Page 14 of Daughters of Paris

‘Yes, I did. I mean, I do,’ Fleur replied. She pressed her lips together awkwardly.

Colette curled her fingers into the cloth of her skirt. This was excruciating. They had once been so close, but now had nothing to say to each other.

‘Do you still share the room with your aunt?’ Colette asked.

At this Fleur smiled. ‘No, your father was kind enough to let me turn one of the box rooms on the top floor into a bedroom of my own. It’s small but has everything I need.’

‘Then you will be almost above me,’ Colette said.

‘I’ll try to be quiet if I come in late,’ Fleur said.

Colette wondered where she went that made her come in late. A bookshop wouldn’t be open in the evenings. Did she have a boyfriend? She must have friends. Again, Colette felt a stab of jealousy. Fleur had been her special friend but now they were practically strangers. Fleur had had the freedom of Paris all the time Colette had been away. It was unfair! She silently cursed Gunther once again.

Fleur gave a brief smile. ‘We must talk properly at some point. We must have lots of news to share. You must tell me everything you did in England. I want to hear all about it.’

A siren screamed in Colette’s head. Once she would have shared all of her secrets with Fleur, but Delphine and Louis had sworn her to secrecy about her shame. She couldn’t tell Fleur about vomiting until lunchtime while day by day her belly swelled and she read disappointment in Edith’s eyes. Couldn’t describe the agony of her body splitting wider over nine hours as a baby sought freedom. Couldn’t share the mix of relief and heartbreak that the child had been whisked away as soon as it had emitted its first wail, without Colette even learning its sex.

‘There isn’t much to tell, I’m afraid.’

Fleur looked disappointed. She motioned to the towels in her arms. ‘Well … I had better put these away. It was nice to talk to you.’

Fleur clearly felt she had been rebuffed, and though Colette could never explain why, it filled her with melancholy to do so. Colette nodded.

‘Of course. I’ll see you soon, I hope.’ She walked away but as she reached her bedroom, Fleur called her name again. Colette turned back.

Fleur smiled nervously. ‘I planted the strawberries. They grew really well. I was sorry you missed them.’

Colette had no idea what she was talking about, but it obviously meant something significant to Fleur.

‘Thank you. I’m sorry I missed them too.’

She went into her room and looked around at the disarray of her luggage that was spread out on the bed and floor. She would arrange things in the morning but now she felt quite overwhelmed. She was a stranger in the home she had grown up in.

It was only when she was brushing her hair before bed that she remembered what the reference to strawberries was. The scent of warm earth on baking hot tiles, mingled with floral fruit filled her memory. How simple her life had been then.

Fleur had not completely forgotten Colette if she had planted things in their secret hideaway.

It was good to know.

Delphine drove her and Colette to the Luciennes’ hotel herself. Not many women in her circle could drive and she prided herself on the skill.

‘I met your father when I was chauffeuring a doctor during the Great War,’ she reminded her daughter.

Colette nodded, only half paying attention while she looked out of the window. Paris had changed since had been away. Street names that Colette recognised were now accompanied by newer signs indicating the location of shelters.

There was also a level of paranoia there hadn’t been before, which echoed what she had seen in England. Everything was overlaid with a veneer of anxious anticipation that things were about to change. Like the British, the French government had issued gas masks, which were to be carried everywhere.

‘Are you listening?’ Delphine asked. ‘You aren’t, are you? What are you thinking about?’

Colette dragged her attention away from a huddle of pinched-faced, foreign-looking women and children who stood at the edge of the entrance to the Bois du Boulogne. They had a hunted look about them, as if they were used to keeping one eye always over their shoulders.

‘Everyone is anxious here. It was the same in England. Anticipation that things are about to change. Those women there…’ She pointed at the group. ‘They might have been dancing and choosing autumn hats from fashion magazines only a few months ago and now they are begging for aid on foreign streets. What if the same thing happens to us?’

Delphine grimaced. ‘It won’t. And don’t mention the subject over lunch.’

‘But the lunch is in aid of Czechoslovakian refugees,’ Colette pointed out.

Delphine shook her head and sighed wearily as if Colette was simple-minded. ‘Yes, but who wants to be reminded of that while we’re trying to enjoy ourselves? We’ll raise money to help them. That’s enough.’

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