We stayed on in Paris, even after hearing the news. Maman was inconsolable, but refused to leave Papa and me, who still had our work there, even though we begged her to go to the island. The Nazis reopened the Louvre at the end of last summer, as a propaganda exercise to show how civilised the conquering force really was – a hollow charade of a public relations exercise as they had shut off many of the galleries and, I am convinced, have been stealing works of art right, left and centre to send back to their Fatherland.
But now, dear Ella, I must write of our further tragedy. In May, they came and took Maman away. We have been frantic, trying to find out where she has been sent. They are deporting anyone of Jewish descent, and we fear she is now in a deportation camp in Drancy. She was visiting Cousin Agnès at the time: they took her and the children too, so we can only hope that they are all together still, so that, wherever she may be, she is with those who love her, just as she will surely be supporting them through whatever they may be suffering.
Papa and I have fled to the island: we cannot stay in Paris any longer in these dreadful times, so filled with fear and the terrible, terrible pain of loss. We are still in the occupied part of France, and the Île de Ré is a strategic part of the Germans’ defences so the island is littered with hideous cement boxes and barbed wire. But you know that this place has always had its own spirit of wildness and indomitability, and this still prevails even today. If it weren’t for the curfew and a few restricted areas, you would scarcely know there was a war on here. We live very quietly and very simply, clinging to each other to get through the days until there is an end to this living nightmare in which we find ourselves.
Pray for us, dear Ella, as we pray for you. Please pray that Maman will be returned to us safely in the end. I know your heart will be broken, as ours are. Maybe that is the only comfort we can find now, in the knowledge that we are not alone in our pain and suffering, along with so many others who have lost so much in this terrible war.
May these words find their way to you, and may you be surrounded by those who love you best when you read them. I cannot bear to think of your suffering. And I know that Christophe too would not want you to suffer. He would want you to live your life, a life filled with as much beauty and joy and love as you can possibly cram into it. Do so, please, for his sake, and for ours.
Je t’embrasse très fort, ma chère Ella.
With all my love,
Caroline xxx
2014, Edinburgh
Ella is lying in her bed today, propped up on snowy pillows, too tired to get up and sit in her chair. The nurse had warned me that she might not be able to stay awake for long, that she’s been drifting this past week on the sea of memory that is beginning to carry her from us. But I have so many questions for her and, though I try to rein them in, I’m also conscious that time is running out and so I must ask them if I’m to get her story down before it’s too late. Her voice is a little weaker today, wavering, as she remembers.
‘The war changed everything, in ways we could never have imagined. From the most mundane aspects of our daily lives to the broadest principles of the world as a whole – everything we had once known, everything we’d taken for granted, was altered by that terrible war. You find that suddenly there are no certainties any more, you’re in unchartered territory, so much is destroyed . . . But there’s a freedom in destruction too. Who’s to say what’s right and what’s wrong when life can end at any moment? When that fact is brought home to you so brutally? Reading that letter of Caroline’s, I thought of the thousands of families across the world who had read letters like that and who would be reading more letters like that the next day and the day after that . . . I thought of Monsieur Martet and Caroline having had to read that awful news, and then to have Marianne taken from them, and I wondered how life could possibly go on for any of us . . .’
I rummage in my bag for a tissue, wiping my eyes and wondering why I seem to cry so often and so easily these days. I do so, silently, in the night when I lie awake listening to Dan’s gentle breathing, which serves only to magnify the widening gulf between us as we drift further apart. I grieve for our marriage, which has somehow become lost amongst the heaps of ironing, the clutter of Finn’s toys and the weight of our worries that have piled up, like flotsam on a flood-tide, in what used to feel like our family home.
And I’ve been grieving for Christophe too, ever since I read Caroline’s letter last night. As I’d transcribed her words on to the computer screen the tears had poured down my face.
