When the Sky Fell Apart (6 page)

He had remarkable eyes when he smiled. Really quite blue. But why was he
smiling
when she mentioned the invasion?

‘You're not frightened at all?' she asked.

He gave a tiny shrug. ‘A little. I suspect we've chosen a raw deal. And you?'

‘Of course, I'd be foolish not to be terrified.' She laughed, a high-pitched sound with an edge in it. It took her by surprise to say it out loud: she was petrified, losing sleep, queasy and knock-kneed with fear.

His eyes searched her face. ‘You're thinking of the rumours of what they did in France?'

‘Aren't we all?'

‘And yet you chose to stay.'

‘As did you. You could have left, very easily. I know you've said you felt a duty and that's very admirable. But there must be some other reason for a man like you to stay. Wouldn't you rather be near your family, at home?'

‘Home…' He shook his head. ‘No, I—I wanted to stay. Things cannot be as bad as all that, surely?'

She frowned. Was he a simpleton?

He looked at her for a long moment then leant forward and spoke quickly, earnestly. ‘Because this isn't 1914. Because history doesn't repeat itself. Because it's only rumours, after all, and because the fear of the enemy is half the battle: if they have us running scared then they've already won, don't you see?'

She nodded, slowly. ‘I think I do. You speak a fair amount of sense. For an Englishman, that is.'

He laughed and gave a small bow, as if at the end of a performance, and she suddenly wondered how much of what he said and did was just that: a performance, a brave face to scare the wolf of fear away.

A HAMMERING on the door dragged Maurice from sleep and he sat upright with a gasp. It took a moment for him to remember: the bombs, the evacuation, the Germans coming… For a confused moment he thought it might actually be soldiers battering on his door. But that wasn't possible, surely? Not so soon.

He rubbed his eyes. There was that hammering again.

Marthe grumbled in her sleep and Maurice heaved himself upright and opened the door an inch, squinting in the sudden sunlight.

That girl, Claudine, was standing on his doorstep, pink-cheeked as if she'd been running.

He frowned. ‘Stop that hammering, will you? What are you doing here?'

‘You've missed the boat,' she gasped. ‘It's gone already. Just set sail. Papa has left, but you missed it.'

‘Keep your voice down—Marthe is sleeping.'

‘But Maurice, I thought you wanted to take Marthe.'

He rubbed his eyes. ‘You're sharper than you look, young Claudine. I tried to leave, but she wouldn't come. Screamed the place down.' He tried to keep his voice calm. ‘So now we're staying.'

‘Aren't you worried the Germans will hurt her?'

He stared at her for a beat, then said, ‘Yes. Perhaps I am.' And for an awful moment, he felt a rising tide of panic and thought he might weep in front of the girl. Then he drew a steadying breath.

‘Well, it's too late to be fretting, in any case. It's wretched, but there's no escaping now.'

‘But you've a boat of your own,' Claudine said. ‘You could escape. You could row to England. With Marthe in the boat. You could rescue her—it would be such a thrilling adventure.'

For goodness sake. Was everything excitement and intrigue for this girl?

He shook his head. ‘No, I can't take her anywhere alone. She's too far gone. I couldn't row and care for her as well…'

He couldn't force any more words past the cold stone of panic that crushed his chest.

And, bless the girl, she must have heard his voice tremble, because she looked out at the horizon while he calmed himself.

After a moment he managed to say, ‘I've no choice but to stay now.'

‘What rot! You simply need to find someone to go with you. And I'm going to help you. I will make it my very special task, to help you rescue Marthe and take her somewhere safe.'

For a moment, exasperating as it was, the child's blind optimism seemed as magical and unlikely as the stars: something that existed in spite of its own implausibility.

Maurice reached out and clasped her hand. Her fingers were small and cold in his and he was reminded of just how young she was. Ten, and a foreign army on the doorstep, but she wasn't cowering under the covers, howling in fear as he wanted to.

‘Thank you,' he said. ‘For wanting to help. You're a good girl. A marvel.'

After Claudine left, Maurice started scrubbing the floor, trying to pull himself together. But those stories skittered about in his head. What they said Germans did—what they'd done to the French when they invaded—it was enough to make a man sick. Perhaps the girl was on to something. Or perhaps not. Escaping once the Germans were here would be a bloody foolish business. Might as well take himself to the loony bin, or simply ask to be shot in the head.

He tried to think of something else; his fretting did Marthe no good. She sensed it and it made her restless and gripey.

She had settled back to sleep for the moment. Maurice had a mountain of washing, but that meant too much clattering with the scrubbing board and mangle. He could do the floor, though. It was a fine, quiet job. Just the scratch of the brush and the slosh of the water. If he set a good rhythm going then it helped to soothe her and she could sleep for hours. He liked to imagine she was dreaming about being out on the sea with him in the boat, back when they were courting and life stretched wide and open before them.

Dr Carter had told him there was nothing much going on in her head anymore, but sometimes she looked at him and Maurice could swear blind she was still there. Deep in those eyes, somewhere. So never mind the knife blade of pain in his back and the gunshot crack of his knees, he carried on scrubbing as long as he could bear it so she could have a good, long sleep. Perhaps find her way back to him while she was dreaming.

Maurice missed fishing terribly, of course. The oyster runs weren't the same: they were a rush out into the dark, snatch a net and back again. Rowing like the clappers; screaming muscles. All the while with his ears prickling for the sound of another boat, or a shout that might mean he'd been caught. Then it'd be a French prison for him, or a beating. Something worse, perhaps. And what would his Marthe do without him?

