When the Sky Fell Apart (27 page)

Edith started to rub on the ointment. ‘I do my best. Now, this will sting a little. Keep still—fidgeting won't make it hurt less.'

‘What is this?'

‘Nothing magical. Mostly onion juice and mustard seeds. The poultice keeps it compressed. It should start to break down some of this nasty scarred skin. That's what's giving you the pain. It shouldn't be hurting as much. Is it?'

‘No. Some small better. And so soon!' He smiled, then he sniffed the poultice and wrinkled up his nose.

‘Doesn't smell like fine French perfume, I'm afraid. And the smell seeps into your blood, so you'll be breathing out onion fumes. But it'll see your arm right, over the weeks. Less painful. I'll change it every day.'

‘
Danke
.'

‘No bother. A fire, was it? That did for your arm?'

‘
Nein.
A big machine. On the farm. I was a foolish boy.' He shrugged and smiled again, that sweet, sad smile.

‘You can't protect children from life,' Edith said. ‘Things happen. One moment, and then everything is different, forever.' She patted his hand. ‘I'll be back to change that tomorrow.'

BY the second February under German rule, every day had started to tug on Maurice, like the wrenching hand of a ticking clock. He'd nearly been caught mooring the boat a few times, though luckily he'd seen the patrol before they'd seen him. He thought about applying for a licence, but that would have meant awkward questions about why he hadn't declared the boat before.

And then there was Marthe. She'd seemed to be improving for a while, eating more and so on. Then a sickness went around, and of course she caught it.

He and Edith were up with her day and night. They took it in turns to sit with her and encourage her to take water. They had no sugar, so they gave her the brackish leftovers after boiling potatoes. She brought it straight back up, time and again, shrinking before their eyes. Watching her fading filled him with a desperate, burning rage, but there was nothing to do except sit and wait and hope.

In the end, she turned a corner, but the illness left her even weaker than before. She needed food, and plenty of it, and there just wasn't enough. Even with the black-market bits, the extra from the butcher and the fish Maurice caught, it was never enough. It struck him that he could try sneaking out at night and stealing food from the Germans' rations when they were out on patrol and never mind the risk to himself.

But that soldier made everything impossible. Sat on the wall, smoking. Watching. He was there every time Maurice set foot outside his house, and if he wasn't sitting there, he was waiting at Edith's. Wherever Marthe was, the damned soldier followed.

But he never said a word to Maurice. Just watched, as Maurice crept past him, eyes on the ground. He knew it was only a matter of time before there was a pounding at the door and they came to take Marthe away.

Edith claimed the soldier was a good sort. She'd bandaged up that bad arm of his, and it looked better afterwards. The soldier smiled his German smile at Edith, and sometimes they stopped and talked about the weather, or food. Once the soldier gave Edith a little of his bread.

But it didn't change the fact that he was the bloody Bosche and Maurice couldn't stand to look at him, sitting there as if his bloody uniform gave him the right to do whatever he bloody well wanted.

By spring, Maurice was barely going out for fear of being caught. Everyone was thinner and they were all at each other's throats. Though they had returned to their mother months before, Claudine had carried on bringing Francis over and they shared whatever food they could spare with the children.

Claudine seemed hungry and sad, but Maurice was thankful that she no longer mentioned her German friend: in fact, she seemed nervous of the soldiers and Edith took great care not to let her see the one who was sitting at the end of the garden. Nothing to be gained by making the girl fret, Edith said.

One day, Maurice discovered a different way down to the boat. It meant sneaking past one of the bunkers the Bosche had built, but there weren't any patrols behind it: they seemed to think no one would be brave or stupid enough to come that close—and at least he didn't have to walk past that damned soldier and watch the suspicion creeping over his face.

Maurice scrambled over the barbed wire and ran past the bunker, and then came to a steep hill. It was while he was trying to run down it without falling that he saw the broad, flat leaves of a potato plant.

He stopped dead and looked about. There were hundreds of the plants, sprouting in among the weeds. At first, he thought he might be mistaken: all the crops were closely guarded by the Bosche. Surely they wouldn't allow stray plants to grow without guarding them? Then he realised: he must be standing on a
côtil
, one of the steep, south-facing banks where the farmers planted their early new potatoes to give them the greatest sunlight. Somehow a farmer must have planted some potatoes and the Germans had since wired the field off without noticing the crop.

Maurice looked around. Not a soul. He didn't question his good fortune but dug down with his hands, hoping the potatoes wouldn't be rotten or blighted. He scrabbled in the soil, into the roots. Nothing. He dug a little further and his fingers closed around something hard. He dragged out a grubby little pearl.

Maurice chuckled, kissed it and put it in his pocket, then dug and uprooted seven more. All small, but they would be packed with goodness. He'd have to gather as many as he could before they were discovered by someone else or before the farmer tried to gather his crop. His guilt at stealing was momentary: starvation breeds savagery.

He hurried back home and fetched three sacks and a fork. But on his way back, the soldier stopped him, pointed at his bulging pockets.

‘What is this?'

Maurice pretended not to understand. The soldier asked again. It pained Maurice to show him but there was no refusing the Bosche. Slowly, he drew out a potato, hoping it would be unrecognisable, small and soil-covered as it was.

The soldier grinned. ‘For eat, yes?'

Reluctantly, Maurice nodded.

‘Where are you finding?' Bloody man was still smiling.

Maurice sighed. ‘Follow me.'

He half expected the soldier to stop him from clambering over the barbed wire but he followed without question. Maurice glanced sideways: the German was just as thin as him.

When Maurice showed him the plants, he clapped him on the back.

