Staying Alive Read online

  ‘Fine. I’ll have a look round the town and a snack of some kind, back here at two. Unless you’d rather make it half-past – time for a rest after all that wine?’

  ‘All right. Yes, might be as well. Two-thirty… As for our guest of honour – you’ll have heard of him, read about him, I’m sure – André Brussaud, the famed Resistance hero?’

  I thought for a moment, drew a blank, shook my head. ‘Don’t think so.’

  ‘You wouldn’t from your researches into my shenanigans, but – well, try this – heard of Jean Moulin?’

  ‘Well, sure, him, but—’

  ‘Tell me what you remember about him?’

  ‘Key figure in the Resistance, wasn’t he, and the Gestapo killed him, in the course of interrogation. Yes – first time they had him, he tried to kill himself – in his cell I suppose, between torture sessions – broken bottle, glass of some sort anyway, tried to cut his own throat, and – well, did it a lot of damage, but survived, and – afterwards, got away somehow? Don’t remember how, they wouldn’t have let him go, would they – but he actually got to London. I suppose once he was on the run, your lot must have shipped him out. He was in London, seeing de Gaulle and others – wearing a scarf to hide his lacerated throat – right? He was BCRA, wasn’t he – nominally head of it in the field then, de Gaulle’s top man in France?’

  ‘He was Chief of the National Resistance Council. Enormously respected. But then betrayed. There was to be an important, highly secret meeting of the Council, and some rat brought the Gestapo in on it. They surrounded the house, smashed their way in, killed some of the delegates, arrested others including Jean Moulin.’

  She’d broken off, to wave and call ‘Amélie, hello!’ to a tall woman to whom she’d introduced me the day before; continuing then after a pause, ‘So they had him again. June of 1943, this was, and this time as you say they tortured him to death. In Lyon, Gestapo headquarters, SS Leutnant Klaus Barbie’s stamping-ground at that time, uh? But the man we’re expecting here shortly, Brussaud, was one of Moulin’s close associates. I don’t know if he was at that meeting, but if so he must have been one of the few who escaped. He swore revenge – well, was supposed to have – and went on to make a Resistance legend of himself. According to stuff that was passed around at the time he kicked off by catching the traitor who’d led the Germans to that meeting and had him incinerated.’ A smile, small gesture. ‘Which even in those days and circumstances would have got him noticed. Then managed to keep it up and remain at large, over some period of time attracted such a following that a lot of them wanted him installed officially in Moulin’s place – logically enough, you might think, but de Gaulle wouldn’t have it.’

  ‘Any particular reason?’

  ‘Well, Brussaud was missing no chance of killing Germans and French traitors – actually specialised in eliminating Gestapists – while Gaullist policy was attentiste – wait, train, equip, prepare for the big day – invasion and post-invasion. I think that must have been it, mostly.’

  ‘De Gaulle with a keen eye for what you might call the main chance, his own position and authority post-invasion.’

  ‘Not far wrong there. Aren’t you going to eat your croissant?’

  ‘Oh—’

  ‘Anyway, that’s the man we’re waiting for.’ She checked the time. ‘Look, we have about half an hour. Like me to start on as much as I can remember of my arrival here – making contact with my new boss, for instance, if that’s of interest?’

  ‘Unless you’d rather leave it until after lunch. If we’re meeting at two-thirty, rest of the day at our disposal?’

  ‘All right. Yes, might be better.’

  ‘That’s a lovely brooch, Rosie. Present from someone, was it?’

  * * *

  I was back at the brasserie by two-thirty, having reconnoitred the general layout of the town, especially the ancient parts, and had lunch at a bistro just off the Place du Capitole. I thought Rosie might like it, as a change from the Aviateurs, and it wouldn’t be all that much of a hike for her. At the Aviateurs, though, there she was waving at me from a table not far from the one we’d used at breakfast: I headed for her – not overjoyed at the fact she had people with her – elderly male, middle-aged female.

  Inevitable, of course. This was a reunion she was attending, after all.

  ‘Afternoon, Rosie.’