Fishing was different. He'd set off early in the morning, or in the dark breath of night sometimes, depending on the tide. Rowing steadily, keeping the same pace for an hour or more, until the island was a black smudge floating on the horizon. Far enough away for it to look like something he'd imagined, all the worries on it too distant to remember.

He'd cast his net out as if in a dream. A sort of magic to the action: like flinging out hope. Full of holes. Then sit and wait, every breath a prayer. Then tug and heave and dredge up wriggle-bodied treasure, slippery and gleaming.

There was nothing in the world like the enchanted stillness of the sea. Yes, there was a chorus of sounds: the water slapping on the wood and the whisper of his own breathing. Perhaps the cough of another fisherman, if he was close. But not one of those sounds crept under his skin. They were hums on the horizon. Outside of thought or care. As though they were buried fathoms under the sea, muffled by the weight and velvet darkness of the water.

And he could simply sit, silent. Wait for his net to fill with fish. Know that at home his wife would be rousing and washing, perhaps cooking something for his breakfast. When he returned he would be able to give her the money he'd raised from selling the fish: a conjuror to pluck gold from water. And she would help to sponge that sea smell from his body. And then perhaps they would both go back to bed for a touch of closeness. That face, those eyes. That sweet breath in his mouth and deep in his lungs. Fingers in his hair, nails on his back. He would sleep with her body wrapped around him. He would carry that peace with him all day.

He'd seen signs of the illness even before they married: changes in her mood, forgetfulness and a sort of
absence
in her eyes sometimes when she looked at him, as if she couldn't remember who he was.

Gradually, she'd become wilder: sometimes she lashed out at him for no reason. And they had both seen her mother's decline and knew how it might be for Marthe. But he loved her too much to leave her; he couldn't imagine existing without her. So they married and hoped that somehow Marthe's fate might be different.

Maurice had carried on fishing when Marthe's illness had worsened: they both pretended it wasn't happening, even as she became angrier, more absent, less herself. But then he would come home and find that she'd forgotten to fill the pan before she put it on the stove. The kitchen would be thick with smoke, stove smouldering, her coughing her insides up. Or she'd dropped a pile of dishes and then couldn't remember how to clean them up, had shredded her poor hands trying.

Every time he came home there would be something new she'd forgotten how to do—a piece of herself she had lost. Every time, she'd be crying and saying sorry over and over, as if she were somehow to blame for her illness.

But he knew he must stop the fishing when he came home and she'd spilled a pan of boiling water down her legs. She was rubbing at them—perhaps she had thought that might take the pain. But her skin was peeling off in her hands where the hot water had blistered it. Translucent parings of flesh, like white petals, which she threw to the floor, while underneath, her blood—so much blood.

He'd cried, ‘What on earth?'

‘I'm so sorry, darling,' she'd said. ‘Look at this mess. Now just you sit tight and let me clean it up.'

She had tried to push him away when he sat her back down. She kept apologising for the state of the kitchen, and all the while she was sitting there with her legs raw and burnt and bloody. Holding her own skin in her hands.

He'd steered clear of the previous doctor, Dr Laird, up until then, but there was no escaping that time. He diagnosed Huntington's Chorea.

Maurice didn't care what it was called. He just wanted to know what to do, how they could avoid the fate her mother had suffered. But Laird had shaken his head and said there was nothing to be done. She would worsen and would need full-time care—sooner rather than later, as the disease progressed faster in younger people. ‘Frightful business,' he'd murmured.

And, in the end, it would cause an infection, which would kill her.

Sorry, old chap.

Maurice had taken himself out for a walk. Stood on the cliff and bawled at the sea and the sky. Bent double with grief, he had screamed and sobbed until his breath ran out.

That was when he tried having that girl to tend her. But then, after he'd had to send her packing, he thought,
I can't do it. I can't leave Marthe with anyone again
.

Once the war started and France was occupied, Maurice would sometimes see the French fishermen who had managed to sneak out on to the sea, and they would tell stories of women being raped and gutted. Poked at with guns and knives before they were slit open like fish. Children shot at in the street for playing out after curfew. Or simply picked off, like stray dogs.

There were the other stories, too: Herr Hitler had it in for the Jews, it seemed—they were being rounded up all over Europe and put into camps where, Maurice imagined, they were forced to work for the Germans, or heaven knows what. And other types were taken off to work camps too: people who were crippled or too ill to care for themselves, gypsies. Homosexuals as well, but the fishermen laughed about that.

But he couldn't laugh at any of it. He could see that they didn't think it funny, not really. They laughed too loudly and for too long. And then there were lingering shards of silence when they all thought about their women and children.

So Maurice gave it all a good deal of thought while he scrubbed at the floor. By the time he had finished, he knew Claudine was right: they had to be out, before the Germans arrived. Never mind the journey—he would row until his back snapped in two.

He packed up a suitcase, just a few bits and pieces: clothes and so on for both of them, and some of the lavender soap that Edith had made for Marthe to help her sleep. Food and plenty of water, and that was it. He knew the soldiers were expected any hour.

His boat was moored up close to shore—he could carry Marthe down. She might sleep in the boat, if he was lucky. He could be on the mainland within two days, if he rowed hard.

But it was just as before, when he'd wanted to evacuate on that collier. Would Marthe leave the house? The tears began when he picked her up. Then, when he reached the door, she screamed and thrashed around as he'd seen small children do. Corded tendons on her neck, limbs flailing, lips stretched back so her face was more animal than human.

He tried to talk to her, to explain the way of it.
Shush, shush, this is for the best, my love. But shush and listen now. For God's sake, Marthe. For God's sake.