The Child Left Behind (24 page)

When Bridgette told Charles this the following day, he was noticeably relieved. ‘He is risking catching TB,’ Bridgette said.

‘Yes, as you do every day,’ Charles commented drily. ‘Speed is essential. The Germans have already searched all the farmhouses around the area where he landed. Next I believe they will start on the town. His name is James Carmichael and I will deliver him to your house this evening, just as soon as we make certain where your father and Georges are.’

‘Come through the bakery,’ Bridgette said. ‘I will be waiting for your knock.’

‘It will be after curfew when the streets are dark.’

‘It doesn’t matter what time it is,’ Bridgette said. ‘I will be waiting.’

She was waiting, and opened the door immediately. Charles didn’t go in with the Englishman and neither did any of them speak. However, with the door closed Bridgette whispered, ‘I will not risk putting the light on, but if you follow behind me then you should be all right.’

The man didn’t answer but did as Bridgette advised. It was only when they reached the relative safety of Gabrielle’s room that Bridgette had a good look at the man and she liked what she saw. James Carmichael had an open, honest face. His deep brown eyes matched his hair, and his mouth looked almost gentle. Looking at him, she knew instinctively that he was a man to be trusted.

The man, on the other hand, was stunned at the whole set-up. When the escape plan had fallen through, everyone had been flummoxed as to where to hide him, especially when the Gestapo
were so quickly on his tail. It was the sallow man known as Charles that said that he might know of somewhere. And here he was, in the bedroom of a dying woman tended by her daughter, who he thought one of the most stunning women he had ever seen.

Charles had filled him in on the details. ‘Bridgette is a very courageous girl,’ he told Carmichael. ‘She used to be a member of the Resistance herself before her mother’s illness, and the two of them will be fully supportive of you.’

‘What of her father?’

‘Both her father and brother are Nazi sympathisers,’ Charles had said. ‘The chances are that their house won’t be searched because they are so pro-German, but there is no guarantee. Don’t forget the risk they are running hiding you in the house, which is at least as great as yours.’

‘Yes,’ the man said. ‘I know that, and I know that you are doing your level best to help me.’

‘No matter,’ Charles said with a shrug. ‘Many are short tempered these days. Maybe I am one of them.’

Charles’s words came back to James Carmichael as he gazed around the room. He approached Gabrielle in the bed and in his basic and faltering French began to tell her and Bridgette, standing beside her, how grateful he was to them both.

Gabrielle smiled as she said in English, ‘You can talk in your native tongue, if it is easier for you. Both my daughter and I understand and speak it.’

‘My French is not a tenth as good as your English,’ the man said, ‘for all they gave me a crash course before they dropped me over here.’

‘Ah,’ said Bridgette with a smile. ‘But you see we learned to speak English from childhood, Mr Carmichael.’

‘Oh, please call me James,’ the man said extending his hand. ‘Charles told me your name is Bridgette.

‘That’s right. And this is my mother, Gabrielle.’

‘I am so pleased to meet you both,’ James said. ‘And so incredibly grateful that you have agreed to hide me at great risk to yourselves, especially,’ he said to Gabrielle, ‘as I understand your husband is a Nazi sympathiser.’

‘He is, to my great shame,’ Gabrielle said. ‘And my stepson too. But there is no need to worry, my husband is so afraid of my illness that he never comes further than the threshold. He shares a room now with my stepson, who never comes near me at all. However, they are very friendly with the German officers, often feeding them information about their own neighbours, customers, many of them, at the bakery. It is a despicable thing to do, and we both hope he pays for it when the war is over, but just for now it makes this house one of the safest in the town.’

‘Despite all that, it is a grave risk you are both running,’ James said. ‘What if he does find out I’m here?’

‘The only time you have to talk very quietly or
not at all is when my father or brother are on this floor and might overhear you,’ Bridgette said. ‘The bakery is too far away, and he and Georges go out every evening, so it is moderately safe if we are all careful.’

‘If you don’t mind, I feel very tired all of a sudden,’ Gabrielle said. Bridgette could see the lines of fatigue etched on her mother’s face and realised that the unusual animation that she had shown in front of James had exhausted her. She guessed that she might suffer for it the next day too.

