Chapter 60
SIXTY
MARGOT
The trawler still smelt of fish and it seemed to be struggling with its full load of passengers, although, mercifully, the sea wasn’t rough.
Theo had been taken into the hold and Margot watched the sailors go back and forth with first aid kits and pans of water.
But they were caring for him. They’d made it this far.
Salt spray occasionally burst over the bows, and each time it was met with laughter from the passengers.
Margot had found somewhere to sit on the crowded deck beside Madame Cassin, who made a fuss of Isabelle— no, Arielle, that was what Margot had decided to call her now.
Arielle wailed and Margot took her out of the basket and buttoned her inside her coat, trying to keep the unsettled baby warm and comforted.
Eventually, Arielle settled, fighting sleep until her eyelids finally dropped.
As the trawler headed through the cold, dark night across the waves, Margot tried to ignore the looming threat of the mines that dotted the water and the submarines that might be creeping like sharks through the depths below.
Claudine had told her that the fishing boats could no longer go out very far, and all the fishermen had tales about rogue mines that had come loose and taken out an unwary boat and all its crew.
As tin mugs of hot coffee were passed around, the passengers burst into a rousing chorus of the French national anthem, and Margot wondered if Theo could hear it.
Would his heart be cheered by it too? There was such passion in their voices, especially when they reached the words, the day of glory has arrived!
How glorious it was to escape, but Margot was haunted by thoughts of everything she was leaving behind.
But for Arielle’s sake, she couldn’t have stayed.
Margot dozed on and off as the hours passed.
Her dreams were full of fire and smoke, confused faces and shouts.
She did what she could for Arielle, who woke up and was restless and griping; the sailors spared some of their milk for her and she drank it down hungrily.
Then she slept once more, buttoned into Margot’s coat, gripping her goose in one hand, and resting her cheek against the bear that had once belonged to Theo’s daughter.
By the time they arrived at the docks, the winter sun was low in the late morning sky, glowing from behind thin cloud.
Margot was cramped and tired, having spent ten hours or more on the fishing boat with only scraps of sleep.
Ambulances were waiting for them, and Margot watched helplessly as Theo was unloaded from the boat before everyone else.
He was so pale and his eyes were closed.
Margot was dazed. The air was full of English voices, a language she barely understood. They walked across a battered footbridge from the boat to dry land. The dockside seemed to move up and down under Margot’s feet as if she was still at sea.
A truck with a green awning over the back and with a red cross painted on the side was waiting for them.
They clambered in, Arielle’s large eyes taking everything in.
Through the open back of the truck, Margot was amazed to see that the docks were still functioning despite the relentless damage they’d suffered.
She saw cordoned-off bomb craters, and the soot-covered remains of burnt-out buildings.
But between them, she saw men busily moving between temporary buildings that had been hammered together from planks.
Tarpaulins covering damaged roofs so that the essential work of the docks could continue.
Ships were lined up, with cranes lifting out vital supplies that had managed to get to British soil.
Even if the Nazis hadn’t occupied the country, they’d done their best to tear it apart and isolate it, but the British had patched it up as best as they could and were carrying on.
Margot said goodbye to Madame Cassin, as she and Jacob were led away with the others by kind-looking women with clipboards and wide smiles.
Margot, though, was taken to an office. She didn’t have enough English to understand why, and wondered if she was about to be told off for leaving France at such short notice.
Fear gripped her as she panicked that it was about Theo. Margot couldn’t bear to think that she’d lost him.
There was no one in the office, and as she waited she took Arielle out of her basket and rocked her in her arms, singing ‘Au clair de la lune’.
The door suddenly opened.
Margot turned with a gasp. Standing in the doorway was a tall man with a large moustache, dressed in a suit made from blue tartan. He seemed to bristle with energy, although Margot was sure she saw his gaze soften as he looked at Arielle.
‘Monsieur!’ Margot exclaimed to this most English-looking of men.
‘Madame Dufour and Mademoiselle Arielle,’ he said in fluent French. ‘I’m Mr Gray and I’m with the ministry. Our Mr Wyngate – Corbeau to you – has apprised me of your situation. Might I say, Madame, that you have done a good many great things for your country.’
