Fen knew when she was dismissed and instead struck up a conversation with the brothers. ‘So, what did you both do in the war?’ It wasn’t the most original of conversation starters, but a fairly ubiquitous one, she’d realised over the last few months.
‘Ah, this and that,’ Antoine said, smiling slightly as he did so.
‘I kept France moving,’ Gervais puffed out his chest again, ‘single-handedly fixing the French army’s vehicles.’
‘As long as those vehicles were never any further than 200 yards from your garage, brother!’ laughed Antoine.
‘Hey! So what if I have flat feet and cannot fight,’ Gervais looked like he might have taken offence as his brother’s slur, but then laughed. ‘But I could drive and I drove all sorts of things to freedom.’ He tapped his finger against his nose and winked at Fen.
‘How interesting,’ she replied, ‘do tell?’
‘Well, it’s not a well-known fact that the Louvre needed its paintings moving around—’
‘Oh yes,’ Fen interrupted, ‘to Montauban and Chambord…’ She was cut off by Antoine’s laughter.
‘You see, brother,’ he said, jabbing Gervais in the shoulder, ‘everyone knows about that. You would have made a useless Resistance agent, your secrets are so well known!’ He chuckled again and took a long slurp from his beer.
‘It’s not my fault Monsieur Renaud told me it was a secret.’ Gervais shrugged his shoulders, but Fen could see he looked a little crestfallen.
‘You’re friends with Henri Renaud?’ she asked, directly to Gervais, to try and build up his ego a little again.
‘Yes, of course. I know you wouldn’t think it, as we are, how would you say… from different sides of the track,’ he laughed. ‘But we are good friends.’
Fen’s ego fluffing had worked. Gervais all of a sudden looked very pleased with himself.
‘And did you work with him throughout the war?’ she asked, innocently enough.
‘Yes, I did. I drove the lorries that took art everywhere, to the galleries, from the galleries, to the auctioneer, to the warehouse, from the Jews’ apartments…’
Fen suddenly got a shiver down her spine and remembered that not all of Henri Renaud’s war work had been on behalf of the French Resistance.
Antoine must have picked up on her sudden change of countenance and interceded on his brother’s behalf. ‘We were not all lucky enough to have the ability to stand up to the oppressors,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘Sometimes you just had to get by. It was an honour for us to work with a man like Monsieur Renaud, though, the war at least gave us that. Gervais would drive the lorries and I worked – I still do – in his warehouse. There were times we had to kowtow to the Nazis, but in the end, I think we did the best we could, to do the best we could.’
‘Amen to that,’ James added and they all clinked glasses again.
Simone, who had been leaning in very close to James, turned her attention back towards Fen and changed the subject. ‘Fenella, why don’t you come and visit me tomorrow, at the atelier. It would be fun, no?’
‘Oh, rather! Thank you. What a treat.’
From that moment onwards, the talk that evening kept to the lighter side of life, albeit each person’s stories were tinged with the scent of the war. It had been such a large part of everyone around that table’s lives, whether they’d fought, spied, dug the fields or kept the engines ticking over, that it was hard to ignore it. One person’s laughter, however, became infectious and by the time the barkeep called for last orders, they were all flushed with the warmth that good humour and good drinks bring to the table.
Fourteen
Fen awoke the next morning to the sound of the front door of the apartment closing. She sat up in bed and swung her legs out, stretching out the last of her sleepiness as she did so. Once the curtains were open and her old land girl jumper slipped on over her nightdress, she ventured out of her room and into the light of the studio. Rose was already at her easel, the curtains long drawn back and the morning light streaming in through the tall panes of glass.
‘Good morning, slug-a-bed! Can I put the wireless on now? I do so like some jazz while I work.’
‘Good morning, Rose, and yes, I’m so sorry, of course – fire her up!’ Fen headed towards the bathroom but paused and asked, ‘Did I just hear the front door go?’
Rose sighed and dragged her eyes away from her canvas and met Fen’s own enquiring look. ‘Young Simone has just returned. I thought you both might have come home together, but…’
Fen rubbed her eyes again and tried to remember what had happened after the fourth or fifth glass of wine. She remembered all three of them trying to get the big grey door open downstairs, but perhaps it was just her on her own who practically pulled herself up the banister to the fifth-floor apartment.
‘I’m sure James looked after her,’ Fen said, by way of an explanation.
‘It’s not his hospitality I question, dear girl.’ The look in Rose’s eyes implied she knew all too well what two young people might get up to alone in a hotel room and Fen nodded, before leaving Rose to carry on with her painting as she headed into the bathroom.
‘Ah good morning, young lady,’ Rose eyed up her lodger as she rather sheepishly left her room and closed the door behind her. Fen looked up from the daily paper and Simone winked at her. ‘I’m not sure I should condone this sort of behaviour…’ Rose continued as Simone walked into the centre of the room and helped herself to a cup of coffee from the pot.
‘Urg,’ she swallowed it in disgust. ‘It’s the chicory stuff again.’
‘It was all I could find,’ Fen
