The Hills and the Valley (42 page)

He mentioned this to Jacques next time he came to see him. His English was good enough to make conversation relatively easy and after he had dressed Huw's burns he sat down on the chest, lighting a pungent French cigarette and resting his shoulder against the sloping attic roof.

‘You are more comfortable here, no?'

‘Yes,' Huw said. ‘But what if the Germans come searching? Aren't they more likely to find me here?'

The doctor shrugged. He was a thin man; the angular bones of his shoulders and elbows jutted out through his checked cotton shirt.

‘That is a risk we take, my friend.'

‘I'm not thinking about myself,' Huw said quickly. ‘I suppose I'd just be taken off to a POW camp. It's you I'm worried about, and the family.'

‘They wish to help,' Jacques said simply. ‘They are not proud of the way some of their compatriots behave. Besides we think you are safer here for the time being than in the village. This place is out of the way. There is no reason for the Boche to suspect you are here. There have been no English shot down here except for you and we made them believe you died with your plane, I think.'

‘I see.' Huw felt too weak still for much argument. ‘What will happen to me then?'

‘When you are well we will try to arrange for you to leave France. We know people who work to that end. You will be given papers in case you are caught, identity card and the like. Do you speak French?'

‘Very little,' Huw admitted.

‘Then we will help you. Yvette will come and coach you, enough to fool the Boche at least. But we hope you will not be caught. English planes fly in sometimes to take out pilots like you and agents who work in the Resistance. We will arrange for you to go out with one. But that is not yet. You must be first fit or you will put us all in danger. I shall make you fit. That is my job.'

‘I see. How long …?'

The Frenchman got up, stubbing out his cigarette in a small tin he carried in his pocket.

‘Patience, my friend. We shall see. The war will go on without you.'

Huw tried to smile. The effort hurt his face and a new and disturbing thought occurred to him. Was he going to be scarred? He wished he could ask the doctor but somehow it seemed trivial and ungrateful. And his heavily bandaged hands made it impossible for him to try to discover for himself, by touch, just how badly burned was his face.

He thought of it again, however, in the long and lonely hours after the doctor had gone and he was alone. He had seen friends who had been badly burned. One, Buster Ford, had lost half his face after being shot down in flames during the Battle of Britain. Once he had been a handsome fellow, able to pull every girl who came his way; now in spite of the efforts of the plastic surgeons he resembled Frankenstein's monster. The thought that he might be similarly disfigured was not a pleasant one yet there was an irony about it which might have made him smile had it not been so painful, both mentally and physically. To have discovered there was no reason why he should not love Barbara – marry her even! – and then find himself a repulsive freak was so unlucky as to be ridiculous and Huw cursed himself for his bad timing.

If only he had not flown that last sortie he would have been able to settle things with Barbara by now. As it was she was still ignorant of his true feelings – and probably even thought by now that he was dead. The knowledge frustrated him. If only he had been able to see her for just a few minutes, tell her he loved her and ask her to ditch that damned Marcus Spindler! Or that he had written while he was still free to do so. Even that would have been better than nothing.

Or would it? Supposing they had got together again, she had promised herself to him and then this had happened? If he was as badly burned as he feared Barbara might find him quite repulsive and yet feel honour bound to stick by him. Tied by loyalty to a freak. Much as he loved her, much as he wanted her, Huw could not bear the thought of her feeling nothing but pity for him. If she could not love him as a man he would rather not have her at all.

Through the long weeks that followed such thoughts continued to torment him and as he grew stronger and his periods of lucidity lengthened there was plenty of time for thinking. He was alone for so much of the time with nothing to do but nurse his increasing frustration.

Jacques still came as often as he was able and the two men would share a packet of the pungent cigarettes and talk about the war and regularly each evening Yvette came to the attic. She would give him supper – bread, cheese and wine, and sometimes a plate of thick stew made from potatoes and meat, and while he was eating it she would lift a loose floor board and take out the radio set that was hidden there. It was a tiny instrument, yet clumsy and old fashioned, but when she had fiddled with it for a while she could usually pick up the BBC news and they would sit in silence listening to it.

