CHAPTER THREE
ROSE
BREST, FRANCE
1943
Rose stood at the window and stared out. She’d always imagined coming back here with Peter when the war was over. Naively, she’d expected everything to return to normal – for her husband to return unscathed, for them to retire to their home near the coast at Brest so he could rest. And she’d also expected the fighting to be well and truly finished by now.
How wrong she’d been. She shook her head. His role as a soldier might have been over, but Peter had continued to fight, and his bravery and dedication to their country had ended up costing him his life.
Rose touched a hand to her stomach, the action alone making tears burn her eyes. Peter. She let them fall silently, wiping her cheek. When they’d met, at a party with friends, she’d not immediately noticed him. But when he’d insisted they all hear her opinion on the politics of the day, when every other man in the room had rolled his eyes at her, she’d known he was the man she’d one day marry. They’d spent the entire evening from that moment on talking about anything and everything, sipping wine and laughing, heads bent together. The very next day she’d found out that he was the millionaire businessman who’d been hosting the extravagant party they’d attended, and by midday she’d received the biggest bouquet of roses she’d ever seen in her life.
She smiled thinking of all the dates and gifts, all the ways he’d tried to win her heart. What he hadn’t seemed to understand was that she’d fallen for him because of the way he let her have a voice, the way he listened to her and liked the fact she held her own opinions about the world. That was what had made her love him.
And now here she was, pregnant with the child they’d desperately hoped for, but with Peter never to return home. She touched her wedding band with her thumb. It somehow gave her comfort knowing he’d placed that ring there and she’d never, ever taken it off.
Rose turned and almost expected to be standing in her kitchen in Paris. She could see the sparkling bench, the kettle boiling and Maria, her long-time maid, smiling and asking her if she wanted a cup of tea. Only here there was no Maria to keep her company. The kitchen was dark, the fire not set, the house cold. It had been a beautiful retreat for her and Peter, their beloved home on the coast, but without him, and without any help to set about dusting and cleaning and tending to the fire, it seemed forlorn.
But she needed to pull herself together. Her brother, Sebastian, was coming to stay with his wife the next day, and she didn’t want them feeling sorry for her. Rose touched her stomach once again, the only thing these days that seemed to comfort her. She gave herself one last moment to remember Peter, not wanting to forget his touch, his smell, his larger-than-life personality.
‘Darling, it’s time.’
Rose had been dreading those little words all morning, had been trying to pretend as if Peter was just leaving for work, that he wasn’t leaving her again. It terrified her even more now than it had when he’d left in uniform while he’d served for the French Army.
‘I don’t know what I’ll do without you.’
He tucked his fingers under her chin and tilted her head up. ‘You’ll be fine. I won’t be so long. Besides, you need to hold the fort here for me – you’ll be too busy to worry.’
She smiled even though she felt like weeping. This was something he had to do, which meant it was useless making a big fuss. She kept herself together, as she always did, knowing there would be plenty of empty hours to cry and fret to herself once he was gone. She’d not slept a wink all night, and it was making her irrational.
‘I love you. More than you’ll ever know,’ she said, staring into the brightest blue eyes she’d ever seen. Those eyes were filled with tears and they made hers prickle right back, but she refused to let one fall. She wanted his lasting memory to be of her smile, not her sobs of emotion. He could be gone for weeks, maybe longer if something unexpected happened.
‘You’re certain you don’t want me to come down to the station?’ she asked. ‘I can be there with you until the very last moment.’
He shook his head. ‘It’s only a business trip. You need to think of it as nothing more than me leaving for work. Besides, I want to remember you just like this,’ he said, kissing her and running a hand down her back. ‘In a silk robe, just roused from bed and with your hair all tousled. That’s what got me home last time despite all odds – knowing this was waiting for me.’
She laughed. ‘It was a lovely last morning,’ she teased, running her hands down his lapels. He looked so handsome in his suit. ‘I’ll think of it every time I go to our bed.’
They’d made love, then sipped coffee and eaten breakfast together, before he’d bathed and dressed. If he hadn’t been about to leave, it would have been the perfect start to any day.