  She introduced me to Monsieur et Madame whatever their name was, asking me did I remember the person I’d called Guy Lannuzel. I looked at him more closely; idiotic, of course, there was no question I’d ever have set eyes on him before: and my memory wasn’t reacting to that name. Then Rosie prompted: ‘Chicken farmer?’ and I got it, told them after a moment’s further thought, ‘At Châteauneuf-du-Faou, of course.’

  Delight all round. Rosie said, ‘Full marks.’ Fascinating, to find fictional characters turning into flesh and blood; and ‘Lannuzel’ cut in with ‘Most creditable, seeing that I must have changed a little, over the past sixty years.’ Rosie breaking into the polite amusement with ‘But Madame you wouldn’t remember. “Guy” as you called him was a lonely bachelor in those days. His sister lived with him. Remember her?’

  ‘Yes, of course.’ Actually, barely remembering her at all: except she’d made a more or less life-or-death bicycle ride at some stage. Middle of the night, to warn some Maquis group… ‘Lannuzel’ – tall, grey-haired, but plenty of it, and he’d obviously kept himself in shape – told me that Brigitte – the sister, I supposed – was in good health, had married a neurosurgeon in Paris but was now a widow; and that he himself had moved to Rennes, which as it happened was his wife’s home town. Rosie interrupting him then, telling me, ‘He did run Maquis bands in the Montaignes Noires. Remember?’

  ‘I do indeed.’ I did, too. Adding – as if there was nothing very surprising about this feat of memory, ‘The attack on the Château de Trevarez.’

  This made their day. In fact I began to wish I’d kept my mouth shut, since it was a subject that ‘Guy’ didn’t want to leave, despite the fact that for poor Rosie the episode had ended with her in hospital under Gestapo guard and sentence of death. Actually, to be fair to ‘Guy’, he might not have known it. Anyway at this juncture she came up trumps, checking the time and squawking that she and I should have been on our way ten minutes ago, heavens above! Perhaps tomorrow – if time permitted…We were on our feet then, ‘Guy’ observing that as far as time was concerned, a lot depended on when guest-of-honour Brussaud might show up – and that I, as a chronicler of those momentous days, should on no account miss the chance of meeting and speaking with that quite exceptional individual.

  He had a rather sonorous manner of speech. Touch of standard Gallic pomposity in the delivery. And as we escaped, I remembered something else about him – reminding Rosie as we emerged into the Boulevard d’Arcole, ‘Made a pass at you at one stage, didn’t he?’

  She cocked an eyebrow at me. ‘Are we perhaps confusing fact and fiction?’

  ‘Could be – but fiction stemming – I’d guess – from your own account of the event – or anyway Marilyn’s interpretation of that account. OK, so it’s what you might call raw fiction here and there – in fact all through, really, but—’

  ‘But in this instance something more like Marilyn’s innuendo touched-up with novelist’s licence?’

  ‘Well – could be. But – but (a) it was only an indication that “Lannuzel” was interested in you, attracted to you – as practically everyone else must have been – and (b) you came out of it entirely honourably – turned him down flat, said yes, there was a man in your life. That one being I think your third deployment – by which time you and Ben were going strong?’

  ‘Weren’t we just!’

  ‘Whereas on this first trip you wouldn’t have been thinking about him very much, would you? You’d been at some pains to evade him, leave no tracks. He didn’t even know your name – other than “Rosie” – or that SOE had changed their minds and taken you on. He’d done his
best to find you, hadn’t he – after that super-binge you and he’d embarked on?’

  ‘Are we crossing here?’

  Place du Peyrou. We’d passed the Basilique St-Sernin a minute or two ago; weren’t exactly legging it, but had covered quite a bit of ground. Were lucky with the weather, we both had raincoats but didn’t need them. I said, pointing, ‘If we hold on tout droit, we’ll wind up close to the Pont St-Pierre – gardens and a promenade along the river-bank, seats we could sit on if they’re dry?’

  ‘Wet or dry, might need one by that stage.’

  ‘Although you’re still noticeably sprightly, Rosie.’

  ‘Well, one manages. Touch wood… You’re right though in what you said then – it was a super-binge!’

