Northern Girl (8 page)

‘We’ll need some experience before we can talk about those!’ Madeleine had reminded her.

‘What do you need to know?’ Elise had countered, in all seriousness.

No one was sure how much Elise knew. But, out of all of them, she was the most likely to have had some experience.

Hélène had laughingly thrown a pillow at Elise, saying ‘OK, Mademoiselle Sexpot, tell us everything!’ At this they’d all ended up in a giggling heap on the bed, and spent the next hour or so inventing ridiculous stories about their sex-lives. All talk of nuns and school had been forgotten. Now, whenever Madeleine thought about that conversation she was filled with sadness. The next time the nuns were discussed everything was different, and Madeleine couldn’t help feeling upset at the way the five of them had poked fun at the poor sisters, when they had turned out to be such heroines.

Madeleine, along with her family and all the villagers, had been – and always would be – consumed with hatred and disgust whenever she thought of those Nazi bastards and their despicable final insult to the village. The fact that the war had been almost over at the time only served to make that disastrous night more horrific.

The Pelletier family, like others in the village, had gone to bed early that night. Maman, Papa and
Madeleine in the attic, and Dominic in the little pantry at the back of the
bouanderie
; Madeleine had refused to sleep there again after the incident with the German soldier.

As usual the billeted Germans were left downstairs playing cards and drinking, propping their feet on the table, which was sticky with spilt beer and cigarette ash. Whenever they drank, which was often, neither Madeleine nor her mother dared go near the table to clean it, for fear of being ridiculed. Or, in Madeleine’s case, constantly fondled on the bottom, to the childish amusement of the soldiers. Any cleaning was always left till the following morning, when the Germans went out.

Madeleine, who was still awake, was lying there that night, listening to Papa’s snoring and wondering how Maman could sleep through it, when she was nearly thrown out of bed by the explosion. It was so powerful that she heard the windows at the back of the house shatter.

She shot out of bed and ran downstairs barefoot, where she found Dominic struggling into his coat shouting, ‘They’ve gone! The bastards have gone!’ Then, pointing to the glass on the floor, he called to Madeleine over his shoulder while bolting for the front door, ‘Mind where you put your feet!’

‘Gone …? Gone where?’ Madeleine was confused. ‘What’s happened?’ she asked, but Dominic had already disappeared.

Maman and Papa arrived downstairs, both with their coats on over their nightclothes, Maman demanding,
‘What’s going on? What was that noise?’ Her voice trembled with fear.

But Papa guessed what had happened, and placed a reassuring hand on her shoulder before going outside to join Dominic.

Madeleine and Maman stood holding each other and shivering, not only with cold, but fear, and Maman asked, of no one in particular, ‘Where are they … where are the Germans?’

‘I don’t know, Maman,’ Dominic said from outside. ‘They’ve gone.’

The second explosion knocked them all off their feet. Madeleine and Maman fell to the floor, still entwined. They called out to Dominic and Papa, who were now nowhere to be seen. And the front door swung open, revealing a sky red from billowing flames rising from a pall of smoke and dust near the church.

‘
Oh non! Oh non!
’ Maman sobbed. ‘The church … they’ve blown up the church!’

‘No, Maman, it can’t be. Who would do that?’ Madeleine reassured her.

Maman said with unconcealed venom, ‘
They
would … that’s who!’

Madeleine shook her head in disbelief. ‘They wouldn’t … Surely, Maman, even the Germans wouldn’t do that!’

Papa and Dominic were gone for at least twenty minutes. Then they suddenly appeared in the doorway, their silhouettes black against the glow, staring at the flames. Madeleine, shivering, went up to her papa, and
he turned and put his arm around her, saying gently, ‘Those explosions … it was the church and …’ He looked at Madeleine, sadness in his eyes, before adding, ‘and the school.’

A sick feeling rising in her throat, Madeleine immediately turned to Maman, begging her with her eyes to say it wasn’t true.

Maman, unable to speak, took her hand and said nothing.

‘But the nuns!
The nuns are there …! Sister Therèse!
’

Madeleine made as if to run to the school, but Dominic grabbed her and held her back, saying, ‘There is nothing we can do. The gendarmes are dealing with it. They asked us to leave.’

