Page 1 of Daughters of Paris

Chapter One

Paris 1930

‘Ican almost reach them; I just need to be a little further through.’

‘Are you sure we won’t get into trouble?’

‘Of course we’ll get into trouble. That’s why we’re doing this in secret.’

Anyone familiar with the house hearing the conversation would immediately recognise the two voices as belonging to Colette Nadon and Fleur Bonnivard, residents of the property. They would be unable to see what was occurring, however, owing to the height of the wall at the back of the long garden. From the house itself this small, untended sliver of land at the furthest end of the garden was completely concealed by a thick curtain of rhododendrons.

For two young girls it was a perfect place to explore.

Fleur, who was skinnier, wriggled with her arms out in front of her and succeeded in slipping through the small opening where the bottom of the potting-shed wall had crumbled away. She gave a cry of exultation.

‘I was right! The door isn’t even locked.’

‘Quick, let me through,’ Colette demanded. Already sturdier and developing a bust, she could not risk wriggling through the same gap as her friend, and a fear of tight spaces made it impossible to even try.

‘It’s stiff,’ Fleur grunted from the other side of the wall. There were a few loud thumps and then a creak and a door that was almost completely hidden by trailing ivy and nettles opened just wide enough for a body to squeeze through.

‘I’ll get my legs stung,’ Colette said doubtfully.

‘Not if you pull your socks up and do it quickly. You really want to see what is here.’

Colette bit the inside of her cheek. Always more cautious by nature, she was Fleur’s faithful follower, something which struck neither girl as odd, but over which adults often commented on darkly.

‘Count for me,’ she entreated, bending down and tugging her socks as high up her shins as they would go. ‘I’ll do it when you say.’

‘Okay.’

‘Wait! From five or ten?’ Colette asked.

‘It really doesn’t matter,’ Fleur pointed out. ‘You still have to jump when I get to zero.’

‘I know but it gives me more time to think about it,’ Colette answered.

‘No, it gives you more time to worry. I’ll count from five.’

Fleur counted down and Colette jumped on command, slightly surprising herself. She leapt over the nettles and through the door to land in Fleur’s arms. The girls stumbled back giggling.

‘Well done.’ Fleur hugged Colette then waved an arm around. ‘Look at what we’ve found.’

Colette gazed around. They were standing in a long, narrow space. The Nadons’ apartment – one of four tall slivers in the same building – was on a corner and this spot backed onto the side wall of the building on the intersecting boulevard.

‘I think it was once a hothouse. There are parts of a roof with glass panes,’ Fleur said, pointing them out.

Colette nodded then spotted something Fleur hadn’t.

‘Strawberries,’ she breathed. ‘There must be hundreds of them.’

In the furthest corner sunlight streamed down against the wall that marked the end of the property and there were the remains of a planter, now overgrown with plants that spilled across a large area.

Fleur plucked a couple. ‘They must have been growing wild for years. I wonder if anyone knows they are here?’

‘No one knows any of this is here,’ Colette said. ‘MèreandPapadon’t even know there is anything behind the rhododendron garden.’

They picked handfuls of strawberries and sat on the ground to feast. The long summer had ripened the fruit to perfection and the girls devoured them enthusiastically. The ground was a mixture of pebbles, gravel, weeds and the strawberry plants, which ran wild and tangled among twisted bean plants. After they had finished eating, they lay back and looked at the cloudless sky.

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