Margot stared at him in surprise. She hadn’t expected him to speak such perfect French.
‘I did what I could,’ she said. She hadn’t ever sought praise. ‘I still can’t believe I’m here.’
Arielle had gripped her teddy by his ear, and cooed as she held him out to show Mr Gray. He screwed a monocle into his eye, then peered at the teddy. As he did, he told the little girl brightly, ‘A very handsome gentleman indeed; I believe he will look after you always.’
‘Professor Lauterborn – Theo – gave her the bear,’ Margot told him, tears gathering as she thought of Theo. ‘He was… well, Corbeau will have told you. They took him away in an ambulance. You will tell me how he is, won’t you? Only… we’re very close friends, and I’m so worried.’
‘Shot by one’s own brother. But our friend Corbeau resolved the matter of that particular gentleman.’ Mr Gray winced and shook his head. ‘Professor Lauterborn is receiving the best care, Madame. Please try not to worry.’
There was a knock at the door and a woman entered, carrying a tray of tea things.
She set them down on the desk and Mr Gray gestured for Margot to sit.
Once they were alone again, he poured the tea and invited Margot to tell her story.
The story that had led her to leave the only life she knew far behind.
Margot started her tale with the day that she and her friends started their resistance book club.
As she reached the end of her story, she told Mr Gray, ‘I promised Daniel, and I promised Esther, that I’d look after Arielle for them.
’ She went on, ‘But I want to work. I don’t want to be a burden, not when everyone is struggling.
I just have to find something I can do that means I won’t break my promises to Chevalier.
After all the sacrifices they have made, it’s the least I can do for them. ’
Mr Gray listened closely, his fingers steepled beneath his chin.
Only when Margot had exhausted her story did he say, ‘I’m sorry that you’ve had to give up so much and come here.
You’ve already lost so much, but I promise you, Madame, that I’ll make sure you’re properly looked after.
And the little one too. You’re both safe here. ’
Mr Gray arranged for Margot and Arielle to stay at a hotel, out of the city and along the coast. It commanded a clifftop and had a beautiful sunroom populated by elderly women who wore pearls and cooed over Arielle.
The trees in the hotel’s grounds were golden with fallen leaves, and some branches were already bare.
Like the sunroom’s wide glass panes, the large bay window of Margot’s room was criss-crossed with tape and looked out across the sea to France.
Margot stood by the window, holding Arielle and pointing across the flat, grey expanse to where her father was.
After she’d got some milk from the hotel’s kitchen and bathed Arielle, Margot gratefully climbed into bed and slept, only waking now and then when Arielle cried. She couldn’t remember her dreams, but she knew that Theo was there with her, and she hoped that meant he was all right.
Some young ladies in uniform came to see Margot.
They spoke good French, and they asked her what she needed.
She wished she’d had a chance to pack a suitcase, and as she asked for the clothes – resorting to pointing and gesturing at times – she thought of her dresses hanging untouched in her wardrobe in Cordeval.
She was amazed when the women came back with clothes and shoes and toiletries for her, and all kinds of things that Arielle needed.
Despite the shortages, they had been able to spare enough for them.
They put together a crib in Margot’s hotel room and Arielle happily lay on the new mattress, cooing and kicking her feet.
She wheeled Arielle along the promenade in a second-hand pram that had been found for her.
The beach here was covered with barbed wire too, and barrage balloons hung above them in the sky as a large, dark-grey battleship moved across the water.
She longed for a time when the war was over and normal life would go on.
She sat on a bench and stared across the sea to France, wondering what was happening to her friends, and how Joséphine was getting on running the bookshop.
As she read to Isabelle from The Three Musketeers, Margot remembered the day when Beatrice had run into the shop with the news of the book-burning in Rouen.
She thought of Aunt Sandrine polishing the shelves, Madame Guerin choosing a novel to read, and Esther bringing Isabelle in her pram.
That was the day Margot had decided to set up the book club.
Two of those women were now dead, and Margot had no idea what had become of everyone else.
She reached into her pocket for her handkerchief.
She was cut adrift from everyone and everything she knew.