‘What am I going to do, Lise? I asked for warm coats and they’ve sent blankets…’ Flora showed Lise Quintana a pile of army blankets sent by the charity. ‘Not that I’m not grateful, of course.’ It was good to express her frustrations to the one friend she had made in the village. ‘With winter coming, they all need something warm to wear. I could just about manage capes. Sewing was never my strength at school.’
‘Tante Lise’ was always a welcome visitor, trudging up the track whenever she was free, bringing treats for the little ones who fished in her pockets to find them. There were eight of them now, living in the eaves. At last, little Marisa, Kit’s first conquest from Magret, had joined them and bossed the infants about.
Lise smiled, looking around at the gaggle of children stretched out on the rug. ‘Don’t worry, I can help you make them up. I marvel how you manage to keep them fed on these meagre rations.’
Joseph and Carlotta were fighting over pieces of the Noah’s Ark that Kit had built out of scraps of wood. Flora no longer minded the tears and squabbles. In some ways it was their proudest achievement, to have turned silent sullen arrivals into children who felt safe enough to open up, talk, play and fight. They fought about whose turn it was to feed the chickens and collect eggs, who could stroke Gigi, the goat, and her kid, or milk her without spilling the bucket.
Flora was fearing the arrival of the snow, hoping their fuel would last and she could preserve enough from their stores to make something for Christmas. The children were kept isolated from the village, registered at the mairie for their ration books. The priest called to invite them to Sunday mass, but so far none of them had gone. The school had no room for them anyway. Flora made the excuse that they were still recovering from deprivation in the camps. Berthe Bernat and her cronies made it known that they were dirty and full of diseases.
In a strange way, the woman was doing them a favour. It kept this little colony isolated and safe from prying eyes, all the more important now they had four Jewish children with false names and identities hidden amongst them.
Kit was making himself responsible for their education. He sat them round the kitchen table each day after chores, the littlest practising letters and learning to read from their few books. He emptied his precious paints, so they were free to express themselves on paper, but it was scarce. He took them out into the garrigue, among the shrubs and rocks, to search for wildlife, leaves and berries, making them aware of anything poisonous. The boys loved football and tagging games. Fresh air was filling their lungs and strengthening their muscles. Keeping them fed was a daunting task, even if Sandrine Quintana from the town hall and Lise made sure they received children’s full rations. Supplies in the village were getting scarce and Flora noticed they would always be last in the queue for anything extra.
By the time they flopped into bed, Flora felt every one of her forty-four years. Most nights were still broken by the cries of screaming children, by the bed soiler or Alphonse, who crept down in the night to steal food from the cupboard to hide under his pillow. Kit was patient, sitting with the little thief, trying to explain that there would always be food on the table and sharing it out fairly would mean no one would go short, but old habits were hard to break.
Both Kit and Flora had seen the chaos in the camps, how people secretly grabbed whatever they could to eat. It was taking time for each new arrival to learn trust. Sleepless nights took their toll and Flora worried about Kit. Strong willed as he was, he was still physically weak. He needed help. She had never loved him more than she did now. It was time to find someone to take on all the more demanding repairs.
Once again Lise came to the rescue. ‘Let Sebastien return. My son is in need of direction. He spends too much time with that Bernat boy, who’s always in trouble with the gendarme, Jean-Baptiste. Berthe Bernat spoils him.’
The following week, Seb set to work helping Kit muck out the cave under the farmhouse, so they could shelter the stock there along with the chickens. They collected ferns for bedding.
Lise had made a simple pattern for the coat making, to pin onto the blanket cloth, and they cut out the shapes into different sizes, using every inch of fabric. ‘I’ll take them back and run them up on my machine. You can finish off the hems and fastenings later.’
‘How can I thank you?’ Flora was tearful, knowing she had nothing with which to repay her friend.
‘We are on this earth to help each other,’ came the reply.
One day Flora vowed she would find some way to repay this kindness. One by one the coats were completed, lined with flannel from old bedsheets. Marisa and Carlotta were taught how to knit simple scarves and hoods. Flora cut up the last of her thicker skirts, to make leggings for the youngest ones. She lived in a pair of Kit’s trousers, patched at the knee. They looked like raggle-taggle gypsies but at least no one was here to see them. When she went into the village, she made an effort, wearing a threadbare coat and a silk scarf.
Now it was time to turn her mind to Christmas, to brighten the darkness of the long winter ahead. It would take a miracle or two to achieve this, she sighed. The cupboards were bare of anything not essential, money was tight and to give eight children a present each was nigh impossible. It would be the bleakest of celebrations. In desperation she wrote to the Children’s Aid in the hope of some supplies.
As she sat by the fire sipping what passed for coffee, she recalled all those nights on duty in the hospital tents on the western front; she remembered the efforts nurses made to cheer the wounded soldiers, the pleasure that came from simple things, such as decorating the ward with greenery, the Christmas trees, the little treats they made for the men, lavender bags to take the smell of sepsis away, tangerines and nuts. They made the best of times, in the worst of times. She smiled, thinking of how during Christmas on the Riviera she had met Kit again: two wounded Scots who had found love among the bougainvillea. It was not beyond them to make the children’s Christmas Day special. They would find pleasure in games and singing. All the rest she would have to leave to the Almighty. Did it not say in the Good Book, ‘Ask and ye shall receive?’