The Daisy Club (36 page)

Jean shook her head.

‘No, Freddie, I shan't be here. I know it. I dreamed last night I saw him christened, and you were holding him, not me. I wasn't there! I wasn't there!'

Now Freddie found herself wiping Jean's eyes.

‘Hush, hush, it was only a dream,' she said, seeking to reassure her, but even as she did her blood was running colder than the snow outside the windows, and the sound of Alec's spade scraping at the snow on the road in front of the car seemed not optimistic, but sinister.

The sight of German uniforms was somehow so shocking that Aurelia, dressed as Mademoiselle Yolande Marie Charbonne, and smilingly surrendering her papers to be examined, thought for one moment she was going to disgrace herself and faint. Happily she had, even though she said so herself, very pretty legs, and the guards were so busy appreciating her very pretty legs that she was able to control her desire to run off, and continue on her way, slowly and gracefully – Miss Valentyne would be proud of her – to the inn where she would be staying until such time as her contact decided to fetch up there.

The second sight that nearly caused her to faint again was the food at the inn – oh, and the smells! Coming from wartime Britain, those chips, that steak, that sauce! But again, to seize on the food and scoff it would be appalling. It would mean that she was unnecessarily hungry, and as she was meant to be staying with her uncle, a Normandy farmer who kept a good table, and was known to be married to a splendid cook, someone might notice her unhealthily large appetite and report it as being sinister. So, with her tummy rumbling to beat the band, she sat up at the bar, and ordered a Cassis, and read the paper that her ‘uncle' had provided her with, and waited for her contact.

It was actually quite a simple job, she told herself for the thousandth time. She simply had to take the relevant information provided in yet another newspaper, exchange it for the newspaper she had been given – she hoped to God that her contact would have the same newspaper, with, more importantly, the same date on it, or else she would be well and truly scuppered, and that comforting little pill in her inside pocket would be in her mouth before she could say – she turned as someone arrived at her shoulder.

‘Bonjour,' the voice said in perfect, educated French. ‘Is this seat taken?'

Aurelia had not been told who to expect, not the name, nor the sex of her contact – in case of being captured and tortured. All she knew was how to answer the relevant questions.

‘No, this seat is not taken,' Aurelia answered in her sturdy country accent. ‘But I daresay it will be soon, given that the food and wine in this auberge is so good!'

She smiled, and her contact smiled back at her, and, careful not to look at each other, she – because it was a she – slipped on to the seat beside Aurelia.

The barman smiled at the two pretty girls seated opposite him.

‘It is my lucky day, huh?' he asked, as the room started to fill up with hungry German soldiers, accompanied by some of their French girlfriends, local lasses – shame on them – determined on fraternising, doubtless for the sake of the men's wallets. ‘Not one, but two pretty girls.'

Aurelia smiled, and sipped her drink, which was, all of a sudden, all too necessary, for she found that her mouth had gone so dry her tongue might have been made of sandpaper.

‘There is almost too much choice on the menu, do you not find?'

This was the second phrase arrived at, less than originally, by their people.

Aurelia nodded, folding her newspaper, so that it sat neatly beside the other newspaper. The two were identical, she was quick to note.

‘I do find there is too much choice, but as it happens, I must be careful. I have a condition that limits my choice to fish, which happily is well represented.'

Aurelia had actually protested at this line because, as she kept saying to the chaps instructing her, ‘Supposing there's
no
fish?'

But the chaps had just laughed and said that the sea would have to dry up for there to be no fish on the menu in an auberge near the French coast.

‘I am luckier, I can eat steak, and some of Monsieur's wonderful chips.'

Aurelia nodded.

‘That is good.'

They had got through the ridiculous dialogue all right, but happily neither young woman had looked at each other, because if they had, Aurelia was quite sure that she and Laura would have had to have been carried out, they would have laughed so much. Their cover would have been blown, and everything would have been finished, especially them.

Happily, their orders were taken, and the newspapers were exchanged with a deftness that, in less dangerous circumstances, would have made them feel proud, and they were able to start talking in the kind of code that only girls who know each other very well can employ.

‘How come you are here, too?' Aurelia asked.

‘Oh, I live just up the coast, now. Besides, my family are round here and I would like to see them. It is some time since I saw my father.'

‘Of course. Do you know where he is?'

‘No, I do not know his whereabouts at present. My father and his wife are holidaying, so they would not tell me. They have been holidaying for some time.'

Aurelia lowered her fork into the fish that had just arrived. So difficult not to eat it too quickly. Oh, and the smell of the chips! But even her overpowering, if stifled, greed was losing out to the memory of Laura's father being taken off to be – as her Normandy host had told her in an understandably gleeful tone – shot. His body had been fed to the pigs – apparently a very efficient way of disposing of double agents who had had a hand in some nasty reprisals.

‘I think many of the people holidaying here have now gone back to Paris.'

Laura looked at Aurelia, her own fork poised.

‘Yes, perhaps they have,' she agreed. ‘But since I am here to enjoy my own holiday in the Normandy countryside, it does not really matter if I do not see my father for a little while.'

Aurelia sighed inwardly, with relief, and at the same time her thoughts raced back to SOE or whoever had sent Laura to France. Why in God's name did they think it was all right to start using FANYs? Laura was a FANY, she did not work for what was euphemistically always known as the ‘War Office' or the ‘Foreign Office'. Then she remembered how many of those little pegs had been taken off the map of France, and she realised that, like the aeroplanes, like the food, like the petrol, the clothing, everything – they must be running short of agents, too. They must just be grabbing who they could, or whoever was mad enough to volunteer, and knowing Laura, with her father and stepmother still missing somewhere in France, she would not have stepped forward, but jumped forward, because that was Laura.

