9. Louise
9
Louise
England, 1953
I slow the car, a Ford Anglia with a dented bonnet that Joe had purchased on installment, as we near the Herefordshire farm where Joe’s older sister, Beatrice, lives with her children.
Earlier that morning, I’d hastily packed the children up for three days’ time (I couldn’t fathom being gone longer than that) and piled them into the car with their small overnight bags. “You’re going to spend the weekend with Auntie Bea and your cousins. Won’t that be fun?” Phed, a creature of habit, seemed perturbed by missing school, but Ewen was excited.
Joe had lingered awhile longer than usual before work that morning to see us off. “I can take the children to Bea’s for you, if you’d like,” he’d offered, surprising me.
“I appreciate that,” I said, giving him a quick kiss. “But I want to make sure they are settled.” As excited as I was for my trip, it was going to be hard to leave them, even for a few days.
As I’d driven through the countryside, the once-lush Chiltern Hills withered in late autumn, my doubts had grown. Was I really going to leave for France, just like that? What were the chances I’d find out anything at all about the necklace? But if I didn’t go, a voice in my head reminded me, the chances of learning anything were exactly zero.
I pull up in front of Bea’s farmhouse now and her two yellow Labrador retrievers come toward the car, barking but friendly. The sprawling, dilapidated farmhouse, with its sloped, peeling roof, stands in sharp contrast to our own modern, trim cottage. Her house is larger but in need of so much work and with fewer of the modern conveniences. Bea is in the front yard, wrangling laundry over a large tub with tongs. She has Joe’s auburn hair; only, hers is long and pulled back in a knot at the nape of her neck. I study my sister-in-law curiously. Bea did important things during the war, too, manning an antiaircraft gun on the rooftops of London. But she lost her husband, Fergus, to fighting in Ardennes and is raising their three children alone. She seems to unquestioningly accept her life, consisting only of childcare and all the menial work that comes with that. More than once, I have considered whether she minds her situation, if she wants more like I do. But even after all of these years, I don’t know her well enough to ask.
I open the door and the children bound from the car, Phed starting toward the house to find her older cousins and Ewen making a beeline for the pen of goats. Bea sets down the tongs and walks over. “Good to see you, Louise.”
“You, too. Thank you for taking the children on such short notice.”
“Of course. But you didn’t say much about why.” It had seemed too much to explain over the phone, so I had only mentioned that I needed to go out of town for a few days. “Is it your mum?” I shake my head. “Joe, is he all right?”
“He’s fine,” I reply, not at all sure if that is really true. “I need to go out of town for a quick errand, and Joe, well…he has to work.” Bea nods with understanding at the real reason I need her help. Having the children on his own would be overwhelming for him.
“Where are you going?” Bea asks.
I hesitate. “Paris.” I didn’t want to tell her, but I couldn’t lie, not when she is watching my children.
“Paris, really?” I can hear my own doubts echoed in her own voice. Paris is so far away and the last-minute trip sounds random, even ridiculous. “By yourself?”
“Yes.”
“Joe doesn’t mind?”
“Joe doesn’t notice,” I say, a queer twist to my voice.
Bea pauses for a beat. “You can’t outrun your problems,” she says evenly.
I look at her, considering how much she knows, or has guessed. My sister-in-law is a good person, but we aren’t close and I haven’t told her much about my past. “I know,” I say finally.
“Joe’s a good man,” she adds. Bea is Joe’s older sister and I can hear the protectiveness in her voice. Joe and Bea are close in a way that, as an only child, I sometimes envy. Even with their parents gone, they still have each other as family, something that I do not. “Fergus and I had troubles. It wasn’t perfect. But you work it out.” She isn’t prying. Rather, she is implicitly asking me not to give up on her brother despite his struggles.
I want to tell her that I would never leave Joe, but the words stick in my throat. “It’s only a quick trip,” I say instead. “Three days, no more, I promise.” Even as I say this, I know that it is unrealistic. It will take me a full day to get to Paris and another to return; what can I possibly hope to accomplish in such a short time in between?