‘Stay safe,’ she murmured against his lips, knowing it wasn’t a promise he could keep but wanting to say it anyway.
‘You know I will.’
Peter waved to her and opened the door. She stood, motionless, and watched him as he left, as he blew her a kiss and shut the door behind him. Rose sank to her knees once he’d gone, sobs making her body heave, her shoulders shaking as she stifled the screams struggling to burst out. She clamped one hand to her mouth, her palm silencing her pain, the other pressed to the floor as she tried not to fall forward.
‘I love you,’ she whispered, even though he was long gone now. ‘I love you so much.’
They were words she’d spoken to him so many times, he knew them as deeply as she did herself. But still, she would have given anything to tell him one last time. To hold him just a few minutes longer. Because something felt wrong this time. He’d been so careful, so clever to go undetected until now, but she wasn’t sure how long his luck would last.
Rose slipped to the ground, sinking against the cool, hard tiles. This couldn’t be happening. He was supposed to stay safe. He was supposed to stay home. They were supposed to have their whole lives ahead of them. Why had she left Paris and thought it best to come here, alone?
She dropped her hands to her stomach and sobbed. He’d never even know that they had a child.
‘Rose?’
Rose heard Sebastian’s call and stared at herself in the mirror. She had her trademark red lipstick on, and her cheeks were ever so slightly rouged to disguise how hollow they were. She touched her hand to her hair as she studied her reflection, hoping she’d done enough to fool her guests into thinking that she was coping. When he called again she hurried down the hall to the front door. The moment she saw her handsome raven-haired brother standing there, she rushed into his arms, hugging him tight. She stood a moment, indulging in his warm embrace, before pulling back and turning to his wife, Charlotte.
‘It’s so good to see you,’ she said, hugging her sister-in-law with as much love as she’d shown her brother. ‘I’ve only been here two days and I’m like an old lady rattling around alone.’
Sebastian laughed. ‘You’re hardly an old lady.’ He brought their cases in and Rose led the way through into the drawing room. The fire was blazing, and she was pleased that the house looked so different to when she’d first arrived.
‘You’ve settled in?’ Charlotte asked.
‘I have. It’s taken me all this time to tidy up, but it feels more like home again now.’ Rose kept her smile fixed, not wanting her guests to feel sorry for her. They weren’t long married and she wanted them to enjoy their stay instead of worrying about her. She didn’t mention the fact that on her first night here she’d curled into a ball after crying her eyes out and slept on the cold kitchen floor.
‘Show Charlotte the guest room,’ she said to Sebastian. ‘And please, make yourself at home. Anything you need, help yourself.’
They disappeared, chatting as they went down the hall, and Rose took a deep breath, trying to keep her emotions in check instead of falling back into her grief. It had been only weeks since she’d received the dreadful news, but she’d spent her entire life being headstrong and independent, and she wasn’t about to start cracking beneath her pain now.
A knock echoed, followed by laughter, and Rose smiled as she listened to her brother and his wife. She remembered what it had been like when she and Peter were first married. They couldn’t keep their hands off each other, and it had been like that right up until the last time she’d seen him.
‘Darling, you’re a wonderful nurse. You haven’t lost your temper in days.’
Rose smothered a laugh. ‘Careful, my love, or I’ll find some crockery to throw at you.’
They both chuckled then, Peter’s eyes meeting hers as they stared at one another from across the bedroom. She sat in front of her mirror, applying make-up, while he sat propped in bed watching her. They’d made love all morning, her husband finally over the dreadful flu that had kept him in bed for days, and she felt so close to him after the hours spent tangled, naked, beneath their sheets.
‘My parents called you as sweet and delicious as a peach,’ he joked. ‘If only they knew what went on behind closed doors.’
He was right. She did have a temper with him sometimes and the sweet disposition she usually displayed could easily be turned into anger if Peter did something to annoy her. He’d become particularly careful with the attention he gave to beautiful women after she’d slapped him at a café.
‘Speaking of disagreements,’ she said, trying to keep her voice light so she didn’t raise his suspicions, ‘I’ve been hearing a lot about women assisting with the Resistance.’
Peter sighed. ‘For heaven’s sake, Rose. Can’t you just let a man convalesce in peace?’
