With her dream of Mitch interrupted, Claire put her hands over her ears. She could still hear knocking, and moaned. Five minutes later the telephone rang. She jumped out of bed. ‘Mitch,’ she shouted, stumbling barefoot into the sitting room. Fearing the phone would stop ringing before she had time to answer it, she snatched up the receiver, overbalanced, and fell sideways into the armchair. ‘Miss Halliday?’ she said, out of breath.
‘No, Dudley, it’s me, Eddie. Answer your bloody door, will you?’
Claire sighed. ‘Okay…’
‘What the hell are you doing,’ Eddie said, ‘hiding yourself away like this?’ She blustered into the flat carrying a large shopping bag and marched straight through to the kitchen. ‘Put some clothes on while I make breakfast.’ Claire groaned in protest. Eddie ignored her. ‘Eggs, toast, and tea!’ she said, putting lard into the frying pan and lighting the gas under it. ‘It’ll be ready by the time you’ve washed and dressed.’ Claire flopped down on the settee, but Eddie wasn’t having it. ‘Get up, Dudley. You can’t mooch about in your nightclothes all day,’ she said, crossing to the settee and pulling Claire to her feet. ‘Damn!’ she said, sniffing. ‘Something’s burning.’ As Eddie ran into the kitchen, Claire sauntered into the bedroom and dressed.
‘Thank you, Eddie,’ Claire said on her return.
‘I’d reserve your thanks if I was you until you’ve tasted the delicately smoke-flavoured fried egg with the black specks, which is haute cuisine don’t you know, and the half toasted bread,’ she said, in an exaggerated French accent. She put two plates on the table, one in front of Claire. ‘I’ll get the tea.’
Claire laughed. It had been a while since she’d seen Eddie, longer since she had laughed. ‘It looks good, really,’ she said, taking a slice of toast and dipping the crust into the yolk of the egg. She could hardly remember the last time she’d cooked anything. For more than a week, while Eddie had been in Coltishall, she had lived in a dreamlike state, getting up only to go to the bathroom and make tea. She was glad Eddie was back.
When they had finished eating Eddie suggested Claire took a bath. ‘Throw in a couple of rose-scented bath cubes and have a soak while I clear away the dishes. And if you want to talk?’
Feeling emotional, but determined not to cry, Claire stood up and left the table. ‘Thanks, Ed. If you don’t mind sticking around, I would like to talk.’
‘Good. Now shoo!’ Eddie said. ‘Go and have your bath while I get this place ship-shape.’
By the time Eddie had put what remained of the food she’d bought away, washed the dishes and built a fire, Claire had bathed and washed her hair.
Sitting on the floor in front of the fire, Claire told Eddie again how she and Mitch had fallen in love in Gisoir, and how against SOE regulations she had stayed with him in his apartment in London. She told her how the Gestapo had stopped him and taken him to headquarters at the insistence of an SS officer, and about Aimée’s premature birth. ‘The worst of it,’ she said, fighting back the tears, ‘is Aimée will never know her daddy. I know she won’t be the only one. So many children will grow up without fathers, some without mothers, but it doesn’t make it any easier to bear.’
‘Dudley, you don’t know-- Mitch is a resourceful guy. Chances are he’ll have escaped.’
Claire jumped up and went to the sideboard. She took a map from the drawer, opened it and spread it over the table, smoothing the creases where it had been folded with the flat of her hand. ‘The Pyrenees!’
Eddie shot Claire a look of surprise. ‘Where did you get this?’
‘Vera Halliday. She brought it over while you were in Coltishall. I telephoned her so many times I think I beat her into submission, or she took pity on me.’ Claire circled an area at the bottom of the mountains with a pencil. ‘Miss Halliday said that according to MI9 this is where Mitch was ambushed.’ Leaning forward, Eddie scrutinised the map. ‘In that kind of terrain, with only one way back,’ Claire ran her finger along the only visible route, ‘how could a man who had been shot by a sniper – and was probably surrounded by snipers – escape?’ Eddie didn’t answer. ‘He couldn’t.’
‘But you don’t know that for certain.’
‘And I won’t know for certain until I get back to France.’
‘You’re in no fit state to go mountain climbing, Dudley.’
‘I wouldn’t dream of it. If the border guards caught me, I’d be jeopardising MI9’s escape route. You can imagine what they’d do to me if I did that.’
‘Put you in chains and throw away the key?’
‘And if the Gestapo caught me? Well, we both know I’m not strong enough to withstand interrogation at the moment.’ Claire shuddered. ‘Besides, I have Aimée to consider now.’ Claire folded the map. ‘I’m not going to do anything to put myself at risk. Aimée may have lost her father; she is not going to lose her mother too.’ Claire