She dips her chin slightly in acknowledgment. “You know, it’s funny, I worried about Joe so much when he was away, just like Fergus. And now…”
“You worry about him in a different way,” I finish for her. We stand silently for a moment, united in our concern for her brother and my husband.
“Anyway, it’s fine of course to leave the children.” Adding my two to her large brood will be nothing. Still, I feel a twinge of guilt at saddling her with the extra burden.
“Thank you. I need to go if I’m to make my train.” I start for the car.
As if on cue, Ewen breaks from the goats and comes running to me. “Mummy, don’t go!”
My guilt swells. I kneel and kiss him on the head. “It will only be a few days, I promise. Be good for Auntie Bea,” I say, “and I will bring you something special.”
Bea walks over and holds her hand out to him. “Come, I’ve got some treats you can give the goats—and maybe a biscuit or two for you as well.” He takes her hand and follows without looking back.
I turn and get in the car before I can stop myself. My eyes sting. I feel so selfish, like I am abandoning my family. But I need to do this for myself so I can come back and be good and whole for them.
As I drive away, my guilt and sadness are replaced by excitement, not just to be solving the mystery, but to be on my own again and free. The thought is a dangerous one, though, and I know that I mustn’t let it grow too large.
I return the car home. Not stopping to go inside, I take my small bag, which I brought with me earlier, and head for the rail station, making it just in time to book the ten-o’clock train to London. It is less crowded with commuters than it had been on my previous trip and I have the cabin nearly to myself.
In London, I travel by Tube from Paddington to St. Pancras, intending to board another train, this time heading south for Dover.
Inside the station at St. Pancras, I stop. I should let Midge know that I will not be coming to work. I ring the thrift shop and Midge answers.
“It’s Louise,” I say. “I won’t be in for a few days.”
“Everything all right?” Her voice sounds concerned. Other than when I went to London, I am not one to call out.
“Yes, fine. Only, I’m going to the department store in Paris to find out more about the necklace.” There is a silent pause and I wait for her to chide me as the others had.
“Be safe,” she says instead. “There’s a small hotel in the 2nd arrondissement Millie stayed at once. Le Petite Meridien, I think it’s called.”
“Thank you. I will try to book there.” I hang up and hurry to my train.
As the train leaves the city and chugs southeast through Kent toward the coast, I catch a glimpse of myself in the window. I’d done my hair and makeup more carefully than usual, sprayed a spritz of L’Air du Temps on my neck and wrists. I told myself I was primping to look well-heeled as I travel. Not because I was going to see Ian.
Ian. I wanted to ring the previous night to tell him I was coming, but it had been too late. I hope that he will make good on his promise to help me—and that going to see him, with so many feelings still there between us, is not a mistake.
The ferry is large and well-appointed with a café for lunch. The seas are calm, nothing like the wartime voyage on a naval ship I had made almost a decade earlier. We can cross the Channel directly, unimpeded by war or blockade.
Still, as I look out across the Channel, I cannot help but see Franny and ghosts of the trip we had once made. Ahead, the European continent looms like a reckoning. I had not wanted to come back here. I had avoided it for years, always demurring when anyone suggested a holiday, saying I preferred somewhere closer to home. Joe hadn’t protested; Europe bore its own painful memories for him that he was happy to avoid. But now, here I am, chasing the same past I had tried so hard to outrun.
It is midafternoon when the coast of Calais becomes visible through the mist. We disembark and clear customs, and I join the others on a bus that will take us south to Paris. But as we bump along the road, still marked by craters in the earth and snapped trees where the fighting had been, my mind reels back to the war, and the long nights crossing the countryside to reach the next camp. With Franny.
We reach Paris in the late afternoon. I convert some of my money to francs at the kiosk beneath a Dior ad in the bus station and then go to the taxi stand outside. “Hotel Le Petite Meridien,” I request, hoping the driver will know the address and that the hotel is not altogether far from the department store I need to visit the following morning. The department store. I still cannot imagine what it has to do with the necklace and Franny’s death.
The taxi whizzes through the streets of Paris, weaving between the old green prewar buses. It is the first time I have been here, and despite my uneasiness, I am still taken by the beauty of the famous city, which I have until now known only in books.