She set down her lipstick and smiled at him. ‘Darling, you’re hardly convalescing now and, besides, it seems ridiculous for me to sit here doing nothing. Can’t I do something to help the war effort?’
He smiled. ‘Yes, darling, you can knit socks and send them to the poor men at the front.’
She could feel her temperature rising, her cheeks starting to burn. ‘Don’t speak to me as if I’m only capable of knitting,’ she said, fuming, but trying to keep her voice low. ‘I will not be told what I can and can’t do, Peter. I was simply trying to be diplomatic about it instead of going behind your back.’
‘You’re my wife,’ he said, voice as calm as could be, as if they were having a simple discussion about the weather. ‘And it seems to me you’re going to do this whether I like it or not. But this is me, for once, Rose, putting my foot down.’
‘You don’t have the right to, to . . .’ She grabbed her hairbrush and threw it at him. ‘I’m your wife, not your slave!’
‘Oh, Rose.’
‘Don’t you “oh, Rose” me!’
‘But you’re so gorgeous when you’re cross with me,’ he said. ‘That sweet little nurse routine didn’t last for long, did it?’
Rose took a deep breath, trying to hate him and failing when he winked and beckoned her closer.
‘Sweetheart, please,’ he said, circling his arms around her once she had come and settled down beside him.
She looked up at him. ‘Is it so wrong to want to help?’
‘No. But you’re behaving as if I don’t have the right to be worried about you,’ he said gently. ‘I love you, Rose. Is it so wrong that I want to do everything I can to keep you safe? That I want to know you’re here, protected, instead of doing something reckless?’
She sighed, her frustration mounting. ‘I can’t sleep at night, knowing what’s going on out there right beneath our noses. We need to do more. I need to do more.’
He nodded. ‘I know.’
‘You knew who I was when you married me,’ she said softly. ‘If you wanted to marry a society princess with no conscience, then you picked the wrong woman for your wife. I need to feel like I’m doing something that will actually make a difference.’
Peter laughed. ‘Sweetheart, I know exactly what type of woman I married.’ He dropped a kiss to her lips and ran a hand through her long hair. ‘I love that you want to help, that you’re so passionate and aware, but . . .’
She looked up into his eyes, knowing that he was telling the truth. One thing she couldn’t fault her husband for was the way he loved her. He looked at her and truly saw her – he always had – and he’d never expected her to change herself for anyone. She’d been brought up by parents who had appreciated her opinions, but they’d always been worried about how a husband would cope with how outspoken she was. The fact they’d sent her to a top finishing school was evidence enough of how much they wanted her to marry well. Peter had more than passed their expectations, but she knew how worried they’d always been about her opinion on everything from politics to a woman’s right to do as she pleased.
‘Darling . . . ,’ he started, then let out a loud breath.
‘What were you going to say?’ she asked, pushing him back a tiny bit, palms flat to his chest. ‘You have a look on your face, like you’re keeping something from me.’
‘We’re doing something already. To help, I mean.’ He sighed again. ‘I don’t want you to think I’m sitting by and not thinking and feeling the same things you are. We want the same things, you and I, and I want you to know we’re not at odds here.’
She went still, eyes on his. ‘What do you mean?’ Had he been keeping something from her?
‘I thought it was best that you didn’t know, so you could never be questioned about it.’
‘What have you done, Peter? What haven’t you told me?’
‘I’ve been helping the Resistance,’ he said in a low voice, as if he was worried someone could be listening. ‘Financially, I mean. And very handsomely, I might add. They need weapons, and I had the contacts and the money to assist.’ He hesitated and shook his head, as if he couldn’t believe he was telling her. ‘Some of my business trips, well, they’ve been to arrange funds for them and to assist with organising arms. I didn’t tell you because the less you knew, the better if you were ever questioned.’
Rose stared at him. ‘You what?’
‘I thought you’d be happy. I—’
‘Peter! How could you?’ She slapped at him, furious, then grabbed a pillow and beat him with it around the arms.
‘Rose!’ He laughed and fought her off as she laughed back and kept hitting him. ‘Rose, stop!’
