Chapter 27
TWENTY-SEVEN
LUCY
Lucy ran downstairs, using the light on her phone as a torch. Another clap of thunder crashed overhead. She hurried along the unlit corridor to the street door and pulled it open.
A blast of lightning illuminated Sébastien on her doorstep in a waterproof that was slick with rain. His hood had blown back so that his dark hair was drenched. A gale was howling through the street, trying to blow him sideways, pulling at his waterproof and whipping his wet hair.
‘Sébastien!’ she said, breathless with urgency. ‘A flood coming in? Where?’
‘Through the tunnels,’ he shouted over the wind. ‘Under the houses!’
She stood back to let him come in out of the storm. ‘Tunnels? I didn’t know there were any. But surely they’re all blocked off now? The cellar door’s rusted shut!’
‘Even more reason to check,’ Sébastien replied. He flicked a switch on the torch he was carrying and its beam illuminated the hallway. For a moment he looked at her through the shadows. Then he asked again, ‘Are you okay?’
Lucy knew he could see she’d been crying. But she didn’t want to mention the wedding. ‘It’s… it’s one of those days. And I’ve been reading something that Mémé left for me, and it made me cry.’
‘From the memory box?’ Sébastien asked. The question took Lucy by surprise. ‘You should probably have the lullaby for it, if you like?’
Lucy nodded. ‘Yes, from the memory box. And I’d love to have the lullaby!
I’d just reached the bit where…’ She wondered how much of the story Sébastien knew.
In her mind, she saw Beatrice as a girl, stroking Isabelle’s cheek.
Then she pictured her great-grandmother, trying to wipe away Esther’s blood.
The image was so real to her that she barely noticed another thunderclap overhead; she could almost have reached out to help her. ‘Esther…’
Sébastien frowned. ‘Esther?’ he asked. Then he seemed to recall who Lucy meant and said, ‘The lady whose parcel they keep in the bookshop? She was a friend of my great-grandmother, Joséphine, back in the Forties. She was Jewish.’ That spoke volumes, and Lucy tensed, thinking of all the bleak, tragic photographs and newsreel footage of what had happened to millions of Jewish people in Europe back then. ‘I think… well, you can guess.’
‘Yes… I’ve just read about how Esther died,’ Lucy replied, her voice catching.
At the mention of Joséphine, Lucy wondered if Sébastien knew about her work for the resistance, sleeping with the very man who murdered Esther. But now wasn’t the time to mention that. It’d be a huge shock if no one had ever told him.
She led the way down the corridor to the back of the house. ‘I don’t remember Mémé ever mentioning the tunnels to me. I don’t even know if she was still using the cellar.’
‘We used to play in them but we never went too far; we were too scared of getting lost down there. There aren’t any maps, as far as I know,’ Sébastien said. ‘But we did like to pop up in random houses and scare people witless now and then.’
Despite the sadness that still lingered around her, Lucy couldn’t help but laugh. She liked the fact that the tunnels had found a new life after the war. ‘That’s hilarious! I bet Mémé never minded though – well, if you’d ever been able to get this ancient door open.’
The strong beam of Sébastien’s torch lit up the door. He took hold of the door handle and rattled it, as though that alone might release it, then held his torch out to Lucy and deadpanned, ‘If I shoulder this door in and there’s a tidal wave behind it, I’m going to blame you.’
Lucy took the torch and tried to hold it steady as she chuckled again. It was a relief to laugh. Sébastien rattled the door again, pushing hard against it. Lucy heard a grating, metallic sound as the rusted hinges complained. But it didn’t move.
‘I don’t often get to be manly, making croissants for a living,’ Sébastien told her with a wink.
Then he drew back a little and took a deep breath before he raised his leg and kicked hard, striking the door just below the lock with the sole of his foot.
The hinges gave a loud squeak of complaint as the door swung inwards.
Lucy was overwhelmed by the scent that rose up from the dark, long-closed cellar. She could smell the salty tang of the sea and something else, something old. She could hear the sea now, too, the echo of the storm-whipped waves hurling themselves noisily against the harbour and the beach.
‘It’s amazing to think the book club used to meet down here,’ she whispered. She felt a flicker of excitement, now that the door had opened onto their secret place. But if it flooded, their meeting place would be lost.
She aimed Sébastien’s torch down the stone steps. She tried to make sense of what the beam picked out from the darkness: worn steps, dust motes, a plastered wall with pieces coming loose. She passed Sébastien his torch. If it was flooding down there, he’d know what to do.
‘Be careful,’ he said as he began to slowly descend the steps, one hand trailing on the wall. ‘It’s really steep.’ The torch beam swept down over the steps and he turned to tell her, ‘No water coming in; we’ll check the tunnel door, just to be sure.’
Lucy breathed out, relieved. She had noticed an old Bakelite switch just inside the door. Instinctively, she flicked it, but the light didn’t come on.
She followed Sébastien down into the cellar, taking each gritty step with care.