The driver lets me out in front of the hotel. It is midway down a quiet street lined with narrow buildings, boutiques and other small storefronts at the ground level, well-kept apartments on the floors above. As I start for the hotel, I notice a phone booth on the corner. Instinctively, I walk toward it and ring Joe’s office. The secretary says he is gone for the day, so I leave the name of the hotel where I plan on staying and ask her to give it to him.
Then I dial again and tell the operator the number Ian had given me. The phone rings several times and I realize that the office has already closed. But then a receptionist answers. “Ian Shipley?” I ask.
“I’m afraid he’s gone for the day.”
I consider hanging up. “This is Louise Burns, I mean Emmons,” I say, correcting myself. Ian would know me by my maiden name. “Would you please tell him I’m in Paris and staying at Le Petite Meridien?”
“I’ll make sure he gets the message.”
“Thank you.” I hang up, then start down the street.
I go to the hotel desk to check in and ask for a room. “Madam, will your husband be joining you?”
“No, I’ll be staying alone.” He raises an eyebrow. I hand the man some francs as a deposit for the room. Joe’s income takes care of our needs at home. But I have a modest amount of savings of my own from when I worked in London before we were married. I’ve always kept it for a rainy day and today seems as rainy as it gets.
France, 1944
The night after we arrived at the POW camp, I watched from a corner behind the makeshift stage as Franny performed a second show. She began to croon “I’ll Be Seeing You” in a sweet-but-sultry, wistful tone. As she sang, her eyes traveled over the crowd, as if searching for someone. In the back, I saw Ian. But he was not looking in Franny’s direction. His gaze was once again fixed on me. Our eyes met and held. I looked away, heart pounding.
The first song ended, and Franny segued seamlessly into a second one, a happier, big band tune from the States. I looked at the prisoners watching her, and as we were swept away by Franny’s voice, I felt the divide between us widen to a chasm. I was free. These men were not, and they might never be again. Some of them might surely die here.
After the show, Franny lingered again among the audience to sign autographs. She took more photographs with the prisoners, too, one man holding the camera while she posed with another. Now that she had confided in me, I understood that there was so much more going on with her beneath the surface. She was trying to help these men, right under the Germans’ noses. What if she got caught? I was terrified for her.
Yet at the same time, her bravery made me determined to help, too. I stepped forward and took the camera from one of the men. “Here, let me help.” With me holding the camera instead of passing it around, we could get more photographs taken before the guards shooed the prisoners back to their barracks.
Franny mouthed a silent “thank you” in my direction, then took a picture with another man, careful to stand a few inches apart so it could be cropped later.
When there were no more photos to take, I returned to the hotel to pack while Franny lingered for a few last autographs. We had delivered the bundles we could, and the caravan would be moving out at first light. As I remembered the refusal to let us deliver the remaining packages, my anger continued to burn. The prisoners were rail thin and there were many more whom we might have helped with food. Instead, they stood hungry because we did not dare cross the arbitrary rules of the enemy we were fighting. I cursed my own cowardice and that of an organization that could not keep its promise.
A short while later, Franny appeared in the doorway. Her skin glistened from washing, but traces of her stage makeup still lingered around her eyes. We got ready for bed and lay beside one another in the darkness. Franny tossed and turned, seemingly too restless to sleep. Thinking back to our conversation the previous night about the camera and how she was taking photos to secretly help the prisoners, I realized how little I knew about her. “Your family,” I said, “what were they like?”
“My mother was a stage performer.” Franny paused hesitantly. “But not the reputable kind, if you know what I mean.” I nodded, recalling the street in Croydon, not far from our flat, with the posters of scantily clad women in the windows. Franny continued, “After my father died, she brought us back to England and we lived in a really dodgy part of South London. She brought men to our flat from the club where she worked—men who were sometimes more interested in my little sister, Bette, and me.”
“Oh…” I am horrified by her revelation and how much Franny and her sister helplessly suffered. “It must have been awful to be trapped in such a childhood.”
“It was. I was able to fend them off, and usually I could protect Bette as well, but once when I was not at home, one of the men raped her. She got pregnant and Mum sent her away. My mother told people that Bette died, to avoid the truth and embarrassment of what had happened.”