Gabrielle had neither the will nor the breath to speak further. Bridgette could hear the rattle of her chest and the sound of her laboured breathing as she clutched at the air and she signed for James to follow her from the room and into her own along the corridor. ‘What of your father?’ James said.

‘He’s not in yet,’ Bridgette replied. ‘Believe me you will know when Georges and my father are home. In fact, even before they reach home you will probably hear them coming along the street. Sorry about the boxes,’ she said, lifting them up off the bed so that they could sit down. ‘They are full of clothes that might fit you. I asked my father-in-law to bring them down for me. He brought the bedroll he used in the Great War too so you haven’t got to lie on the floor.’ She caught sight of James’s face and said, ‘it is all right. He came at dusk and made sure that no one saw him bring the things in.’

‘It’s not that,’ James said. ‘Well, not that entirely. I was just under the impression that the fewer people know about me the better.’

‘And so it is,’ Bridgette said. ‘But the Laurents had to know. I was living with them when I began with the Resistance, you see, and so I had to ask them if they minded. Sometimes the families of Resistance fighters are punished too. Anyway, my mother- and sister-in-law like to visit Maman and would think it very odd if I said they couldn’t come—and how else would I get hold of Xavier’s clothes.’

‘Xavier? Is that the name of your husband?’

‘Yes,’ Bridgette answered quietly.

‘But won’t he want any of these things? James asked, pulling some out of one of the boxes.

‘I don’t think so,’ Bridgette said quietly. ‘His was one of the bodies left on the beaches of Dunkirk.’

‘Oh, Bridgette, I am sorry.’

Bridgette shrugged. ‘I hoped some of them might fit you.’

‘And you won’t mind me wearing them.’

‘Why should I?’

‘You might find it upsetting.’

Bridgette shook her head. ‘The fact that Xavier died is upsetting,’ she said. ‘The fact that I haven’t even a grave to tend is upsetting.’ She looked at James. ‘Are you married?’

James nodded. ‘I was. I married a lovely girl, Sarah, in 1937. She wanted a family straightaway,
but I saw the writing on the wall in 1938 and wanted to wait a while. Anyway, when war was declared and I joined up she went to live with my parents.’

‘Where was that?’

‘A place called Sutton Coldfield, which is just outside Birmingham in England,’ James said. ‘Although Birmingham was hammered, Sutton Coldfield was virtually free of bombing raids, but Sarah wanted to do her bit.’ He smiled sadly and said, ‘She wrote and told me what she intended because she heard that the Jewellery Quarter, which is very near the centre of Birmingham, had converted to making radar parts and as she had always been good with her hands, she wanted to try for a job there.’

He paused and then went on, ‘I wasn’t pleased at first, but she said she had nothing to do all day, and radar parts were needed, and then reminded me that I was doing my bit so wasn’t it unreasonable of me to try and prevent her from doing the same.’ He stopped and smiled at little sadly. ‘She was right. All over Britain, girls and women are doing the jobs that men used to do, even driving buses and trucks and dirty work in factories.’

‘What happened to your wife, James?’

‘She was caught in a raid on her way home one autumn night in 1940 and the public shelter she was taken to took a direct hit,’ James said. ‘My parents wrote and told me. Killed outright, they said.’

‘So you had no family then?’

James shook his head. ‘Have you any children?’

‘No,’ Bridgette said, ‘I was pregnant with my first baby when news came of Xavier’s death and I miscarried the child.’

‘Oh my dear girl,’ James said, and the genuine sympathy in his voice caused the tears to prickle in Bridgette’s eyes.

‘Don’t,’ she said. ‘Now look what you have started, and I can hear my father and Georges carousing their way home. So you must be quiet. My room is better for you to stay in because it has a powerful bolt on the door that I fix in place every night. It will probably feel strange for me though, for I’ve never slept in a room with a man since my husband.’

James grinned at her. ‘Sleep is all I’m after,’ he whispered. ‘And I will turn my back when you wish to get undressed.’

A few minutes later they lay side by side, Bridgette in the bed and James on the bedroll on the floor. She heard her father and Georges stumbling about as they did most nights but James slept on oblivious to it all. Sleep eluded Bridgette, though, as she went over the events of that evening. She was glad that she had eventually agreed to hide James, though she hoped soon that they would be able to ship him safely back home, and she eventually went to sleep with that thought running round her head.

