‘Vous voulez un taxi? Un hotel? Messieurs? Mademoiselle? Permettez-moi!’
At the Gare du Nord, a porter gripped the handle of Neville’s suitcase. He had put it down so he could check the Paris guidebook, again.
‘Certainly not. Give that back instantly!’
A tug of war ensued, which Neville won, with George’s help. The porter shrugged and departed, leaving Neville stiff with offence.
‘I say, why don’t we just have some breakfast before we go any further?’ George suggested. ‘Give us a chance to sort ourselves out, eh?’
‘Oh yes, do let’s,’ said Felix. ‘Look, all those cafés over there . . . They look so lovely with all the tables on the pavement! Come on, Neville. And then, well, can we at least discuss the ‘Paris by Night’ tours we read about? Montmartre sounds heavenly.’
‘Hmmm. I’m not sure about Montmartre. We’ll have to be careful. They’re very predatory, the Parisians, from what I’ve heard. Tourist prices for everything. They’ll charge you an arm and a leg just to wash your hands if you don’t watch out.’
As he spoke, Neville gazed at a smartly dressed American Express agent, standing by the columns a little way off. She had a neat circle of compatriots around her, all listening hard to her instructions about vouchers and charabancs. Felix hid a smile. Almost as much as she loved the indefinable Frenchness of it all – the jostling and the barging and the smells (good gracious, the smells!) – she secretly loved the fact that Neville did not feel at home. She had never seen him so ill at ease.
‘Well, we can’t stay here all day,’ said George. ‘We’ll never see Paris.’
Felix picked up her case, and her chin moved forward.
‘Not sure if those cafés are really suitable,’ Neville fretted. ‘It’s far too cold to sit outside and I’d much rather get settled at the hotel. Now, let me just check . . .’
Felix moved off a few paces.
‘The Hotel Cosmos, isn’t it? Didn’t you work out that the number seven would get us there quickest?’ They were both poring over the bus map again. ‘I don’t think it’s the right tube line. What do they call it here? Le Metro?’
Then she saw them. She was sure of it. The gabardine and the cap. And the two other men, both short and skinny but tough as anything (one with a broken nose) . . . they must be Fred and Ronnie. Every word of the conversation on deck came back to Felix. He’d extracted them from the bar after all. They didn’t look too much the worse for wear.
Felix’s heart began to hammer. She knew something was about to happen. Something huge. She could make it happen. In her pocket, her hand closed round her passport.
The four men were lining up at the taxi rank, looking around for some kind of sign, she supposed. Perhaps she was too. And this was it: her only chance. This time Felix didn’t look back. Her suitcase banged uncomfortably at her legs, but she didn’t run. She walked crisply and decisively towards the group of strangers, and slipped in behind them. Nobody noticed. It really wasn’t like England at all.
There was so much hooting, and shouting, and brakes screeching, and movement, it was hard to make out what was going on. Felix kept her eyes on the traffic, her back to the station. Her whole body was alert and alive with excitement.
A bearded taxi driver swept in close to the pavement, and scanned the knotted crowd. As soon as he spotted the little English group, he put two fingers in his mouth. His piercing whistle got their attention.
‘Eh, camarades! Camarades! Ici! Venez vite! On y va.’
‘I reckon this is it,’ said Fred, or maybe Ronnie. ‘Come on.’ The gabardine-dressed man waved and started forward. As his foot touched the running board, Felix reached his side.
‘Oh please. I’m a nurse. Take me with you. I have to come now. They told me to find you.’
Without a flicker of doubt, the Scotsman took her case and put it in the front of the cab, in the space next to the driver. The others made way for her just as promptly. The glass slid back and the driver winked over his shoulder at Felix and gave her a most approving nod.
‘Bienvenus, mes camarades! Allons-y! Au Bureau des Syndicats!’
The taxi roared through the city’s broad streets and Felix knew that she’d escaped. They turned a sharp corner and she was thrown first against Ronnie, and then Fred. Or maybe the other way round. They steadied her between them.
‘Thanks awfully.’ Sitting up as straight as she could, she ground her feet to the floor of the taxi, and said brightly: ‘They didn’t mention I’d be joining you here then?’
All four men shook their heads, and their leader spoke.
‘No, not a word. I suppose I should make sure you’re not an infiltrator, but I think I’ll leave that to the powers that be when we get to HQ.’
‘Does she look like an infiltrator?’ said the one on her left, scornful.
‘You’s all righ wi’ us, hen.’
‘Where’s your uniform, ducky?’ asked the one on her right. ‘Where are you from?’
‘London. The London Hospital. Whitechapel.’
‘They’ve sent you on your own? A wee thing like you! Shame.’
The gabardine man let Felix off the hook. ‘All right, all right. No need for the third degree. I’m sure they know what they’re doing. I expect you’re with Spanish Medical Aid, aren’t you? Quite a few ambulances gone already, haven’t they?’
‘That’s right.’ She pretended to be better informed than she was. She was getting better and better at it. Then she remembered one of Sister Macpherson’s favourite homilies. Attack is the best form of defence. (She’d been talking about germs.) So Felix started asking questions instead. Where were they from? What did they do? Normally, that was. But never why had they come.
The taxi crossed an enormous iron bridge over railway tracks, and then a smaller one over a wide and filthy canal, and pulled up in a wide sort of square. The Place du Combat, Felix noted, with a slight lurch. The driver gestured towards what looked like a bar. He wouldn’t accept payment for the fare – just raised a clenched fist at the open window and sped off.