Madeleine ran upstairs, and opened all the bedroom doors, one after another. She needed proof: proof that the Germans had left. And when she realized that all their equipment had disappeared, she gripped her head in both hands and screamed through her tears. ‘Their stuff! It’s gone! The bastards have gone!’

They never found out whether the soldiers who set the charges had known that the nuns were still in the school. But Sister Matilde lived long enough after the explosion to tell the village priest about the family who’d been hidden there. The family had gone to the nuns after one of their cousins had been arrested by the Gestapo: he was suspected of being in the Resistance. This family of five, including three children, had apparently been at great risk from the Nazis, and
unable to go to the gendarmes for help, as there was rumoured to be at least one collaborator at their headquarters in Calais. So, with nowhere else to go, they had turned to the nuns in desperation, and been taken into the cellars below the school. And now that family was dead, along with the nuns. Once this news reached Madeleine and her friends, all their past suspicions about the nuns had suddenly made sense.

It took weeks for the village to come to terms with this devastating final act by the Germans. Morale had been low, and meetings had taken place to decide what could be done to help rebuild confidence. Nearly everyone had said they wanted music, and even the older villagers had admitted they yearned for a bit of fun. And so they had decided to have a fair on the village green.

With renewed energy all the adults, and most of the children, worked to clear the area of rubble. And it soon became clear that this new project was having the desired effect. People began smiling again as they worked together with a sense of pride and purpose.

The opening day of the fair seemed never-ending to Madeleine. She waited and waited for her sisters to arrive, and when at last she heard the front door burst open, and the sound of their familiar voices calling out, ‘We’re here! We’re home!’ she almost fell over herself in her haste to greet them. Dominic held back, not wanting to look too eager, and Maman came rushing from the kitchen to hug her two girls. She’d missed them
terribly, even if she had sent Simone off in disgrace. But she had trusted Martine to keep an eye on her, and hadn’t questioned her behaviour since then.

Most important of all, her two oldest daughters had survived the air raids. And here they were, home at last! There were hugs and kisses all round, and everyone talked at once, including Dominic, who’d supposedly been so unimpressed by his sisters’ return.

After the two girls dumped their cases in their rooms, Martine, along with Madeleine and Dominic, set about helping Maman get lunch ready, while Simone told stories about their lives in Boulogne. It’s just like the old days, Madeleine thought, like the days before the war.

It seemed Martine and Simone had enjoyed their time away, even though they’d sometimes been frightened by bombs. Running to shelters had become part of their life, but according to Simone it hadn’t always been scary or tiresome, sometimes it was fascinating. ‘After all, you never knew who you were going to meet down there.’ She winked at Madeleine as she’d said this, and Martine immediately threw her a warning look, as if she’d gone too far. Fortunately, Maman was preoccupied by looking for an oven glove, and didn’t notice. But Madeleine’s curiosity was aroused. Sensing it would be a mistake to do it right then, she made a mental note to find out more later.

Even though the two girls had managed to come home a few times in the last few years, it had been a good while since their last visit. While Maman was getting a ragout out of the oven, Martine cornered
Madeleine in the
bouanderie
and said she was worried about how tired Maman looked. Madeleine whispered that, though she and Dominic had done their best to shield their mother from problems during the occupation, they’d each had their own personal difficulties to deal with, which had been hard to conceal. Maman had often sensed something was amiss, and though they’d always reassured her that everything was fine, knowing she couldn’t help, she wasn’t stupid. She’d worked out for herself what one problem had to be, and begged Dominic to protect his sister.

That was when Madeleine and Dominic had swapped beds, Madeleine moving to the relative safety of the attic. And the worry had taken its toll on Maman, who in turn had kept everything from Papa. She’d been afraid he might get angry and confront the German soldiers, exacerbating the situation.

‘But what happened, exactly?’ Martine asked, just as Maman walked into the
bouanderie
.

‘Come on, girls, what’s all this whispering about?’ Maman was smiling at last.

‘Oh, just girls’ stuff, Maman, nothing very important,’ Madeleine reassured her.