Bridgette woke the next morning before the alarm went off, as she did most mornings, and she shut it off before it should wake the man still slumbering beside her bed. Since she’d returned home, she had slept much easier in her bed with the bolt in place each night, though she doubted that even Georges would dare to enter her room now. When she had arrived at the house to nurse her mother, she had told him about the large bolt immediately.

‘I don’t have to say why,’ she’d said, looking fixedly at him. ‘You try violating me again and I will go straight to the police. There are laws about that sort of thing, you know.’

‘I never touched you.’

‘No, of course you didn’t,’ Bridgette said sarcastically. ‘You must love a little fantasy in your life.’

‘I wouldn’t touch you with a barge pole,’ Georges said disparagingly.

‘Good,’ Bridgette said. ‘Keep it that way and it will suit us both.’

Georges had given Bridgette a wide berth after that, but she still took no chances and would be doubly careful while James was there. From the door she surveyed the room. James had tucked himself at the side of her bed from which he couldn’t be seen from the doorway, A person would have to go into the room to see the bed made up on the floor. Fully satisfied with that, Bridgette closed the door and went down to make breakfast for them all.

When her father and Georges had eaten their fill and had gone down to the bakery, and the girl had arrived to open the shop, she made breakfast for her mother, James and herself and went in to tell him the coast was clear. James had tucked the bedroll and blankets neatly under her bed and the clothes he had been wearing the day before he had left on the chair beside the bed. He was wearing a shirt and trousers that had once belonged to Xavier.

Despite what she had said, Bridgette found that quite a shock. For a brief second she remembered Xavier wearing those same clothes. It was before war ripped their lives apart and they had both been in the town together. He had his arm around her and she suddenly remembered the feel of that arm and the light kiss as their lips touched.

James saw her face and said softly, ‘I’m sorry. I changed because I have been wearing the same clothes for over a week, but I see how it has distressed you and I will change back immediately.’

‘No,’ Bridgette said firmly. ‘No, it’s me just being
silly. Xavier would laugh at my foolishness. Of course you must wear his clothes. It is the most sensible thing to do. Leave your other things where they are and I will deal with them later. Now that my father and Georges are in the bakery, let’s go and have breakfast with my mother.’

As they were eating breakfast, Bridgette asked James what he had been trying to find out. ‘Though I don’t suppose that you can tell us that,’ she added.

‘I shouldn’t tell you, it’s true, but as I am accepting your hospitality I feel it only fair,’ James said. ‘My brief was to check out the missile bases. Do you know of them?’

‘Missile bases?’ Bridgette repeated.

‘That’s what the Intelligence boys think they are,’ James said. ‘One is in an area called Watten, in the middle of the forest.’

‘Eperlecques Forest?’

‘That’s the one,’ James said. ‘It’s a gigantic concrete structure, a truly massive thing. The Allies have been bombing it relentlessly and it is damaged, no doubt about that, but some areas of it still seemed usable. I went first at night and though I couldn’t get close there was evidence that people had been at work there. Charles told me he had seen them, and the next day he took me to a place overlooking the site and I could see them myself through field glasses. I communicated what I had discovered to London.’

‘What about the one nearer here, which people are beginning to call La Coupole?’ Bridgette asked.

‘That was spotted being built, from a reconnaissance plane last November. It was easier to see from the air then than it is now. Most of it appears to be underground and there is just a giant mushroom over, which is effectively hidden by the foliage of the trees at this time of the year.’

‘There was a chalk quarry there before,’ Gabrielle said.

‘They knew that,’ said James. ‘It explained why it is so easy to dig down deeper. I think that very powerful bombs will be needed to penetrate La Coupole. They were working on that when I left.’

‘Don’t,’ Bridgette said. ‘We live very close, and the bombing has already been scary enough.’

‘I know,’ James said. ‘It must be really frightening, especially as you can’t take shelter in a cellar or anything, but we must knock out these sites, because they think the Germans are developing pilotless planes with war heads in the nose, and even rockets built the same way. If they’re right—and they usually are about things like this—then these places are where they will be manufactured, and they might later be using them as launching pads too. What about a few of those landing on British cities that have already taken a pounding? You have no idea what some of them have already gone through.’