  ‘How do you feel about its culmination – or rather my version of it?’

  It had worried me, since accepting her invitation – that having put them in bed together on that night of their first meeting, binge or no binge, I might have been overstepping the mark a little. Background to this being that on the evening in question she’d gone to Baker Street to offer herself for training as an SOE field agent – her husband having been killed only a day or two earlier, she having no great inclination to sit in her flat in Sevenoaks and grieve, also having the advantage of being already an experienced radio operator as well as naturally fluent in French – a combination which she’d thought they’d jump at. Whereas, in the event, the interviewer had turned her down. He was a major with Great War medals on his tunic, and suggested to her that she might try again in say a year’s time, if she still felt so inclined. Well, Rosie being Rosie, this advice aggravated her no end, and she was rushing out in a fury, deciding to offer her services to SIS instead, when Ben Quarry – Australian, a lieutenant RNVR – had come busting in, almost flattening her. He’d had something to celebrate – as well as a keen eye for a startlingly attractive sheila – and after a few very brief exchanges they’d done the obvious thing, gone on a terrific bender.

  ‘Culmination.’ She’d repeated the word I’d used. ‘Would have been culmination too, if it hadn’t been for – well, fate…’

  Floundering, slightly. I tried to help us both with ‘Better word might have been “outcome”. Or “end result”. Of that night on the tiles, I mean, the way I wrote it, or rather wrote of it—’

  ‘A bit much of the novelist’s licence there, as you obviously appreciate!’

  ‘Except that for the sake of the story there had to be something of the kind. And Marilyn had I’m sure signalled that there’d been some fairly traumatic climax.’

  ‘I wouldn’t have described it as traumatic.’

  ‘Well—’

  ‘And my God – of all places, the Charing Cross Hotel!’

  Shaking her head: peering across at a street sign then. I asked her – snidely, maybe, but unable to resist it – ‘Would you have liked it better if I’d made it the Ritz or Claridge’s?’

  She’d glanced at me, and away again. We’d crossed a small square into – she murmured it – ‘Rue Valade.’ Voice up then: ‘I remember this part. Church over there is the Eglise St-Pierre-des-Chartreux. You were right, straight ahead for the bridge.’ Pointing again: ‘Saw my first killing there. Car rammed that corner and turned over, one guy was sort of thrown out and ran for it, Gestapo in a grey Citroen that had been on their tail screeched to a halt and they shot him down – the running one – right on the church steps. There was another boy in the wrecked car, and they dragged him out, shoved him in the back of their Citroen, slung the dead one in with him and drove off.’

  She’d stopped, gazing at that corner. ‘I was with Jake, my Organiser, at the time. Don’t recall where we were going or what for, and we had no idea who the victims were.’ She shook her head. ‘No – I do remember. We’d had lunch, and – why, like now, walked down to the Garonne…’

  We were moving on now. I asked her, ‘Jake meaning Jean Samblat?’

  ‘That was his field-name. Yes, I should have called him Jean, not by his code-name Jake. Bad habit I got into – and he never seemed to mind…’ Looking sternly at me then: ‘But honestly – Charing Cross Hotel. Didn’t think of the Savoy, I suppose?’

  ‘Well, no, but—’

  ‘Never mind.’

  Could see the river now. Thinking of asking her, ‘A single room, was it, by any chance?’ Because that was what I’d given them, in the novel. And if she didn’t react too violently to that question, might follow it up with ‘And did Ben offer to sleep in the bath?’ In the novel he’d denied having made any such offer, in fact had ridiculed the very thought of it, at some later stage. But Rosie herself must have given at least some of this to Marilyn. Mentioning no names, I guessed, only amusing her close friend with an anecdote that had had a strong appeal to her – as no doubt it would have, after she and Ben had met again and fallen in love and she’d got over being shocked at her own past frolics.

  The Savoy, though. Why not? It was the area they would have been in. Staggering in the small hours through that fog, a real pea-souper that would also have been keeping Luftwaffe bombers out of London’s sky, for once.

  Must have been the Savoy. Make a note to change it, in any reprint or new edition? And send her a copy, with the page reference?