‘Come then, let’s eat!’ Maman beckoned them into the kitchen, while Madeleine grabbed her sister’s arm, and whispered with some urgency, ‘We’ll talk about it later, OK?’

Martine squeezed her hand in response.

Madeleine planned to ambush Papa once he’d got home from work and had a rest, and beg him for
permission to go to the fair. In the meantime, her sisters were harder to persuade than she’d anticipated. They weren’t anywhere near as interested in going as she was. All they wanted to do was unpack and relax. Eventually, however, she won them over by offering to do any sewing they wanted for a month. All they had to do was accompany her to the fair for two hours. And even then, only if Papa agreed!

She’d have promised anything at the time, she so badly needed excitement and noise to distract her from traumatic memories. Even though the Germans were long gone, she still woke every night in a cold sweat, imagining she could hear the sound of one particular soldier’s boots clanking across the tiled kitchen floor towards her bedroom.

The day his daughters came back from Boulogne, Papa hurried to finish his work early. He was late for lunch, and, tantalized by the aroma of coffee, he headed straight for the kitchen, where Martine was grinding a batch of coffee beans so vigorously that she didn’t hear him come in.

Smiling to himself, he playfully crept up on her. When he tapped her on the shoulder her shriek of surprise was so loud that it brought the whole family in from the garden, where they were waiting in the warm sunshine in wondrous anticipation of Martine’s promised cup of
real
coffee, made with
proper
coffee beans! It was a luxury they had all missed badly during the war years. Simone had somehow managed to get hold of the beans in Boulogne, and no one asked too many questions about how she’d done it.

Maman, Simone and Madeleine rushed into the
kitchen, only to find Martine and Papa laughing and embracing. Simone squealed with delight at the sight of Papa and rushed to hug him, too. With unashamed pride, he pulled both daughters in close, and joked, ‘At last! Maybe Maman will let me sleep again, now that we’re all safely back together.’ Then, as if resigned to the situation, he shrugged and added, ‘Until she finds something else to worry about, of course!’

Madeleine, watching, couldn’t help thinking how lucky she and her family were to have come through the war alive. They all ought to make the most of their lives now, she thought. And, seeing Papa in such a good mood, she decided to start on her own behalf at once. ‘Papa, there is something I want to ask you,’ she said.

Hearing her pleading tone, Papa realized she was going to beg for something she had less chance of getting from Maman. ‘Yes,
ma fille
?’

‘Can we three girls go to the fair this afternoon?’

Papa glanced at his other two daughters and, seeing the reluctance on their faces, said, ‘Do your sisters really want to go, or have you talked them into it?’

Madeleine was about to protest, but Papa held up his hand, and continued, ‘After all, they’ve only just got home, and I’m sure they have lots of other things they want to do.’

Madeleine looked at her sisters for help.

Martine said, ‘Well, you’re right, Papa, we do have other plans, but we told Madeleine that if you agreed to it we would take her to the fair for two hours.’

‘See, Papa, it’s fine,’ Madeleine said with undisguised
excitement. Then, looking encouragingly at Simone she said, ‘You want to go, too, don’t you, Simone?’ Before Simone could answer, Madeleine, her eyebrows raised in mock anticipation, leaned towards her and confided in a whisper, ‘I’m sure there’ll be lots of interesting
new
people there!’

Papa, realizing they’d already planned the whole thing, said, ‘Well, that’s exactly what I’m concerned about, Madeleine!’

‘Oh, come on, Papa, I’m almost eighteen. You can’t protect me for ever, and I need to have some fun before I go mad! It’s been so dull around here lately. We’ve got to celebrate our freedom, haven’t we? No more Nazis to order us around, no more shutters closed because of the blackout. We can laugh if we feel like it now, we can sing …’ She started dancing round the kitchen.

‘All right, all right,’ Papa interrupted. ‘You’ve made your point.’ He glanced at Maman, but she just shrugged and said nothing, her expression saying that she was tired of making decisions, and more than happy to leave this one to him. Papa continued to look at Maman while talking to Madeleine, ‘I had planned on all of us going together to have some
fun
, as you put it, at the weekend, but as usual you can’t wait.’