‘I did know about the bombings,’ Bridgette said. ‘We would listen in to the BBC on the wireless. And you’re right: they surely have gone through
enough already. And had you finished what you had came here to do?’

‘Oh, yes,’ James said. ‘My mission was finished but the route to get me out collapsed. The network was infiltrated in some way and some people were lifted. One or more broke under questioning.’

‘No one knows how they would withstand torture until it’s put to the test,’ Bridgette said. ‘And it’s even worse, I think, when your loved ones are punished along with you. That was one of the reasons I gave up the work when I knew I would be caring for Maman.’ She turned as she spoke and saw that her mother had fallen asleep, even propped up as she was.

‘When did she go to sleep?’ she asked James.

‘I don’t know,’ James admitted. ‘I only just noticed it myself.’

‘She has hardly touched her breakfast,’ Bridgette said, as she removed the tray. ‘But then she eats very little. Will you help me lift her down the bed so that she will be more comfortable?’

‘I’ll do that with pleasure.’

It was as they bent to the task that their eyes met and Bridgette was totally amazed at the jolt that ran through her body. Since Xavier had died, she had never ever thought of any other man in that way, and nor had she wanted to for she knew that no one could take his place. She was annoyed with herself that she had allowed this unknown Englishman to unlock feelings she thought dead and buried.

She saw that his eyes too were slightly puzzled, but neither spoke of it. They lifted Gabrielle down the bed and Bridgette arranged the pillows without another word being spoken.

To break the silence, before it should become too awkward, she said, ‘Tell me about yourself, James.’

‘What do you wish to know?’

‘Oh, where you come from, your family. The usual stuff.’

‘I am a very ordinary chap,’ James said. ‘As I said, I lived in a place called Sutton Coldfield. It’s a royal town, given to the people of Sutton by Henry the Eighth. We lived near a large park, so large that there are five sizeable lakes in it and streams running all through the park to feed those lakes. When I look back it seems like every fine day all the kids from the area would be in that park, and what adventures we had there. I used to sometimes be mad if Mum made me take Dolly, my little sister, with me. I remember I seemed to spend a lot of time pushing her on the swings.’

Bridgette saw the smile playing around his mouth and she asked, ‘Have you any other brothers or sisters?’

‘Oh yes,’ James said. His eyes suddenly clouded over and he said, ‘I had a younger brother, Dan, as well. He was killed in action in the summer of ’41, along with Dolly’s fiancé.’

‘Oh, James!’ Bridgette cried. ‘You must have barely got over the loss of your wife. Were you close to your brother?’

James nodded. ‘As the Yanks would say, we were real buddies. We were all very cut up about his death and that of Dolly’s fiancé, Stuart, too. He was a fine man and got on well with us all. I volunteered to undertake this sort of work the following year because, to be honest, for a long time I didn’t care whether I lived or died. I felt as if I had lost so much—first Sarah and then Dan and Stuart.’

‘I took up Resistance work for the same reason,’ Bridgette said. ‘To avenge the deaths of my husband and baby.’

‘And has it helped you feel better?’

Bridgette nodded. ‘When I kill Germans it does. That’s strange in a way because all my life I have disliked violence or even unpleasantness.’

‘Was there a reason for that?’

Bridgette hesitated. She didn’t know James well enough to tell him just how awful her earlier life had been, and so she contented herself with saying, ‘Well, I never really saw eye to eye with my father, and Georges is my half-brother, and we have never got on either. However, I have a lovely aunt in Paris, Yvette. She is Maman’s sister but I haven’t told her how sick Maman is,’ Bridgette said. ‘I will do so, though, as soon as they get something organised for you.’

‘Let’s hope that it’s sooner rather than later then,’ James said.

‘I hope that to,’ Bridgette said. ‘Until then, we will just have to cope.’

Later that day Bridgette said to James, ‘Marie and her daughter will be here tomorrow. They come every Saturday afternoon, because Lisette is not at work and Marie shuts the shop up. There are very few customers these days. In fact, any trade comes mainly from the Germans.’

‘Why is that?’