‘Did he mean us to go in that café?’ Felix asked, confused. At that moment a young man emerged from behind a green metal screen on the pavement nearby. She quickly looked away: he was still buttoning up his flies. That explained the stink of ancient urine.
She couldn’t imagine what Neville would be making of Paris. What would he be doing now? Don’t think about it. He’s got George. Oh God, George. Poor George. He means so well. He didn’t deserve this. But at least she had saved him the humiliation of a refusal to his face. And nobody could ever accuse her of raising his hopes. She’d never been that kind of a girl.
‘Over there? Yes, I think so. Can this really be the Trade Union HQ? I suppose it must be.’
The café was rough and ready and fairly large. So was its patron, who sized them up the moment they came in. Without a word, he thumbed at an unmarked door at the back. They trooped up the stairs without speaking. The office above contained a wall full of paint-chipped filing cabinets and three wooden desks, with mountains of paperwork on each. A loud conversation in a guttural tongue was taking place at the desk on the right, while railway tickets were counted and handed out to the left.
The middle desk was occupied by a heavy-browed woman. She studied them briefly, stabbed out her cigarette in an ashtray already close to capacity, and then leaned forward and stared hard at Felix.
‘Sit down, my dear.’ She was English. Her voice was rather grand and gravelly and very commanding, like a headmistress’s. The others were still hovering, but the woman waved them towards one of her colleagues. ‘Over there. He’ll deal with you lot.’
Felix put down her case and scraped up a chair.
‘And you are . . . ?’
Felix wasn’t at all sure whether handshaking was done in Communist circles, but she couldn’t help herself.
‘Nurse Felicity Rose.’ Her voice sounded several degrees calmer than she felt.
‘Aha! Call me Rita. Do I know about you?’
Felix glanced at her taxi companions, but they seemed safely in conversation with the man at the other desk.
‘No, actually, you don’t, I’m afraid. It’s been quite a recent decision – to volunteer that is. I don’t believe I’ll be on any records yet.’
That was something of an understatement.
‘So you’re not attached to any unit?’
‘No, no, I’m not. Not yet, that is. Do you think that might be a problem?’
Felix sensed she was being weighed up. Whatever this test was, it made her determined to pass. Wasn’t she going to ask her anything else? Her age, her training? Perhaps that came later.
‘Not at all. Quite the reverse. Quite the reverse.’ Rita repeated the words with a slow smile.
‘Oh?’ Felix’s face retained its beautiful composure. So useful.
But inside it felt like that moment when you part with your coins at the bottom of the helter-skelter. You pick up your mat, and start to climb the stairs, and never quite know how things will look from the top. The world below looks slow and distant and small, workaday noises muffled and distorted. The pressure of the person behind forces you into the first slithering inches. Then momentum takes over.
Rita leaned forward. ‘We’ve got a bit of a to-do on just now. You might just be the answer. London sent out a spanking new ambulance last week – absolutely marvellous, fully kitted out – and blow me, they haven’t even made it to Chartres when one of the nurses goes down with appendicitis. Rotten luck for her. They came back to Paris right away – she’s just been operated on.’
‘Oh dear . . .’
‘Oh, don’t worry, girl. She’ll be right as rain soon enough. Well, no, in fact not soon enough for us of course. She won’t be going anywhere in a hurry. We were about to send the vehicle off with an empty seat. Such a waste! But you’ll do splendidly instead of Joan. Can you leave tonight?’
‘Yes, that would suit me very well,’ said Felix. They’ll never find me before then. Then came an agonizing pang of guilt. ‘Would it be possible to send a telegram . . . maybe get a message to someone? I just need to let my brother know.’
‘In England?’
‘No, no, he’s in Paris. The Hotel Cosmos.’
‘Don’t you want to say goodbye? There’s plenty of time.’
‘Oh no, no, it’s fine, really, we’ve done that,’ she lied. ‘It’s just I promised to let him know exactly when I was going. So he doesn’t keep the hotel room for me, you know, that kind of thing.’
Rita gave her a funny look. Subterfuge didn’t bother her. Nor did much pass her by. ‘Paper?’
‘Yes, please. Thanks awfully.’
The older woman passed Felix a notepad and pencil. An envelope followed and then Rita busied herself tactfully, completing some sort of form which she finished off with a loud rubber stamp before moving on to the next in the pile. Felix sheltered behind the towering heap of papers.
There really wasn’t much to say. Room for one more half-lie about being sorry. Well, she was. She didn’t want to upset anyone. She thought about it just long enough for a horribly strong image of her mother to thrust itself into her head. (She was sitting at the kitchen table with a cup of tea and the mending.) Then she licked the envelope flap and stuck it down.
‘Finished? Excellent. Well, I’ll see it’s delivered right away.’
‘Oh no,’ burst out Felix. ‘Not right away, please. This evening will be fine, really.’
‘I see.’
A phantom smile, the ghost of confederacy, and back to brusqueness and the paperwork.
It wasn’t her business, all that sort of stuff. Rita just needed a nurse and she’d found one. This creature was far too young to have serious ties at home. No ring in sight. And there was something about her that Rita found reassuring, though she couldn’t quite put her finger on it. She looked her over once more, in case she was missing something. Yes, this girl was certainly self-possessed. Hair on the long side, but she’d find that out for herself soon enough. It wasn’t the usual way of going about things, but everything was happening so fast it was hard to say what was the usual way. Anyway, needs must. War’s war.