From the broadcasts Huw learned that the bombing raids were continuing over England and Germany, and Germany was getting the worst of it – though in his more depressed moments Huw wondered if this was a piece of propaganda designed to bolster the morale of the English under siege. He heard of the continuing fighting in North Africa where the Desert Rats were holed up and of the worsening situation in the Far East where the Japs were now on the rampage. Hong Kong it seemed was in particular danger, though that was nothing new – the women and children had been evacuated from the colony months ago, long before he had been shot down. But the danger was more imminent now, whilst it was said that Singapore, with her battery of guns facing out to sea, was impregnable.

Yvette sometimes visited him at other times during the day when her duties about the farm permitted, to coach him in the French language as Jacques had promised. As he grew stronger he began to look forward to her visits. She was a handsome girl, her long dark hair counterbalancing her strong countrywoman's features, and the fresh open air she lived in lent a healthy colour to what might otherwise have been a sallow skin. She was good natured too with a laugh which came easily – and Huw's broken schoolboy French certainly gave her plenty to laugh about.

‘You pass as a Frenchman? Never!' she teased him. ‘Only per'aps you could fool the Boche. They are – 'ow you say? – theeck!' And her laugh rang out filling the attic so that he was afraid someone might hear.

He shushed her and she laughed again.

‘There is no one there – only the cows! Now – try again. Je m'appelle Maurice Valla. J'habite près de Paris.'

He repeated it, trying to concentrate on his pronunciation rather than on her dark eyes and thick sweeping lashes.

If it wasn't for Barbara I believe I might fancy her, he thought, and then chided himself for a fool. It was simply that he had been here too long. Under the circumstances any woman would look attractive. But he wondered about her all the same in the long hours when he was alone. For a simple French country girl her English was good, much better than his halting French would ever be, and it did not seem feasible that she should have learned it in a village school.

He asked her about it one evening when the BBC news was over and the tiny radio set had been returned to its hiding place beneath the floorboards.

‘You make me ashamed that I speak your language so badly. Where did you learn such good English?'

She perched herself on the edge of the trunk.

‘It is a story that takes a long time to tell.'

‘What's time? It's the one thing I have plenty of.'

‘You are lucky. Me – I rise each day before daylight and I do not go to bed until late. There is much to do on a farm. But then that is why I am here – to help my father. That is why I come home.'

‘Where were you then?'

‘Paris. I worked as a waitress. I met an Englishman there. We are friends. More than friends. I became his lover. He teach me English as I now teach you French. But I was more good pupil than you,' she teased.

‘What was an Englishman doing in Paris?' Huw asked.

‘He is an artist. He come to Paris to paint. But then the war come and he go home to England. I do not.: know where he is now. Maybe he is fighting. Maybe he is dead. I do not know.'

‘I see.' Huw was surprised. If Yvette had been living in Paris two years ago she must be older than she looked. As if reading his thoughts she laughed.

‘I go to Paris when I am only sixteen years old. I was – how you say? – wild. I wished to see la vie more than just on this leetle farm. Per'aps I see more la vie than I expect. Then ma mère die. Papa wish me to come home. At first I say – Non, I stay here! Then the war come and David go back to England and Paris – Paris is not so nice any more. So I return home to the farm as Papa wish. Now I am glad I am not in Paris any more. Paris is full of Boche. Here at least they leave us in peace.'

‘Thank the Lord!' Huw said with feeling.

‘Et tu? Have you a lover at home?'

Huw hesitated. ‘I had a girl,' he said at last.

‘She wait for you?'

‘I don't know,' he admitted and suddenly the hopelessness of it was claustrophobic. Would Barbara wait? She did not know if he was alive or dead, did not know he loved her even. ‘I think she may have found someone else.'

‘Then she is crazy!' Yvette said.

He looked at her. Her button-through dress had fallen open at the hem, displaying her legs. They were nice legs, a little sturdy perhaps, but long and brown. He dragged his eyes away from them.

