Page 20 of The Dressmaker's Gift
Suddenly the sky lit up with falling flares, illuminating a slight figure in the side street she was passing. She leapt from the bike and called to Claire, running towards her. And then the first plane dropped its bombs on Billancourt and the streets exploded.
The rush of wind and debris engulfed the spot where Claire had been. It hit Mireille a split second later, but it was enough time for her to spin round and tumble into the recess of an adjacent doorway, shielding herself from the worst of the blast and from the shockwaves from the next explosions that sucked the air from her lungs. She picked herself up, ignoring her bleeding hands and knees, and ran into the cloud of thick dust that choked the narrow street. Another flare lit the scene, allowing Mireille to make out the huddled bundle on the pavement just in front of her. She grabbed Claire beneath her arms and dragged her inert body back into the doorway, shielding her with her own body as another blast rocked the earth beneath them.
The white light of the flares became tinged with a warmer orange glow as the factory buildings erupted in flames and the next explosion ripped through the air. She could hear the planes’ engines screaming as they sped up and banked away from their target having dropped their payloads.
Her eardrums rang with the force of the blasts after the first wave of planes left. The fires that raged through the nearby buildings added their crackling roar to the din. She carefully assessed Claire’s injuries by the light of the flames. She had suffered a blow to the back of her head and her hair was drenched with dark blood. But otherwise her body seemed to be intact. To Mireille’s relief, Claire’s eyes fluttered open then, her dilated pupils dark as deep black pools. Her gaze was glazed, but with a struggle she seemed to focus on Mireille’s face. After a few moments, while Mireille tried to blot the blood from her wound with her scarf, all the while speaking reassuring words, Claire tried to sit up. Her body swayed and then she leant forward and vomited trying, not entirely successfully, to avoid her coat.
‘Does anything else hurt?’ Mireille asked her.
Dizzily Claire shook her head and then winced, putting a hand up to her hair and looking in numb disbelief at the dark stickiness that stained her fingers.
‘You’re concussed,’ Mireille said. ‘And in shock too. But Claire, we need to move you. There may be more planes coming and we need to get out of here. Do you think you can try to stand, if I help you?’
Claire didn’t speak, but she reached out a hand and Mireille heaved her on to her feet. Claire retched again, acrid bile spilling from her mouth on to the front of her coat.
‘Sorry,’ she muttered.
Mireille slung Claire’s arm around her shoulders and wrapped her own arm around Claire’s back, taking a few tentative steps out from the doorway into the street. Everything was covered in a thick layer of grey dust, as if it had snowed, and they managed to totter along a little way. With a flood of relief, Mireille made out the shape of the discarded bicycle beneath the shroud of dust and debris. She propped Claire against the side of a shop and bent to retrieve it.
And then she felt the air begin to resonate once again as the next wave of bombers approached. ‘Quick,’ she said, her voice pitched high with alarm as she grabbed Claire again. ‘Can we get you on to the saddle? You can keep an arm around my shoulders and I’ll wheel the bike along – we’ll be able to move faster that way.’
Somewhat precariously, she managed to manoeuvre both Claire and the bicycle into the main road. The wheels crunched over a scattering of broken glass where the café windows had been blown out by the shock wave. She prayed that there were no very sharp shards which would puncture the tyres. Hurrying as fast as she could along the deserted road, Mireille heard the roar of the aeroplane engines as they came in low, and the next flares illuminated the night. Keeping her head down, she gasped for breath and the sinews of her back burned with the effort of pushing the bicycle, weaving round chunks of shattered concrete and splintered shards of wood. The motion made the bike wobble dangerously as dizziness made Claire’s body sway, threatening to unbalance them both.
She turned a corner, just as the next wave of bombs began to drop. Thankfully, the buildings here sheltered the girls from the shock of the explosions that rocked the ground beneath Mireille’s feet. At the end of the street, she risked a backwards glance and saw that the apartment blocks that had been built for the factory workers had disappeared in an inferno of flame and smoke.
Claire muttered something, and Mireille had to lean close to her to make out what she said.
‘Christiane ... We need to go back for Christiane.’
Swallowing the surge of nausea that rose up, burning her throat, Mireille pushed onwards.
Claire tapped her on the shoulder, stronger and more insistent this time. ‘Turn back, Mireille ... Get Christiane!’ she croaked.
‘No!’ Mireille screamed, her voice a shriek above the storm of noise. ‘It’s too late for Christiane, Claire.’ And hot tears mingled with the dust that coated her face as she trudged onwards, away from the burning buildings that had nestled within the loop of the River Seine.
Waves of nausea made Claire dream she was out on the sea in her father’s fishing boat as she drifted in and out of consciousness while the two girls made the long trek back to Saint-Germain. The wail of sirens racing past jerked her back to an awareness of her surroundings. Her head throbbed and the occasional jolting of the bike against a kerbstone made a stabbing pain pierce the backs of her eyes as she leant heavily on Mireille. Her friend was tiring, she realised, and she struggled to balance herself to try to lessen the strain as Mireille trudged doggedly onwards.
Nobody stopped them. When the drone of the bombers’ engines and the accompanying distant thuds of bombs finding their targets again and again finally faded away, the trucks that screeched past them were far too intent on getting to the scene of the devastation to bother with the two tattered, ghostly figures that limped by in the opposite direction with a battered-looking bicycle.
In the early hours of the morning, they reached the Rue Cardinale and Claire leant wearily against the wall while Mireille fumbled in her pocket for her key. She watched as Mireille dusted off the bicycle as best she could – it was definitely sporting a few new battle scars after its eventful outing, but at least it was still intact – and left it propped in the stairwell. Then, with Mireille’s help, Claire climbed the stairs to the top floor.
At the sound of the apartment door opening, Vivi came running to help them. ‘Oh, thank God!’ she cried. ‘You’re safe. I thought you’d both been lost ...’ She hurried to fetch a bowl of warm water and a towel so that she could tend to the wound on the back of Claire’s head. The blood had dried, encrusting her hair, and Vivienne very gently began swabbing it away, turning the water in the bowl as dark as wine as she repeatedly wrung out the cloth.
Her gentleness and kindness made Claire weep, as her senses – which had been frozen with shock – began to thaw.
‘Let’s get you out of this coat,’ Vivi murmured, removing the vomit-drenched garment which was beyond saving. She bundled it away, into a corner. Then she turned to Mireille. ‘You too, Mireille. Go and get yourself cleaned up. Don’t worry, I’ll look after Claire.’
An hour later, Claire was tucked up in her bed, wearing a fresh nightgown and a clean dressing around her head. Mireille and Vivi came to sit beside her.
Claire reached out a hand and Mireille held it tight. ‘I can’t believe you risked your life to save mine, Mireille. I will never forget what you did tonight,’ she whispered. And then she began to sob as she thought of Christiane, and of the other civilian lives lost in the bombing raid.
‘Ssshhh,’ Mireille hushed her, stroking her fine hair, restored to its white-gold sheen, away from her face. ‘Try to sleep now, Claire. Tomorrow we will continue our work. For Christiane. And for all the others who are suffering. We will continue our fight.’
As Claire’s eyelids grew heavy, safe now, and lulled by the soothing presence of her two friends, a thought occurred to her. ‘But Mireille ... how did you know? That the bombers were coming?’
Mireille glanced across at Vivi and smiled. ‘Let’s just say we are lucky to have friends in high places.’
And then Claire smiled too as she watched them creep out of her room, ducking beneath the sloping eaves of the roof and leaving her to sleep.