“Franny, that’s awful. Where did she go?”
“I don’t know, and I’m still trying to find her.”
“I’m so sorry.”
“Since then, I’ve always hated to be by myself. My mother used to go out at night and leave us by ourselves. I was terrified that one of the men would come back, but my little sister was so brave. Then suddenly I didn’t have her anymore and I really was alone.”
I squeezed her hand. “You aren’t alone now.”
“I have an older brother, too,” she added. “But he left when my sister and I were younger. So he wasn’t there to protect us. Bette and I were on our own.” It wasn’t a sibling’s job to protect you, though. I thought with anger of the mums like Franny’s and mine. Why hadn’t they done more?
I started to ask what had become of her brother, but before I could get the words out, she turned away, signaling that she didn’t want to discuss her family or her past any further.
“I understand what it is like, having a difficult childhood,” I said. “My mum was a drunk—is a drunk,” I corrected. “I always had to be the grown-up and figure out a way for us to eat and pay the rent.”
“What about your father?”
“I never knew him. Not even who he was. I’m not sure my mum knew either.”
“So neither of us spent Sundays sailing paper boats in the park with a doting parent, then,” she observed, a note of irony in her voice.
“I suppose not.” Mums were supposed to protect their children. Yet both of ours had failed. “So what do you think of Ian?” I offered. The transition was an awkward one, but I needed to change the subject and lighten the conversation.
“I don’t.” She shrugged dismissively. “You like him, don’t you?”
“Is it that obvious?” I was embarrassed, but I sensed that I could trust Franny. “It’s silly, really, to think about such things when we are over here doing vital work, but I think that I do.”
“It’s human,” she replied. “And I’m quite certain he likes you as well.”
“No, he couldn’t possibly,” I protested. I had noticed Ian looking at me, felt that the connection might be more than one-sided. But I had convinced myself that I imagined it, or that he was just lonely in the field. Nothing could, or should, come of it.
“I’m sure of it,” Franny insisted. “But what do I know? Men are not my cup of tea, if you know what I mean. I’m gay.”
“Oh.” I considered the gravity of her confession. The world was not accepting of such things and it was brave of her to be open about it. Surely she trusted me to reveal something so personal about herself.
“It’s pretty common in the theater community. But I have to keep it under wraps because of my stage persona.” I understood what she meant. Franny’s image was that of feminine beauty, desired by millions of men on stage and film. To learn that she liked women instead would have been career ending. The irony was that Franny, adored by thousands of men, didn’t like men at all.
“I’ve never talked about it much,” Franny confessed. “My mother certainly would not have understood. I don’t really want to be with anyone, if you know what I mean.” I nodded. After everything she had told me about her painful childhood, it made sense.
“Were you ever in love?” I asked.
“There was someone once, an older woman who worked backstage at the Theatre Royal. But she broke my heart, and I haven’t let myself get hurt again since.” I could not imagine anyone not wanting Franny. “It’s just as well,” Franny added grimly. “I learned a long time ago that the only one sticking around is me. How about you?” she asked, turning the tables. “Have you ever been in love?”
I considered the question. “I don’t know,” I said honestly. Joe’s face popped into my mind. “I was dating someone before the war and I was rather fond of him. But that’s all done now. He binned me.”
“I’m sure it wasn’t like that,” Franny protested.
I shrugged. “It doesn’t matter. It’s over now.” I paused. “I’d like to fall in love someday for sure.” I wanted a home and husband, a family, everything that had been missing from my own life growing up with a single, alcoholic mum.
“It’s getting late,” Franny remarked. “We should probably get some sleep.”
I nodded in agreement, though in truth I had always been something of a night owl. “It’s so hard to sleep here,” I said. “It’s such a strange place, and so far from home.”
“I’ve been on the road so much touring, I can sleep pretty much anywhere. Anyway, you should try. We head out tomorrow.” I wanted to ask her more about the route from here, the way home. But she rolled away to face the wall. “Good night.”
Moments later, I heard Franny snoring. I watched her sleep. How was it possible that this woman, beautiful and gifted and charming, concealed so much pain? I supposed we all carry the secrets of the past, buried.
