Night Train to Paris

Since news of the death camps had filtered through to the allied press, Fen had wondered what it must have been like to live in fear of being plucked out of your home, or from the street, and condemned to that terrible fate. She wasn’t so naïve as to not realise that the grainy pictures she’d seen in the newspapers must have shown only a glimpse of what those ghastly places had been like. And to now hear of someone who had survived… Fen couldn’t imagine what it would be like to have survived such terror. ‘Is she quite well now? She must be traumatised after being held there.’

Simone fell silent for a moment, then said, ‘She is well. But she said God never showed his face inside the camp. She was on one of the last prisoner convoys out of Paris to that hateful place, but that only meant that the camp had had time to become a complete cesspool.’

‘It’s so hard to imagine.’ Fen shook her head, unable to visualise the horrors of a death camp.

‘We should count our blessings that imagination is all we need. Catherine still wakes in the night, she tells me, and screams out loud; she is not freed from the camp, not fully, not while she is still there in her dreams.’ Simone jabbed a slender finger against her temple.

Fen shivered.

Simone turned back to the sink and carried on. ‘But she survived, heaven save us, and she’s back at the fashion house now, though she’s not so quick to laugh or make a joke as she used to be. Her brother Christian is our chief designer. He tried all he could during the last months of the war to help his sister – we had the wives of Nazi officers shopping in our atelier, you see – and he asked all of them for help, but he couldn’t secure her release any earlier. It’s all very close to home, you know?’

Fen nodded, aware of how close to home losing someone really was. She almost couldn’t bring herself to ask another question, but it was out of her mouth before she had time to stop herself. ‘Why was she taken?’

Simone stopped washing for a moment and turned to Fen. ‘Resistance,’ she whispered. ‘As if they ever needed a reason. She was caught carrying a pistol by the Gestapo. She resisted their torture, so they sent her to what would certainly have been her death, if the Allies hadn’t marched in just in time.’

‘Poor, poor thing.’ Fen shook her head, her heart full of pity for Simone’s friend.

‘She could have betrayed us all, but she didn’t.’ Simone looked thoughtful.

‘Us all?’ Fen looked up at Simone, who slowly turned to face her. ‘Were you…?’

‘Oh yes…’ Simone said and Fen thought for the first time how much older her make-up and fine clothes made her look. She must only be in her early twenties, but she suddenly looked world-worn, the weight of experience heavy on her powdered brow. After a pause, she added, ‘I was in the Resistance, too.’

Six

‘Ladies, ladies!’ Rose called from the other room. ‘Come through, come through, you must be done by now and I’m simply yearning for some conversation!’

‘Coming!’ Fen and Simone called in unison, which made Simone laugh, breaking the tension that had built up as they had spoken. Her words still resonated with Fen, however, and she couldn’t help but think of Arthur and the part he played in the Resistance. Would he still be alive now if he’d been sent to a camp, rather than the firing squad? Alive maybe, she thought, but a different man, perhaps.

Simone flicked the water off her hands and Fen, still deep in thought, passed her the already damp tea towel. A few moments later Simone touched Fen on the shoulder. ‘Coming?’

Fen nodded and together they walked back into the studio to attend on Rose, who was draped over the chaise longue, cigarette holder in one hand, the other stringing out her long rope of pearls and winding it between her fingers.

She had dressed up for the evening by adding a splendid orange silk turban to her outfit, and the light from the side lamps made it glow like a setting sun atop her head. Unlike the ancient château in Burgundy, where Fen had stayed most recently, this chic apartment had electric lights and the room was bathed in a warm glow as the incandescent bulbs did their best to illuminate through the dark, red velvet, gold-tasselled lampshades. Shadows now crept across the high ceiling and accentuated the pattern in the carved mouldings and ornate ceiling rose, from which hung a beautiful crystal chandelier.

Fen sank into the sagging armchair that James had sat in a few hours earlier and Simone took the one opposite her. The gold of the many picture frames caught Fen’s eye and she tried to take them all in. They were hard to categorise and varied from landscapes in the style of Turner and Constable, to Dutch-style still lifes and more modern abstract pieces. Fen’s eye was drawn to several self-portraits, all of which held her gaze as keenly as if she was looking at the woman herself.

‘Now tell me, ladies…’ The real Rose took a deep drag of her cigarette and then flicked the ash in the vague direction of the ashtray on the coffee table. ‘What is your plan for tomorrow?’

‘Back to the cutting room for me.’ Simone smoothed out her full skirt over her angular knees. Fen looked down at her own pair (winners of a Knobbly Knees Competition in 1943, no less) and patted her tweed skirt down too. ‘We have a new design being cut and I’m the model they’re showcasing it on.’

‘Wonderful, dear, wonderful. And you, Fenella?’

‘Well, I’ll see if James, Captain Lancaster, drops me a line, then I… well, I rather hoped to visit some of the galleries, the Rodin museum perhaps, and it might sound silly, but I’ve a hankering for just walking along