‘She's not crazy,' he said. ‘It's just circumstances.' Then the other thought occurred to him, the one that had been haunting him, try as he might not to think about it. ‘In any case she wouldn't want me now, would she?' he asked. ‘Who would want a man with a scarred face?'

‘Oh!' Yvette threw up her hands. ‘Now I think it is
you
who are crazy! If you love someone, what is a little scar?'

His stomach fell away. So he was scarred. He had known he must be by the tight feel of the skin. But how badly?

‘Am I – a sight?' he asked.

‘A little bit. But you are getting better. You have been lucky I think.'

Lucky. Lucky to have been shot down. Lucky to be holed up here for weeks on end, alone and in pain. Lucky to be scarred for life. He could think of another word for it which had nothing to do with luck. But at the same time, perversely, he wanted to know the worst.

‘Could you bring me a mirror?' he asked.

‘Mirror?'

‘Looking glass. So that I can see myself.' He raised his bandaged hand in a mime of holding a mirror to his face.

‘Dr Jacques say no looking glasses.'

His stomach dropped again. It must be as bad as he had feared. Worse. She saw the look in his eyes and stood up suddenly.

‘But that was weeks ago,' she said simply. ‘Now it is better I think for you to look. I will get you a glass and you can see for yourself.'

She slipped out through the door and he heard her climb down the steep stairs. Whilst she was gone he lay sweating for it suddenly seemed hot and airless in the attic. After some minutes he heard her coming back and tensed. Did he really want to see what he had become? But it was too late now to change his mind.

Her head and shoulders appeared through the attic door. She lay the mirror down on the bare boards while she climbed up, then brought it to him, a large old fashioned glass in a wood frame. He took it, turned towards what little light there was, and looked. Although he was prepared for the worst the sight still shocked him. One side of his face was dark red, crinkled like old parchment, lips blurred into the mass, eyebrows gone.

‘Christ!' he said.

‘You see it is not so bad.' Her voice was determinedly cheerful. ‘And it will get better. Dr Jacques say that. It is still soon.'

‘Yes, but …'

‘You are still very handsome, I think.' She reached out and touched the scorched skin. Her fingers felt cool. ‘What is a little bump here and there, huh? It shows you are brave. And you are still alive. Many would be glad of that.'

He jerked his face away from her touch. He did not want her sympathy. She was right – he should be grateful to be alive – but just now it seemed scant comfort.

She took the mirror from him. ‘You are alone too much, I think. Soon you will be well enough to come down and eat with us. Dr Jacques says you can do that as soon as you are well enough to come quickly back up the stairs if the Boche come. It will not seem so bad then. You want to try to walk?'

He turned away from her. No, he did not want to try to walk. He had had enough this evening without the ignominy of being supported back and forth across the attic by this girl who felt nothing for him but sympathy.

She shrugged. ‘Very well. But you cannot stay up here hiding forever. I go now. I have work to do. More important work than talking to a man who feels so sorry for himself. I will bring a drink when it is time for you to sleep.'

When she had gone he lay for a while sunk in depression. Then the resilient side of his nature began to reassert itself. He couldn't stay here pitying himself forever. That would do no good at all. The sooner he got himself mobile, the sooner they would send him back to England. Once there he would be able to see a plastic surgeon, someone who would be able to tell him whether a skin graft was necessary. They were magicians, those boys – and it could have been worse. At least the structure of his face was still there, unlike poor old Buster. They'd work wonders as long as it wasn't too late.

The thought spurred Huw to action. He pushed back the rug that covered him, rolled onto the floor and slowly levered himself to his feet. His legs felt shaky and he balanced himself against the sloping ceiling. So far he had only made it to the toilet bucket and back. If he was going to go downstairs he would have to make it much further than that. Teeth gritted with the effort he went back and forth, back and forth, holding onto the roof until he fell on the bed exhausted with the effort, then, when he had recovered his breath, he got up to try again.