She tried to focus on her footsteps, but she kept glancing into the room and in the edges of the torchlight she saw crates and boxes stacked against the walls.
She wondered if it’d been Mémé or Margot who had left them there.
Sébastien paused at the foot of the stairs. He ran the torch beam over the room.
Lucy gasped. The light picked out chairs in the middle of the cellar – old and wooden, arranged in a circle. A candle on a saucer had been left on one of them; a book with a plain, cream-coloured cover on another.
‘The chairs… they’ve left them just as they were during the occupation!’ Lucy reverently touched the back of one of them, wondering which had been Margot’s. ‘It’s as if everyone from the Resistance Book Club’s just about to come in from the tunnels!’
‘She never said they just left it,’ Sébastien murmured. He turned to look at Lucy and said, ‘D’you know about this?’
Lucy nodded. ‘Oh, yes, it’s all in the memory box that Mémé and Beatrice put together.’ She picked up the book from the chair and held it out to show Sébastien: Thomas Mann’s Death in Venice.
Just as she did, the cobwebbed lightbulb above their head suddenly twitched into life and threw its glow around the cellar.
It illuminated the circle of chairs, the boxes and crates, the old plaster walls, and the heavy old door to the tunnels.
She saw, pinned to one wall, an old map of the area, and black-and-white photos – were they surveillance photos?
Standing on a crate, she saw an old radio, with a large dial and buttons, and a mesh speaker. A Box Brownie camera stood next to it.
‘They read the books that the Nazis had banned,’ Lucy said, ‘and hid them around Cordeval for the other villagers to find. Among other things they did for the resistance. They were so brave.’
She wondered if, somewhere in the memory box, she would find out which member of the book club had been killed in the square.
Sébastien smiled. He ran his free hand back through his rain-slicked hair and said, ‘Granny Bea and her mum were both in the book club. Real resistance fighters. You wouldn’t believe what Joséphine had to do for the war effort; they would’ve tarred and feathered her for it if not for the other women speaking out for her. ’
Lucy put the book back down on the chair. She lightly touched Sébastien’s sleeve again; she was relieved he already knew that particular part of the story.
‘I’d just found out about that too,’ she admitted. She thought of Lauterborn’s photograph, the cruel eyes and the duelling scar down the side of his face. ‘It must’ve been horrible for her, but… well, she must’ve found out all sorts of things from Lauterborn. She—’
Lucy gazed around the room, taking in the crates and wondering what was inside. Maybe there were more banned books down here. And then, she noticed something on the wall. She’d thought it was spidery cracks in the plaster but then she realised it was writing.
‘What’s this?’ she asked, heading over to look at the piece of wall beside the tunnel door.
In pencil, someone had written on the rough surface:
The Resistance Book Club met here from 1941–1945. ‘Liberté, égalité, fraternité.’
‘There’s a message on the wall!’ Lucy read it out loud. ‘They met here for four years, all the way through to the end.’
‘Kicking Nazi butt right to the last day,’ Sébastien remarked approvingly. ‘I feel like the whole village should know about this, but they don’t. I’ve got a feeling you know a lot more than I do; all I’ve heard about are a few hidden books and some slashed Nazi tyres.’
‘It’s quite a story,’ Lucy said. ‘I’ll show you the memory box, if you like, but I’m still trying to get all the details straight. There’s so many bits of information… and so much old handwriting to wrestle with!’
‘I’d love that.’ Sébastien smiled. ‘Our grans were best friends, so I don’t think they’d mind you sharing.’
Lucy grinned at him. ‘I don’t think they’d mind at all.’
If her wedding day had gone to plan, right now Lucy would’ve been in the Dorchester, celebrating with her friends and her family. Right now, she’d be married. Instead, she was standing in a dusty cellar that had been left untouched for eighty years.
She gazed around the room again, taking in the circle of chairs, the radio, the photos, the message on the wall.
‘It’s a time capsule from the war. I can just picture Margot and Joséphine, Esther and Beatrice, and all the others, right here.
Of all the presents that I could’ve got, this is the best wedding day gift of all. ’
Sébastien cocked his head to one side and asked, ‘This is your wedding day? Look, Granny told me what happened with your arse of a fiancé, so I’m wondering… why’re we standing in a cellar instead of toasting the fact that you’re well rid of a man who must be blind as well as stupid?’
Lucy chuckled. ‘That’s a very good question!’ she replied. ‘Let’s go and have a drink.’
They closed up the cellar, then crossed the road to the bar. The storm was dying down now; the thunder and lightning were far in the distance, and the rain had eased off. As Sébastien opened up the bar, Lucy fussed over Galette, and, one by one, the locals arrived.
Three houses close to the beach had been flooded out, and their distraught, bedraggled residents had headed straight to Jojo’s while the fire brigade pumped out the water. Sébastien didn’t hesitate to sit them all down and give them dinner for free, and Lucy helped carry the food to their tables.
Soon Jojo’s rang with the cheers of Sébastien and his customers. And when Lucy joined in, raising her glass, she felt for the first time as if she was part of Cordeval too.