Charlotte Gray (31 page)

Soon she would be going home. She would return to her flat with Daisy and Sally, she would await further calls from Mr. Jackson. They would presumably post her to one of their holding schools, where she could help with the last-minute preparation of other agents, teach French or drive the staff cars. Since G Section had started to pay her a wage there would be no need for her to look for another job, and in the meantime she "would be free to explore London, to go to galleries or shops; she could even go up to Scotland and visit her parents. She would-resume a life, and men like Cannerley would telephone to ask her out to dinner; it was a privileged and pleasant existence that lay ahead of her: it was normal life, it was what most young women wanted. She should count herself lucky.

Yet, at the thought of it, she trembled in revolt. To leave France at this stage was unthinkable. Although she had efficiently completed both her official and her private errands, she had been drawn into the frightening destiny of the people she had met. She could not leave until she had seen whether Antoinette's prediction of resistance was fulfilled; she wanted to see the big schoolboy Cesar load up another horse-drawn cart with stores; she wanted to understand why the English were so deeply hated. And Julien also intrigued her: what made a man like him buzz round a little town like Lavaurette, alighting for a moment here, then there, in his pollination, while the majority of men of his kind and generation went quietly about their business in the tranquil streets of German-occupied Paris?

She took an end of bread from the remains of lunch on the table, dipped it in the tea and sucked. No gateway of unconscious memory swung gloriously open, but through the dusty crumbs a not unpleasant herbal taste slid across her tongue and encouraged her to take a sip directly from the cup.

She would not go back. She would stay in France until she felt she had done something worthwhile. More urgent even than this was her need to find Gregory. To fly home now would be to admit that he was dead, and this was something that she could not do. She had no idea how she would set about finding him, but merely by being in France she had a better chance. At the very least she could telephone Chollet again.

But to return to London was to give up; and if she gave up on Peter Gregory, then she was giving up faith in her own life.

She had identified her own troubles with those of the country in which she found herself. They seemed to her like two long journeys that had lost their way, each struggling now to rediscover the doubtful paradise from which they had set out. Her need to stay in France was probably, she had to admit, neurotic; certainly it seemed more compulsive than rational. But although she had long had the habit of self-analysis.

Charlotte found it tiresome.

Presumably the link between these public and private worlds was the presence in France of the man she loved, and on whom she depended for the resolution of her life. But if that was the motivation, it was buried too deep to be felt. All that she knew was a compelling urgency of personal and moral force; and she was certain that, whatever its tangled roots, she must obey it. Julien returned at six with a noisy ascent of the stripped staircase. Charlotte heard him calling down some mocking retort to the woman's voice that followed him from the hallway. He was kicking off his shoes as, slightly out of breath, he came into the sitting room.

"How are you? Did you sleep?"

"Yes, thank you."

"Good. Now, dinner. The housekeeper doesn't come on Wednesday so I have to improvise. We can't go out because I've used all my coupons."

"I've got some money," said Charlotte.

"Couldn't we ' " My dear Daniele, what are you suggesting? Not the black market, surely?"

Charlotte thought of the arrangements Antoinette had described to her in Ussel.

"Certainly not. Monsieur. I was thinking of something a little more grey." Julien ground his teeth.

"I think I know the ideal place. The Cafe du Centre."

"But I went there with Yves and ' " But you don't know Madame Gayral, do you?

"I leave it to you, but I insist on paying."

"We'll see about that," said Julien.

"I've got one or two things to do first. Suppose we leave at about half past seven?"

"That's fine. I'll read my detective story."

Julien was attentive to Charlotte's needs. He was amazed by how much dinner she was able to eat: everything on the menu and at least three dishes that were not, silently furnished by Irene in her black skirt and clean white blouse, the empty plates unsmilingly removed a few minutes later. From somewhere Madame Gayral had found a capon, some brie which had reached the point of liquefaction and some eggs she had made into an omelette with a few mean but pungent shavings of truffle. Julien ordered more wine when the first bottle disappeared and was pleased to see that Charlotte drank what he considered to be the correct amount for a woman: less than half but not less than a third of each bottle. Back in his apartment he made up the bed with clean sheets and put a carafe of water and a glass on the table. He offered her the freedom of the bookcase, regretting that he was under stocked on crime novels.

At half past ten he held the door of the bedroom open for her and told her to get a good night's sleep.

Charlotte would not go in. She said, "Octave, if I stayed here in Lavaurette, if I didn't go home, could I be of any use to you?"

Charlotte could see Julien working out the ramifications of such a decision before he spoke.

"I need all the help I can get. We're expecting a further drop of stores any day. One day perhaps we'll be able to recruit all the young men, but for the moment our job is just to exist. That's what Mirabel told me.

And it's easier to exist when there are more of you. But ' " Good. I've decided to stay. I can't go home with a job half finished."

"We'll have to tell them not to send the plane. They won't like it."

"I very much doubt that the plane was for me alone. There'll be other more important people. Yves, for instance."

"There are a lot of reasons why you shouldn't stay. I do think it's unwise. The danger, for instance, the difficulty of contacting London, the ' " But it's possible, isn't it? You do have access to the wireless operator."

"Yes, I do."

Julien stood looking at Charlotte for a long time, with his head on one side. Perhaps, she thought, he too had some private motivation.

"Daniele, you are an extraordinary woman." He looked at her fair skin and deep brown eyes.

"What on earth are you doing?" He smiled.

"What are you doing standing in my apartment in Lavaurette, dressed like that, refusing to take a small aeroplane home to safety? What on earth has brought you to this?"

"Love," she said.

"Love?"

"Yes."

"But why aren't you at home like all the other English girls, doing your ' " Scottish."

"Scottish girls, in your pleasant unoccupied country with your family and your friends?"