‘
Die Taschen, bitte.
Bag, yes?'

Maurice reluctantly gave him a sack and took one himself. But it was a tricky business, digging deep with the fork and sifting the soil, then picking the potatoes out and putting them into the sack—and the soldier had only his one good hand. When it was his turn with the fork, he couldn't dig deep enough to reach the potatoes. The whole business would take too long and a patrol would easily spot them, perched as they were on the face of the
côtil.
It didn't ease Maurice's mind, either, that the soldier kept looking around as if he was frightened of being spotted himself.

‘Look here,' Maurice said, ‘I'll take the fork. You pick out the potatoes and throw them in the sack.' He mimed the actions.

It was much easier, working together. They didn't say a word, but there was a soothing sort of rhythm in the repeated
dig-sift-throw
.

When they had filled the three sacks, the soldier said, ‘This is all.' They carried one each and the third sack, the heaviest one, between them.

Maurice knew when they returned home, the damned soldier would take them all, to share out among his Kraut friends.

I'll have to creep back after curfew.

But, to his amazement, the soldier walked to Maurice's shed, stowed one of the sacks behind the door and threw an empty sack over it to hide it. He tapped Maurice's chest and smiled.

‘For you.'

He pointed at the other two sacks and tapped his own chest. ‘For me.'

‘Thank you. That's wonderful.' Maurice forgot himself then, forgot he was a blasted soldier and shook him heartily by the hand. ‘You should come in. To eat.
Essen?'
He pointed to the house and brought his fingers to his mouth in the universal signal for
eating
.

The soldier shook his head. ‘Thank you. I cannot.' He pointed at one of the sacks. ‘I must take this for the Commandant.'

The soldier picked up his sacks, winked at Maurice and used his foot to push the other sack into a dark corner. They smiled at each other and Maurice laid another sack over the potatoes to hide them.

‘
Danke
,' he said. The unfamiliar German vowels were thick on his tongue.

Maurice took a scoop of potatoes and boiled them with a little mint from Edith's garden. They ate them with the rest of their butter ration. They were hot and rich and delicious.

Edith and Claudine stayed long after curfew and they all gorged themselves, laughing. They even put the illegal wireless on quietly and danced around the room. It could have been years ago, when Germany was simply a place on a map.

For the first time in months, they all fell asleep quickly and hunger didn't claw at them through the night.

The next morning, Maurice thought to go fishing again. Perhaps this time, on his way back, he could give the soldier a fish, by way of thanks.

But he wasn't there.

Maurice's first thought was the potatoes.

All a trick. That Kraut bastard!

He checked the shed—the potatoes were behind the door. A clever trap, perhaps, so they could catch him red-handed? He imagined a whole troop of soldiers watching him, waiting to snatch him.

He hurried back to the house, looking over his shoulder and scanning the horizon. The long seagrass was bleached by the sun and now pressed flat against the hills by the wind. The look of the land made him think of a cold, wet dog. Flattened and miserable and ready to attack.

The soldier was nowhere to be seen.

Maurice went inside, locked the door and waited for the patrol to come and drag him away. He found his small knife, the one he used to do any quick gutting if he wanted extra bait for line-fishing—not a long knife, but sharp. It could cut through flesh and bone like soft cheese.

He crouched by the door, hunching below the glass. The rain swept on, the sun arched across the sky and fat clouds sailed high on the wind. It would have been a good day for fish.

Maurice couldn't stop brooding about yesterday and the soldier's delight when he'd seen the potatoes. The way he'd helped Maurice sift through the soil, both of them scrabbling through the dirt together, lugging the sack back between them—as if they were on the same side.

Or, more than that, as if there was no such thing as war; as if
occupation
was a word that was simply used to describe what an honest man did to make a living.

Maurice shook his head. The soldier had smiled. Damn that man, he had
smiled
and had given the potatoes to him.

Now this. Maurice clenched his jaw. He had forgotten that they were at war. He mustn't forget that the Germans were the enemy. All of them.

He tapped the knife on the palm of his hand, tested the blade on the pad of his finger. A bright bead of blood swelled. With enough force, the knife could reach a man's heart.

Lunchtime: Marthe needed feeding. He hadn't time to mash anything, not with a patrol breathing down his neck, so he cut a scrap of ham from the bone (a few days old but it still smelt good) and they had some cooked carrot (a touch soft and sludgy) and some potatoes left over from last night's supper. He set it all in front of her. Then he fetched his knife again and sat back in front of the door.

The day was darker now. He was glad not to be out on the boat after all: rain made the deck slippery. Besides, on days like this the cold crept into his bones, so he could still feel it hours later when he was tucked up warm in bed—that lingering finger of chill that curled in his stomach all night long.

He heard rustling. A German patrol, come for him or for Marthe? Heart thudding, Maurice looked out of the window. Nothing except the broken hands of the trees, clawing at the sky. He gripped the knife more tightly. The noise again. But it was inside, behind him. How the devil had they crept into the house?

The back door.
He had left it unlocked.

Maurice spun around, knife whipping the air, ready to gut the whole damn patrol. And then he saw. The noise was Marthe: she was banging on the table, looking right at him and straining towards the food in front of her.

‘You want me to sit with you, my love?'

He hadn't seen it in months, but he could swear there was the trace of a smile tugging at her mouth. He put down the knife and sat next to her at the table. They ate. No plate, knives, forks or spoons, because who needed them, truly?

Marthe put her hand on top of his. It rested there for a moment and his heart jolted with sweet and painful memories. Then she twitched and the invisible tug of the disease yanked her from him again.