Freddie sat slumped on a bench outside the delivery room. All she could hear was Jean's voice, and her own voice, insisting that Jean would live.

But Jean had been right, and her dream had been correct, she had died, and doubtless Freddie
would
be holding the little boy at the christening. As the corridors filled up with people covered in dust and blood, luckless people fleeing from the latest bombing raid, Freddie sat on, wondering dully about the reality of dreams.

Could someone dream of something that then took place? She shook herself mentally, and then shook herself physically.

‘Can you take the baby on, Nurse Valentyne?' It was the friendly northern sister. ‘The gentlemen over there have both indicated that it was the wish of his poor mother.'

Freddie shook her head, and then, seeing the look of astonishment in Sister's eyes, she realised she was shaking her head instead of nodding, which was what she was really meant to do.

‘Yes, yes, whatever you wish. Yes, his mother did wish it,' she agreed. ‘We can take him back to the Hall.'

‘He's a good weight, love, a good big bouncing boy.'

Freddie stood up, and then as she suddenly swayed, Sister caught her, and put her own arm around Freddie's shoulders.

‘Come on, love, I'll make you a cup of tea, and after that we can get on with everything. It's been a bad night, and likely to get worse, but we both deserve a few minutes out before going back to the fray. No point in getting in a worse condition than your patients, I always say.'

The black tea was indeed comforting, so comforting that it gave Freddie the strength to say, ‘Could we have saved her, Sister Andrews?'

Sister shook her head.

‘No, love, not the most experienced obstetrician could have saved the poor girl. She haemorrhaged. It sometimes happens in childbirth, and once it does, there is nothing to be done. Had she been here when she first went into labour, maybe we could have prevented it happening, but as it was, by the time she arrived, as you know, it was all we could do to save the little fella, let alone his mum.'

Sister walked towards Freddie, who had turned away, her lip far from stiff.

‘Here, give you a quick hug, and then back to our duties, eh?'

Freddie found herself clutching this suddenly maternal figure. She had never been hugged before, let alone by anyone older. It had just not been what had happened when she was growing up.

She pulled away from her.

‘Don't be too nice to me, Sister, or I'll be useless to you!' Freddie protested, wiping her eyes.

They both laughed a little hysterically, and then, straightening their aprons and their caps, they went back into the fray.

Chapter Eleven

Gervaise stared at his goddaughter.

‘I have no idea, Daisy, none at all, and no – I can't pull strings for you, truly I can't.'

Daisy looked, and felt, miserable.

‘It's just that, you know – we were all at Twistleton Court together, absolute friends; and nothing has been heard about her, or from her, for such a long time. Not for nine months, as a matter of fact.'

Gervaise wanted to say ‘I have rather more important things to do than help you find out about one of your finishing-school friends' but he didn't. Instead he plumped for looking sympathetic, which he didn't feel.

‘All I can do is, if, or when, I hear something of interest from France, I will contact you at once.'

Daisy nodded. She knew Gervaise could not wait for her to skidaddle out of there, and so, rather than hang about, she did just that, bolting back down to her basement flat, and shutting the door behind her. She had to get back to the war, must get back to the war, but she had promised Aurelia at least to ask Gervaise – who knew everyone, but everyone in government – to see if it was known what had happened to Laura Hambleton. For, despite being very much at the centre of certain things, Aurelia could find out nothing, or perhaps because of being at the centre of things, she was not telling?

Daisy stopped, and then realised, for the first time, what an idiot she was being. Of course! Laura's disappearance was not something that Aurelia could speak about, even if she wanted to. Her officers would not want her to know if Laura had been blown, would keep Aurelia thinking that Laura had merely gone into hiding, for fear it might affect Aurelia's own work.

Numbers everywhere were shrinking, pilots' numbers, workers' numbers – there were just not enough people to go round.

Women were now to be conscripted, and the rumour was that older women would be next, and men, grannies and grandpas – anyone would do. Just as had happened in the Great War, boys hardly old enough to have begun shaving were now being called up, quickly trained, and flung into fighter planes, or seated at the back of them with guns, and sent off to do their bit to defend their beloved island.

ATA girl numbers were down, too, accidents had been too frequent lately, and the people who had reported being shot at by friendly fire while trying to bring in planes to land had grown far too numerous for comfort.

Very well, it was nobody's fault, it was just one of the thousand other hazards of war, but flying through mist was bad enough without being shot at by your own guns!

Daisy lit a cigarette. It was so hard, so bloody hard. God, her language had deteriorated. She had damn well better pull up her socks and start dropping the bad words. Yes, she had. She stared at herself in the mirror as she smoked. She looked quite pretty smoking her elegant holder. She had to admit that she did. David had given her the holder to replace one she had lost. They had not seen each other for aeons. There were reasons for this. The main reason being that Daisy, now that Laura was known to have gone missing, out of guilt, out of despair, out of – well, you name it, out of so many emotions – had written and told him that they must not meet again.

She had not heard back from him, as she knew she would not. And although it was now nearly Christmas again, she did not expect that she
would
ever hear from him again.

Smoke curled around her head as she continued to stare at herself accusingly in the mirror.

It was the ‘supposing' that she had not been able to conquer. That was the truth.

The ‘supposing' that Laura had volunteered to be dropped into France because she had not heard from David?

Supposing Laura had been dropped into France because she knew that Daisy had fallen for – and indeed made love with – her David?

Supposing David had told Laura, but not told Daisy?

Oh God!

Daisy turned away from her image. She had never thought she would become this sort of tortured person. Was this what war did to you? Did it completely change your character? Did it send you from being a positive creature, not much to go on, but optimistic and cheerful, to this? That's what she had been, and now look at her! Talk about yesterday's rice pudding, she was last week's custard, if anyone could get any.