She threw the pillow aside and leapt into his arms, wrapping her legs and arms around him. She planted a big, long kiss on his lips. She didn’t care that he knew people who could supply arms and make those kinds of deals in secret. All she cared about was that they were doing something.
‘You should have told me,’ she muttered. ‘You shouldn’t keep things like this from me.’
He kissed her back. ‘Well, now you know.’
Rose blinked away tears as she held on tightly to her husband, her cheek to his chest as she listened to the steady beat of his heart.
‘I’m so scared of losing you,’ she whispered.
‘You’re not going to lose me,’ he said, and kissed the top of her head. ‘I’m very careful.’
She knew that being careful had a loose meaning. They were all in danger, every single one of them, and Peter even more so now.
‘If something was to happen then – to you, I mean – do you expect me to carry on what you’re doing? Should I keep sending them money?’
He shook his head and pushed her back, holding her at arm’s length now and staring straight into her eyes. ‘No, Rose. You mustn’t. I’m not having you put yourself in danger. What I’ve already done for them is enough.’
She nodded. ‘You needn’t be so worried about me, Peter. I can be careful.’
‘Promise me,’ he demanded. ‘Promise me that I won’t have to worry about you doing anything reckless whenever I’m away on business.’
‘I promise,’ she said, the words catching in her throat and making her cough. She hated lying, and the last thing she wanted was for her husband to lose faith in her.
‘What is it?’ he asked.
‘I was just, well, wondering if driving an ambulance would constitute recklessness or not.’
‘An ambulance? Christ, Rose, are you out of your mind? Why can’t you be content helping like you already are? Like we already are?’
‘For the same reason I couldn’t bite my tongue the night you met me,’ she said, standing and smiling down at him. ‘I won’t do anything silly, but I thought the least you could do was pay for an ambulance so I can provide extra assistance if it’s needed. Or we could do something else . . .’
Peter had given her a look that told her she might have pushed too far, but she didn’t care. He’d forgive her; he always had and she was certain he always would.
‘Rose?’
Rose turned, wiping away a tear. She found herself standing in the middle of the room, so lost in her own thoughts she hadn’t realised Sebastian had come up behind her. When she turned she saw Charlotte standing there, too, a worried look on her face.
‘Sorry, don’t mind me,’ she said quickly, brushing at her cheeks and forcing a smile. ‘My thoughts, memories, they just sneak up on me sometimes.’
Charlotte closed the space between them and put her arm around her, hugging her. ‘Come on, let’s get that water boiling and make something hot to drink.’
Rose nodded and hugged her sister-in-law back. Right now her grief was raw, but she was determined to stay strong. She had a baby on the way, a child that needed all of her strength and love. She wasn’t ready to tell her brother about it just yet, wanting to keep the secret for herself a little while longer.
‘I didn’t want to bring this up right away,’ Charlotte said as she settled into a chair in the kitchen and Rose set about making coffee, ‘but, Rose, we’re only here for a night now.’
Rose glanced up as her brother came into the room. ‘You came all this way for a night?’ she asked. Paris was over six hours away and they’d mentioned coming for a week.
She watched the pair exchange glances and then it was her brother who spoke. ‘Rose, I’m not sure how much you’re aware of, but there’s an underground network of sorts operating in this area,’ he said.
Rose spooned coffee into the pot. ‘I’m not so naive that I don’t know about the Resistance.’ But it did surprise her to know they were so active near her home.
Charlotte laughed. ‘I told your brother exactly that on our way here.’
She swapped glances with her sister-in-law. There was a reason she liked Charlotte so much.
‘Were you aware that your husband—’
‘Was funding them?’ Rose finished, smiling. ‘Yes, Seb, I was.’
Sebastian looked speechless for a moment. ‘Well, did you know it was me who asked him for the funding in the first place?’
This time he had her. ‘No. I didn’t. He wouldn’t have wanted to risk mentioning you, perhaps? But I’m aware of all his . . . business dealings.’
‘You’ve unwittingly ended up in a dangerous area, Rose. I just wanted to warn you that there are covert operations happening around here. We’re passing through, legitimately able to say we’re here to visit my grieving sister, but we might well be disappearing after this for some time.’