The next morning, I awakened to find Franny gone, the space beside me empty and cold. I got out of the bed, but before I could leave the room, the door opened and she strode in. “Here,” she said, thrusting a scrap of paper in my direction.
“What is it?” I took the paper and scanned it. It was some sort of list.
“We can only deliver packages to people whose names we have, right?” She continued before I could answer, “You need names. Here are names.”
I looked in disbelief at the roughly two dozen names she had amassed, people we would now be able to help. There were enough here to distribute most of the remaining packages before we left. “But how?”
“Does it matter? Give those to Ian,” she added.
I walked to Ian’s room and knocked. “Coming,” he said. His voice was sleepy and I wondered if I had woken him. But when he opened the door, he was freshly washed and dressed, his collar a bit damp. A whiff of his aftershave tickled my nose. “Lou…” he said, sounding surprised but not unhappy to see me.
“Here.” I handed him the paper.
“She shouldn’t have done this,” he said with a frown, seeming to know without my saying that it had been Franny.
“We have names. We can deliver the rest of the packages.” I started for the trucks, more than a little satisfied that we could play by the Germans’ rules and still win. The aid packages we brought would not actually save anyone. No one box could contain enough food to sustain a person in these conditions for any length of time. But they contained a kind of hope that might give a prisoner the strength to go on for one more day.
An hour later, packages had been distributed to all the remaining prisoners. “That’s it,” Ian said.
I pointed to the truck behind ours, which contained more packages. “What will be done with those?” I asked. I wished that we might leave the extras for the prisoners to have when the ones we had given them ran out.
“Those are for the next camp,” Ian explained.
“Next camp? But I thought we were going home.”
“You and the other volunteers are. But I’m continuing on with one of the trucks to a camp in Germany.”
I felt an unexpected pang at leaving him. “Into Germany. That’s so much more dangerous.”
“It’s the work,” he said, his voice unwavering. “It has to be done.” I admired his bravery.
“Do you want me to come with you?” I asked without thinking. If there was more work to be done, then I should help, too.
“I could never ask that of you.” His voice was torn.
“I don’t mind.” I was committed to the work and to making even more of a difference to ease the suffering so many faced. But the undeniable truth was that I did not want to leave Ian either.
He shook his head. “You should go back to London. But when I return…”
“Louise!” Before Ian could finish, Franny bounded over and threw her arms around me. “I wanted to say goodbye.”
“You’re going to Germany as well?”
“Yes, I’m going to give performances at a couple of camps in Germany.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” They were going deeper into Germany, and they were sending me back without them. I felt abandoned and betrayed.
“It was all arranged last-minute. I wasn’t even certain I could get authorization until Ian confirmed it this morning.”
“Let me come with you,” I implored, not fully understanding what I’d be getting myself into.
“You would want to?” Franny asked. “I mean, we are going into Germany. Everything will be so much more dangerous.”
I hesitated. I was only supposed to be gone for a short time. A week at most , Ian had promised. But there was nothing waiting for me back in London, no one who would be worried if I took longer. “Yes,” I said, seeing the hopeful faces of the poor men we’d helped here. I wanted to do more. And if Ian and Franny could be brave enough to press on into Germany, so could I.
“So you’ll come with us?” Franny asked, confirming.
I nodded. “If I’m allowed.” I turned to Ian. “I’d like to come with you to Germany and help.”
“If you’re certain,” he said, “I’ll make the arrangements to have you added to the schedule.”
“I am.”
I turned to Franny. “It’s all settled. I’m coming along.”
“Hooray!” Franny hugged me again, this time with a whoop. “I’m so glad.” Her great weakness, I had come to learn in the short time that we had known one another, was that she couldn’t stand to be alone. I had grown up largely by myself; I was trained for it, immune to loneliness. But to Franny, it was simply unbearable.
“What about your family?” she asked. “Do you need to let your mother know you are staying longer?”
“No,” I replied candidly, and a look of understanding passed between us.
The truck idled, waiting to take me home. I considered going one more time, back to my life in London, boring and safe. But then I saw Ian and Franny, and I knew that my place was here. I waved off the truck, then turned away and started back toward my friends and the work that awaited us.