Page 19 of The Dressmaker's Gift
Vivienne was already pulling on her coat. ‘I’m going. We have to at least try to warn her. You don’t have to come. Just give me the address.’
Mireille shook her head and now it was her turn to lay a restraining hand on her friend’s arm. ‘I’ll go, Vivi. I know the route she’d have taken. There’s no point us both risking it. You know that – probably better than I do.’ She hugged Vivienne tightly for a moment. ‘Thank you. For telling me. Now stay here and wait. Claire is my responsibility. The network couldn’t afford to lose all three of us.’
Reluctantly, Vivi slumped against the door frame. Mireille knew that this was the right thing to do, although she was also aware that the other members of the network would have disagreed and told her to stay put too. Better to minimise the risk, they would say. Better only to lose one of you. But this was Claire. She couldn’t sit there in the apartment and do nothing, knowing that she’d sent her friend into the danger zone. She had to go and find her and bring her back safely.
Claire had to wait ages for a connecting train. The Métro only ran sporadically these days and there were frequent cancellations and station closures. But, in the end, one rattled into the station and she boarded it, praying that the Billancourt stop would be operational this evening. Otherwise she’d have to walk back from the last station on the line at the Pont de Sèvres and that would make her even more late for her rendezvous with Christiane. The train jolted and swayed and the dim carriage lights flickered repeatedly. At least she felt safe underground, even if it was a false sense of security. Everyone knew the Paris Métro tunnels weren’t deep enough to offer protection if there were a bombing raid. She glanced at her watch and sighed. It was taking longer than she’d hoped. She’d have a long walk back to Saint-Germain if she missed the last homeward-bound train, and would run the risk of being caught out after the curfew.
Frustrated by delays along the line, it was already late as Claire climbed the steps out of the Métro station at Billancourt. An official began to lock the gates behind her.
‘Was that the last train tonight?’ she called to him.
‘Yes, miss.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘And you’d better be getting home now – it’ll be the curfew in ten minutes.’
Now that she’d come this far, Claire knew she had no choice but to go on. It wasn’t far to the rendezvous point. She should have been there an hour ago, so perhaps Christiane would have given up and left, but she had to try at least. There was nothing to lose, in any case – she was already in trouble for being out late if she was stopped by the police or a road block.
The café on the corner, opposite the new apartment blocks that had been built to house the local factory workers, was closing when she reached it. There was no sign of Christiane, only a couple of waiters wiping down tables and stacking chairs. She stood outside, uncertain what to do next. Should she risk waiting in case Christiane came back, or should she cut her losses and start to make the long journey back to Saint-Germain? It was miles, and she’d need to navigate her way through back streets to try to avoid being caught.
As she hesitated, the lights were switched off in the café and the street was plunged into total darkness. The windows of the surrounding homes and businesses were blacked out and many had tightly closed shutters to seal their inhabitants inside – and shut her out.
Nothing moved on the suburban street. There were no passing cars and no latecomers hurrying home. She was too late.
Just as she turned to go, a tiny movement in one of the windows of the apartment block opposite caught her eye. It was almost nothing. Perhaps she’d imagined the glint of light, as if a corner of the blackout had been lifted and then hastily dropped again. She felt uneasy at the thought that someone might have seen her, but decided to wait another minute to see if anyone came.
In the shadows on the silent street, there was an almost imperceptibly soft click as a door was opened. Then a young woman, who fitted the description of Christiane that Claire had been given, slipped silently across the road. Claire removed her hat and her pale hair made her appear other-worldly in the darkness.
Christiane whispered the code word and Claire gave her reply.
‘It’s so late,’ Christiane said in a low voice, her eyes dark pools in a white face. ‘Come, we’ll be safer in the doorway, in case anyone’s watching.’
They moved to stand inside the door of the building opposite and Claire quickly slipped the tightly folded map from beneath her collar, passing it over without a word.
Christiane glanced at the piece of paper and then pushed it into her pocket. ‘You should come in and stay the night with me here,’ she said.
Claire shook her head. ‘No. We mustn’t risk being caught together. Your neighbours might have seen me. I’ll make my way home. Don’t worry, I’ll stay away from the main roads. If anyone stops me, I’ll explain that the trains had already stopped running by the time my music lesson finished.’ She raised the battered attaché case.
Christiane nodded. ‘Very well. Go, quickly now. Stay safe. And thank you for this.’ She patted the pocket of her cardigan, where the paper rustled faintly.
Claire slipped back out into the street and heard the door shut softly behind her as she walked away, trying to make her footsteps as quiet as possible on the hard pavement. The darkness seemed to press in on her more closely as she slipped down a narrow side street. By this circuitous route, it was going to take even longer for her to navigate her way back to Saint-Germain, but it would be safer.
And then she felt the strangest sensation. It was as if the darkness had begun to vibrate around her. She pressed a hand to her ear to try to clear the feeling from her head. But then the vibration grew, transforming itself into the low, droning hum of an aeroplane. She glanced up nervously, but the darkness revealed nothing. She began to walk faster and then broke into a run as the noise was amplified, filling her head with its dull roar.
All of a sudden, as though all the street lights had been switched back on at once, there was a bright light overhead and she glanced skywards again to see the blazing white streak of a flare falling languidly towards the roofs ahead of her.
As if in a dream, the last thing she thought she saw was the outline of her friend Mireille, silhouetted in the sudden blinding flash that followed, before the roaring darkness engulfed her.
As Mireille had hurried down the winding staircase from the apartment and out into the Rue Cardinale, she’d almost collided with a man she vaguely recognised as a neighbour, who was wheeling his bicycle and whistling softly to himself as he headed home for the night. The yellow star pinned to his overcoat shone like a small sun in the light that spilled from the open doorway.
‘Woah! What’s the hurry, mademoiselle?’ he laughed and reached out a steadying hand as she swerved, nearly falling as she tried to avoid him.
‘Please, monsieur, can I borrow your bike? It’s a grave emergency. I’ll bring it back safely, I promise. You can collect it here, from Delavigne Couture, tomorrow.’ She crossed her fingers and sent up a prayer that this last part was true. But if the bike didn’t make it back then she probably wouldn’t either, so she wouldn’t have to face the consequences, she reasoned.
Reluctantly, the man agreed to let her borrow it because he recognised her – she was one of the three girls who had stopped him on the street corner and asked him to take their photograph. And he could see from the terrible look on her face that it really must be important. ‘But take good care of it, I beg you, mademoiselle. I’ll need it to get to work in the morning.’
She called her thanks over her shoulder as she pushed down hard on the pedal and swung herself on to the saddle, already heading for the bridge.
As she went, pedalling furiously to try to reach Claire in time, swerving past pedestrians and around other cyclists, she thought hard. If Claire had managed to make it there and back without any delays, she would have been able to catch the last Métro home. But if that had been the case she should have been back by now. The stations Mireille passed were all being locked for the night. Her lungs were burning as she raced for miles along the boulevards. She prayed that the truckloads of soldiers returning to their barracks would leave her be. Hopefully they’d just think that she was in a tearing hurry to get home before the curfew began. Her dark curls flew as she cycled along the quayside, following the curve of the Seine as the river swept southwards to create the deep bend in which the suburb of Billancourt nestled.
She knew where Claire was supposed to be meeting Christiane – it was a spot that she’d used as a rendezvous point a few times herself. She turned into the road where the café sat on the corner but it was deserted. Even through the pounding of the blood in her ears and the noise of the wind rushing past her face, she could hear the roar of the planes as they approached, preparing to unleash the biggest allied air bombardment of the war so far on the factory that was used to produce so many trucks for Hitler’s army.