Rose’s hand shook as she reached for the kettle. She couldn’t stand the idea of losing her brother so soon after her husband.
‘I see.’ She took them their coffee and sat down across from Charlotte. Sebastian joined them.
‘Peter was very clear that he didn’t want you involved in any part of this,’ Sebastian said.
‘He would hate to think you were in danger,’ Charlotte added.
When Rose’s hand instinctively fell to her stomach and she looked up at Charlotte, she realised how easily she’d just given up her secret. Rose shook her head and Charlotte nodded. It seemed the other woman understood that it wasn’t something she wanted to share.
‘You’ll be gone in the morning?’ she asked.
‘Very early in the morning, before dawn,’ Charlotte replied.
‘We’d best make the most of it then,’ Rose said, forcing a smile. She looked between them, remembering the first time she’d met Charlotte. Even then, she could tell her brother was in love, and the fact the two of them were working undercover together told her that her first instincts about the other woman had been right. If only their parents were still alive; they’d have loved their daughter-in-law. They were used to their own daughter being confident and abreast of world affairs, and their mother would have appreciated that in her son’s choice of wife.
‘You’ll be fine here on your own?’ Sebastian asked.
‘Of course. And if there is anything, anything at all, you or your fellow . . .’ – she struggled to find the right words – ‘freedom fighters want or need, you’re to ask me. I’d like to do whatever I can. It’s not an empty offer, either. You’re to call on me for anything, be it money or any other assistance. I want to help.’
Rose reached out and touched his hand. She might be pregnant, but if there was anything she could do to help, her resolve to be of use hadn’t wavered. In fact, after losing Peter, she wondered if she was starting to feel more determined than ever to do something useful, so that his death and thousands more hadn’t been for nothing.
Sebastian nodded and held up his cup. ‘Perhaps after this we should move on to something stronger, then.’
Rose laughed, standing and heading for their little cellar. She was certain Peter would have something suitable tucked away. ‘I remember another time we said the exact same thing.’
‘The day we all figured out what that bastard Hitler was doing,’ Charlotte called out. ‘I don’t care what happens to me, but if I can help stop him, I’ll do anything.’
Rose leaned against the wall in the cellar, her eyes shut, remembering as if it was yesterday the day she’d gone to meet Sebastian and his journalist friends once Peter had left for work. It must have been six years ago, but the memory was crystal clear.
She entered, scanning the café until she saw a table of four in the corner, heads bent together as they talked. He didn’t see her as she walked towards him, but she was surprised to see that one of the other three was a woman.
‘Sebastian,’ she said, after waiting for him to look up.
‘Rose!’ He stood and gave her a big hug before pulling back to kiss her cheeks twice and then twice again. ‘You look wonderful.’
She sighed as she stared at her brother. ‘Well, you don’t,’ she replied, wishing he’d look after himself better and live on more than coffee, cigarettes and whisky. ‘Your clothes are hanging off you.’
The rest of the table was watching them now and, as her brother pulled another chair over, the woman she’d noticed stood.
‘You must be Rose,’ she said, kissing her cheeks as she introduced herself. ‘I’m Charlotte.’
‘Lovely to meet you. You’re a journalist, too?’ It surprised her to see a woman working alongside her brother and his male colleagues, and she felt a pang of envy. How fabulous it must be to have an exciting job.
‘I am. We’ve just returned from a trip to Poland. We were in Vienna before that.’
‘Was it terrible? Is it truly as bad as they say?’
Rose gulped at the pained look on Charlotte’s face. She moved her chair closer to her brother, glancing at him, realising now that perhaps it wasn’t the alcohol and unhealthy lifestyle that was making him look so gaunt. She could tell he didn’t want to talk to her about it, because when she glanced back again she caught him shaking his head to his female colleague.
‘Sebastian, she has a right to know,’ Charlotte insisted, reaching for a cigarette and offering one to her. Rose took it, holding it carefully between her fingers. She hadn’t smoked in years, but the urge to draw on the cigarette hit her hard. ‘If you won’t tell her then I will.’
The other two men, journalists she had met before, smoked their cigarettes and sipped their coffee as Rose turned to her brother.