"It's too late to explain now. But I do love your country. I wish more of you loved mine, though perhaps one day you will. I have this one chance to change my life, to save my soul, and whether I can do that depends for some reason I don't yet understand on whether you can save your country's soul as well. ' Julien shook his head, clearly baffled, but apparently not thinking it worth his while to say so.

"Anyway," he said, 'if you're going to stay, you might tell me your name. What is it?"

"Madame Guilbert. Dominique."

Julien stood up and refilled his glass.

"The other thing is, we'll need to find you something to do a job. As a matter of fact, I've got an idea. Can you cook?"

It was mid-afternoon when Charlotte turned Mlle Cariteau's bicycle off the road and up the track between the scabby plane trees to the Domaine. Her hair was covered by the woollen headscarf that had made Julien smile; it was the only clothes purchase she had allowed herself from G Section funds, and she had bought it because she thought it made her look more like Dominique Guilbert. She caught glimpses of the house between the trees, but it was not until the path turned a right angle and delivered her beneath the arched pigeonnier that she saw it whole for the first time. For all its irregularities, its terracotta-coloured shutters and lopsided front door, she felt as though she had seen it many times before; its design was at root so typical that it seemed to have emerged from some remembered blueprint, some universal plan of French rural peace that no Revolution or genocidal war had quite unsettled.

Charlotte hauled with both hands on the iron bell-pull, and, when no one came, turned the heavy knocker that acted as a handle. The large hallway offered passages right or left as well as a staircase that doubled back above her head into the remote ceiling. For all the uncertainty of her position, the feeling that came to Charlotte as she stood in the hall was one of pure excitement: if she could spend long enough in this house, she seemed to feel, it might reveal to her some lost plan or harmony. Here she might find the missing track that led back to the past.

"Madame Guilbert?"

The voice came from above her head. She looked up and saw bare feet between the banisters as someone descended the staircase. On the half landing where the stairs turned, he came into full view: an old man in navy-blue cotton trousers, as though he was going sailing, and a shirt without its collar which hung down almost to his knees.

"Please wait there. I'll come down."

Charlotte felt some animal reluctance to go too near this man. He offered her his hand when he had walked down to where she was waiting, and she took it as briefly as she could. His grip was warm and dry and his skin was covered in splashes of paint; from his body there rose a clean, strong smell of oils. His eyes were hooded and enclosed by lined, reptilian skin, though the bright blue irises were unclouded.

"I think we'll go into the drawing room." He led the way down the left-hand passage from the hall, past two or three doors, to a long, lofty room that ran the depth of the house. It was dark inside until he had opened some shutters that gave a view of overgrown garden to the side; the freed rectangle of light revealed a room full of formal furniture of the nineteenth century, fussily scrolled and uncomfortably upholstered.

There was a mirror in a gilded frame above the marble mantelpiece and, at the end of the room, still in half-darkness, was what looked like an enormous flat desk with a reading lamp.

"Do sit down. I believe you know my son Julien. He's spoken to me about you."

Charlotte felt fine old dust rise up as she settled on the edge of a sofa. So that was Octave's real name; at the Cafe du Centre, despite his warnings, she had only heard him called "Monsieur'. Julien ... It was not bad; it had the same Roman ring as Octave, but it had a certain lightness and elegance." Yes, I know him a little."

Levade pushed his hand back through his thick hair, disarranging it into white layers. Charlotte felt the clarity of his gaze, even in the gloom; she noticed the scaly skin on his bare feet.

"He thought it's possible you might need somewhere to live for a time."

"That's right." She was eager. She did not want to live in the same place as this man, but she wanted to be in this house.

"My father's in hospital and I want to be near him. My husband is a prisoner of war in Germany, like so many men."

"I see," said Levade.

"There's a woman who comes to clean the house, but she has difficulties at home, I think. She's irregular. You could live here for nothing if you were prepared to help with the cooking and cleaning. I would give you food as well. Are you a good cook?"

"Your son asked me that. Not particularly, but I could learn. I can do the simple things."

Levade sighed and stood up.

"When will your husband come home?"

"I don't know."

"The government is sending people to work in Germany in return for our prisoners. Had you heard?"

"Yes. Three men for each prisoner. It seems a bit hard."

"It's worse than that. The Germans only want trained men, so they don't count the farm boys. Laval's latest triumph is to send eight men, four of them trained, in return for each prisoner of war. The man's a fool." Charlotte nodded.

"Don't you think?"

"I'm not sure I understand politics."

Levade nodded briefly, as though this was an acceptable position. He walked over to the fireplace and leaned his arm on the mantelpiece.

"Are you quiet? Do you make a noise in the house?"

"Not particularly. I could be as quiet as you like. Your son told me you're a painter, so I suppose ' " I used to be. Not any more. Now I put oil on canvas, but anyone can do that." Levade began to walk down into the still-dark end of the drawing room.

"I spend some hours every morning in the studio upstairs. I don't have lunch, so you needn't bother about that. I normally eat at about six, then in the evening I read. I don't want you to work while I'm painting.

You'd have to do the cleaning later."

"I don't mind. Whatever's convenient."

"I could give you some money if you liked. As well."

"Yes," said Charlotte quickly, "I was going to come to that." It would have been Dominique's first thought.

"Whatever you think is right," said Levade.

"Why not ask in the village? Of course, there's nothing to spend it on. Unless you want to buy a photograph of Marshal Petain."

"I need to save some money for when my husband comes back," said Charlotte primly.

"Very well, I'll show you a room. There are two you can choose from." Levade walked briskly out of the salon, his movement unaffected in any obvious way by age, and Charlotte followed him to the stairs. They walked along the landing of the first floor, past the locked studio, with Charlotte's eyes swivelling from side to side to take in as much as she could of the rooms revealed by doors left tantalisingly half-open.