laugh with someone and still sleep with them."

"Of course, but-' " I want to sleep with you, Dominique."

"Julien! I don't think you can just ask a woman straight out like that."

"Why not?"

Charlotte did not know why not.

Julien said.

"Suppose there's a German ambush on Thursday night and we get killed by our fat German and his troops, mown down by machine guns. We would never know what it was like and, and ..."

"It's a bit unlikely," said Charlotte.

"Well, maybe ... I hope so. But wouldn't you like to anyhow?"

"It's not a question of what I would like to do, it's a question of what is right."

"But would you like to?"

"There would be worse things, I imagine." She squeezed Julien's hands.

"I do like you, Julien, I promise you. I like you without reservation. But there's another man."

"It's not quite without reservation, then."

"Not quite."

She leaned over and wrapped her arms round him. Julien laid his head on her shoulder, then raised his face to hers. Charlotte kissed him and, feeling his tongue slide between her lips, expected some violent retribution for her infidelity. Nothing in fact stopped her from kissing Julien and allowing him to run his hands over her; nothing except the fear that she was leading him on too far. She disengaged herself, reluctantly.

"I won't sleep with you, Julien. Now I don't know if you want to go on kissing me or -whether that would make things worse."

"I think perhaps it would make things worse."

Julien stood up, ran his hand through his hair and, with an effort of selfdiscipline that seemed to weigh down his body, cleared the half-finished plates and took them out of the room.

Peter Gregory was standing in the Mayor's parlour. The Mayor was in his nightshirt, dishevelled and unwilling. Gregory was desperate.

"I need papers to get out of France."

"How will you go?"

"Spain."

"Do you have money?"

"Yes. I take trains. I can't walk very far."

"But you'll have to walk across the Pyrenees."

"Then my leg ... better."

The Mayor shook his head.

"It's a very long way. I've never been that far myself. I've never been further than Toulouse. You won't make it.

Not with the way you speak French. And if I give you an identity card with the name of our commune on it, then it's not only you but we who'll end up in trouble." Once, Gregory had not much cared if he saw England again. Now it seemed to him to be the only thing he wanted; and, if he didn't make it, then to die in the attempt would be an almost equally gratifying outcome.

If only he had told Charlotte on the night he left. If only he had gone back, broken into the flat, woken her and told her how much he loved her. He twisted the ring on his finger, round and round. He would not move from the Mayor's house. There was no particular reason to trust the shaky line of sympathisers, beginning with the vet, that had brought him there, but he had no other grounds of hope.

"Monsieur, I would like to help, but I must put the well-being of the commune first."

Gregory did not really understand. Although the Mayor was disparaging about Gregory's French, it did not occur to him to adjust his own speech in any way: he rattled away, gurgling, self-righteous, idiomatic.

The door opened and a woman came into the parlour: the Mayor's wife in a long nightdress, her hair beneath a cotton cap, her face dramatically white. She looked at Gregory, crouched against the sofa, his leg at an angle obviously troubling him. In his midnight fatigue and in the enclosure of his pain he looked out to her and tried to summon up a remnant of flirtatious charm. God knows what I must look like, he thought, in Jacques's old clothes how thin, how red-eyed. It's pathetic.

It was his only chance. He smiled at the woman and began his laborious, ungrammatical explanation once again. He adorned the story with smiles and shrugs which he hoped were winning. The woman left the room abruptly and Gregory stopped talking. His mouth now tasted of defeat and words could not form in it.

The Mayor looked at him, coughed and nodded. He, too, was silent.

Gregory again cursed his inability to speak the language: if only he had talked more with Charlotte when she offered. The thought of her gave him a new resolve.

He calculated the practicalities. He would walk by night, steal food. They would give him a map. When he came to the Pyrenees he would trust to luck; if he could not find a guide he would follow the compass ... It was not possible.