‘Is this woman your girlfriend?’ Rose asked as politely as she was capable.
He shook his head, grinning at Charlotte behind her. ‘No.’
Rose reached out and gave him a slap across the head. ‘Stupid man. She ought to be.’
That made everyone except her brother laugh, and Rose settled into her chair, intent on finding out everything she could from this interesting woman now seated across from her.
‘Sebastian, more coffee please,’ she said, throwing her brother a sweet smile. ‘For both of us.’
Charlotte’s smile told her that she’d made a friend.
‘Now tell me, what did you see when you were away? What will you be reporting from your trip?’ Rose asked.
‘Hundreds of thousands of Jews are arriving in Poland. They don’t have passports, or if they do they’re marked with a J. The Germans are just getting rid of them, running them like farm animals across the border to be done with them.’
Rose’s hand shook as she bent to light her cigarette. She took a slow, steady puff before lowering her hand again.
‘So it’s all true. Everything we’re hearing is true?’
‘I’m afraid so. But the reality is far worse than what anyone is hearing.’
‘Worse?’
‘Many of the sick and elderly, they’re living in old stables near the border. It’s atrocious, and worse still is what’s happening in Germany. They’re beating Jews on the street, torching their businesses, destroying everything they have. What they don’t destroy, they take for themselves.’
Rose was certain her husband had been trying to shelter her from everything that was going on in the world. He was a businessman and was surrounded by influential people who would know precisely what was happening. She hated being left in the dark, liked to know the latest news.
‘There are even more fleeing the atrocities in Austria and Czechoslovakia, but many fear that they won’t be able to get out.’ Charlotte blew out an audible breath. ‘And there are rumours of camps, terrible places that the remaining Jews will be sent to. It’s only going to get worse.’ She lowered her voice. ‘So much worse.’
‘Surely someone is doing something about that awful man. Not all Germans can be so cruel, can they?’
‘I don’t know.’ Charlotte shrugged. ‘I’m awake all night remembering what I’ve seen, trying to get the images from my mind of old men being beaten trying to protect their families, synagogues burning and streets of people saluting their leader as if he’s just taken over their minds somehow.’
‘But what use is all of that knowledge if we can’t get our photographs out?’ Sebastian said, finally breaking his silence. ‘We can’t write what we need to, and we can’t show the world what we’ve seen. They confiscated everything when we left.’
‘I think we should be drinking something stronger,’ Rose announced, her hands shaking from what she’d been told.
‘Now you know why I start drinking so early in the day,’ Sebastian muttered drily as he waved the waitress over.
Rose felt a surge of love for her roguish brother. For all the idiotic things he’d done in his life, risking himself to see what was truly happening in Germany wasn’t one of them.
She reached for his hand and held it tight. ‘I’m so proud of you, Sebastian.’ She looked around at the rest of the table. ‘Of all of you. You’re doing something brave, something that needs to be done.’
They all nodded, but she could see they weren’t so sure they were doing the right thing. Perhaps if she’d been haunted by the images they’d seen, she’d understand better.
‘Brandy, five glasses,’ Charlotte said when the waitress finally made her way over to them.
Rose would normally have declined, but for once she didn’t want to flee the café that was a favourite amongst her brother and his kind. Her husband was at work for the day, and the last thing she wanted after what she’d just heard was to go home to an empty house.
That night, she’d lain awake, with Peter asleep beside her, wishing there was something they could do, believing so strongly that the rest of the world wouldn’t let such atrocities keep happening. And quietly fuming that her husband had pretended that he wasn’t so worried about war breaking out, when he must have known the facts. And now, years into a war that felt endless, she couldn’t help but wonder what could have been done differently if people had taken the German leader more seriously.
Rose grabbed a bottle of wine from one of the cellar’s shelves and took a deep breath, walking back to the kitchen with a heavy heart. The last few days, weeks even, she’d been living in a bubble of the past, remembering conversations and moments with Peter or with her brother, but she needed to pull herself together and face what was happening head-on. If there was something she could do to help the Resistance, she would, and before he left she needed Sebastian to understand just how very important the underground movement was to her.