Ella reaches for my hand. ‘But you see, Kendra dear, you have a choice. You can either let the pain overwhelm you, defining your life from that point on – perhaps even ending it or, at best, consigning you to a living death – or you can find a way to bear it, to carry it with you and still go on living. As you well know yourself, you can’t always choose what life throws at you. But you always have a choice in how you deal with it. Caroline’s words gave me that choice; they were my lifeline when I read that letter: “He would want you to live your life, a life filled with as much beauty and joy and love as you can possibly cram into it. Do so, please, for his sake, and for ours.” I realised that I had to do as she asked, for her sake and for her father’s. That if I could do it then maybe she could too. That was our pact. And it was one that would bind us even more tightly together, as the sisters we had so hoped we would become.’
Her eyes close and her complexion looks waxen against the white of the pillows.
‘Granny?’ Her eyelids flicker open again briefly, although I can see that she’s drifting as the flood of memories carries her back to another time and place. Then, as her eyes close once more, she smiles. I have to lean in close to hear the words she whispers.
‘Rhona? My darling girl. Thank you for coming . . .’
PART 2
1942, Scotland
Not long after she’d received Caroline’s letter, Ella was approached one day by Wing Commander Johnstone, the senior officer on the base at Gulford. She was fitting a battery into one of the aircraft outside the hangar when she saw him sauntering over to her. Ella stood to attention and he saluted her back, then came to look more closely at her work.
‘You enjoy working on the planes, don’t you, Aircraftwoman Lennox?’
‘Yes, sir, very much.’
‘And I know you do an excellent job. Your superior officers have high praise for your attitude and the standard of your work. They say you put your heart into it.’
Ella nodded, dropping her gaze for a moment. Since learning of Christophe’s death, she had been so broken that sometimes she felt that all she had left to give to this job was her heart – or what was left of it. Some days it was hard to summon up the energy to continue.
The wind swirled across the airfield carrying with it the faint cries of the sea-gulls. Tucking a loose strand of hair back under her cap, Ella’s hand shook as she was ambushed yet again by the image of Christophe’s face close to hers that night in the dunes, the love in his eyes shining like moonlight on water. She couldn’t yet bring herself to believe his shattered body lay lonely in a makeshift grave in an unknown part of France.
She blinked the image away, trying to stay focused on the officer who stood before her now.
‘I’m also told that you speak French?’ Wing Commander Johnstone continued.
‘Yes, sir.’
‘How would you feel about transferring to a slightly different role?’ His tone was nonchalant, although she sensed that he was choosing his words carefully. ‘A colleague of mine is looking for a French speaker to help out with a special project.’
Ella looked him in the eye, her interest piqued. ‘Well, that would depend, sir. You see, I like my job because I feel I’m making a real difference on the Continent. Every aircraft I send off is a direct connection with the war. I’d like to help, but only if it means still being able to make a difference over there.’
The lines around her superior officer’s eyes crinkled deeply as he smiled a broad smile of amusement. ‘Oh, don’t worry, Aircraftwoman Lennox. I think it’s safe to say you’d still be making a difference alright. And, in fact, I believe it would be a role that could give you even more of a direct link to France.’
‘In that case, sir, I’d like to know more.’
‘Very good. I’ll make the necessary telephone call. Squadron Officer Macpherson will give you your orders shortly.’ He saluted her smartly. ‘And in the meantime . . .’
‘Yes, sir?’
He patted the undercarriage of the Hurricane. ‘Keep up the good work.’
It was not without regret that Ella handed over her mechanic’s blue serge jump suit in return for the smartly tailored skirt and jacket worn by most WAAFs. Before she left RAF Gulford she’d been put down for some basic wireless training in preparation for her new role. When she walked into the office at RAF Gulford on the first day of the training, a couple of pilots who were lounging outside the door looked her up and down. One removed his cigarette from between his lips and gave a long, low whistle. But the appearance of Squadron Officer Macpherson, who gave him one of her iciest glares, made him jump to attention and salute her respectfully.