  A couple of hundred metres past that church, I put an arm around her shoulders, pointed with the other one: ‘Cross over when we can, turn down there, shall we?’

  ‘If you say so. Yes…’

  To get down to the riverside promenade, where the benches were, hoping to find a dry one.

  * * *

  On the train from Cahors, she told me after we’d put on our raincoats and settled down, she’d made a point of chatting to her neighbours from time to time – remarking on the weather, the overcrowding, the slowness of the journey, duration of the stop at Montauban, and so forth. No direct mention of this Boche invasion: but anything else one thought of – including, in answer to their curiosity, the fact she was a war widow and moving to Toulouse to look for work. Then shortly before arrival, breaking a silence to ask whether they happened to know if there was a tram or bus service from the station to the vicinity of – well, Port St-Etienne? One of them said yes, she’d show her where the buses left from – only a stone’s throw from the station exit. Rosie in fact knew even the number of the bus that ran south past Gare Riquet and along the line of the Canal du Midi, to where she’d ferret around a bit and find a certain café. She hadn’t exactly memorised the map but had studied it a great deal, knew the general shape of the town, main arteries and points of reference such as ancient buildings, places and major intersections; what she was really after with that enquiry was to have these women’s company when leaving the station, passing not only ticket collectors at the barrier but as likely as not Germans, Funkabwehr if nothing worse.

  To acquire company wasn’t her own idea, or original, only one of the dodges they’d been taught in training. Approaching and passing through inspection points, to try to be part of a group, or at least to seem to be, rather than a ‘solitary’. And they were happy to assist: as a young widow – ‘poor little thing, at your age!’ – she already had their sympathy. They’d agreed wholeheartedly with her condemnation of the British Navy – for sheer brutality and trickery, directed against an ally who in any case had taken the brunt of this whole disastrous conflict – sacrés Anglais, running like rabbits when they’d had the chance!

  It had got her out of the station, all right. First to the consigne, left-luggage office, where she’d left her larger suitcase, then into the tail-end of the crowd pushing out of the gates past not only Funkabwehr but a civilian with an unmistakably German look about him. The elder of the women had already said goodbye, embracing her and wishing her a full and happy life, but the other one came with her to the bus stop and pointed out the one she needed. All busy, noisy, crowded. In the square outside the station entrance, German soldiers were being embarked in trucks or fallen-in in their platoons or squads, French child
ren gathering to stare at them – wide-eyed, otherwise expressionless.

  This time yesterday one had been in England – safe as houses. Now – this was the new, real world. The one you’d chosen and they’d tried initially to keep you out of. So get used to it, adopt protective colouring; for others to believe that you belong in it, first convince yourself, be Suzette Treniard – devoted Pétainiste with a personal hatred of the British.

  And no fear of Germans. Not even awareness of their presence. Especially having come from Paris, where the streets and restaurants were crawling with them.

  She got out at a stop opposite the Halle aux Grains – might have done better to have sat tight one more stage – hiked on down the boulevard and found Rue de Valenciennes. It was blowing half a gale. And time passing – would actually have saved a few minutes and some physical exertion by waiting for the next stop, the bus having moved on from there by now – and conscious that Jake – Jean Samblat – would be waiting for her call, might have been waiting an hour or so already.

  Valenciennes had been wrong. Rue de Tivoli, God’s sake. Meaning an extra few hundred yards. Correcting that – few hundred metres. Think in the right language, otherwise risk using the wrong one in your sleep. In that train, for instance, might easily have dropped off. To the right now: and the wind really hitting her on that corner. But there it was – Café Fleurance. In sight of the Grand Rond, all that greenery up at the top end – the Rond itself and the wooded allées and – beyond, not visible from here – the Jardin des Plantes. The café looked smaller than she’d anticipated, and crowded. She paused inside the doorway; lunchtime, of course, it would be busy. Madame –scrawny, black-haired, desperate-looking – was doing the legwork, aided by a young girl. Daughter, maybe, or niece. The patron, behind the zinc bar – red-faced, with very white, fat arms, in a sleeveless vest – was pouring beers.

  Glancing at her – impatiently. ‘Uh?’