‘There’s no money about,’ Bridgette said. ‘A lot of the food is sent to Germany, so what little is left is expensive. When I lived with the Laurents I helped in the shop and also worked in a bar, and before Lisette got the job in the factory we were always hungry. Few of these shortages affect us here, though, for anything we are running out of is replaced by my father’s German friends just as soon as he tells them about it. It bothers me, but what can I do? And I suppose it is better for my mother to have the best food available for all I nearly choke on it sometimes when I know how sparsely most people are living.’

‘In the short time I have been here I have seen the suffering of the French people,’ James said. ‘I felt sorry for all of you, and all the other countries under Nazi control.’

‘It’s not for ever,’ Bridgette said. ‘I must say I am surprised at Britain. I thought you would sink as well, one more notch to Hitler’s belt.’

James smiled. ‘To hear the Americans, it was their intervention that saved us.’

‘Does that annoy you?’

‘No,’ James said. ‘It’s just their way. Most British
people are brought up to think that it is extreme bad manners for a person to blow their own trumpet.’

‘Blow their own trumpet?’ Bridgette repeated questioningly.

‘It means boasting, bragging about what you can do,’ James said in explanation. ‘And let’s face it, their involvement didn’t do us any harm.’

‘Are you always so easy-going?’

‘I suppose,’ James said. ‘I don’t see the point of getting worked up over little things.’

Bridgette sighed and said, ‘I find that attitude very restful.’

He smiled. ‘I’m glad of that.’

Once again there was that tug in her stomach and she busied herself doing things for her mother so that he wouldn’t see how that smile had affected her.

That same day, storm troopers began searching the town for James and had reached their street by the afternoon. Bridgette, watching through her mother’s bedroom window, felt as if her heart was in her mouth and, as they drew nearer, her spine began to tingle. She saw the brutal way they dealt with any who protested: they were thrown unceremoniously out onto the cobbled streets, and she heard the shattering of glass and the splintering of wood, and heard the cries and sobs of the distressed people.

Then, Bridgette felt as if her heart had stopped
beating altogether for they had reached the bakery and she heard the bell tinkle as they entered the shop. Gabrielle read the naked fear in her daughter’s eyes for both of them knew there was nowhere in the house or shop where James wouldn’t be found.

James too was distraught, and not for himself alone, but also for Bridgette. He knew that her mother might be spared, not only because of her illness but because it was such an infectious illness, but they would take Bridgette. As the soldiers’ boots were heard pounding up the stairs he slid under the bed, even knowing it was futile. Bridgette decided that she would not cower in her mother’s room and went out to meet them with her head held high to see her father coming out of the bedroom he shared with Georges, roused from his slumber by the commotion.

‘What is this?’ he demanded of a German officer pushing past the troopers lining the stairs. ‘I thought we had an agreement.’

‘I’m sorry,’ Bridgette heard the officer say to her father. ‘There has been a mistake,’ and he gave a curt order to the storm troopers, who turned and went back down the stairs.

Bridgette let out the breath she hadn’t even been aware that she had been holding and felt almost light-headed with relief. Without a word to Legrand she went back to her mother.

‘Charles was right. This house is not to be searched, and while I am more than glad about that,
my worry now is that that might appear odd to our neighbours.’

‘They’ll know why,’ Gabrielle said. ‘Don’t worry, Legrand has marked his card very well.’

Bridgette hoped they were right because the whole thing had shaken her up more than she thought it would.

Marie, when she came the following day, agreed with Gabrielle that the townsfolk would know why the bakery had been spared a search. ‘You should be grateful anyway,’ she said. ‘At our house they ruined bales of cloth, and took two pictures from the wall and smashed them to pieces with their boots.’

‘Did you say anything?’

Marie shook her head. ‘My energies were taken up trying to stop Maurice saying anything,’ she said. ‘I’ve heard since from men who did that, and after the soldiers had beaten them up, they trashed the place. As it was, it took me hours to clear up after they had all gone.’

Marie and Lisette were obviously interested in James Carmichael, though he had been a little nervous about meeting them, or anyone really, because Charles had impressed upon him the need for secrecy. However, he trusted Bridgette’s judgement and found he liked both women and he relaxed a little, especially when Bridgette told him that Lisette’s husband, Edmund, survived Dunkirk and was one of those rescued from the beaches and had been taken to Britain.